I feel like a phone company

In my childhood home we had one telephone, located centrally and with a large coiled cord so that the phone could reach 25 feet from the base unit, far enough to reach everywhere in the original house.  It felt like a luxury because we could answer the phone in the hallway then go to the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, or either bedroom to complete our conversation or hand the phone to the intended call recipient.  I also remember the conversion from Operator handled calls to machine handled.  On the day of the cutover we kept lifting up the handset to hear the dial tone instead of the operator singing out, "Number, please."  Everyone in town must have been doing it because sometimes it took several seconds to get a dial tone.

We also had company on some phone calls.  The standard phone line had four subscribers on it, the idea being that no one could possibly use a telephone more than 25% of the time.  Some lines had as many as 8 subscribers.  A private line was an expensive luxury.

How we would have marveled at our current state of affairs.  For Christmas Carolyn and I gave each other a new phone system with 6 handsets, a digital message recorder, a digital phone book, and a caller ID and announcer.  That's more phones than your typical small business has.  Although it has a base unit, virtually all the actions can be controlled at each handset.  This system replaces a hodge-podge of sets bought and installed at different times.  I don't recall that we were having that much trouble with our old  phones except that when you had two people on the phone the second person couldn't be heard in the conversation.  He could hear like a fly on the wall but not really be a part of the conversation.

We're still learning how to use the system.  With six handsets we have replaced four of our old units and added a phone in the garage and one by my recliner.  Some day I just may be spending more time there.

So now instead of one phone that can reach by cable into every room of the house, we have six phones in almost every room in the house connected by a wireless network.  In addition Carolyn and I each have another totally independent phone in our pocket or purse.

Party #4

It's probably not fair to call this a party unless you also called it a work party.  Members of the Activities Committee with their spouses in some cases met at our house for a dinner and a  planning meeting.  We kept the dinner simple - the main dish being soup.  We had three kinds of soup - potato/ham, chicken tortilla, and 15 bean.  That kep the interest up as did the side dishes & desserts.

Under Carolyn's direction we then planned a year's worth of activities for the next 12 months.  Our goal is to have 12 activities  for the year but that doesn't necessarily mean we put all of them on.  We'll be helping the  Young Women and probably the Priesthood in a couple of the activities. This coming year we're also  planning on having slightly more adult activities.  By planning the whole year ahead we can reserve the building earlier and also get approval from the Bishop if necessary.

We'll have to make adjustments, of course, but we've now got a good skeleton to hang next year's activities on.

Gear Works

When you have virtually everything you need (and even before), it is sometimes a good idea to establish a sort of "public gift registry".  Some people collect pigs or penguins or ladybugs.  For example, from the number of clocks and puzzles (and puzzle clocks) around our house, you could get the idea that I enjoy collecting clocks and puzzles.  The fact is I do.  And a clock or puzzle will always be a welcomed gift.

So this Christmas Ed and Tiff presented me with this beautiful "Gear" clock that has several gears on the front of the clock which turn when the clock goes.  As near as I can tell there is no useful purpose for these visible gears which makes the clock all that more interesting. Does it now represent the typical organization which appears to be a well oiled machine but, in fact, includes several people, maybe even the most visible, who are nothing but window dressing?  They serve no practical purpose.  Or does it mean that even someone who appears to have no practical purpose is still useful for entertainment or "art"?

A most unusual puzzle

I thought I'd seen the most unusual puzzle several years ago when I put together a 3 dimensional image of a  European fortress castle.  But this year Lee and Staci sent me a 350 piece puzzle of a world globe.  It supposedly fits together so well that glue is not necessary during the construction or to display it in the special stand that comes with it.

The instructions that came with the puzzle suggested working from the bottom up but Carolyn and I thought we knew geography well enough that we'd complete the continents first.  That was all well and good until we started putting the continents together.  In order to snap the pieces together you need to be able to reach inside the globe and apply pressure against an outside surface  or another finger.  Working row by row from the south pole  up lets you do that whereas it is much more difficult by continent.  Working from the north pole down would also work but then all the writing on the globe is  upside down.

