I have a new budget, though it'll probably only last a month or two like previous budgets before it. Once again I've gotten the urge to try to spend less so that I can pay off some debts and save money for a house. My take home pay is about $3100 a month, which doesn't seem to be enough with my careless spending. Rent is $1000, Mom and Steph are $250 each, utilities are $250 and that's more than half the amount. Most of the other normal expenses (averaging car maintenance and insurance) come out to about $750. Add $100 cash for personal expenses (which is not enough, it's usually more like $200) and another $250 for software, games and books and maybe I'm saving $250 a month. If I don't spend money on various one-time things like I'm wont to do.

I'm spending the night at Oracle because I have training tomorrow at 10:00 and I didn't want to deal with waking up early to drive through traffic to get here on time. I have training Tuesdays this week and the next two, so I'll spending more nights here. It's probably better this way than having classes all week long, which would be a real strain for me. This way I fall behind a bit on my television viewing but I can make it up. It'd be tough to make up a whole week of television in one weekend.

I found a better place to sleep at work. I used to try to sleep in my cubicle, but the cleaning crew works more or less until the early pre-dawn and they constantly wake me up. I still get some sleep but it's not that great. But I can go to the switch room and off in the back and it's real quiet there. The drawback is that it's also a bit cold, though not as cold as a winter night in Concord. Still, I only have one blanket so I have to make sure I also wear something long-sleeved when I plan to sleep in the switch room.

A perfect plan -- unless I lock my switch room key in the switch room which I just remembered I did. And there's no one around with another key. I'm screwed. But... I can get into the 780 server room because that's controlled by my badge rather than a key. That should work, though it means lugging the bed and pillows back up when there are people about. The things I do to get a good night's rest...

Baseball playoffs start on Tuesday. In the American League it's Seattle and Cleveland -- it'd be nice for Seattle to win since they won a lot of games rather quietly. Oakland faces New York and I'm rooting for Oakland. The Yankees have won enough World Series the last few years, it's time for some other team to have fun. In the National League it's Atlanta and Houston. The Braves may have limped into the playoffs, but I still like them since they still have good pitching. St Louis versus Arizona rounds out the matches and I'm rooting for Arizona, since it's the only NL West representative in the playoffs and Bob Brenly is a great guy.

Eric brought up the point about the World Series most likely going to the AL team and I brought up the point that I don't care what the AL does -- I only care about the NL. We talked briefly about why people prefer the Senior League over the Junior League, age being a bit silly since they're both over 100 years old and the NL is older by less than a decade. But as long as the AL uses the Designated Hitter I'm not going to like it. There are merits to the DH: it lets broken down sluggers, pitchers who can't hit a darn, and defensive specialists stay in the game of baseball.

But really, baseball is one of the easier sports in terms of physical fitness. Basketball you have to be quick and it's pretty grueling. Football just grinds you down and you're lucky if you play more than five years. Likewise Hockey is also rather hard on the body. In Baseball you can be overweight and slow, as long as your reflexes and hand eye coordination and/ or strength are still good. So I don't see why you need to give the marginal players a break by having the DH. It's harsh, but that's they way I see it. I want to see more complete players. You have to be able to hit and field, pitch and hit. If you hit below the Mendoza line, no matter how good a fielder you are, you are a liability to the team (excepting pitchers who can sort of get away with it if they can at least sacrifice and advance runners).