Live Like a Mensch : Travel

Airport Desperation Purchases

Emily Guy Birken — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 21:38:00 GMT

One of the universal truths about rushing to get to the airport because of an emergency is that you are bound to forget something.

Murphy's Law dictates that whatever you forget will be of the utmost importance and difficult to replace.

In our case, I carefully packed a tupperware container of LO's favorite cars and toys, closed it gently, and left it on our coffee table. Luckily, the young man was an angel through most of our trip back to Baltimore, despite his stressed parents and relatives, a nap schedule that was non-existent, and the fact that he had more sugar in five days than he had consumed in the entire previous year. Really, he was a super good kid.

However, by the time we were heading back to Indiana on Monday, LO was DONE. We arrived at the airport ludicrously early for our flight because the vagaries of Baltimore traffic mean that leaving a reasonable amount of time for driving to the airport and returning the rental car means that you will miss your flight, but leaving a Baltimore-traffic-based reasonable amount of time for driving to the airport means that for once, there will be nary another car on the road and you will arrive ludicrously early.

LO did not want to spend two hours waiting by our gate. He wanted to get on the plane, darn it! (He kept pulling me toward the jetway, and I had a feeling that if he were stronger and more able to pull me along, we'd have recreated that scene from Dumb and Dumber).

This would have been an ideal time to break out the tupperware o' toys, but we didn't have it. LO was bored with all of the activities we had with us (writing in Mom's notebook, eating raisins, and even watching a movie on our iPad, which is usually the nuclear option for ending toddler meltdowns).

In desperation, I wandered down to the closest newstand and took a gander at their toys and activities for children.

Despite the fact that I try to avoid buying anything at the airport (BWI has signs all over proclaiming the stores offer mall pricing, which does not seem to be a selling point to me), I was at parental desperation stage, considering the fact that I had a fussy to the point of screeching toddler, way too much carry on luggage, and a bit of a headcold.

So, I found myself purchasing one of those no-mess magic ink books that I remembered fondly from my own childhood. These are the books that come with a water marker which makes images appear on the specially treated paper in the book. As I recall, I only got these on special occasions (such as the parental desperation stage of traveling).

I now understand why.

This book, which probably cost less than $0.25 to produce, cost $9.99 at the airport.

The activities, which I remember as being so very fun, could have all been completed by dipping the entire book in water (or spilling apple juice on the book, ahem).

On the plus side, the activity book did keep LO's interest for a grand total of 8 minutes, which meant I spent about $1.25 per minute of peaceful gate-waiting.

At the level of desperation we had reached, it was worth every penny.

The Cost of Convenience

Emily Guy Birken — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:34:00 GMT

Photo courtesy of Ahmed

In some ways, J and I are in a mixed marriage.

I was raised to believe that certain conveniences are worth the extra cost.

J, on the other hand, was raised to believe that convenience was for sissies and that something worth doing was worth doing inconveniently, by gum.

As with many such marriage incompatibilities, J and I have each been moving closer to the other's ways of viewing things, although neither of us have quite gotten to the middle where we will inevitably meet.

However, today it became clear that J has truly had a major effect on my view of convenience.

You see, LO and I had to fly today, and I was going to be schlepping LO, his stroller, his diaper bag, our suitcase, and my purse from the car to the airport terminal.

This would be bad enough if it weren't for the fact that despite the fact that it is mid-March, and the fact that the overgrown rat in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
led us to believe that we would have an early spring, it was snowing this afternoon and all of my schlepping would have to be done through the open-air economy parking lot.

So, as I approached the airport, I found myself considering the convenience of parking in the garage instead of the economy lot. I could avoid the long, cold wait for the economy shuttle and shorten my uncomfortable, overburdened walk.

As I got closer, I saw that the economy lot was listed at $9 per day. I'll be out of town for five days, making parking an outrageous $45. The long-term lot, which was only slightly closer to the airport was listed at $12 per day. The garage? The cost-per-day was not listed.

Facing the prospect of paying MORE than $60 for parking to save myself a little bit of aggravation today was clearly not something I was remotely willing to do. So, I pulled into the economy lot, kindly thanked (and tipped) the shuttle driver who helped me with suitcase, stroller, diaper bag, and LO, and overall felt like I was one up on the Indianapolis Airport Parking System.