After only two short days we were able to complete the ball.  As advertised, it is strong enough to be displayed without any glue.

A GPS for Carolyn

Carolyn managed to surprise me wih a couple of presents so I was glad I had taken advantage of a Target sale a couple of weeks ago and bought a Tom Tom GPS, model XXL.  I find that I need XXL for all my shirts and pants lately so I figured I couldn't go wrong with the Tom Tom.

Being twice the piece of equipment than my GPS both in physical screen size and computer logic, I'll have fun learning it when we use the Dodge van.  At least I expect she'll want to move the GPS back and forth between her little red car and the Dodge van.

The biggest problem we've found with this GPS so far is that the screen is so big  it's hard to find a place  in the car where it can be seen and that doesn't block out 10 % of the windshield view.  The other bother is that it doesn't turn on when you start the car unlike normal accessories.

Another Christmas Tradition

I thought this tradition started fairly recently when Carolyn and I were spending Christmas alone for the first time in our lives.  It just didn't seem worth going to all the effort to prepare an all out big Christmas dinner.  So we planned on grabbing a quick meal at Jack in the Box or Taco Bell.

As we drove to our favorite Jack or TB we noticed that no other fast food places were open and got the ominous feeling that perhaps Jack in the Box and Taco Bell wouldn't be either.  Right on.  We opened the filters to include all fast food places and then all restaurants.  Surely Denny's would be  open, wouldn't it?  Nope.  Of course the grocery stores with their deli counters hadn't even opened because of Christmas.  Now it was getting to be panic time.

Then in the waning daylight (it was just past 3:00 now) we saw a restaurant with a car parked in front.  There appeared to be lights on in the place.  We also noticed that it had a Chinese name.  As we hopefully opened the front door it appeared that the propriotor was locking up for the day.  "Are you open?" we called out.  "Yes!" came the reply in heavy accented tones.  A few more unintelligible syllables and a waitress appeared to seat us and take our order.  The propriotor was now the cook.

As I recall it wasn't an outstanding meal but we were hungry enough to be grateful for anything.  Thus was born, for us at least, the tradition of eating out  at a Chinese restaurant for Christmas.  It was a necessity to begin with.  This year on our way to our favorite Chinese buffet restaurant, we noticed that Denny's was open this year as was Chevy's, Bucco de  Beppo, and assorted fast food places.

Christmas Eve appetizer

Our family has an old tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve and saving the rest until the next morning.  I don't know if the idea is to take the edge off  your  appetite so you can sleep through the night knowing that you got at least one present that was nice.  Or if instead whets your appetite and makes you even more sleepless so you'll zonk out after opening the rest of your presents on Christmas Day.

For me I've been down on the practice since the year I opened my Christmas Eve present to find a pair of sox, argyle sox.  While the other kids in the family got a  toy or a cool book I got sox.  I finally convinced myself that it meant I would have more fun gifts to open than they would the next morning but it was a hollow rationale.

Now I'm old enough to blame my parents for not being proactive enough to guide the selection of the Christmas Eve gift to be opened.  They should know which gift will have the desired effect.  On the other hand I know myself well enough to imagine that they did try to guide my choice and I obstinately rejected their suggestions.

At any rate at our age Carolyn and I know what we've each bought for the other so it really doesn't matter whether we open a gift on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Letter 2009

As Christmas approaches we wish those of you who are faithful readers of this blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Our Christmas letter and family portrait follows.  Remember you can see an enlarged version of the letter or the picture by clicking on it.

 

Handle With Care - book review

"Handle With Care" by Jodi Picoult is one of those  books that pushes my hot buttons, a lot of my hot buttons.  The story revolves around a 6-year old girl Willow who was born with osteogenisis imperfecta, OI, or brittle bone disease.  Her body lacks the collagen necessary to produce strong, properly formed bones so that the least amount of pressure at the wrong point produces a fracture and  severe pain.  We join the family just before they discover a process available in about half the states in which parents of a child born with severe disabilities can sue for "wrongful birth".  The parents have to affirm that they were not notified soon enough of the disability and, had they known soon enough, they would have taken steps to terminate the  pregnancy.

