Taxes Away!

Last year we filed an extension and struggled to file before the extended deadline. This year was better and we mailed it off yesterday.

Yes, mailed.

It seems that if you are too charitable you can't file electronically. Specifically, if you need more than two copies of form 8283, Noncash Charitable Contribution, then you must mail in your taxes forms.

The problem is that each time you give things away, whether it's gifts for the "Angel Tree" at XMAS time, or canned goods to the food bank, or used clothing and household goods to the many organizations that leave plastic bags on your door, you get a receipt and take up one line of form 8283. And each form 8283 can only record five (5) such donations. We went to four forms 8283 this year.

Next year we will give things away in fewer chunks.

Slip Slidin' Away

Got some new bowling shoes this weekend. I'm gonna try 'em out on Monday in league play.

My old shoes were getting really old. The leather uppers looked like the bottom of a dry lake bed and the leather sliding surface wasn't always sliding. Last Monday, in particular, was very tough. I couldn't get a decent slide through the whole first game and it was throwing me off balance and putting extra stress on my back. After the first game I bought some "Ultra Glide" at the pro shop and that helped a lot, but the damage was done. It took me most of the second game to recover, which is my excuse for another poor game.

Anyway, the old shoes were starting to make noise when I walked, they looked terrible, and the sliding surface was very worn. I don't know how old they are, but I think they're at least 8 years old. So I guess spending $25 on new ones isn't too extravagant.

EBay Through 6-Year Old Eyes

I returned from bowling last night to the news that my 6-year old son, 2 of 2, had fallen in love with an item on EBay. So in love, to be specific, that he was willing to spend his own money on it.

How do you explain EBay to a 6-year old? In the past, purchases have been governed by how much money you have and by priorities. For example, I have $10, would I rather have this crap or that crap?

From time to time we also have to deal with limited product availability. But that is, at least, a fairly discreet issue: it's in stock or it's not. If it's in stock you get it at the advertised price. If not, you don't get it.

But with EBay we introduce competition. It's in stock, but two or more people want it. How much is it? Wrong question. How much are you willing to pay?

Last night the object of desire was $19.01 and the auction was set to end at 8:17 this morning. This morning the new high bid was $22.50. He still wanted it, even at the higher price. So we bid $23 only to discover that the previous high bidder had an even higher maximum price.

Aside #Going once, twice, SOLD: A few years ago you had to manually bid up the price. But now it is automatic. You can still do it manually, or you can enter your the max you're willing to pay and let the system automatically increase your bid in response to competing bids.

We played the manual bid process a couple of times until the new high bid was $25. 2 of 2 still wanted the item and decided that $30 was the most he could afford (plus $8 shipping was all he had in his piggy bank). So we entered a bid at $30.

CONGRATULATIONS! You have the high bid at $27.00

So now we were on pins and needles for the remaining 9 minutes and 30 seconds of the auction. Would anyone else bid? Would the person we so recently beat enter a new maximum bid amount?

We must have refreshed that screen a dozen times in those few minutes. But as with all things, it came to an end. And in the end we had "won" the auction.

I hope we haven't unleashed a monster.

W was right?

Following the release of video of the Presidential briefing the day before Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast, one can make the case that Bush was correct when he made his famous statement, "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

The video shows that Brownie had a solid understanding of the situation and expressed his concerns to the President. You get the distinct sense that Brownie understood that there were neither all the right types nor all the right amounts of resources in place to handle highly likely events. I imagine that, had he had the authority, he would have directed a much different response.

So Brownie was doing the best job that could be done given his authority. Maybe we were too quick to denigrate his prior experience as head of the Doogie Howser Fan Club, or whatever it was. And maybe his current gig doing disaster planning consulting isn't the farce that we've been lead to believe.