Possibly 62F this am, and still raining. Probably colder than that.
I had my first class in the new Citizen’s Police Academy that I’m doing last night. It’s definitely going to be different than the other class. We start right in next week with the EVOC, or fast driving. Lot more women in this class too. Should be fun.
This, on the other hand, is NOT fun.
“”This Is Unprecedented Territory” – Pakistan Shoots Down 2 Indian Fighter Jets In Dramatic Border Conflict Escalation”
“One day after Indian fighter jets crossed into Pakistani territory to destroy a training camp purportedly belonging to the militant group that carried out one of the deadliest terror attacks in the 30-year history of the Kashmiri insurgency (Pakistan offered a different version of events), two Indian fighter jets have been shot down over Pakistani territory in what analysts described as the biggest escalation in tensions between the feuding neighbors since the end of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war (which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh).”
The whole world is going through a realignment. The last couple of times this happened, 100 million died through war, famine, or pestilence.
Stock up.
n
added– it’s already escalating:
“The brink of war: India claims it has shot down Pakistani warplane after Pakistan downed two of theirs, paraded captured pilot and warned ‘we will escalate if we have to’ as fears grow of conflict between nuclear-armed rivals”
Today would have been my father’s 86th Birthday. The grey misty drizzle suits my mood.
n
It’s sad that the pilot(s) were beat after capture. That will escalate things. Treat them as POWs and lock them up.
My Dad would have been 97 this year. He died young at 52.
My dad died at 94 a few years back but he spent his last few years as a vegetable due to multiple strokes. That’s not living, it’s being trapped in a corpses shell. I was relieved when he passed.
My father died at 44 or 45. Cause unknown, but probably alcohol and stupidity. The world was not a worse place for his leaving it.
From all accounts, mom’s dad was the same….
I never even knew his name until I asked when I was in my 30s and realized I’d never once heard mom mention him. Nor has she ever mentioned a birthday party, or Christmas gift, or even any Christmas celebration. In fact, absolutely nothing about her childhood at all, prior to her leaving home.
IIRC, they later found out he’d died in a bar fight, so yeah, good riddance to bad garbage.
n
25 F in Norman, OK and misty. May be interesting driving back 500 miles to Sugar Land, TX tomorrow.
My dad would have been … I have no idea. He pretty much abandoned the family before the divorce, thus the divorce. Oh I saw him a couple of times, charity gesture on his part, or he wanted something. He never met my wife or his grandchild. So be it. I did go to his funeral. His loss, not mine.
After the divorce my mother basically abandoned me to my abusive aunt and uncle. So I don’t have a lot of compassion for any of the family.
25 F in Norman, OK and misty. May be interesting driving back 500 miles to Sugar Land, TX tomorrow.
Denton Buc-ees!
Hopefully, at 25 F, you have the Expedition and not your cousin’s Tesla.
I did the taxes yesterday. After the glitch of seeing a $1680 refund I discovered they dropped the retirement income. After it was entered. Fixed that to see a more normal $500 or so refund. BTW, Turbo Tax online did the same thing.
I found that if you have the Health Insurance Marketplace you can’t use a 1040ez. No “free filing” for you! If the Marketplace “overpays” you, you pay that back. Fair enough.
Ok, I’m good. $236 back is nice.
For extra loving, with Tax Act, if you pay the fee from your refund, they add a $44 service charge. On top of the $33.50 w/tax filing fee. Discover Card to the rescue!
Seems scammy to me. The IRS has accepted and the refund will be direct deposited.
But I’m not done. While going through a stack of old magazines this morning I found the 1099 from AT&T. $96 in dividends. Now I wait to see if the IRS rejects the return or finds the error and corrects it and without a big penalty (I hope) or I file a 1040X after the refund arrives.
It’s always something.
I stopped at the 290w Buccees even before I got out of the Houston metroplex. It is a medium size Buccees with only 70 or 80 gas pumps. At 1pm Sunday it had 400+ people in the store. BBQ sandwich was awesome.
Saw a sign that they are building a new Buccees in Ennis on I-45 in 2020. Probably 125 gas pumps.
And yes, am in the 2005 Expedition with 203k miles. Got 19 mpg coming up.
Gonna be 12 F in Norman this weekend. I will be leaving tomorrow no matter what.
Now I wait to see if the IRS rejects the return or finds the error and corrects it and without a big penalty (I hope) or I file a 1040X after the refund arrives.
We got paperwork late from our childcare provider last year so I have to file an amended return for 2017.
