by Diane Tate

**Extra Extra: I’ve found love at last!!**

Thirty-eight years of searching and at long last, where I’d least expect it….

HALO THE GUIDE DOG!!

(and I’m a cat person! 🙂

As you may surmise, Halo is all about physical contact. But there’s more to this dog that Bill from Schwab brings in to work once or twice a month: Bill “adopts” dogs like her for a limited period of time to get them trained to be guide dogs for the blind. Dogs like Halo (name is apt, in my opinion) are trained to always look out for their master and to have a heightened sensitivity to the environment rather than meet their own needs first. So not only are dogs like Halo selfless, but people like Bill – who take them in and grow attached to them, only to release them later to benefit others less fortunate – are equally selfless.

I’m not that selfless. I couldn’t let Halo go if I had her!

Halo’s sad pining look as I leave tugs at the heartstrings

Mint | Free, Simple Personal Finance Software
by Diane Tate

That "I just got towed" feeling

You know, that feeling that you have to pay a whole lot of money to simply maintain the status quo…this has occurred twice in the past 24 hours:

First, in “upgrading” my cell phone account. Translation: after being hit with a frightening $166 bill, I have the option and privilege of paying even $15 MORE per month to avoid paying MORE in the future (or something like that). Even though it made fiscal sense, I gotta say it doesn’t feel good to call up a company that just …er….”hit” you with an exorbitant bill and say, “hey, I’d like to pay you even MORE – on an ongoing basis – because I just paid you so much this month!” Is that counterintuitive or is it just me?

Second, in paying $80 for a locksmith to spend 3 minutes doing some primitive jimmying to get me back inside to progress with my morning routine as usual. No, I don’t know how the back door “locked itself” after my run, but I’m sure the really great guys who came to the rescue this morning don’t care. Once they were gone, all was back to order….the only difference being a larger VISA expenditure for this month….for life as status quo!

But God Bless America for cell phones and locksmiths!

Mint | Free, Simple Personal Finance Software
by Diane Tate

What’s real?

I came across an absolutely hysterical – or is it tragic? – parody of Linden Lab’s Second Life. It’s one of those things I keep looking at over & over because I can’t stop laughing (albeit the irreverence).

I remember when SPINNING first came out – I thought, “How absurd! Why would anyone prefer a dark, stuffy, confined room over the real thing?” And here I am, (x) years later, subjecting myself to that very instrument of torture I was so quick to condemn earlier.

[Is it just me, or is it actual lipids I wipe off of the floor at the end of class??].

Mint | Free, Simple Personal Finance Software