Look at those waves!

I'm not sure Carolyn is ready for her "coming out party" but I think it's a shame if people don't get to see her beautiful wavy hair. Doesn't it look like she has been using curlers to get that wavy effect. She hasn't. This is her natural hair color and waviness.

Our little tax team

The tax deadline is fast approaching and I am really glad. I have enjoyed helping people with their tax preparation more than I thought I would. And, of course, I have enjoyed working with the people on our team.

I had no idea how the work would be organized since I'd never even seen them process returns.
The first person a client sees when coming into our office (which is housed in the Carmichael Library Community Room) is Esther. Esther makes sure that people are in the right place, feel comfortable, and have an appointment. She informs those without an appointment the telephone number to make one. When one of the tax aides or the site supervisor is available, she escorts the client to that person.


The woman in purple facing the camera, is Jane, the site supervisor. She works twice as hard as the rest of us since she not only gets all the problem cases but she also helps us with the few problem cases that do get through to us.



My fellow tax counselor on the team is Duane. He always seems so relaxed. That is probably the result of his years of experience doing this. He has seen almost everything. As all returns have to be reviewed for quality assurance, we often end up reviewing each other's work. I've learned a lot working next to Duane.


And finally, there is me - the newest and most easily confused.

In our four hour shifts (11 to 3 each Tuesday) we try to serve 4 people an hour per counselor. So ideally we would serve 12 people every week. Invariably, we have 2 or 3 no-shows or schedule changes. Like today, of our three 2:00 appointments, one came in early, one didn't show at all, and the last came but came alone when she really needed her husband along to sign some of the forms.

I've enjoyed this enough that I really hope I can be involved again next year.

Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away.....No, don't, stop!

Hope springs eternal that we can control the pest population in our gardens. This year Carolyn bought a container of ladybugs who were somewhat sluggish. I suspect they had been fed a diet of Krispy Kreme donuts.
I did the hard part (figuring out how to open the container) while Carolyn did the easy part. Although the bugs had been tranquilized in some way they still climbed all over Carolyn as she attempted to dump them in various parts of the flower garden out front.


There's perfectly harmless to humans but it still feels creepy having them crawl over your hand.

About the only light Carolyn had for this show is the flash from my camera so the ladybug distribution was somewhat haphazard.



Finally, she just sat the container in one of the copy pots.

When we came back in, Carolyn looked at me and saw a ladybug on my jacket. Trying to brush it off she found she had several on her jacket. It's like an infestation. Now we'll see if the aphids put on some sort of presentation.

Beware of car painters operating in Costco parking lot

It's been almost a year since Tiffany smoothly and rapidly backed her car out of her driveway, forgetting to look behind her and, more importantly, to notice that my car was parked behind her. The first picture below was taken to document the bump, slight indentation of the bumper, and the paint scraped off the bumper.

Recently, while trying to find a parking space at Costco (even the handicap parking was overloaded) a man approached us and offered to give us a bid on fixing & painting it. We parked, he parked close to us, and ran over to give us a bid again. We finally accepted his offer and went off to eat a Polish dog.

This picture was taken after his paint job. As you can see, he was somewhat clumsy about straightening out the bumper material, and forgot to mask the foglight. All in all, it looks like the kind of job I might accomplish. At least I didn't have to take it to some shop. He did the complete job while we were in Costco having lunch and shopping.

Can the world stand another Loveridge?

Just in case you haven't picked it up already, Jenny and Philip have some great news to share at http://mydaddytalksfunny.blogspot.com/2009/04/just-thought-id-share-our-news.html They're obviously and appropriately delighted at the news and so are we.

Congratulations Philip and Jen!

Gardening 2009

I don't get down in the dirt much myself anymore, mainly because it's so darn hard to get back up again. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the look and smell of a good garden as well as the fruits and vegetables that might come from the garden.