Well, other than the fact that I'm paying those jerks $45 to keep my car for five days.

Still, I think J would be proud.

The Stupid Tax and Meter Karma

Emily Guy Birken — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 01:54:00 GMT

Last night was our final night in Pittsburgh. After a rousing day of wandering around Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece Falling Water, J and I were in the mood to check out a Pittsburgh institution, Wholey's Fish Market.

We were unaware, when we started off for our ill-fated dinner, that the Wholey's institution included an enormous wholesale warehouse along with the lunch counter/fish market that we were looking for. In addition, we did not discover until too late that the fish sandwiches are not available for dinner.

So, when we saw an enormous building at nearly the right address with a giant neon fish emblazoned with the word Wholey's, we got excited and wantonly parked on the street in preparation for our delicious meal.

Upon parking, we discovered that Pittsburgh has installed some truly cutting edge parking meters. These bad boys simply asked for our license plate number and the moola. We didn't even have to place a ticket on our dash board.

Five minutes later, after having walked all the way around the enormous warehouse bearing Wholey's name, it became clear that we were in the wrong place. We asked a gentleman getting into his car where we had gone wrong, and he told us the place we were looking for was down the road--far enough that it was a bad idea for us to walk.

As we got back into our car, I lamented the misused meter money (which wasn't that much, but it was the principle of the thing). J remarked that it was just a little bit of stupid tax.

Then it hit him that Pittsburgh was quite smart in installing these new-fangled meters. Since the money we spent was only for a car with our particular license plate, there was no way that we could leave a little parking meter karma behind for the next luckless parker.

Much as I truly enjoyed visiting Pittsburgh, the thwarting of our meter karma does make me go "Humph!" (Although, to be honest, it's really a smart plan for the city's coffers. I'd probably appreciate the meters if I lived there and were paying local taxes).

J and I eventually found the restaurant and discovered that we would have to come back for lunch today. (Which we did. It was delicious. I'm still scratching my belly.) Thankfully, we had a lovely dinner elsewhere that had some unmetered parking spaces right in front of it.

I'm hoping my meter karma hasn't taken too much of a hit.

What Not to Say When Boarding an Airplane

Emily Guy Birken — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:57:00 GMT

Image courtesy of Pawel Drozd and Elzbieta Czerwinska-Drozd

As we boarded our plane back to Indianapolis last night, we had to wait a moment before finding seats because a flight attendant who was as big around as my wrist was wrestling an enormous carry-on into submission in an overhead bin. Impressed, I said to her, "Wow, you must have amazing guns!"

By guns, of course, I meant arms, although my choice of words probably couldn't have been poorer. My brain recognized the folly of my word choice without sending my mouth the memo, which meant I was stuck saying something incredibly stupid without being able to put the brakes on it. I was already shaking my head at myself when the flight attendant gave me a hard look and moved on.

This is one of those times when it is actually prudent to travel with a 2-year-old. One could look from my bright-eyed kid to J's and my haggard "traveling-with-a-toddler" appearance and recognize that the only threat we pose is foot-in-mouth disease.

I do think they moved the air marshall to sit behind us, though.

Don't forget to enter to win our latest giveaway! I'll be giving away two Mary Hunt books: Raising Financially Confident Kids and Debt-Proof Your Christmas. Just post a comment on this blog post telling me which book you're interested in before noon on Friday, November 30. I'll choose two winners at random, one for each book. Also, be sure to watch Mary steal the show on The Today Show on Monday, November 26.

Please enter!

If You're Crazy and You Know It, Run a Marathon

Emily Guy Birken — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 19:50:00 GMT

Photo courtesy of Pingswept

On Bankrate today, there was a list of the Top 5 Marathons in North America.

I have run(ish) a marathon before. I'm a cheapskate and kind of a lazy runner, and so the marathon I ran was the Columbus marathon, because it not only required no travel on my part since I lived there, but Columbus is also not exactly known for its hills. (J and I, as transplants from the East Coast where hills are plentiful, actually found it fairly funny how Ohioans tried to describe their topography in more exciting terms. For example, ditches in Columbus real estate terms are always described as ravines. We wondered if parents of newly-driving teenagers in Columbus worried about them ending up dead in a ravine somewhere.)

