Too many accounts

Over the years, I've opened various accounts for different reasons and now it seems like I have too many to keep track of. Just the shear number of statements a month is overwhelming. A majority of the time, I don't even open the statements until months later. I usually just accumulate a pile of envelopes and then go through everything at once. All my bills are paid automatically, so it's not pressing to open the statements. The only reason to check the statements are for errors.

Here's what I have:

• 1 mortgage account
• 1 heloc account
• 7 credit cards
• 5 bank accounts (includes savings and checking)
• 2 stock trading accounts
• 1 employee stock purchase plan account
• 1 roth ira
• 1 rollover ira
• 2 401k accounts
  
• 2 HSA
• 1 Cellphone
• 1 Cable
  
• 1 Water
• 1 Electricity
  

I think I'm going to try to reduce the number of redundant accounts. I don't think I need so many bank accounts and I think I can cut down the number of credit cards (Each credit card has a different rewards program, which is why I have so many. I actually do use most (5 or 6) of them each month).

I currently use yodlee.com which gives me a snapshot of everything, but it's all the physical mail that's a pain to deal with.

How many accounts do you have and how do you deal with them all.

My new food blog!

I've created a new food blog. Check it out at:
http://raysfood.blogspot.com/

This new blog will pertain mainly to foods that I prepare. I'll try to keep the new blog updated more frequently. It will also provide me incentive to prepare food more frequently!

I'll still keep this blog updated semi-frequently with my random garble.

Flu

I definitely have the flu. I woke up last night drenched in sweat. I took the above reading this afternoon after a short nap. My most recent reading is 100.5, which is still warm.

The flu sucks. Even my eyes hurt. My back was aching for a while too. I've got a bad cough, but it's improving.

I can't remember the last time I had the flu. It's been a while. Maybe I'll get the flu shot next flu season.

Snowman

We had about an inch of snow last night. As a result, I ended up working from home and built this AWESOME snowman during lunch today!! It made me feel like a kid again!

On an unrelated note, I learned how I can post here directly from my iPhone. As a result, I'll try to post more often, since it's only an email away. I don't even have to transfer the photos to my computer.. I can just email it directly to the blog.

Stone age OS

I've been using Mac OSX for almost 2 years now. It's been a long time since I booted into windows xp, which is what I did today. After having used the Mac for so long, Windows XP feels like it was written in the stone age. Everything just looks and feels so much nicer on the Mac. If you haven't tried a Mac, you should.

PS. Macs support Starcraft 2

Employee discounts

Does anyone want to purchase any products at a discount from my employer? I can get a personal discount of 25% (50% on software), and a friends/family discount of 15%. The personal discount is limited to 1 purchase per a category per a calendar year and the friends and family discount is limited to 3 products per a category per calendar year. Unfortunately, there are no discounts on any phones. Since the calendar year is almost over, I figure I'd ask. If I haven't used my personal discount, then I'll let you use it. If I've already used it, then I can check to see if any coworkers haven't used theirs. (The only exception is for computers. I've already used my personal discount and I think most of my coworkers have used theirs too.)

Let me know asap, as the year is running out.

Migraine Headaches

People have always said that migraine headaches are similar to very bad headaches, but how would you actually differentiate just a very bad headache from a migraine headache? For someone who doesn't know what a migraine is, they would just think their migraine is just a very bad headache (or in my case, something else).

I've just realized that I've had at least 2, possibly 3 migraine headaches in my lifetime, with the most recent being this week. I just never realized they were migraines. I've always just attributed the symptoms to food-poisoning.

I can still recall my first possible episode. I say "possible episode" because I can't be sure whether it was a migraine headache or food-poisoning, although I am leaning towards a migraine headache now. On the particular night of the first episode, I had cooked some thinly sliced steak for dinner. I remember I had only cooked each side for a few (2 or 3) minutes since it was so thinly sliced. After having eaten it, I felt really sick and nauseous. At some point, I started to experience some visual weirdness. After some time, I threw up, the visual weirdness went away and I felt better. I actually don't remember if I had a headache or not, but I do distinctly remember the visual weirdness (since it was the first one I ever had). At that point, I just assumed it was food poisoning since the steak may not have been cooked thoroughly. Also, I just assumed the visual weirdness was due to my body reacting to some poisons given off by the bacteria in the bad steak, similar to how someone would react to poisonous mushrooms (hallucinations).

Since then, anytime I've had the visual weirdness, I just assumed it was food poisoning. This past week, I had experienced the visual weirdness right before lunch time. I usually don't eat anything before lunch, and so my stomach was empty. I did feel nauseous and the symptoms lined up with how I felt when I experienced my previous visual weirdness. I knew things weren't going to be good, so I left work (took a sick day) and went home. When I got home, I vomited whatever was in my stomach (mainly water) and went to bed. I eventually woke up around 6pm and felt much better.

For the next few days, the food-poisoning explanation just didn't sit well with me, but I just didn't know what else it could be. It wasn't until yesterday that I had an epiphany, connecting my experiences to migraines (At some point in the past, I must've read that migraine headaches could affect the visual senses). I looked up migraines in Wikipedia, and lo and behold, it perfectly matched up with what I experienced, including the nausea and visual weirdness.

According to wikipedia, the visual weirdness I experienced is actually called an aura. Auras are associated with migraines, which is why I'm sure what I experienced this week is a migraine and why I think my first episode was a migraine and not food-poisoning. In the past, I always concentrated more on the nausea and aura when diagnosing what I had. I never really even considered the headache part. It's difficult to describe the aura, but after searching the web, I found a link which has a pretty good rendition of what I experience with my aura. As you can see, auras are very distinctive, which is why I can remember how many times I've experienced them (and hence the number of definite migraines I've had)

Now knowing what migraines are, I would have to say mine are beyond just bad headaches. The headache part is bad enough that I have to sleep it off since there's no point in staying awake with it.