09:49 – I forgot to check the temperature when I took Colin out this morning. It’s currently 50F (10C).
I finished up the federal taxes this morning. Now to get the state taxes finished. They’re pretty straightforward. The federal 1040 and supporting forms are about 98% of the actual work. This year was worse than usual because of the move. For the first half of 2016, we owned two homes, and had the sale of a house to take into account. We also had two personal checking accounts, two corporate checking accounts, doctors and dentists both in Winston and Sparta, two different Obamacare policies, and Costco changing from AmEx to Visa. All told, it was a paperwork nightmare. But it’s done, other than state.
Fortunately, kit sales have dropped way off, which is usual sometime in February. It was just later this February than it’s been in past Februaries. And we did manage to do about 180% of kit sales revenue this month that we did in February of last year.
But the upshot is that we’re getting very low on finished goods inventory, so we need to build more of everything. Barbara built three dozen shipping boxes yesterday, and we’ll get to work today on getting those turned into finished kits.
Dinner tonight is completely from long-term storage. A skillet meal of Keystone Meats beef chunks, Bertolli alfredo sauce, canned mushroom soup, and pasta. Kind of a beef stroganoff with our own twist.
* * * * *
Last night ate spaghetti with meatballs, both from storage. Ranchers brand canned meatballs in sauce, with a bit of added garlic powder, oregano from the garden, and Parmesan cheese. Kids loved it.
n
Prepping, let’s see….
Spent part of saturday getting a gennie running. I bought 2 that both needed work, and combined them into one runner. That will be for sale shortly. I have a third that needs a couple of small parts. Mostly it’s just cleaning carbs and fuel systems. Almost any small engine is salvageable if it didn’t crack.
worked on a lawn tractor most of sunday. It’s running now. Will either sell or use at our civic assn.
Ordered the transfer switch for my whole house gennie. Finally one came up on ebay for a decent price. Now to pour the pad and get the electrician in…
I need to get shopping today. I’ve let some staple items that haven’t been on sale lately fall to low levels. I have let them fall too far.
Still didn’t get the new veg into the ground. Maybe today?
n
“Kids loved it.”
Your Ozzie correspondent loves it too… š
Some very cheap and quick-to-prepare meals I like are Vegemite on toast, kippers or herring on toast or a can of thick soup on toast. Yum.
My CA trip was uneventful. Navigated on my cell and streamed HLN “Forensic Files” the whole way. It was between 30-50 F everywhere we went. Cold. Traffic was horrible in the cities, but pleasant on the freeways. Victor Valley Community College has some amazing programs. You can get your aircraft A&P, auto mech, all kinds of nursing and EMT certs plus prep courses for Uni. Very well done. We didn’t get to tour some of the course, but they use state of the art equipment, simulation, mini production lines set up by the auto industry. Excellent.
“Some very cheap and quick-to-prepare meals I like are Vegemite ….”
My daughter bought me tee-shirt that reads: “Dinky-Di Dogfood”
It was what the gyro captain was eating in Mad Max II. She went there with tennis club team in ’84 and was supposed to bring me back a can, but didn’t, so the shirt makes up for it 30 years later.
“She went there with tennis club team in ā84 and was supposed to bring me back a can, but didnāt…”
You know the rule in Mad Max III Beyond Thunderdome…
Bust a deal and face the wheel.
Did you ever point out to her what a lucky escape she had?
Apropos of nothing.
This is what Alaskans (some Alaskans) do for fun in the winter. Carve ice.
My friends Mel and Chris. Recently relocated to allowed 48 but returned to compete in Ice Alaska, one of the ice sculpting competions in Alaska.
http://www.icealaska.com/www/en/component/zoo/item/sb_site-16-2017.html
Bob, you ought to consider getting a copy of Quicken or QuickBooks. My taxes, even when my wife was practicing medicine, were pretty quick to do. A few reports in Quicken, enter into TurboTax and eFile.
consider getting a copy of Quicken or QuickBooks
enter into TurboTax
Will never happen as they both require Windows.
I use both and have for years. For several years I was a beta tester for Quicken in ’94 to ’99 time frame. Found a nasty bug in reporting where 16 bit counters were being overflowed. Anyway, Quicken does not help me much as I just use the forms I get sent from the companies that report to the IRS. When I had a small business Quicken helped total all the items that were tax deductible. Printed the report of all the transactions for the year and kept it with the tax returns. On one of my audits the IRS accepted the reports as reasonable proof of the items I deducted.
E-Filing got my refund in five days, filed on Sunday, refund in the bank on Thursday night (Friday posting date). However TurboTax charges for state, $19.95. In TN when you file (that nasty Hall Tax) you cannot send in a form and a check unless you also send in $25.00. You can file electronically for the charge TurboTax charges or you can file online. You cannot pay with a credit card without a fee being charged. Only way to pay is with a debit card to avoid fees. Not sure I want the state to have my debit card. I have a real problem with states charging you to pay your taxes, especially filing a form and paying with a check.
