The introduction of these new schedules is a real pain. Last night I realised I had made a mistake on one form. That used to mean reprinting the form and the 1040 that holds the final total, but now it means reprinting the intermediate schedule as well. You know, the intermediate schedule that means the 2-page 1040 is now a 2-page form with five pages of additional schedules. And because of the disaster that is the ACA it also means recalculating premium tax credits, which means reprinting yet another form. At this time of year it becomes very easy to see why people might choose to deal in cash. The stupid thing is that, in principle at least, I don't have a problem with a certain level of taxation. What I do have a problem with is endless forms that take out either a chunk of time to collate and fill, or a chunk of cash to pay someone else to collate and fill, just in order to hand over the money. It's the eternal cost of compliance issue, and there's no sign of it getting any better.
A neighbour of ours set a new obscure record. Terminal cancer, given up years ago, tomorrow his 49th chemotherapy session, topping the list of our local hospital.
Went for a nice walk in the woods today. There are two trails that are supposed to link up but when I tried to follow the loop I ended up thwarted by a stream with no bridge. Earlier this month I tried approaching from the other side, with GPS logging enabled, to see if I could get through. And once again I was thwarted by a stream, so I figured there were at least two stream crossings that needed to be restored. Today I approached from the first side, trying to hook up with the GPS track from the other side. This time the stream was easy to cross, so I figured I'd be OK if I needed to retrace my steps and cross it again. From the other side I tried to get my bearings to figure where the trail might go, then turned around and thought the sign I could see looked familiar. It turned out both stream crossings were the same, so it just needs a few logs to help cross and there's a rather nice new loop to hike. Tomorrow my wife is seeing a friend of hers so I might go out and hike again.
Pretty much!!! I've got my own 2+ year weekend renovation going on. Grouted the new tile in the master bath last weekend, and next weekend, get to lay all the tile in the shower.
No demolition first? Demolition is the fun part, particularly when you get to take a break part way through to wonder whether you've been protecting yourself from absestos with a bit of paper in front of your mouth. My next project is to try and get our township supervisors to ban trucks using their brake retarders when coming through town. There's a 35mph speed limit but enough of them come through much faster, with brake retarders making a racket, that it's getting troublesome. What's really fun is when things like this morning happen, where I was having a disturbed night at the best of times and really didn't need the noise from a speeding truck at 3am.
Oh, there be plenty of demo. Took another load to the dump on Saturday. We've replaced every scrap of trim carpentry in the entire house, installed beadboard ceilings throughout the house, demo'd the old bathroom and gone back from the studs up. Lots of drywall repair. Just nothing old enough for either asbestos or lead paint worries. I've already got a merit badge in both from when we owned a bunch of rental houses, some of which had the old knob and tube electrical service.
We have a no Jake-Brake ordinance in the residentials. Completely unnecessary and a misuse of the tool in the first place.
I so badly want that here. Either that or a rocket launcher with an unlimited supply of rockets. They'd get the hint soon enough. Living on a hill doesn't help but the number of big trucks that come through without making enough noise to wake the dead proves the jake-brakes aren't necessary.
Reminds me of my first wife and my first appartment. It was on a highway (small town fortunately). On a regular basis 2 truckers met, in the middle of the night. The obviously knew each other because when they met on the road they greated each other by blowing their horns. One blew the first half of Dixie, and the other responded with the second half. This happened at least once or twice a week.
Ed, I’ve got a situation with a rebellious son right now. It’s comsumed my last month. I’ve used up two weeks of vacation. We have lots of local support and we’ve gotten professional help to get us through what’s going on with him. I don’t want to go into more detail on the public board. Obviously he (and our entire family) can use anyone’s and everyone’s prayers. I don’t anticipate much participation from me at PCIM for a while to come.