In this book Jodi pushes Willow's mother Charlotte to such an extreme that she alienates her husband, her best friend, other OI patients and support groups, and worst of all Willow herself.  Her only reason is to get sufficient funds for Willow to have adequate treatment for her entire lifetime.  This is the first and biggest hot button for me -- if situations like Willow need the "playing field leveled" using medical malpractice as the bulldozer is legal malpractice in my opinion.  This should be a matter remedied by legislation so it is not left  up to the whims of a jury and the talent of attorneys.  I am furious that this option was not even mentioned in the book leaving the impression that suing is appropriate in these cases.

The book is done in alternating narrative form with each of the characters in turn talking to Willow and explaining things from their point of view.  This lets  us see things that a single point of view could not but gives us the intimacy you miss in a universal viewpoint.  There are baking hints and recipes strewn throughout the book that I personally found annoying.  They interrupted the flow of the plot with no redeeming virture.

The authors seemed to be trying for a satisfying if not happy ending.  I think she failed.  This was a lose-lose-lose situation.  It also demonstrated a lack of knowledge of insurance accounting and risk assessment.  Earlier in the book Willow's sister is depicted as having bulimia and some of her symptoms and manifestations didn't quite ring true.

Political Construction or Obstruction

When I studied American Government in high school, the political paradigm was that opposing sides in a political discussion attempted to find ways to agree, a consensus that would be acceptable to both.  The advantage of having a two party system was that that guaranteed a difference of opinion without having so many opinions that consensus would be impossible.  The best outcome was something that both sides could be willing to support.

But in the U.S. Senate at least in respect to the proposed Health Care Initiative, the paradigm seems to be that the Democrats propose and the Republicans oppose. While I understand that the Democrats have tried to get Republican input, none has been forthcoming.  It is a total embarrassment that 10% of the American workforce are uninsured, that many of those who are insured are afraid of changing jobs for fear of losing that insurance.  Over half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical emergencies and it is not uncommon to see bake sales for kidney replacements.  The United States of America stands alone among developed countries in not having comprehensive medical insurance for ALL its citizens.  And instead of arguing how this insurance should look, who should be covered, and how it should be funded, our representatives in the senate and still arguing WHETHER we should have such insurance.  I wonder whether our senators should have to retake high school American Government.

Party #3

This party was again "on us" like the choir party but it was a very different group.  There were about 50 people from Carolyn's work who had been invited but it was clear from the beginning that most of the people would not make it.  This party in previous years had often been little more than a time and place to relax, kick off your shoes, and have a couple glasses of wine.  When Carolyn announced that she wouldn't be providing any alcohol at all it may have been more of a turnoff than Carolyn had expected.

The attendance turned out to be more like 14 or 15 starting with Denise and her son Rafael who were the first to arrive.  It was clear we'd have to have provisions for the younger crowd.  Rafael enjoyed some of the toys we have around for the grandkids but when he heard we had DVDs and a player dedicated to young children, he was out of here. 

A similar thing happened to the men when one of them expressed interest in seeing the end of the Kings' game.  After all they only had 10 minutes to go!  In spite of having directions it still took us 10 minutes to get it tuned correctly.

Toward the end of the evening, we herded most of the group into the front room for a go at Christmas carols.  Most of the guests chimed in although it didn't appear that they were as comfortable singing as the choir members had been.  It felt like a successful party.  If we host it again next year, I can see Carolyn getting her co-workers even more involved - like the choir party.

Police State

Most of us haven't had the "pleasure" of living in a war zone or even a police state.  In fact police are so obvious by their absence that the sight of 2 or 3 of them together is enough to cause a meeting of  looky-loos. 