You know why they call it vegemite? Because “fungusemite” didn’t do as well with consumers.
I’ll second quicken and quickbooks. It expands as you go, the reports are very versatile, and easy to use. I printed 40 pages for my IRS agent, and documented all my claims, which resulted in me getting most of my seized money back, and a determination that I didn’t have to pay estimated quarterlies. Oh, and my monthly payment reduced.
The cash flow by week, and income and expense by month reports were particularly helpful.
We have my business, rental property, passive income, her business and partnership, some other investments, a house, vehicles, etc. We file about an inch of paper. Quicken lets us total, summarize, print reports, and organize for our accountant. She charges us less because the stuff is well organized. She saves us WAY more than her fee every year too (wife has done sanity checks with turbotax, and one year we had someone local do our taxes.)
There is no need to roll your own when it comes to accounting and tax prep.
n
“You know why they call it vegemite? Because āfungusemiteā didnāt do as well with consumers.”
You know mushrooms are fungus? They still taste good.
Vegemite – the reason Australia punches way above its per capita weight in the Olympics.
Been thinking about the ‘presstitutes’ DC and I can’t get this updated version of the classic out of my head.
“Ass, grafs, or cash-no one rides for free.”
Lotta f-in’ riders in DC…..
n
The MSM presstitutes and assorted minions, stooges, lackeys and running dawgs of the corporate fascist oligarchy are still howling and keening and rending garments and gnashing their teeth over Donald Hitler Trump. What a hoot. Fuck ’em all. I am far from a tRump fan but I love to see all the commies enraged and shitting themselves nationwide. And I see a bunch of Prius-driving snowflakes and busybodies descended on various southern Illinois locations to protest the controlled hunt of pesky coyotes, which in some states have ranchers and farmers extremely pissed off. We see ’em up here occasionally; they’re very clever and sneaky buggers and the ones we’ve seen look more like those coy-wolves and coy-dogs, bigger than the average Wile E. Coyote. Much bigger. We can also hear them howling a mile or two off to our north in the farmland/marsh area.
I will attempt to make Gnucash work with our combined business and finances and our bank, but if it gets to be too much of a hassle, I’ll install Quicken and Turbo Tax via Crossover on this machine if I can, and if not, I’ll install it w/Winblows on an older refurbished PC I have in the attic that I was gonna put Winblows on anyway to run the Ghost Gunner. But we gotta get a tax lawyer/accountant working for us first.
Spent today helping wife put up new curtains in the living room, and then wasting 90 minutes of my life at the dealership waiting room as they did the whole state inspection thing over again from scratch on the Matrix and fiddled with the insurance company over getting current papers faxed to them, etc., etc. I thought I’d stumbled into a 1950s East German border control/customs office.
So the day was mainly devoured by locusts and then I constructed a “taco bake” which we murderized in short order.
Iāll install Quicken
Avoid Quicken 2016 as it has a lot of issues that are not being addressed. Only reason I got the update was that it works with high density displays (Surface Pro). Without the update using Quicken prior to 2016 was miserable. If you don’t have a high density display use Quicken 2014. If you need I can rescue a copy from the bottom of the river and put it on my website where you would accidentally find it. Of course I would provide you a clue as to it’s location.
[OFD]:
Anyway, allās probably well that ended well. Hats off!
MrAtoz says:
26 February 2017 at 12:19
Be safe, Mr. Spook. I consider you one of the good guys.
… …
Regarding Saturday night’s confrontation with punk and cops…
Thanks, gents for the back-ups… Even from a distance, this is helpful support.
I have to acknowledge that I was foolish to confront the punk with just a FLASHLIGHT,
from a distance,
but I reckon I basically ran him off. Still unclear, of course, who was the aggressor,
him or the girl with baby… or even the other punk who lives there…
And, note, as I guess I said, that the cops reacted exactly the same as the punk did
when light was shone on their activities, with threats, plus the cops reached for their
guns and headed (somewhat cautiously) towards me (across the road). Eventually,
one asked my address, and figured out that it was not the address of the complaint
(and note that both their cars were in that driveway).
Oh, and, for quite a while, they had their backs to the punk’s (former) location, *
basically sharkin’ on the first thing that moved.
The other neighbor, who called me in the first place about all the racket (that I had
not heard due to music) wanted to call the cops, and I agreed. Silly me — I knew
better than to call the cops, in any case. Especially once the punk left, I shoulda
just hid…
If you see something, shut up and hide.
So far, no rocks or bullets through my windows, so…
* There’s that scene in Lucifer’s Hammer… Sentinel, unarmed, says that if he lowers
his arm, the hidden sniper(s) will take out the intruder(s). Duh.
“Avoid Quicken 2016 as it has a lot of issues that are not being addressed.”
Yeah, I saw similar comments regarding various issues in a couple of places, one being Amazon’s comments. Ima gon really try and get Gnucash to cover our own issues in connection with our bank. And maybe be a pioneer and try to get both working with Turbo Tax. We shall see; first we need a lawyer/accountant before 4/15.
