Author: cosmo

Ahh, ’tis the season to start on taxes. Since payday is today, I’m researching the changes in IRS rules regarding withholdings and tax rates. Congress still doesn’t have its act together, so some of the numbers haven’t even been decided yet. Thanks, guys.

In my research I came across a site that explains how to calculate employee withholdings, and I had to laugh at this part of the page:

Yeah, right. Taxes are so easy! I remember the days when I was sixteen working at a grocery store and could fill out a 1040EZ form. Since then, things have only become more complicated…

Obscure unless you used a computer in 1990.

We were the Magnificent Seven. Me, Dirk, Aron, Morgan, Bech, Mat, and Derek. Best of friends in high school, we spent every weekend together and kept in touch after we went our separate ways to college, then careers and families. This year, for the first time since the early 1990’s, all seven of us were back in the St. Charles area. Well, technically all six of them were, and when I heard about it I decided to buy a plane ticket just to fly back for a few days and see everyone again.

We hooked up for some pizza and then went to Derek’s house for long hours of talking, laughing, playing poker, and reminiscing about the old times. The jokes and stories were all still funny, even if they were 20+ years old.

Derek is taking the picture, which is why he isn’t shown. Also, Bech’s iPhone camera is a piece of junk.

Yeah, it’s hard to find friends like these. Thanks, guys, and hopefully we won’t wait twenty years to do it again.

Today’s happy news comes from our health care provider, who wrote to tell us our premiums are going up by 25% over last year. This comes after a 45% increase in 2011. Amazing.

We still haven’t used a penny of our health insurance. Once again I find myself wondering whether we should even have health care for our family…

Another Christmas at Casa del Schroeder…

Alex is excited to open an Intel I5 processor. Wow!

But wait, it’s not really a chip. It’s a harmonica! Yep, all of us got harmonicas this Christmas.

Zack’s excited to get a “real” pocketknife. In this case it’s a Swiss one, with all the trimmings including a scissors and one of those detachable toothpicks that you always lose within the first week.

Kyra is thrilled with a new digital camera from grandma and grandpa. Just what she wanted.

Laralee tests her new hair brush. Wow, silky smooth.

Alex uses the hair brush as well, but he pretty much looks like a dork with a bad haircut.

After the presents have all been opened, Kyra and I try out our new harmonicas. The only song included with the instruments was “When the Saints Go Marching in”. We sounded like a couple of drunk monkeys with respiration problems. Obviously we’ll need practice if we’re going to get to Carnegie Hall.

While Laralee tested hers, I realized that I needed to label mine because no one wants to share a harmonica. They get full of spit.

All in all, it was a fun day and a great end to the year. Merry Christmas.

This year’s Christmas card involved afro wigs for the whole family. Ahh, the wonders of Amazon. We put them on, adjusted them for maximum realism, and sat on the couch while Hannah snapped a few pictures for us.

I admit the photo was, in fact, doctored a bit: I changed the background from our living room wall to a nice blue splotchy thing that makes it look more like a professional studio shot. Something you’d get at Sears, perhaps.

The back of the card featured our usual collage of photos from the year. Many moons ago, I’d write a big letter with lots of stories, but over time I realized that people don’t generally want to read that stuff. They want a few pictures and something that will look nice above their fireplace. We aim to please.

I must say the afros turned out splendidly. Many people told us it was our best Christmas card ever. Of course that means we’ve set the bar so high it’s going to be tough to top it next year. But we’re already working on our plans for 2013…

Laralee is world-famous now… she’s on Google.

Well, maybe not world-famous. But if you happen to do a Google Maps search for “Glenarbor Way, Longmont CO” you’ll see her driving our white van away from our friend Megan’s house.

Zing continues to grow, which means we continue to post openings for PHP developers. Today’s award for Most Useless Candidate goes to the guy who wrote this in his cover letter:

Why? WHY?!!!

Cool.

As of yesterday, the mainline Linux kernel will no longer support 386-class CPU’s. Here’s the commit note from the kernel source tree:

What’s funny is in early 1991, I actually had an Intel 80386 DX-33 processor in my computer. It was the successor to my trusty Apple IIgs, which was a great machine but ended up being problematic at college. For a little over $2,000 I bought what was known at the time as an “IBM PC”. It had the screaming fast 33Mhz processor with an amazing 4MB of system memory. Sweet!

I remember upgrading my 386 processor to an incredible 486 chip about two years later. I bought the CPU from my friend Chad for a bargain price of $450. I think I may have also upgraded my memory to 8MB for a few hundred dollars more. Then my computer was really humming along.

Of course I’m writing this on a computer that has a quad-core processor roughly 100 times faster with 4,000 times more memory. Ahh, progress.