The Recession Must Be Over

I found a notice from the city hung on our front door knob this morning. They're planning on installing sidewalks on both sides of the main road past our house.

The road, when originally built, was two lanes in each direction with a large median separating oncoming traffic. The lane widths, however and in keeping with the typical cheap design of the entire town by the original developers*, were too narrow, although technically legal (the best kind of legal) which meant cars traveling in the same direction, if one tried to overtake the other, would literally come within inches of each other in the process. And this was before SUVs. Forget about trucks.

In the case of our road, a decision was made** to make the next-over parallel through road into the major thoroughfare and to remove a lane in each direction from our now-secondary street. The remaining lane was widened and the leftover paved right-of-way was turned into bike lanes.

Now they're going to put in sidewalks, although the few people I see out walking around use the bike lanes without any conflict from the (just as few) bicyclists. Still, considering the amount of rain we've had recently and the soggy condition of the ground, a hard surface to walk on further removed from traffic might be a good idea.

In fact, the major problem I see is the continuing rain. We had a couple of glorious sunny, low humidity days right at the equinox. Since then it has been continuous overcast and downpour without sight of the sun. The ground is mush and our swale is a fully qualified moat. Any digging the road crew does is going to have to be between the swale and the road and is still going to be all mud. I can't imagine any concrete they pour is ever going to set properly before mid-winter.

In any event, it will keep the city workers busy and our driveway doesn't open on to that street. Also, I think the palm on the corner is far enough back (our side of the swale/moat) to not be affected by the construction. So have at it!

*Many of the major roads have since been widened but the bridges over the canals, being much more expensive to upgrade, are still the original width and can cause quite the adrenaline rush when multiple vehicles attempt to use them at the same time.

**This happened when the powers finally admitted the entire city's transportation infrastructure was completely inadequate for the population and bulldozed a limited access crosstown boulevard clear through the city about a 1/4 mile south of us. The next street over got the full intersection and traffic signal, we got a westbound only entrance/exit and no light.

In Which I Respond to the Bureaucracy

I have received, collated and sent off to the State of Utah, with my attached explanation of why I do not owe any taxes to the State of Utah, the income records I requested from my former employer.

I will now sit back and expect to hear nothing from the State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Division regarding the information I have just sent them. On the assumption that, at least when dealing with government tax authorities, no news is good news, this silence will be a welcome thing.

Best wishes to them and may our paths never cross again.

Know Your Market

Facebook doesn't know I have not been in Utah for some time now, and I am fine with that. There are a lot of things I prefer Facebook not know. But what that means is the random ads appearing on the right side of my page are often, when they are not national or Internet-based, still geared to Utah. (And while I suppose it is nice to know a couple of my friends claim to "like" Walmart, that is not sufficient reason for me to ever set foot in there.)

A few days ago an ad appeared for a local (Utah) mortuary.

Irrelevant aside: "Mortuary," the preferred term of art in Utah, always struck me as being exceptionally cold and clinical, perhaps because I hail originally from New England where we had funeral homes and funeral parlors, phraseology going back to before the Civil War when it was customary to set up the casket for viewing in the parlor at home. Professional funeral homes generally didn't appear until after the war when the  practice of embalming (originally becoming more widely used in order to be able to transport soldiers' remains long distances from the battlefield to home) gained acceptance.

Anyway, aside from the fact I have no need for, or interest in, their services their pitch otherwise seemed exceedingly well-placed.

They were offering a seminar on their plans and options, to be held at the local Golden Corral. I simply can't imagine better demographics than a herd of retirees loading up on all-you-can eat cholesterol. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some business right there before the evening was over.

I hope they appreciate their marketing guy's genius.

Bureaucracy Blues

A couple of months ago I received from the State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Department a very polite letter claiming they had no information regarding an old state income tax filing of mine and suggesting that I probably owed them money because, hey, they had no evidence that I didn't and, by the way, they had destroyed all the old documents going back including from the year they were now interested in.

Unfortunately, because half my paperwork was left behind when I moved to Florida, I also had no evidence that I didn't. And I don't.

I contacted my former employer back in Utah and, after some searching around, they were kind enough* to send a copy of my W2 from the relevant year with which I was able to cobble together an ersatz return I hoped would complete the records held by the state that they could then destroy since they were beyond the official "keep until" date. As long as they made themselves happy first.

