Coping: Taxes & Getting Ready for “Daylight”

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We have quite a number of things to go over this morning – some routine, some not.

Sunday morning, Ure’s was up at 3:45 AM – unable to sleep – so I finished up our taxes and got them filed.  I also got the year’s “tax box” done.

The year’s “tax box?”

(Continues below)

 

Lots of people are sort of haphazard when it comes to taxes.  They make a good effort, but when it’s finally all done, they tend to throw it all in a big manila envelope and pray it all works out as filed.

Fine – and nothing wrong with that approach.  But, like everything else, I get a little…er….retentive about such details.

During the year, everything that comes in goes into a receipts drawer in the office.  On the way there?  Everything makes a pass through the scanner.

Several years ago, we picked up a dandy Fujitsu ScanSnap ($420, Amazon, Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Color Duplex Desk Scanner for Mac and PC) and since it has file organizing built-in, it’s easy to scan everything (does both sides in one pass) and drag it into the right folders.  Here for Texas Sales Tax, there for satellite internet, over to this one for office supplies, software invoices go here…and so on.

Each year’s tax work is done in a series of spreadsheets.  Income goes here, brokerage accounts download into TurboTax and do some of the ugly parts of tax time (like wash sales, loss carryforwards if any, and such not).

When it’s finally all done, the tax box is assembled.  In it?

The bottom 3/4th’s of it is all those invoices and statements from the documents drawer.

On top of that is a copy of the worksheets printed from the spreadsheets.

Then  there are three disks.

One of them is all the tax files and statements (bank, credit cards, etc).  There’s also a copy #2 of that.  And, just in case, there is a DVD with all the .PDF scans of everything.  It’s a nice piece of work.

Not over yet.  There’s also a SDHC card and a USB thumb drive (16gbs are cheap on both) so they go into an envelope as well.

No, I don’t think CD/DVD drives are going away any time soon, but with the multiple sets of media…well, seven years (or whatever the limit is) that could be an issue.

Just two stops to go before done:  First is to my “shipping desk” in the shop.  Here, the labels  (2017 IRS – SAVE) go on all conceivable surfaces of the box to prevent it from being accidentally tossed.

Then it goes to its “final resting place” – the storage room off to the side of the other freezer, stored food, and household what-nots (Hmmm…some ham radio gear, too!).  It joins a nice collection of similar boxes from previous tax years.

At the end of it all?  Some sense of relief.  Done for another year.

But What About Getting Up Early?

Oh…that.

Yeah…normally 3:45 ain’t my thing (and sure as hell isn’t Elaine’s, lol) but while cogitating my tax day ahead, it occurred to me that N EXT WEEKEND IS DAILY SAVINGS TIME.

When we “spring ahead” – 3:45 AM is just getting up at quarter to five.

Happens that’s also a detestable hour.

Point is, my body is making the shift already.  If you want to start going to bed a bit earlier this week, it may ease the time shock of a week from now.

Travel Week, Too

Elaine and I are going up to the big casino in Thackerville, OK to see Johnny Mathis with friends this coming weekend.  Not that you’d give a rip, except for a few fine points:

  1. Peoplenomics next weekend will consist solely of the chart section.
  2. Friday morning’s report) and next Monday, too, may be somewhat truncated.
  3. Panama Bates will be holding down the fort. Gotta put fresh targets up on the gun range.

Grooming Note

Since I’m “going off the farm” it’s time to polish my “dress” shoes.  Something that hasn’t been done in a while.

Last week, while going through the shopping list in town (light fixture, UHD hydraulic fluid, prescription, bank run, yada, yada… it occurred to me that the way the world has “gone slob” even polishing shoes is overkill on the “business casual” dress code these days.

Once upon a time, farmers were always wearing rubber boots out here in the Outback, or highly polished cowboy boots.

Here lately, it’s mostly tennis shoes (I do Sketchers with velcro not laces).  Sometimes comfort wins.  Working where there might be snakes, boots still make sense…but deemphasized as a fashion statement.

Another “War Marker”

Timing the end of the world, are we?  Not from Chris Tyreman up at www.thechronicleproject.org was interesting:

“As proclaimed by Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim Maadi, in the Friday sermon on Palestinian TV, (June 8, 2001):

And then in the Friday sermon on Palestinian TV (May 4, 2001):

“…In our holy books [it is written] that when a state for the Jews is established in Palestine, it will not last more than 67 years. In other words — the year 2022. And I beg Allah to bring an end to the country of the oppressor in America, and the country of the oppressor Israel in Palestine, by that date… Therefore, it is our hope that this oppressive country [Israel] will be terminated, as in the words of Allah…”

Okay, so here is the war.  If the Muslims don’t wipe out Israel by 2022, the Koran is false.  Koran can’t be false ergo, Holy War time.

Thought that might interest you.”

Well, um, not so much on Monday.  Now, if it was going to be on Friday and might screw up the weekend, well, yeah, then I’d be bothered.

2022 is four years out – and by then I’d be 73.  Someone said “we’re only promised four-score years” and since a score is 20, that’d give us 7-years of tribulations after the start of the final conflict.  Nice.  Future’s so bright, gotta wear a hazmat suit.

Miracle Money Technique

I trust you are doing the meditation outlined by our consulting astrologer? Her entirely free site that explains the Miracle Money Technique is over here.

And the testimonials keep coming in – unsolicited.

So drop by tomorrow morning and I’ll share with you a marvelous note from a reader who tried to “force it to work” on a casino trip.

Timely first-hand report given that’s our big event next weekend.

Feel gypped that we won’t get all the sleep time we paid for…but somehow the casino hotel probably won’t care.

