Efficient with Time

Typically I work through lunch and I'm okay with that. Yesterday I had a lunch meeting but I also had a few errands to run so I left the office early to accomplish my To Do list. It shouldn't take me long at all to stop at the court house and renew my license, ask about renewing my passport in another office within the court house and then stop at the post office to get cute stamps for my Sweetheart Supper invites. I planned for an hour originally but ended up with only 30 minutes, which still should have been plenty of time. Of course, it didn't go so smoothly:

Stop in for the license renewal. I'm proud that I'm looking good, and even managed to wear mascara for my license picture. Only the mascara doesn't like my contacts and so my eyes were irritated and I had a problem reading the little line at the bottom of the vision screening. Past that and moved on. The lady at the desked filled out all the information in the computer and then said "that will be $20 please". Twenty dollars? Last time I got my license renewed, it was only $11. I didn't even have to look in my wallet, I knew I had $17 and some change (being on a budget will make you aware of the money you have). I asked if she'd take a debit card and she informed me that it was cash or check. Well I didn't have enough cash and I don't carry checks anymore (too easy for me to spend money that way). Embarrassed I asked the lady if I could run to the bank quick (practically next door only there's a river in between) and get some cash. I drove to the bank. Drove to the bank? Isn't it next door? Yes, I too realized that when I made the corner, crossed over the bridge and stopped at the bank. I went in a cashed a check for the cash I needed. Walked back to the bank. Yes I walked back to the bank even though it was in the low teens with a nasty wind. The vain person in me was a little concerned that all my prep work (I don't usually wear make up) would be worthless if my picture turned out to look like Rudolph. I zipped my coat up tight and pushed it over my nose to keep my face warm and I hurriedly walked back to the bank. The lady kindly put me to the front of the line and finished up my licensing.

She mentioned that it would be a a few minutes while it printed it off so I thought I'd make the most of my time and run down to the recorder's office to ask about my passport. The recorder was very friendly and answered all my questions. Unfortunately I have to get a brand new passport and pay the whole fee because I changed my name when I married. Grr. We chatted about not needing the passport right away cause we've just started the adoption process. She informed that it would be $110 to re-do my passport and asked if I'd like to do it then. Considering the time, and the fact that if I didn't have $20, I certainly didn't have $110 in my wallet, I said that I'd come back another time. I left her office and hurried off to my meeting downtown on foot, in the cold and windy weather. It was actually quite pleasant once I crossed the river and the buildings provided a little shelter from the wind.

After my meeting, I need to make a quick stop at the post office and then I'd head back to work. Only I'd walked and the post office was farther through town and I didn't want to walk to the post office and then all the way back to my vehicle so I asked for a ride to my vehicle at the court house. Only my van was parked near the bank, remember, I drove it the half block to the bank. So my dear friend gave me a ride 1 block over to my van. As I was getting out of her truck, it hit me: I never went back in to pick up my license at the courthouse! Who in the world forgets that. My friend graciously drives me to the courthouse and drops me off. I head inside, retrieve my license, which had since been placed in the waste basket because another lady saw it sitting out and thought it was an old one. I then walked back to the bank, got in my van, drove the two blocks to the post office, got my stamps, and headed back to work. When I walked into my office, my boss asked "so, did you get lost out there?I" I politely answered yes and proceeded to tell him about how efficient I was with my time.

My goal was to get things done in a timely manner. I'm not sure I fully met my goal. What do you think?

Treasure Hunt Revisited

Do you remember my post about the Iowa Treasure Hunt [march 10th]? I mentioned in that post that Ryan's cousin had $28.86 in unclaimed money. I emailed her about it that day. Yesterday she emailed me back with an interesting reply:

[tam4buit], You'll be happy to know that I checked out the Iowa Treasure Hunt site my 28.86 is actually almost $2,000 of a mutual fund that I had forgotten I had. Thanks for the information this will help with our retirement. It is getting rolled into my 401K. [ryan's cousin]

How 'bout that? Maybe you are rich. Go check out the Iowa Treasure Hunt to see if you have some money out there...

What do you get Paid?

While searching for something else, I came across 3 websites with some interesting information:

1. This random Iowa Treasure Hunt site allows you to search for unclaimed property. I was hoping it would be like a winning lotto ticket for me so I searched my last name. And what did I find? I found that Ryan's cousin has $28.86 in unclaimed property. Fantastagirl, if you were living in Washington, you would have some money too. Iowa Geek, I looked for you but no luck. I was hoping you would have an unknown large sum of cash too. It's a fun site, check it out.
2. So, onto what I was actually searching for: the state of Iowa has a searchable database (by name) for the salary of state of Iowa employees. Do you want to know what your old prof gets paid? You can look it up here. Do you want to know what that DNR guy get paid. You can also look it up on this site. I had a fun few minutes looking up the salary of some friends I know that are state employees.
3. And that got me curious. As a federal employee, I know that my salary is public information. But, I wondered, can it be searched my my name. And you bet, with a little help of google, I found an old one. You can look up salaries from 2006 for federal employees. My old boss at the Forest Service, yep, found his income. Ryan's uncle who does amazing things with "communities" of plaque, yep, his can be found too.

I was amazed at the wealth of information I could find on these 3 sites! Happy Hunting!