It was thus with delight that I saw Carolyn digging and turning our three raised bed gardens. I wasn't too excited about the sweet peas she planted first (those little green things in the soil in the picture above. But she redeemed herself by buying (and hopefully planting) a couple of tomato plants and cucumber plants. We think we have it planned to the day when everything will ripen - the day we take off to go to the Baldwin Family Camp in Arizona. By the time we get back all there will be is just dead plants and scorched earth. But we will have tried.

Meals on Wheels, you're welcome!

One thing I'll have to say about volunteering for Meals on Wheels - it is anything but a thankless task. I was certainly reminded of that today as I had volunteered to work an extra day to cover my route. All my customers were sort of caught off guard, expecting to see me next Thursday rather than this Friday. After expressing surprise, many of them then took the time to thank me for the regular deliveries and also for filling in when necessary. At two of the homes, there were aides or visitors who joined in the thanks. And at one house a neighbor walking a dog asked if I was delivering meals. When I said I was, she thanked me.

I figure today was simply pay day for Meals on Wheels.

Color LaserJet Printer

Almost exactly 2 years ago we added a color laser printer to the inventory of computer related equipment in our house. We did this because we were so tired of buying ink cartridges for the color inkjet printer we had been using (the 2nd or 3rd one!) After going one or two months without printing anything in color, we would try to do so only to find our cartridge was dried up or was hitting on only 80% of the ink outlets. We were worried that we would suffer the same "evaporation factor" but so far have not seen that phenomenon.

One of the nicest features of an intelligent printer is that it can keep track of its usage and even the amount of toner it has left. That allows us to budget the replacement cartridges. As you can see, we'll be needing black and blue cartridges soon and, not by chance, we already have those cartridges in the garage.

Home Town Buffet

For reasons that will become obvious I have chosen not to illustrate this anecdote with photos.

Recently, Carolyn and I visited the Home Town Buffet in North Highlands. The "find a location" on their website said this location was only a tenth of a mile farther than our usual Buffet in the Country Club mall. It based this on zip codes so I'm not sure where in Carmichael the two Buffets are roughly equidistant. (Good geometry problem. Left to the reader.)

We were impressed with their friendliness and cleanliness. It seemed lighter and quieter than our usual Buffet. We had chosen and table close to the drink island so I could get refills easier. But there was no noise or other inconvenience in sitting there, so much so that we had almost forgotten we were in a potentially noisy location.

Suddenly there was a whole lot of hubbub going on. We noticed a boy, probably 11 to 12 holding a large drink glass in front of him but instead of soda pop it was filled with something much more gross and it was overflowing. A woman, presumably his mother, was hovering around trying to do damage control but not sure which immediate task was most important.

She didn't have much time to think before three Buffet employees were on the scene: one directed boy and mom over to the restrooms, one began placing cones around the mess on the floor, and the third one suggested that if we wanted to move, he was there to expedite the move. Since we were no longer in any danger of collateral damage, we elected to stay.

As this man left, the woman who had coned off the area was now dumping a white powder all over the mess on the floor. We learned that it was simply salt. It looked like kosher salt. In any case this soon sopped up all the liquid so it could be easily swept up with a broom and dumped in the trash can on wheels. The woman disappeared for just a minute then returned with mop and water filled mop bucket. She expertly wielded the mop to clear up the remains of any mess on the floor.

The boy and his mother came back from the bathrooms rooking much the better for cleaning up a little. The cones were the only thing that indicate anything had happened and 10 minutes later even they were gone. It was good to see how well prepared the Buffet staff are. Congratulations, Home Town Buffet!

Mission: Space

When you have a limited amount of desk space (and who doesn't?) it can be aggravating to see space in front of you, perfectly good space taken up by a keyboard which is necessary on the road but certainly not when the laptop is docked on our desk.


So after a little measuring, we stopped in at our local TAP Plastic store and picked up a 12" x 18" pieces of 1/4 in thick acrylic sheet. We also got 4 1.5 inch long pieces of 5/8" diameter acrylic rod and the smallest tube of acrylic glue they carried. Total bill: $13.61.