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

16 thoughts on “Coping: Taxes & Getting Ready for “Daylight””

  1. MMT is working for me and I am having a blast doing. I laugh and burst out a jovial “thank you” to whoever is listening. IMO powering the meditation with upbeat, enthusiastic emotion is the real juice behind its success.

  2. The establishment of Israel as a nation was May 14th, 1948. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day. 67 years in the future would have been 2015. What am I am missing?

    • I’m guessing Dr. Maadi is currently projecting his timeline from 1955, based on his perception of the end of the first series of festivities between the ME parties. He sounds like the EOW and “alien invasion” charlatans who move their starting point periodically to keep their “prophesy” from being invalidated, and to sucker more wackos into their way of thinking. That said, his is a voice of prominence within the Palestinian community, so his prophesy (or blather, whichever) is most-certainly worth noting…

  3. I wonder if your Consulting Astrologer has a Miracle Love/Sex Technique. Money is really does have a declining marginal utility beyond a certain point, but with someone worthy in your life, that point of decline in utility is significantly extended.

    • Argue FOR your limitations, my friend, and they WILL APPEAR!

      As the late dr. Wayne Dyer said, you “Won’t see it until you Believe It.”

      Not the other way around.

      • Point taken. Perhaps that’s something to focus on at and following the equinox. The winter period(dead time) is often thought to be time to complete projects, not start new ones. I’m doing that right now.

      • wow.. I haven’t heard that name in a while.. Wayne Dryer.. use to love his work..
        talk about woo woo… I was working on a lamp.. put the screw driver in my pocket.. needed it no screw driver.. looked everywhere I was sure I had dropped it someplace searched out side everywhere.. nothing took everything out of my pockets.. sitting here thinking of wayne dryer and something pocked me.. it was that screw driver in my pocket. the one I emptied three times mind you.. wow.. blow my mind away almost as good as the hot cup of coffee.. that vanished

  4. Regarding leaving the ranch – you have the incredible benefit of having a trained and motivated person available for security. Filling this gap would be a fine subject for a Peoplenomics issue.

    Most of us don’t have a close relative with military training that’s willing/able to be available, so we have to either find technical or human solutions. The standard alarm/monitoring solution is meaningless to a trained and motivated thief. Certainty of capture or death is. Unoccupied property is very difficult to secure in a meaningful way, even for a week or two.

    • Your “Certainty of capture or death is” line is so good, I may steal it sometime! It is both brief and accurate.

      Alarms and surveillance/perimeter monitoring are like the police. They don’t stop a thief or invader, but merely provide assistance in the capture and prosecution thereof. There is no way to protect a fixed target sufficiently well that it cannot be overrun (read Patton), whether it’s occupied or not.

      What can be done is to make a potential target less-obvious and less-attractive, so a burglar or thief passes over it in favor of a more appealing target. Obvious security cams do a lot. For country folks, having a properly-worded sign, and a series of white rocks with range numbers will get the point across to other country folk. City-idis, not so much, but an old MV, fit with a dummy M60 and setting beside the garage or barn does wonders.

      One wants to project:

      1. Nothing here
      2. I see you, and have your face on video
      3. Beyond this point, Death awaits

      Panama gives George point 3. His location gives him point 1. I dunno if George has surveillance cams and range markers up or not, but he’s a savvy individual, so…

      FWIW I have a number of cams, both exposed and hidden. NOBODY EVER gets to see my monitor, not even my kids. Loose lips…

      • With the price that security cameras are.. you would think everyone would have them.
        A coworker was talking about her daughter. Rented an apartment startled woke one night and she cold see the outline of someone in the shadows.. I asked.. when you moved in you changed locks didn’t you.. nope.. excuse me that’s the first thing you do.. things seemed to vanish why not a security cam.. nope .. well they did both and it all ended.. sure it was someone working for the complex..
        I was visiting with another old friend and the discussion of this incident came up.. he said heck I have been having things that seemed to move.. I laughed and you didn’t change locks either ( whole different complex in a different city) nope..well he put in a security cam. Seemed the maintenance man was coming in digging through drawers drinking his booze not in a glass ( then adding water) and variety of other things..
        it just struck me as funny. I told both you do realize people end up with extra keys.. that’s the first thing you do if they want access they can and should notify you. Security cam.. everyone should have that.. best money you’ll ever spend. I use to not think that way till a daughter had a disgruntled boyfriend. Now it’s a necessity

      • That is true that it doesn’t stop a thief or intruder and in our nations capital wouldn’t even get a cop to view it. A friend of mine lived in a gated community in Alexandria. There was a car that drove by shooting into the houses. His neighbor was one of them so he showed his neighbor and they called the police. You would think case solved.. not only did the police refuse to look at the surveillance video. That showed the faces of the four people in the car the cars license plate and the gun used.. the police even threatened to throw them in jail and questioned why they had a surveillance camera system. So there it really wouldn’t make any difference.

  5. MajorCatch22….

    Found this on defense.pk islamist website. It would indicate that either the speaker or translator transposed the numbers:

    “As mentioned earlier the actual date of the creation of the state of Israel was 10.6.1948. If we add 76 full lunar years, the result will be: 76 × 354.367 = 26931.892 days; therefore; the end of its completion will be on 5.3.2022.”

  6. We follow pretty much the same process as you except I store all the hard copies in a place safer than that NSA facility you know where. The storage area in the basement where the missus has all of her precious stuff and bean babies at. I can guarantee you that not one single piece of anything down there can even get thought about being moved without triggering the Wrath of Khan.

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