Even with those two things going for it, the one and only marathon I ran was not a smashing success. I ran the first 11 miles, took a mile off (meaning I walked), ran another three, hurt my foot in some minor way that would not have fazed Paula Jane Radcliffe in the slightest, considered calling J for a ride home during mile 18, and finished so late that there were no silver warmth blankets or food left over by the time I crossed the finish line. It was raining by then, too.

I decided then and there that I was done with full marathons. (Halfs are fine. 13.1 miles is a much more doable distance).

According to Bankrate, marathoning is getting to be a big business. And apparently quite a few individuals think that these top 5 marathons are pretty cool.

I'm not buying it. I think most of the marathoners out there are masochists. I'm looking at each of the marathons Bankrate mentions, and I can tell you exactly why anyone might prefer to watch these races on TV. While lying on the couch. And eating potato chips.

I feel that reducing our collective guilt over not running a marathon is a public service, so without further ado, here is what's wrong with each of North America's Top 5 Marathons.

1. New York City Marathon: The Big Apple is not exactly known for its friendliness, and having a big portion of road traffic closed off for a bunch of runners is likely to anger the denizens of the city. Add to that the fact that this marathon is on this coming Sunday, only days after New York has gotten its power and infrastructure back after Sandy, and I'm a little worried about the potential rage that some might feel at again finding their driving/traveling options limited.

2. Boston Marathon: There is a portion of this course called Heartbreak Hill. For anyone who runs in the midwest, where a ditch is called a ravine, that's more than enough to permanently take this off the list. Even if you do run up an occasional hill, unless you live in Boston or San Francisco, there's not much that can prepare you for this unnecessary test of stamina. Stay home.

3. Pikes Peak Marathon: This is a 26.2 mile run UP A MOUNTAIN. These people are certifiable.

4. Northwest Passage Marathon: Not only is this marathon going to be ridiculously pricey to get to, since it's run in the Arctic Circle, but to quote the Bankrate article, "polar bears are also not an uncommon sight, which can only positively affect finishing times." I would prefer to have a personal record for my finishing time because I found renewed strength and stamina from within, and not because I was running for my life from a 1500 pound carnivorous eating machine. Perhaps that's just me.

5. Big Sur International Marathon: Okay, I'd be tempted by this one. Big Sur is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Getting to that Zen state wherein there is nothing in the world but your footfalls and your breaths while surrounded by incredible beauty could get me to fold and join another marathon. I just need to find out how bad the hills are...

So, in honor of all of us who are *not* running a marathon this year, let's take a moment to enjoy the lack of muscle aches in our legs, the lack of chafing in uncomfortable places, the lack of blisters, the lack of heat stroke, and the relative fullness of our wallets because we're not shelling out big money to torture ourselves.

Oh, and pass the potato chips.

A Temporary Lay Off

Emily Guy Birken — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:32:00 GMT

Last week, J's company held a mandatory meeting in which it was revealed that their sales are down by A LOT and that everyone would be asked to take a temporary lay off. Basically, everyone has to take an unpaid week off before the end of the year.

We are lucky enough to be in a position to weather this pretty well. Between our savings and my earnings, we can handle one month with J at three-quarters salary. It's not ideal, of course, but there you have it.

That was the bad news.

The good news was that the employees could choose which week they took off. J saves up his vacation each year and uses the built-in time off for Christmas and New Years to have the last two weeks of the year off. So he was already looking at the possibility of three weeks off in a row if they let him take his temporary lay off week just beforehand.

Then he learned that the company is asking everyone to take January 2, 3, and 4 as (paid) vacation days, so that they can continue to save some money on utilities, etc, giving J one more full week off in his series. Since there are a limited number of weeks left in the year, anyway, the company approved J's choice for the lay off week, along with his following three weeks of vacation.

Basically, for the price of one week unpaid, J will have an entire month off.

J went from being concerned about the financial side of his temporary lay off to being ridiculously excited about what he is describing as his "sabbatical." Seriously, he's like a kid with a new toy.