The platform is sturdy enough to set a book on if you're transcribing something out of it or to put your stack of bills as you work through them. But it's light enough to easily lift off when you need to remove the laptop. And being made of clear plastic, it is not unattractive nor does it get in the way of side or front access outlets or controls.

Form 990

Everyone is familiar with April 15, the dreaded day when individual tax returns, also known as Form 1040, are due. Lesser known is May 15, the day when virtually every non-profit corporation and association has to submit Form 990. Allthough they are sometimes called non-profit tax returns, they are more accurately called information returns as no tax is computed nor expected as a result of the 990's.

What the 990 and it's several attachments and schedules do, is provide an open slate of uniform information. It essentially makes a non-profit corporation a public company which is appropriate since they operate free of income tax thus effectively get an operating subsidy from the taxpayers. Form 990 is available free on the Internet for any non-profit corporation . Some non-profits realizing they have to submit the information anyway, have taken this opportunity to also add community relations material in the same web site.

This year the Form 990 was drastically changed. The biggest change appeared to me to be the addition of several questions and data forms asking if money or non-cash assets have been given to governments, organizations, or persons outside the United States. It seems clear to me that the Patriot Act or a similar act has proposed that non-profit agencies are, or could be, a major "hole" in the nation's armor. And although there are few prohibitions against such grants across borders, the revised Form 990 will raise the issue in a big way.

Socialism, yech; Capitalism, yummm..

I'm not sure whether it's something in the water or something in the air or something else altogether but lately it seems there's been a lot more editorial cartoons, parodies, and "humorous essays" with the apparent message that America is becoming a socialist nation. The implication then is either (1) we're that much closer to being a communist nation; or (2) just look what horrible things have happened to all the socialistic European countries like France or Germany.

I just haven't seen anything to justify the idea that we're becoming socialistic. Sure President Obama has proposed raising taxes for the very rich and implementing social programs that we sorely lack such as universal health access, but we are so far behind the rest of the 1st & 2nd world nations that there's no danger of our even catching up during his administration, let alone pulling ahead of other nations. I recall tax brackets of 75% and 90% when I was growing up; hearing of entertainers and sports figures moving their residence to England or Europe to beat the oppressive tax rates in America. You don't hear that today.

You do hear about people "falling through the cracks" in our social system. Maybe you still have a job but probably someone in your extended family or social network is already out of work. With luck, they can get another job before their insurance runs out but maybe not. We'd like to help out but we're a bit stretched ourselves and "have you seen medical bills lately?"

And by the way, how many serious capitalists do you know? Not those who simply work for capitalists whose ideas and political impulses are to defend capitalism, but those whose capital is out on the line, at risk every day. Someone who could make it big today and be wiped out tomorrow. I think you'll find that few people can live like that. Almost everyone wants a little cushion, a little safety net. And they want it for as little expense as possible.

Well, guess what, socialism provides that safety net for many people at a reasonable price. It does so as a mandate and THAT's what people don't like. Until it isn't there when they need it. Then it's "Why isn't that program mandatory?"

My guess is that we're going to see a lot more cushions and safety nets as a result of this depressions but I"ll bet we won't see significantly more socialism than we already have.

Accepting assistance

I can tell that one of the things I am going to have trouble with as Parkinson's Disease slowly but surely takes over my body is graciously accepting assistance. Today, Carolyn & I attended Jacob's 7th birthday party. He elected to have a modest family& friends party with a bigger present than the other way around. The food was an indoor picnic with hamburgers and hotdogs. I would have needed to get up from the table several times for food, condiments, silverware, punch, etc. But before I could do any of these, someone in the group would ask what I needed and get it for me. After a while I didn't even try to get up. I just asked.