I threw all of the paper from last year into a closet with the intent of sorting things out over the Summer. I was buried with the new job so the amended return didn’t happen. Maybe this tax season…
Which reminds me — CGI effectively hides their 401(k) plan, with the goal of getting the employees to buy the stock at a discount. Since I started contributing to the 401(k) late — had to find it first — and left before even partial vesting, I was cashed out of the plan and get to deal with the IRA paper on top of the other tax issues. Fun!
Saw a sign that they are building a new Buccees in Ennis on I-45 in 2020. Probably 125 gas pumps.
A store opening in Tyler, TX on I-20 at Toll 49 (one of ours) wouldn’t surprise me — if that isn’t already in the works.
Buc-ee’s just opened in Alabama, on I-10, right across the AL-FL state from Pensacola.
Alabama probably cut the chain a better deal on incentives. Buc-ee’s is a tough negotiator on that point. FL will still see a big store open at the I-4/I-95 intersection at Daytona Beach later this year, however.
Races aren’t the draw they used to be, but that intersection will always be important even if the racetrack went away.
Some folks need to be smacked.
A friend whose house is eight miles away had his garage door quit working. It has a side door but he can’t find the key. It’s more of a barn… huge. I went over there today and hey! Lookie! Is that where the keypad has batteries? Yep. A nine volt “Golden Empire” or some such. Deader than Dixie.
Back to town to the HEB for batteries. Twelve miles. Then twelve miles back. Installed the battery and it worked. Back home and called to tell him it was fixed…. just to find out he has a remote in his truck. Really? Why all the fuss about not being able to get in the building?
To the Moon!
Oh, they will. Guaranteed. And you will owe interest on the amount due until it is paid. File the 1040X after you get your refund. You should only owe about $15.00. But the IRS has a way of morphing that amount into something bigger.
I did the same thing one year. Filed before I had all the paperwork. A form of which I was unaware showed up in the mail after I filed. I waited until my refund arrived, then filed the amended return and enclosed a check. The amended return has to be mailed. Never heard anything from the IRS so I guess it was OK.
Purchase the software and filing fees go away, at least federal. All the software makers charge for the state filing.
Annoys me that TN will charge $25.00 to file a paper return. File electronically and there is no charge. But if you owe money you have to pay with a debit card for no fee or a credit card with a fee. A paper check is not allowed when filing electronically. That seems to be a scam to my way of thinking.
There is no longer a 1040EZ form. 1040s have been combined. Everyone filing with software or paper uses the 1040. There are separate schedules for many sections of the 1040. All of the 1040’s were combined into a single form.
The trick for that is to keep your income below the 300% of poverty level. I contribute to an IRA to attempt to keep that level down. I was not successful this year but was able to reduce owing $900.00 to getting $64.00 back by contributing $6K to an IRA. This will be the last year I will be having to use the marketplace for the spousal unit.
Long day of running around. Met some new folks. Went to a weekly lunch meeting that a bunch of hams have. Was invited by someone from my non-prepping hobby meeting.
One guy was wearing a Trump hat, with his radio on his belt, and open carrying (what looked like) an XDs pistol. No chance of not knowing that guy’s ideology….
I’ll try to get to a few more meetings, if they don’t dis-invite me.
MEATSPACE baby!
n
It is now 22 F and there is a 1/4 inch of ice on everything. Tonight’s one mile walk will be interesting. I am hoping that tomorrow’s return to Texas will not be.
The forecast for tomorrow here is 35 F by noon and sunny. That should clear the ice off the overpasses when I leave at noon.
They are now saying 10 F for Sunday night here in Norman, OK. I will be long gone by then. The Davis mountains XXXXXXXX hills may be interesting though.
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/ok/norman?cm_ven=localwx_10day
131 car crash in Wisconsin last Sunday. Wow ! Don’t be there.
https://www.channel3000.com/news/sheriff-s-office-releases-video-of-largest-traffic-crash-in-wisconsin-history-involving-131-vehicles/1041836516
Nick, happy birthday in abesntia to your dad. Mine was 23 days older than your dad, and has been gone for ~ 28 years. We buried him exactly 1 month before my little sister walked down the aisle, which was 2 weeks after she graduated from law school. It still hurts.
This explains so much I didn’t know… maybe too much.
They wear underwear in the gym showers? (well I missed going to the gym last week – that makes forty years in a row)
https://www.takimag.com/article/you-people-need-to-get-nekkid/
Speaking of Millennials and sex:
“It’s like salmon. They’ll return to the place where they were spawned.”
One guy was wearing a Trump hat, with his radio on his belt, and open carrying (what looked like) an XDs pistol. No chance of not knowing that guy’s ideology….
I’ve seen Trump hats worn openly in Fredericksburg, but not a lot of other places around here, even up in Temple/Belton.