Unfortunately, I never noticed (because I didn't think such a thing was even possible) the replacement W2 the old employer sent me, although having the right year on it, had the (substantially different) income numbers from the previous year. How is that possible? They swear they simply pulled it from my file**.

The State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Department has now contacted me a second time to inform me that the numbers I submitted with my ersatz return don't even come close to the numbers on my Federal return. They want to adjust the numbers up to match, which is reasonable. And they're still being extraordinarily polite.

Unfortunately, the Federal return doesn't show the amount of tax withheld by the state and adjusting the income numbers up without also adjusting the state withholding will result in a very large (and not at all reasonable) tax liability for me.

I have now requested my former employer to send me copies of all my W2s so I can figure out what happened and how to build an argument acceptable to the State of Utah, Tax Commission, Audit Division. Politely, of course.

*Technically, they're legally obligated to provide it but they were very nice about it all considering it's not really their problem.
** O.K., now it is at least partially their problem.

Civic Calories

I voted yesterday in our city's non-partisan open primary for mayor and one council seat. It was a pathetic turnout, only 8%--seriously 8%--bothered to turn out. I think more than that write in to the newspaper every week to complain about the mayor and city council; they just won't get off their lazy butts to actually do anything about it.

One of the advantages, as I see it, to participating in a low-turnout election is that, proportionately, my vote carries more weight than it does in the general election (when people do show up to vote on the candidates already selected for them in the primary). Even so, my candidate for mayor came in second behind the incumbent although my choice for council member did win (the right to run in November).

The other advantage to a low-turnout election is that, since the polling place is usually stocked with edible goodies as a little reward to voters, the poll watchers still had mounded plates full of cookies, doughnuts and brownies when I came in a half hour before closing time. They insisted I take large quantities with me when I left. I obliged.

Free snacks are always a good thing as they go but the cookies at the hospital blood center are objectively better. And since I am scheduled for a platelet donation tomorrow . . ..

I Am Legion

I have lived most of my life under the assumption, based on anecdotal evidence, that I am, in fact, only one of an indeterminate number of identical clones, although I like to flatter myself by thinking I am the original template and all the others merely copies.

My awareness of this situation began shortly after I went off to college. On my first trip home, Mom reported that she'd seen me in the local supermarket three weeks earlier and, wondering why I was AWOL from school, had approached to within six feet before realizing whoever it was was not me. Six feet! My own Mother! It happened again a couple of years later when she almost stopped to pick "me" up hitchhiking along the highway before remembering I was over 500 miles away. (I do hope that clone eventually got to wherever he was supposed to be.)

There were a number of times, when I had my game company, when I was mistaken for the owner of another game company and I do have to admit, at the time, the resemblance was uncanny.

I have been accosted on the street more than once by friends of my clones, calling out to me in their names, and inquiring as to the latest news. I have invariably both disappointed and fascinated them.

It happened again today. A woman with a gaggle of young children coming down the hallway in the library tried to shepherd them aside to make room for me and as we passed she called out, "Hello!" and then to the kids said, "That's Mister So-and-so." I was so startled I turned the corner before realizing her greeting had been addressed to me and when I turned around again she and the flock had moved on.

I hope, when she finally sees the "real" Mister So-and-so, he has the chance to explain why he was so rude as to ignore her today.

I wonder how many of me there really are?

That Time of Year

Well, we're finally recovered (mostly) from our Labor Day bacchanal.

My brother managed to get the lawn mowed and the bunting up along the fence by the path to the front door but the rain threatened and although it never did pour like it has every other day for the last two weeks, we wimped out and ate indoors.

I barbecued way too many ribs on the assumption my brother's new girl friend would be joining us which she didn't because she had apparently already made a commitment to her own kids' picnic (which was just as well because we didn't have enough corn on the cob, otherwise) so he and I ended up with basically a rack and a half each and, although we had left overs of the chips and dip and beans and potato salad and Cole slaw, we killed those ribs. (I suspect there may have been some Valium in the sauce because my brother collapsed and slept for six straight hours right afterward.)

So now Summer is unofficially over and Rainy Season is almost over and mango season is definitely over although its going to be next mango season before we manage to eat up all this year's harvest. What's next? Oh, look!

Catalogs.