I can still get up on my own, although sometimes I appear painfully slow. So I feel bad that people assume I can't get up or that I shouldn't get up. I should let them assist me. I have this guilty feeling that someone will assist me and shortly after I will get up and do something which willl make the person who helped me think I was just trying for sympathy.

When I'm more disabled the problem should cease to exist but it sure bothers me now.

Defragmentation

Defragmentation sort of sounds like something an Army bomb squad might have to do, doesn't it? But actually it can be pretty important to computer users. After upgrading our memory and seeing a significant jump in performance, I informed Carolyn that about the only things we could do now to speed up the old machine was to clean up our desktop (I'm not sure that helps the computer any but it would make ME more productive) and see if our disk needs defragmentation. That means gathering all the bits and pieces of disk storage that a program needs and putting them next to eacfh other. As you can imagine, such a program works best when nothing else is running on the computer.

I thought you might be interested in seeing what our two disk drives looked like - before and after defragmentation. The defrag program informed us that the internal drive (top chart) didn't need defragmentation but the external drive did. I would have guessed they both needed it.

Internal Hard Drive
Red stripes are fragmented files - can slow you down

External Hard Drive
Top ribbon is before defragmenetation - Bottom is after

For Frustrating Menu - Press 2

As background, I have been the treasurer for the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library for about 5 years. We have used Quicken all this time and I am very comfortable with it. Because of some added complexities to our accounting this year we have migrated to QuickBooks, a product made by the same company as Quicken but about as different as two accounting packages can be. And finally, one of the features of Quicken I have really appreciated is the ability to download cleared checks and deposits which makes account reconciliation a snap, sometimes literally a one-button process.

While installing QuickBooks a message came up saying that the installation couldn't convert the online transaction download procedure. I'd have to do that after the fact. I looked and looked and looked for how to do that. Finally found a process for adding online services and that led to how to delete services as the conversion process had gone halfway. In any case, I needed to notify Bank of America that we'd changed from Quicken to QuickBooks. QuickBooks even helpfully provided the customer service number. This led to the following transcript:

----------------------------------

[ring][ring][ring]

Thank you for calling Bank of America. For new banking press or say 1; for online services press or say 2; for assistance with Quicken or QuickBooks press or say 3; ...

3

Good afternoon, this is Customer Service. My name is Richard. How may I assist you?

We recently converted from Quicken to QuickBooks...

I'll need to transfer you to our QuickBooks expert.

[ring][ring][ring]

Good afternoon, my name is Vonda. How may I help you?

We recently converted from Quicken to QuickBooks....

What kind of account do you have, sir?

Small business account. But...

I'll need to transfer you to our Small Business Account unit.

[ring][ring][ring]

Good afternoon. My name is Mary. Can I help you today?

I certainly hope so. We recently converted from Quicken to ...

You need to speak to our Customer Service Department, sir.

[ring][ring][ring]

Thank you for calling Bank of America. For new banking press or say 1; for online services press or say 2; for assistance with Quicken or QuickBooks press or say 3; ...

----------------------------------------------------

The fifth person I spoke to listened to my whole story then did a "warm transfer" where they stay on the line until the person at the transferred location answers and agrees that they are the appropriate person to handle the call. This person then had to ask about a dozen questions to verify that I was who I said I was and had a legitimate service request. She was obviously looking at our account and obviously knew what needed to be done. She even helped me find a shortcut to making the QuickBooks change.

Which amends the old saying, "It isn't what you know, it's who you know," to "It isn't who you know but if you know how to contact who you know."

Another grandson picture

Every once in a while I enjoy holding my grandsons although in this case I was holding Camdan at arm's length since he was nursing a runny nose that I didn't want to share. He's still a cute kid.

Memories, oh memories...

(CAUTION! The following post contains graphic pictures of computer insides.)

Oh, if we could only increase our memory capacity like we can with computers. When we bought our now "old" computer some 4 years ago, having 500 megabytes of memory was really pushing the envelope for home computers. Gamers, of course, might need more because of their high graphics needs but for regular home use 500 megabytes was more than adequate.

