'Tis the Season...

To all my Democrat friends: 

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. 


To all my Republican friends: 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

May GOD BLESS YOU AND YOURS!

For how long?

So today at work I have run out of things to do.  Whenever that is the case, I 'get' (read: am forced) to read tax updates -- changes in tax laws, regulations, and administrative procedures.  Believe me, it's nowhere near as exciting as it sounds.  Right now I'm reading about substantiation and reporting requirements for charitable deductions.

You: YAWN!

Me: I know...

Anyway, I came to this part that talks about how long to keep an appraisal in your records.  The tax regulation says this: "for as long as it may be relevant in the administration of the internal revenue laws."  (emphasis added)

I don't think anyone actually knows what that means.  In fact, I think that the people who write the tax laws and regulations actually get paid by the word, and that phrase gets them a whole lot more money than simply writing "forever" would.

No wonder people keep talking about overhauling the tax code.

Take Cover!

My wife got this email today at school:

University Police would like the campus community to know that the

helicopter buzzing our campus is not a threat.

The university has hired the helicopter to help with a film that is being 

prepared. Filming is scheduled to continue through today and Saturday.

We apologize for the disturbance.

Apparently people in the Provo, Utah area are a little paranoid, and think they're under attack.  I'm not sure what the helicopter they're using looks like, but I'm pretty sure that unless it looks like this:

...there should be no cause for alarm.  Unless, of course, they're attending BYU-Baghdad.

Juice

I am getting over a cold, and my wife is starting her cold (we share everything).  Over the past couple of weeks -- and for the next couple of weeks -- my wife and I have been (and will be) drinking a lot of juice.  We usually buy the frozen concentrate because it's cheaper than the stuff that comes in the cartons or jugs.  We've noticed that often the stuff in the cartons and jugs is from concentrate anyway, so we figure we're being money-wise.

So, I was making up some juice the other day, and I looked at the label to make sure that I didn't add too much (or too little) water.  You know, it's pretty sick to try to drink watered-down juice.  Anyway, I looked at the label and the instructions said to mix 1 can of concentrate with about 3 cans of water... that's pretty much the standard ratio.  But what intrigues me is what's printed right above the nutrition facts.  Take a look:

"Contains 100% juice when properly reconstituted."

Umm... what does it contain before it's properly reconstituted?  300% juice?

Now for the happy news...

As promised, here is a bit of happy news. Remember how I needed to pass one more section of the CPA exam?

Well I have been checking for my score online every day (usually more than once a day) since I took the test on July 26th. I checked again this morning before I left for work, and there was the same message as was there the past four weeks: "Error. Score not found."

I checked when I got to work, and there was no longer that message. Instead, there was my name with a number beneath. I needed a score of 75 to pass, and I scored 88. Yay! Not only did I pass, but I PASSED!!

So now I get to take the two state parts (one is an ethics exam, and the other is an open-book rules & procedures exam). Once I pass those two tests, I get to be a CPA!

I'm pretty happy about it all.

The answer is no!

My wife and I went camping this past weekend with some friends from our old neighborhood. We went up to the Spruces campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was a blast with the 6 families and nearly 20 kids that were there, however, three of the families didn't stay the night since they had "stuff" going on Saturday morning. Too bad for them.

One of the best parts of camping for me is just sitting around the fire. The parents in the group sent their kids to bed after s'mores and the adults sat around the fire until about 1 am, and then we all decided to turn in. My wife and I went to our small tent and the other two families went to their (really, really nice) trailers. We're not jealous, because we like our tent and the queen-sized air mattress that we use.

Speaking of our air mattress, about a month or so ago we loaned it to some friends. They were getting married, they had a bunch of family coming in from out of town, and they wanted a place for them to sleep (I guess because the Hampton Inn was full?). So they asked to borrow our air mattress. Fine enough, but after they brought it back to us, we noticed that the charger for our air pump was not in the bag. Apparently it is nowhere to be found. We were pretty annoyed about that, but we figured we could maybe buy a new pump or charger or something. I checked the pump, and it still had a good charge so we decided we'd still take it on this weekend camp.

Anyway, we hadn't inflated our air mattress before going to bed, mostly because we were in a hurry to get going on dinner earlier in the evening. So we unrolled our air mattress and pulled out our little air pump to blow it up. I looked around the air mattress and found the hole where the pump goes, and I was about to put the pump in and start it up when I realized... the plug that goes in that hole to keep all the air in the air mattress is gone. Not there. Missing. Presumably it's in the same abyss that our charger is in.

At that point, we were pretty ticked, but we were so tired that we just left the air mattress out flat, put some blankets and a sleeping bag underneath us, and covered ourselves with blankets to try to sleep. At least there were weeds underneath the tent and not rocks and dirt. I think maybe we had a little bit more padding with the weeds.

Now our air mattress is completely useless and we have to buy a new one. They're not very expensive, but still...

So the moral of this story is if anyone asks us to borrow our stuff from now on, the answer is no. Other people never seem to take care of our stuff like we want it taken care of.

There you go... a Monday gripe. Stay tuned for some happy news!

Mosquitoes

Can anyone tell me why on earth these little blood-suckers were invented? What purpose could they possibly serve, other than to annoy me?

I got bit by one a few days ago. In my house. While I was sleeping. On my knuckle.

Whenever I get bit by a mosquito, the bite swells up huge. I must be allergic or something. Because of the location of this bite, it now looks like I either have a case of rheumatoid arthritis or a tumor on my knuckle. Oh... and it itches really bad and hurts like... well, yeah.

I'm convinced that mosquitoes didn't exist in the Garden of Eden. How could they exist in a paradise like that? Doesn't seem to me like much of a paradise if they are there.

I'm in favor of completely eradicating mosquitoes from the planet. I don't think we'd see any nasty effects when these become extinct. I know dragonflies and some types of fish feed on them, but I'm sure those species could find something else to eat.