Unfortunately, we have differing opinions on the best use of that time off. A recent discussion of this topic went something like this:

Me: Maybe you could work on the downstairs bathroom, like we've been talking about. [Side note--we already have money set aside for this project.]

Him: I could do that any time! Why don't we all pile in the car and head to Key West?

Me: That'll be expensive. And it's got to be like 18 hours to get there.

Him: No need for it to cost much. We'll car camp! Just imagine, you, me, LO, and the dog all in one big pile o' Birkens in the back of the Volvo.

Me: [Speechless with horror].

Him: I knew you'd love this idea! We can just shower at truck stops and stuff.

Me: What did I ever do to you?

Him: [Happily finding truck stops between here and Florida on Google Maps.]

The negotiations will continue, I'm sure. But just to prepare yourselves, December might be full of posts like "Frugal Traveling Tips that No One Should Ever Ever Ever Ever Try" and "How to Afford Marriage Counseling after a Temporary Layoff."

By the way, I posted a little while ago about alternatives to wrapping paper. I've gotten some great responses, and I'd love to hear more ideas. Please email me with any great ideas you've had. I'm looking to write a post about this sometime after Thanksgiving--and before I find myself whisked away on a real-life remake of National Lampoon's Vacation.

An Engineer Walked Into a Car

Emily Guy Birken — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 16:52:00 GMT

Earlier this week, J and two of his engineer co-workers had to take a short trip to a facility one state over in order to supervise some testing. They left Sunday evening for the three and a half hour drive, meeting up in the parking lot of the company in order to pick up the rental car J had reserved for the trip.

The three engineers arrived to find that no rental car was waiting for them. There had been some sort of snafu on the rental company's side.

The three engineers looked at each of their cars.

Engineer B said, "My car has a bad wheel bearing. It's likely that the tire might fall off. I probably shouldn't have driven it here."

Engineer K said, "The tires on my car are basically worn to the cords. They're not suitable for high speed. Or low speed. Or driving in general, really."

J, my own personal engineer, said, "Well, there's no A/C, but the 240's road worthy."

And that is how three men who make their living by fine tuning the inner workings of extremely large and complex machines, ended up safely wending their sweaty way three and a half hours west in this fine specimen of Swedish engineering:

Somewhere in Sweden, an elderly engineer feels a burst of pride and renewed suspicion for all these new-fangled automobiles.

Post Script

A post from my sister blog The SAHMnambulist is featured on BlogHer today! Please check it out!

Post Post Script

Amazon Card Giveaway Update:

Have you entered my giveaway yet? I will be giving away an Amazon gift card to one lucky reader who comments on this post by noon on August 31. (It's my son's birthday, and you get a gift!) The randomly chosen winner will receive a gift card--and the denomination will depend on the number of miles I run between now and 8/31! I will load $0.50 per mile on the gift card. My goal is to run 80 miles and give away a $40 gift card. I'll post my numbers as soon as I have some!

How the BlogHer Conference Made Me Lose My Frugal Street Cred

Emily Guy Birken — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:36:00 GMT

I will be heading to New York City this afternoon to attend the 2012 BlogHer conference, as my sister blog, The SAHMnambulist, is a member of the BlogHer community.

I'm going there to meet some of the fabulous and funny fellow bloggers I've come to know since I started my journey of online authorhood. And I'm going to network and see if I can find other websites that are interested in a menschly sense of humor. As a somewhat shy individual, I'm quaking a little bit in my Chuck Taylors. (I figure that most of the individuals who make their living blogging are shy retiring types and the entire hotel will be full of people talking to each other via Twitter and text messaging and avoiding eye contact. At least I hope that's how it will go).

In any case, when I first started thinking about signing up for this particular conference, I was certain I could do it on the cheap. I read about the conference around the first of the year. Early bird tickets were being sold for $200 until leap day, and I was able to save up a little fun money each week between January 1 and February 29 to be able to buy the ticket for what felt like free.

I also happen to have a good friend who is a real New York standup comedian and who lives in Astoria. He was delighted to be able to put me up for the conference. Right there, that saved me a good $150 per night.

Then I completely lost my head.

J has not been to New York City since the very early 2000s, and he and I have always expressed a wish to go to the Big Apple together. Why not bring him and LO and make a family trip of it? My friend had enough room for two and half guests! The Mensch family was going to New York.