These are the two memory modules I replaced this evening, changing the memory capacity of our machine from 500 megabytes to 2 gigabytes. That still isn't state of the art but it is the high end limit for this machine. The two boards are identical. I just wanted to show you both sides. The memory boards that replaced them look virtually identical except for the label. Without the label you wouldn't know the difference.

Here you see the memory in place in the computer. They are the two boards parallel to the one that has all the wires hanging off of it. They each have a white clip at each end to hold the memory solidly in place.

The programs on our computer have increasingly been giving the message "xxxx not responding" because they take too long to respond. The thing that finally pushed me into getting the additional memory was the installation of the accounting program Quick Books. It took 8 minutes to load! With the new memory it is still too long (2.5 minutes) but any more improvement now means a new computer.

No Country for Old Men - book review

I listened to this book on one of those new Play Away "book on a chip" devices. I'm not sure I would have plowed through all the bloody gunfights otherwise. Cormack McCarthy has written a book No Country for Old Men that brings all the elements of the wild west, gang fights, drug wars, war veterans, and retribution morality. In fact the final quarter of the book seemed to me to be the ramblings of an aging sheriff who intends to hang up his badge and is sort of balancing the ledger in his mind as he does so. He admits that he couldn't possibly bring all the criminals in his jurisdiction to justice and the best he could hope for was to scare them enough that they'd go somewhere else.

The gunfight scenes seemed oddly unmatched with equal parts rifles, submachine guns, and sawed off shotguns. Oh, and the main baddy uses an air driven bolt that is normally used to put down cattle before they're butchered. It punches a 3/4 inch diameter hole about 2 inches into the cranium effectively killing the cow (and in this story, men) without the blood, gore, sound, and smoke of a bullet. It also works nicely in punching out door lock cylinders.

The relentless successes of Chigurh and his ability to come back from near death make the book more science fiction or fantasy than anything else. Otherwise I would have enjoyed it more.

Change of Heart - book review

I'm not sure it even makes sense to review a book that has 223 customer review on Amazon.com. After reading a few of them I began to think that I wouldn't have picked this book if I had read the reviews first. I hope my review doesn't have that affect on anyone.

Jodi Picoult, in her recent novel "Change of Heart", apparently wants to comment on the social dilemmas of the death penalty since she has the "murderer" protagonist being sentenced to death in New Hampshire which has not (according to the book) had an execution in 58 years. But then she adds into the plot the desire of the condemned man to donate his heart to the murder victim's younger sister who will die soon if she doesn't get a new heart. Thus, Picoult sets us up in a lose lose situation. We develop sympathy for both Shay Bourne, the convicted murderer, and Clair, the girl who needs a heart. We can't have both of the characters live.

Instead of a defense or condemnation of the death penalty or even a balance argurment for and against the death penalty, we end up having to deal with the ethics of organ donation. Picoult tells the story in the first person bouncing around between main characters that made me feel I was really "in their heads" and seeing the situation from their standpoint. Very effective.

Finally, there is the Christ imagery woven into the story. I could almost hear my freshman English professor saying, "What character is the Christ character and which situations parralel Christ's life and surroundings." This imagery certainly woulldn't have been necessary but it adds another dimension and doesn't take anything away.

I'm ready to read another Jodi Picoult book.

Pinewood progress report

As the Pinewood Derby approaches (I believe it is two days from now) the cars are beginning to take shape.

Here we see Ed putting the hinges on Jake's Blackberry Racer - a car that can get to the finish line and text the results home.



And here Jake is demonstrating one use of Tim's Flip Speedster with audio and video outputs so the driver can keep in touch while in the maintenance pit.


I have no idea how these cars will come in in the race but based on how much fun Jake and Tim have had BEFORE the wheels went on, I suspect there will be a lot of envious cub scouts Monday night.