So you can imagine my surprise and concern this afternoon when I went out to mail some of our Christmas cards.   At virtually every intersection in a square mile area north of and bordering North Avenue there was a police unit of some kind with red and blue lights flashing.  None of them appeared to be blocking the intersection but virtually all of them were in a position to do so quickly.  I suspect this was a training exercise because there were so many police departments involved.  I saw vehicles from the Sacramento PD, CHP, Los Rios, Sac County Sheriff's, among others.

There were a couple of men preparing for gun battle with helmet and flak jacket.  A couple had rifles  out and at the ready.  But no one seemed to be stopping any traffic  so I'm not sure what the whole point of the exercise was.  What I do know is how creepy it made me feel, how vulnerable.  I think  people who fight for the right to bear arms are deluding themselves if they think that so doing makes things equal.  I'm afraid the establishment has us way overpowered.

And based on what appeared to be a harmless exercise, I don't ever want to be in the middle of the real thing.

Office Christmas gifts

Every year there is the age-old question about giving gifts to co-workers.  I feel a real desire to thank everyone I work with but I have to draw the line somewhere.  Many of my co-workers choose the option of giving a small trinket or ornament to a large number of people while others choose gifts in the $10 to $15 range and include only their "circle of influence" as recipients. 

Is there a right answer?

Grandparents' responsibilities

Among the many responsibilities that Grandparents have is that of showing proud support of their grandchildren by attending every recital, concert, tournament, game, open house, etc. in which one or more of your grandchildren is taking part.  Tonight was one of those events.  The Mission Open School had a performance of their two bands and the choir.  Considering their music maturity, it was definitely an impressive concert.

It certainly was an impressive attendance as every set in the multi-purpose room was taken and every person seated in the room had his or her attention rivited on the choir or band that was performing.  I expected something like the scene out of "Music Man" where the kids are trying to learn the "Minuet in G" by using the  "think" method. It doesn't matter whether it is good or bad, simply that  OUR son is  playing an instrument.  Tonight we heard kids playing well because they've practiced, not just thought of the tune.

Thank you, Tim, for inviting Grandma and me to your concert.

Photos from Church Christmas Party 2009

As promised, here are photos from the La Sierra Ward 2009 Christmas Party with just enough narrative that you have some idea what you are looking at.

At 6:00 pm when many of us thought the party was to begin there was hardly anybody there.  You could have any seat in the house.

But a half hour later the place was packed.  There were only a few places at tables where extra chairs could be filled in.

After an initial warm up song of the "12 Days of Christmas" the tables judged as the most energetic singers were invited to join the food line.

Even the Master of Ceremonies for the evening Russell Harper, Jr. looking sharp in his Santa's Helper costume, had to wait through the food line.  And he looks worried that he might not make it back in time.

Once people made it through the food line, there were few complaints about the food.  Comments were plenty, though.  "Baking powder biscuits?"

After the meal the Primary children led by Br. MacFarlane told us about the special meaning of many Christmas symbols.

This was followed by a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Santa for the little ones and planned activities for other ages;

Santa and Mrs. Santa

 

 Decorating cookies

Making Advents chains with good deeds and holiday spirit generating notes inside.

And for many of the adults and more mature children - letters to missionaries, soldiers, and those who can't get out much.

And some people just wanted to spend time with family or friends

Even little Camdan made off with Grandpa's hat so he could try it on himself:

Merry Christmas to All!!!

When is red NOT red?

When is red NOT red?  When you are printing with a poorly designed color LaserJet printer.  I don't know how many other color laser printers have this problem but it doesn't seem to me to be a necessary problem.  We have had our printer now about 2.5 years and lately have noticed the red printout looking a little washed out.  Sometimes it is so faded it is non-readable, other times it could be seen but was more of an orange or pink that it was red.

Thinking that maybe others had had the same problem I went searching the Internet.  I was totally surprised to see a posting that exactly fit my situation and gave exactly the instructions I needed to solve the problem.  In brief, it turns out that dusty mirrors were degrading the output and the solution is to clean the mirrors.  Sounds simple enough.  And the article even gave step by step instructions for doing so.