Hams are a wild card politically in my experience.
131 car crash in Wisconsin last Sunday. Wow ! Don’t be there.
Car fatalities are up as of late, even with all the gadgetry installed in the cars. People don’t pay attention anymore.
I turn off the lane assist and dial the sensitivity of the collision avoidance waaaaay down on my new car.
This explains so much I didn’t know… maybe too much.
The antidepressant part doesn’t surprise me. My wife’s biggest problem with her job is the non-stop Adderall (male) and Wellbutrin (female) seekers streaming through her office every day.
“Debby Herbenick, a leading sex researcher at the famous Kinsey Institute in Indiana, says that Millennial men piss off Millennial women the first time they have sex by (a) choking them, (b) ejaculating on their faces, and (c) trying to have anal sex.”
–pron
Regarding pr0n, I’ve never understood (b) on Nick’s post. It’s just deliberately degrading, which (fetishes aside) isn’t how a guy should be treating his partner.
So…Cohen made the Swiss news last night. I only heard the German translation, but apparently Trump’s ex-right-hand-man is now saying all sorts of insulting and unpleasant things about him: racist, crook, etc, etc.. That’s just bizarre…
…or is it? They’re going to throw Cohen in jail on, you should pardon the pun, trumped up charges. For me, the conclusion is obvious: if he follows their script and says all this stuff, they’ll be lenient. If he stays loyal to Trump, they’ll pile on the charges and put him away forever. The swamp strikes back.
Am I missing something here?
@brad, sounds about right.
I’ve avoided the details of the whole back and forth because
A- the dems and the media lie
B-everyone is going to be acting to save themselves, and lie
C-they are all by definition liars
D-did I mention the lying?
If after two years the best you have is name calling, esp. name calling that isn
t illegal, and a lying lawyer– you’ve got nothing.
n
and this is especially vexing in light of all the actual crimes hillarity looks to be getting away with, and the huge weight of evidence for the crimes that are LIKELY (like the influence peddling.) Besides which, other than impeachment, the president is immune to prosecution legally so it’s all just lawfare against his associates and masturbation.
Am I missing something here?
Impeachment is a political process, not criminal. Coen didn’t really prove anything and didn’t have any real evidence which would have stood up in an American court room.
Once Smollett’s story fell apart, the Dems realized that The Oscars were not going to be the big anti-Trump statement that they wanted this week, requiring a substitute media event for which they could write the script in advance.
Heck, “The Green Book” getting Best Picture was, arguably, about the best thing that could have happened for Trump Sunday night. Also, Olivia Coleman winning, keeping Glenn Close off the podium, and being … well … British in the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy8z_Tq_VHo
I don’t think Richard Curtis could have written it as well as Coleman’s improv.
Robert Francis isn’t going after Cornyn.
The Castro family has one last shot at relevance in 2020, and if the idiot brother (okay, they’re both idiots) doesn’t challenge Cornyn and make a credible show of it, the La Raza dynasty is done.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/elections-2020/2019/02/27/sources-beto-orourke-wontchallenge-john-cornyn-senate-paving-way-presidential-bid
Cornyn in 2020 will be tough, regardless of how many Californians move to Texas in the next 18 months.
Robert Francis was going to be the VP candidate regardless. I really wonder if his presence on the ticket guarantees a win in Texas for the Dems, however.
Completed my taxes last week. I had a refund from the fed’s for the first time in years. It was deposited in my bank account yesterday. My Alabama refund? Yeah, I don’t expect to see it any time soon.
I use TurboTax Premier. I found it on totalmarkdown.com this year for $29.99. Free federal filing and $19.99 fee to file state. I would just mail it, but electronic filing ensures it gets there. All my info from last year gets sucked in, and I can import most of the current year stuff. Well worth the money – especially for brokerage accounts.
Good price. I think I paid about $80.00 for my copy. I have to because I needed to get the product early to start planning before the end of the tax year. Several things I have to have correct to minimize the hit from the tax man. Moving some money around before the end of the year mitigates some of hit. All the tax changes required that I use the newest version instead of using the prior year version for planning.
And faster. I filed my taxes on a Sunday, money was in the pending ACH bucket at the CU by Wednesday. IRS put an effective date of that Friday. So 5 or 6 days to get a refund with electronic filing. Actual processing by the IRS was three days.
Yeah, it was. It seemed to good to be true. I said what the heck, I’ll give it a shot. I used my AMEX card since I’ve had the best luck with them with charging issues. Made the purchase and the download link was emailed to me within a minute. I did have to wait almost a month for the tax forms to be released. I was holding my breath until then. Once I was able to sync and download all the forms, all was good.