Of course, we had to get there. $650 of plane tickets later (which is actually a pretty good price for transporting two and half Mensches from Indianapolis to New York), and we were set. So what if the conference just went from $200 to $850? It was going to be an experience.

Then, earlier this week, I started getting things in place for our journey. $25 for long term remote parking. $80 to kennel the dog.

All right, so we're at $955. What's a grand or two among friends?

But we're probably going to have to eat while we're away. And I will have to get to and from the hotel. Likely there will be other unexpected expenses.

Rats. Now we're talking pretty big bucks.

I suppose it's all still cheaper than it could have been. But man, I wish I could have thought about these "incidental" expenses when I was saving up my fun money for the conference. I might have thought to set aside more of it!

So, since there's a lot of money riding on this conference, I'm going to plan on being as outgoing as I know how to be:

I'll put a smiley face after every tweet and text.

That ought to do it.

By the way, don't forget to enter my interactive giveaway! I will be giving away an Amazon gift card to one lucky reader who comments on this post by noon on August 31. The randomly chosen winner will receive a gift card--and the denomination will depend on the number of miles I run between now and 8/31! I will load $0.50 per mile on the gift card, and my goal is to reach 80 miles and $40. I'll post my numbers soon as I have some!

The Problem With Availability

Emily Guy Birken — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:19:00 GMT

Growing up in Maryland, a trip to Ocean City was a yearly treat that I always looked forward to. While there is so much that I love about going "down the ocean" (as they say in Bawdimer), one of my favorite aspects of any Ocean City trip was walking up and down the boardwalk. On the boardwalk you could find fries covered in salt and vinegar, fresh squeezed lemonade, and, my personal favorite, Dumser's Dairy Land. Dumser's was where I could go to get a dipped cone--the only place in the world (or so I thought) where I could enjoy the triple threat of hot fudge, soft serve ice cream, and a cake cone.

Someone eventually clued me in to the fact that Dairy Queens all around the country also offered this "boardwalk only" treat. Once I lived in the midwest and could no longer easily get to the Ocean City boardwalk, DQ offered me a little sense of being at the beach each summer. If I closed my eyes while I was eating my dipped cone, I could imagine that I could hear the gulls and smell the ocean.

That was the case at first, anyway. I'd find myself stopping at DQ on my way home from a tough day at school--even in the winter. The dipped cone still tasted delicious, but it was a lot more difficult to feel the beach.

This summer, you may have noticed, that McDonald's has decided to offer dipped cones. (I'm sure that this is an insidious attempt on the part of their marketing department to completely rob me of any beach association with when I enjoy an ice cream treat. Paranoia: I has it).

I was unaware of this new offering from McDonald's until Tuesday of this week, when J and I passed a billboard advertising that fact. Since I know that I would like to preserve the beach association with this treat (and since there is a McDonald's on every street corner), I have heroically refrained from overindulging my love of this particular snack.

I've only gotten three so far this week.

Sadly, now that my favorite summer sweet can be had for under a buck fifty in any of over 12800 McDonald's locations in the US, it's just not special anymore.

That's not going to stop me from buying it, mind you.

It's just that a tear or two will mix with the chocolate running down my cheek.

One Thing Frontier Got Right

Emily Guy Birken — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:15:00 GMT

I will admit that the nightmare of last week's flight from Indianapolis to Denver to Seattle did have one tiny little bright spot:

$75 worth of meal vouchers.

In case you're wondering what that looks like, we took a picture.

Using up these meal vouchers at the Seattle airport also taught me the basic difference between East Coast and West Coast thinking. I was concerned because we were trying to use up all of the vouchers in one fell swoop (which was the only way to use the vouchers), and I was certain this would tick off the cashier and the people behind us in line. That is what I would likely experience when trying such a stunt at any bagel shop at the Baltimore Washington International Airport. Instead, the cashier kept suggesting more items to add to the total to make certain we got our money's worth, while the people behind us in line basically cheered us on and suggested more sandwiches we might like.

Basically, Frontier allowed us to go grocery shopping at the airport. It doesn't make the night spent on Denver International Airport's floor even remotely worth it, but it was kind of fun in its own right.