Here is a picture of the printer set on a festive poinsettia table cloth so I'll remember working on it during the Christmas holidays.  Although the instructions describe how to take off the left and right sides, I couldn't find a reason to do so.  That alone would have saved an hour or so.

Nine little screws are removed to reveal a couple of circuit boards and lots of cable.  The next instruction was to disconnect all those cables from their receptacles.  The instructions cautioned to keep track of the screws.  I found that they were all the same so that wasn't important.  Keeping track of which cable group went where was another matter. 

My solution was to slit address labels into 4 pieces lengthwise  then mark each cable group with the name/number of the receptacle they are removed from.  It was a life saver to have those little tags.

Removing the piece holding the circuit boards reveals the belly of the beast, the laser engine.  You still need to remove 3 screws to get that out and one of the screws has it's own secret chamber with sliding door to hide it away.

 And here is the little laser engine.  Note that there are four horizontal slit mirrors, one for each toner cartridge.  It is inside this box that the poor engineering shows up.

With the cover removed you can see all the mirrors which collect dust like all other shiny objects in your house.  The more dust that collects, the worse your transmission and the more faded your colors.  Here is where I carefully wiped every surface with two Q-tips although I couldn't see any dust or dirt on the first one.  I would think that better engineering would keep this chamber dust free with filtering and positive pressure, make the mirrors easier to remove and clean, or in the best of all worlds make the mirrors self calibrating.  I felt silly removing dust that I couldn't see.

Putting the printer back together was no more difficult than taking it appart.   My first attempt yielding a message in the error window that I had a "fuser error" that wouldn't clear.  By pushing in all the connectors I then got to "output tray jammed".  I decided to give it a rest then this morning rechecked all the connectors.  I found one that was hiding in the strands of cabling.  I plugged it in and the printer came to life, went through it's self checking routines, and announced itself ready to print. 

I printed some self-tests reports and found that, indeed, the colors were now darker, especially the red.  Is it good for another 2 years?

Christmas turned upside down!

Carolyn once told me that she only has one party plan and all her parties are just variations on a theme.  I don't think it's quite as simple as that but she does tend to have an opening, food, then breakout sessions, then bringing everybody back together for a finale.  As planned, that was the order of business for today's Ward Christmas party but added to that was a breakfast food menu served in the evening.  The idea was that Christmas is upon  us so fast that we didn't even know which meal we were having.

But the thing that probably turned the evening upside down more than anything was having Santa welcome the kids halfway through the program rather than at the end or even at the beginning.   Many of the parents and most of the kids thought the evening was over at that point and left.  We had a much smaller crowd after Santa was finished.  That was really okay because we had a capacity crowd before Santa.  It took twice as long to serve food as usual and I don't think there was an empty chair in the house. 

If I can find the time, I'll work on some of the pictures I took and share them in tomorrow's blog.

Day Care Musical Theater

Okay, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.  When I heard that our next to youngest grandchild was going to be in a play produced by his day care center, I was incredulous.  Camdan cannot be scripted at this point in his life and even an attempt to place him on a stage for any length of time is sure to produce howls and cups of tears.  But, against all odds, Miss Theresa did it.

Technically, the show consisted of 3 "scenes" each with its own cast, theme, music, and choreography.  The first group, the youngest, was Camdan's.  The theme was  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the music of the same name.  The star just happened to be Camdan who, when the curtain was raised, promptly abandoned his post and ran to his mother, tears streaming down his face.

But Miss Theresa prevailed, bribed him with a red licorice vine, and put him back on stage where he stood stoically to the end of the song while the other toddlers on stage sort of bounced to the music.

The second scene had slightly older kids miming "Run, Rudolph, Run" while strumming cardboard guitars.  A totally willing cast having a lot of fun.  The last scene featured 3 kids in believable costumes and props lip syncing "I'm Getting Nuttin' for Christmas".