“Oh, and, for quite a while, they had their backs to the punkās (former) location, *
basically sharkinā on the first thing that moved.”
Very astute situational awareness of them and OPSEC. Another reason to keep a distance from the cops. Training has sucked for a very long time now. Go ahead and call them—-from your house. Sit back, open a cold one, and watch the show. Screw standing out there in a potential shooting or knifing scenario. And the shooting could very well have come from the cops.
>> And the shooting could very well have come from the cops.
Yeah. They show up ready to shoot something, anything…
Not so bad here, pretty good locals, but…
Second time I have had holsters slapped at me when the suspect
was a young black guy… without a FLASHLIGHT!
MrsAtoz and I celebrate 26 years of marriage today. She called her VIP friend at the Red Rock Casino and got us a three night comp for a stay-cation. Turns out to be their best suite. 4000sf, $5000/night. Geez you should see this thing. Two bedrooms 50′ apart. Party area with a huge wet bar, huge living area, dining room, two jacuzzis, etc. Three toilets with so many bidet controls I perfumed my ass three times. Insane.
I’ll be right over. Pass on the perfume…
Mr. Atoz:
But seriously, congrats!
I was married, briefly, over 40 years ago, but I can
manage to be thrilled about any two (or more) people
maintaining a solid relationship.
Hot damn, son! Wife here and I will have 20 years in August of next year; maybe we oughta swing out to Lost Wages for one of them comp deals!
And congrats to MrsAtoz for being able to put up with your heavily perfumed stinky ass for all them years!
Wow. That ” sharkin’ ” terminology just popped out, blood in the water,
feeding frenzy, all that…
Copyrighted. Trademarked. Spook 2017.
Licensed to the correspondents here for use at any time, of course.
SHARKING: Predatory (or scavenging?) behaviour, involving feeding
on any helpless victim in the vicinity, regardless of the original target.
“Sharkin” could also be used to describe mindless mob activity; somebody comes into view, they swarm all over them, regardless of that person’s allegiance to one side or the other or even any side at all. Another feeding frenzy. Avoid at all costs.
Off to the Land of Nod again…
Pax vobiscum, fratres…
MrAtoz wrote:
“Three toilets with so many bidet controls I perfumed my ass three times. Insane.”
That reminds me…
A guy was flying from London to Lost Wages and needed to go to the loo urgently. All the male loos were occupied, so the flight attendant said he could use one of the lady’s loos.
“Just DON’T touch the buttons marked Spray, Puff or ATR. They’re just for the girls.”
So, he does his business and, against instructions, presses the Spray button. There is a very pleasant jet of warm water that gets his arse and gonads clean. He then tries the Puff button. There is a jet of pleasantly warm air, talcum powder and perfume that dries him “down there”.
Having had such a pleasant experience he pushes the ATR button. And promptly screams and passes out.
The attendant gets the door open, a doctor is called but it’s too late. The Automatic Tampon Remover has pulled off his willy… š
You are making me feel like the young whippersnapper of the group. My wife and I will be married ten years this June.
Congrats to all you old married guys.
I found another hidden full bidet toilet by the master shower (total of four now) in the “Top of the Rock” suite. I guess if you had to take an emergency dump and couldn’t walk 15 feet to the master toilet, you could open the door two feet from the shower and let it fly. I saw a hidden hallway by the dinner area. It opened into a Sub-Zero fridge, food warmer, microwave. There’s probably a hidden second floor somewhere in this beast.
Maybe Hillary should be “comped” that suite and then just maybe she would finally get her crusty old butt clean.
Thanks a million for that image, Mr. DadCooks. Jeez.
Spousal unit and myself have been together 42 years.
DadCooks got in an utterly horrid comment before I had a chance. Now I’ll all jealous.
@SteveF and @OFD, I am a student of the best. š
After thinking about it for a bit in the last day or so, it occurred to me to wonder just how Mr. DadCooks would know that Killary has a crusty old butt….seeing as how they were classmates, sort of, back in the day….
Well, he’s been boasting about how much tail he got back then in his private, soundproof lair. Presumably the Goldwater Girl was a repeat visitor.
Only likely if he has “transitioned” since then….
NTTAWWT.
Sorry fellas, no personal experience with Hillary’s Krusty Butt. Just know what was written on the bathroom walls. Anyway, she liked/likes “girls” more. But word was she would gladly reward a draw on a doobie with a BJ and/or HJ.
My style were the girls on the Cheer Team, Gymnastic Team, and the girls in the Music Department. I like girls with “talent”.
Mine were the scientists and dweebs. Of the half dozen or so girls I hung out with in high-school, one went on to become a physician, one a pharmacist, one a chemist, and one a biologist. I haven’t even emailed or spoken with any of them in at last 35 years.
And mine were the hippie chicks, although I lusted deeply in my haht for several cheerleaders and in-crowd grrls.