Uphill and into the Wind

As a music major, I have to take a bunch of one credit courses that end up being more work than my three credit classes half the time.  For example, all music majors have to take three classes concurrently for four semesters.  Those are musicianship/sight-singing, piano skills, and theory.  The first two are only one credit classes and the theory class is three credits but the musicianship and theory classes meet the same amount of time per week.  Three fifty minute sessions of both so why is one worth two more credits than the other?

Everyone probably wouldn’t agree but I think I personally do more work for the one credit musicianship class than I do for the three credit theory class which is pretty bananas, right?  I wonder if that phenomenon occurs outside of the music major.

Now this baffles me.  My Dad used to live in Indiana when I was younger and now that I’m older I’m noticing the obscene difference in the price of real estate.  My Dad started driving trucks when he retired from the Department of Corrections about twelve years ago and during the summers when I was younger, I’d go to work with him.  Now because of all those days I spent riding along with my Dad and driving around on my own, I’m pretty familiar with the Baltimore and Indianapolis metro areas.

Carmel, Indiana is a suburb of the city of Indianapolis and it reminds me a lot of the White Marsh area in Baltimore County.  Comparable amenities and housing but vastly different real estate prices.  For example, I was just on realtor.com comparing houses in both areas and one of the Carmel properties I looked at was 6000 sqft with a 1300sqft basement, a 600sqft master suite, and a three car garage built in the early 2000s on an acre of land for sale for $1m.  Yyou couldn’t find a comparable house in the Baltimore suburbs for under $1.5m at the very very least.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could get a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1200sqft condo in White Marsh for about $180k.  In Carmel, you can buy a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, 2300 sqft single family home on a half an acre of land for $150k.

Now here’s where it gets REALLY interesting: the Baltimore County Police Department starts their officers off at $45783.00 and their cadets (training classification) off at 23819.00 per year while the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department starts its probationary officers out at $39446.00 and after six months at the academy and six months of full-time duty, that salary bumps to $47651.00.  Not only do Indy officers make more money faster in a lower cost of living environment, but they also get take-home cars which is another source of significant savings.

After looking into things a bit further, I’ve concluded that in the Indianapolis suburbs one can expect:

- to pay an average of 40% less for comparable housing in the Baltimore  suburbs

- to receive comparable if not higher salaries than in the Baltimore suburbs

- to pay lower vehicle maintenance and registration fees

- to pay lower taxes

- to enjoy comparable recreational activities with the exception of nightclubs

Bizarre stuff.

I’ve resisted the urge, for a long time, to write anything political but I can’t help myself right now. I’ve been wondering what people think about the differences between Republicans and Democrats and I’m starting to conclude that the difference is the value the two place on quality of life. What do I mean by that?

I mean that both sides believe in working hard and choosing solid valuable occupations, but Democrats seem to acknowledge and appreciate that there are people who work hard but not necessarily at financially fruitful occupations for personal or circumstantial reasons whereas many Republicans shrug off the part of the population that earns under $40k/year which makes me wonder: does a doctor deserve preferential tax treatment over an over-the-road truck driver because he is a doctor and has worked for years and years to earn his six figure salary?

They may both work sixty or seventy hour weeks, but one brings home $50k and the other $250k. It seems that people in the super-middle class but sub-wealthy class are very highly concerned with maintaining their quality of life and getting all they can out of their money regardless of what that does to the lower income part of the population. On the other hand, there are a great number of multi-millionaires who donate freely–regardless of their motivation for doing so–and assist the middle and sub-middle class people which helps make up for the upper middle-class that fights for keeping every dollar in their own pockets.

Here’s the blog post I read that made me consider this issue.

http://www.lolife.com/blog/archives/000002.html

What a crazy world.

Now let me start off by saying that I don’t think I’m a bad dresser.  Most days I really don’t care enough to get all decked out, but I know some people who….wow.  That’s all I can say about that.  You know those people that always look like they just stepped out of the latest issue of Vogue or something?  Is that how we’re all supposed to dress or is it okay for me to put on my wrinkled shirt from Wal-Mart that my Dad bought me?

It may be that I’m not paying close enough attention, but there are two guys I know who I’ve never seen in the same outfit twice…ever.  Granted I don’t see them everyday, but it’s still something to think about  A friend of mine from high school and I go to dinner every Friday but she takes forever because she has to find something to wear and then change into it and then do make up and all this other stuff.

It’s good to know I’m not in the minority on the not getting decked out bit, but still…seriously?

I don’t get to watch a lot of TV so I get stupid quotes stuck in my head all the time and the last time network television I watched was Family guy a couple of weeks ago.  It was the episode where Quagmire lost his job as a pilot and the guys tried to help him get his job back by drugging the pilots on a flight so he could save the day.  Of course it didn’t work out that way and the plane started to plummet to the ground.  So the Quahog Channel 5 news (I think?) went live with Ollie Williams who yelled,

“I’M AT THE WRONG AIRPORT!!!!”

then he was off screen.  His character always says ridiculous things like that and then he’s off screen in less than 3 seconds.  If you don’t know who I’m talking about you need to youtube him because Ollie’s one of the most hilarious characters I’ve seen in a long time.