Raincharm’s Weblog

Few items

Rey – still in Missoula, visiting friends. Probably hitting the road again tomorrow.
Seattle – inversion trapping fog and pollutants. Noticeably poor air quality, unless you can rise above.
Carl – a cold from a few weeks ago seems to have made a return.
Jay – suddenly too many well defined items to be completed at work.

I decided it would be a good day to clean out a closet (mine and Carls). So I told Carl of my plan, thinking I should not spring the idea on him in the evening when I got home. I would have very little chance of getting a joint project going with that approach. So, planning ahead, plant the seed. And I really was interested in a joint project, as that would help to motivate me and make it go quicker. So – best laid plans. I get home and Carl has already gone through his portion of the closet, so I will have to get myself up there, … by myself…

As in Investment Sales Cost Basis.
As in we tansferred some money from one Mutual Fund to an education account.
My head hurts.

I am trying to do the draft of our taxes before receiving all of the information from the appropriate sources. The FAFSA is due, and the easiest way to fill it out is to get your taxes filled out first. The FAFSA even references the correct lines on the tax form to use.

But, I don’t want to have to figure out the best Investment Cost Sales Basis to use for a mutual fund sale. Eespecially when they threaten to impact you for many years in the future. “Once you begin using one of these methods, you must continue to use if for every sale from this fund. You can only change it if you receive special permission from the IRS.”
AND the Mutual Fund will probably have already made the choice of Cost Basis

I think I should be able to figure out this sort of thing. I had to do it once before when some stocks were sold inadvertently (I still hate KeyBank for this), and had to go back through all of the stocks changes from the initial purchase, through splits, to the sale.

My choices are – go for the big analysis and hope I am right on choices, wait for the investment company to send out their forms and hope it is there, spend more money to get the “advanced” version of TurboTax, that will probably not tell me anything more …

WAIT. I think that will be my choice. FAFSA will just be getting a really draft version of numbers this year. And since the Canadian school doesn’t appear to want to provide any additional support, and the boy’s school doesn’t care anymore since he is gone, FAFSA is not the driving force in my life that it once was.

Taxes, gotta love ’em, have to pay ’em.
Baked potatoes – love ’em even more. Time for dinner.

We did a good job. Now it’s his turn.

Rey - Day 1 Seattle to Tennessee

Quality of the picture compliments of a 1970s – 80s Polaroid One Step, with film to be used by 08/05. We are not sure exactly what year, maybe 1984.

Carl & I are up in our room while Rey entertains friends on his last night in town for a while. We want to let them have their space, so we are upstairs. We actually have two (three if you count the bathroom) to choose from. Ashlan might be a little worried that we have so much time to spend in her room, but we have chosen to keep to our own room for the most part.
Dinner (of sorts) and Jeopardy so far.
Interesting evening ahead.

Packing has begun!
The end is in sight. Or is it a beginning?
Well it will be a change, for everyone.

A new, and exciting start.
Exciting as in planning a drive across the northern tier states in the middle of winter, when the temperatures are reaching record lows in places, and the snow continues to fall and blow. [No, I’m not in the least concerned.]
Exciting as in living in a new state, with new roommates (assuming a domicile is found), and starting a new job.

I am almost jealous. And I will definitely miss my crossword partner. And Carl will miss his sports conversationalist, one that can do more than nod and offer less than insightful remarks. But we will gain a new spot to put on the summer vacation plans. (More on vacation plans coming soon.)

Anyway, packing has begun in earnest. Laundry planned for tomorrow, and then the final push to fill those last boxes.

It was pointed out to me, by a certain son, that I had not posted since last Wednesday – and that it had momentarily confused the tyke.

I think he was actually trying to turn the tables on me for continuing to nag him to pack.
He has two more days to finish, and I still haven’t seen much of a start.
Of course, he has only been home one month, so perhaps he is feeling the packing done to get here from Montana is sufficient to take him from Seattle to Tennessee. Of course I would think he would want to at least get some school stuff out of the boxes first.

The last week was nothing to write home about, so I didn’t. Work, less weather, and a lot of crossword puzzles. Oh and I started our taxes,.

I have been considering the building’s general attitude over the last few years. One of the more interesting things it does is playing with the lights. Now for several years turning the lights on and off followed what most of us learned as small children. Find the switch, up in on, down is off. Except when there are multiple switches to operate a light – then the up/down thing is rather unpredictable. The building also has energy efficient lights that turn off if movement is not detected for a number of minutes. And we have some “switchkeeper” software that can be programmed to turn certain lights on and off on a timer. Apparently the switchkeeper does more than just this, which we use for parking lot lights. Hidden power.

Now back to the last few years and the lights.  There are two floors in the building, and each main area has a bank of light switches. Most people would assume that each bank would operate the lights in relatively near proximity. That is exactly how it worked for several years. But more recently the north first floor switch bank has been able to turn lights on the second floor on and off. The second floor folks can still use their switches to change decisions made donwstairs, but they do not get to do anything that changes the first floor lights.

Since most people work the same hours, give or take 30 minutes, it was not really noticed. But when the first floor folks put up their Christmas tree and added lights, they decided to turn off the lights and see how it looked. Of course the second floor was plunged into darkness, at least momentarily. This was repeated several times, until it was communicated that they should remember their actions did affect more than just the first floor area. The more usual impact is when certain folks are upstairs working with a smattering of lights turned on in the morning, and suddenly all of the lights turn on, making it brighter than some want at that time of the AM.

Now this was not always the case, and none of us can really figure out what changed (we all squint at the electrician though). The building is, after all, only 12 years old. 

Then it struck me – it’s entering the teen years. The next 7 years should be a fun ride.

Continued …
Since locking out the customers yesterday didn’t really work, and did not last, the building has embarked (or rather continued) on a different tact to keep us at bay, or slow us down.

As the temperatures outside have risen some, the temperature inside is dropping. The HVAC did not respond to turning the breaker on and off, and provided an error message that in-house personnel could not correct. Counselors are again called. [As soon as the call went out, it appeared that a little heat might be forthcoming …]

Coats and sweaters, and space heaters, are allowing us to continue.

Only now the lights are flickering …

So, I heard more than one person say that heading back to work on the Monday after the holidays was a real drag.
Some take it harder than others.
Our office building decided to take matters into its own hands, and locked the exterior doors.

This was discovered shortly thereafter, I assume when a customer tried to get into the building. [Us worker bees have alternate means, like badges and keys, but the average customer does not.] Taking control, of a sort, back from the building we taped the crash bar open, preventing the building from holding the door closed.

It took calling in the outside counselors to convince the building that it was OK, and that the customers sometimes brought us money that we used to keep it warm in the winter.

At the risk of being repetitive –
We took down our Christmas Tree today.
I planted it in one of our remaining front yard snow banks, which was a medium sized pile surrounded by a sea of green grass.  Ashlan left around 3:30. It was just starting to snow lightly.

By tonight, it is looking more like a Christmas tree – again. A flocked tree.

January 4, 2009