After this delightful program we all shared in the pot-luck meal while socializing and picking up the kids.  Through it all, I was amazed at how Miss Theresa kept track of the kids and between her and her two assistants, kept them happy and occupied with their own skit or age appropriate toy area.  She gave to each of the parents a photo album documenting their kids having fun during the past year.  This is one well-run program and a director who loves the kids.

Cause & effect

I had an appointment with my physical therapist this morning for assistance and training in the use of my walkers.  It was a very helpful session in that it reinforced most of what I had come to expect in operating my walkers.  It was less helpful in planning for the future which was my second purpose for the appointment.

You see, I feel that as I progress from nothing to cane to walker that the next device will either be a wheelchair or a motorized scooter.  But both my doctor and my physical therapist keep saying they don't want me to go to a motorized unit because once I do I'll never go back. As an example they ask me if I'd ever go back to just using a cane now that I have a walker.  I admit that I can't imagine going back to just a walker.  They seem to assume that I went to the walker when I could just as easily kept using a cane and that I  would go to a motorized vehicle when I could just as easily keep using a walker.  When I try to explain that I can't go back to a cane because it's no longer safe for me, they act like I didn't try hard enough. 

That's an interesting but very biased viewpoint.  I hope I'm wrong because such an attitude does a disservice to their patients and doesn't reflect the best options for a person with a steadily decreasing motor function.  As I understand Parkinson's my muscles are no longer "learning" in the sense that actions practiced long enough become automatic.  So once a cane became non-useful, no amount of cane "training" or cane "exercise" can make it useful again.  It seems to me that persistence on trying to "hold back the degeneration" will just aggravate the patient's feeling of helplessness and isolation.

Friends of the Library - Annual Party

Yeah!!!! A party that we don't have to plan or hold in our house.  The Friends of the Sacramento Public Library, which I have the honor to serve on, holds a very truncated board meeting in December so that the rest of the evening can be devoted to celebration and good wishes.  Everyone brings some desert or munchies and someone always brings wine which certainly seems to loosen  up some people.

We could have been celebrating a good year meeting all our financial goals and many of the organizational plans as well.  But even if we hadn't had a very good year, we could have celebrated last Saturday's WAREHOUSE BARGAIN SALE.  We managed to bring in over $12,000 when our usual warehouse sale weekends usually bring in only half that.  A normal week books typically around $1,000 or just enough to pay the rent.

If you're in town (Sacramento) this Saturday come see all the books that were left and the thousands more which we didn't have room on the shelves for.  This weekend could easily top last one.                                                                                                                                                              

Snow in Carmichael?!

Believe it or not, it actually snowed here Monday morning.  This picture is of some flowers in our yard.  It may look a little like common frost which we get from time to time but closer examination shows that it is much too deep for frost.  For the past week or so we've had frost in various locations around the house and yard.  And when Steve cleaned out our rain gutters this past weekend he found several chunks of ice.  We were supposed to get a lot of precipitation but so far we've only gotten about an inch.  We could actually  have a white Christmas this year!

The greening of Christmas

Sunday evening our Sacramento grandchildren put together and decorated a gingerbread house that we had given them.  (Actually we had given each of our children's family a kit and had expected them to decorate them together at our Thanksgiving time but there just wasn't time.)  I'll post a couple pictures of the house that Tiffany and her boys did later in this blog.

But first I wanted to comment on the information posted on the bottom of the box in which the gingerbreade kit came in.  Rather inabtriusively (printed on the bottom of the box) the company which made the box indicated that it had saved dozens of  trees, acre-feet of water, and other energy production. I'm not much of an environmentalist but I think it can't hurt if we all raise our consciousness about the effect of industrial production such as this box.

Here are a couple of shots of the house decorating.

e\r didn'td                                                     

Party #1

Carolyn warns me that it may be too simplistic to name our parties 1 through 5 because "you never know when we'll have another party".  For example, this evening we had our son and daughter-in-law visiting from Santa Cruz when our son and his family who live in Sacramento dropped in to pick up or put together their gingerbread house we had given them at Thanksgiving.  At the same time, Ben Saunders and his wife dropped by to discuss a vocal solo we'd asked him to do for the ward party this coming Saturday.  Carolyn saw it as a grand opportunity for a small dinner party.  They all accepted.  It came to 11 mouths to feed but that was only 3 more than we used to have every day when our kids were growing up.  So was this party 1A?

Anyway, the real party was last Friday evening when we had 15 people in our home who sing in our ward choir or are related to choir members.  That's about what we've had in the past although we should get almost twice that number.  But as far as our house goes, it is close to ideal.  We ate potluck then played a Christmas trivia game.

   We then came to the focal point of the evening - the gift exchange.

  The gifts can be new or second hand but they're supposed to be of some value to someone, not just garbage.  We discovered that sometimes a person's reaction to someone else's gift selection can be more hilarious than the gift selection itself.

There were lots of "stolen" gifts but people mostly felt good about what they took home.

The evening ended fittingly with the group gathering around our piano and singing a dozen or so Christmas carols.

Get ready to PARTY!!!!

Between the 4th of December and the 1st of January, Carolyn will be directing the planning or executing of 5 distinct major parties: Yesterday, we held the ward choir party at our house.  Next week the Activities Committee is running the ward Christmas party at the church building.  The week after that Carolyn and I are hosting a party for her co-workers.  There's a short break followed by a dinner party at our place for the Activities Committee.  It is designed to be a sort of wrap-up planning meeting as well as a dinner party.  And finally, we are expecting to start the new year with a pancake breakfast and maybe a large tv screen showing the Rose Parade.

Fortunately, the parties are all 95% planned as either as copies of previous year's parties or something we've seen elsewhere.  That simplifies the planning.

Tax Time again!!

No, you don't need to worry about starting on your own income tax  preparations although there are certainly tax preparation firms who are already notifying their clients to make use of the few remaining days of 2009 to get the full benefit of some tax reduction regulations.  And the major brands of tax preparation software have already issued their first PR pieces reminding you that they are once again going to confuse you about where to get the cheapest identical version of their program.  But the actual notice and tax forms sent out by the IRS as a sort of post-Christmas seasons greetings is still almost 4 weeks away.

But I had deposited on my doorstep today a three inch stack of IRS and AARP training manuals in preparation for a class and qualifying test that I will be participating in the latter half of January 2010.  Assuming I can pass the qualifying test, I am once again planning to be a tax aide as part of the IRS/AARP joint program for elderly and low-income taxpayers.  Last year we were able to submit all the returns electronically.  This year we will actually be using an online program to prepare the returns.  I'm just pessimistic enough to think that should slow us down about 20 to 30% but I hope to be proved wrong.

So if you see me celebrating Christmas a little too much this year, I'm probably just trying to get away from studying the (IRS) books.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!

Driving around today I saw an ad on the back of a city bus advertising a new service from Golden One Credit Union - text banking! For the life of me I can't think of any significant banking I'd want to do through texting unless it is the only possible way to do something. Checking my balance and transferring funds between accounts are the only necessary activities that come to mind and those can both be done by phone or by using a public computer at places such as a public library or your hotel lobby. But texting??!

Photo Op - Thanksgiving 2009

With 100% of the family getting together for Thanksgiving, we again decided it was time for a professional photographer. Sarah Hull (sarahhullphotography.blogspot.com) met all of us on the California State University Long Beach campus early on Saturday. It threatened to be a cold and windy day but turned out to be just chilly and breezy.

Of the 500 pictures that Sarah took, here are just a representative sample.

Steve and Lisa:

Philip & Jenny:

Richard & Natalie:

Lee & Staci:

Jon & Jessica:

Ed & Tiffany:

Arnold & Carolyn, adult children & spouses:

Arnold, Carolyn, children, grandchildren:

It was a fun morning and we'll have these treasures forever.


(You should be able to get enlarged pictures by clicking on any of the pictures posted here. )