Author: cosmo

Look out, static rat!

I just sealed the envelopes and dropped them in the mailbox. My tax returns are officially on the way to the Gov.

Every year I just want to scream, Why is our tax code so complicated? I have to spend $50 for software each year because the rules are so complex that I literally need a computer to ask me all of the questions and fill in the numbers. And I have no idea– until I actually finish the paperwork– how much I’m going to owe each year. I read about corporations with tens of billions of dollars in profit each year, who pay no tax whatsoever. It’s so very frustrating.

Give me a flat tax any day, so I know exactly how much I’ll owe no matter how much I make or spend. Or even a straight sales tax, where everything I earn sits quietly in the bank until I actually use it to buy something.

If I was in charge…

SSH is pretty awesome.

I’m working at home today (of course) and I need to test some web pages that will be accessing a remote database server. For security reasons, that remote server only allows access from the office IP address. That means I can’t test any of this from home because the database will refuse my requests.

After a few minutes of thought, I set up an SSH tunnel between my house and the office. Now when I open the web page on my browser here, it’s actually sending the HTTP traffic to the server at the office, which routes it to a second server at the office, which connects to the remote database server to pull the information I need. From where I’m sitting, it’s completely transparent and the browser acts exactly as it would if I was sitting at the office.

Now that’s handy!

Yesterday was our 16th wedding anniversary. Wow. Time sure flies.

To celebrate, we didn’t really do anything. That’s the way we roll. But Kyra and her neighborhood friends Alex, Hannah, and Chaille spent about an hour in the evening chalking our driveway with a huge anniversary announcement (as well as a unicorn, a pig, some bubbles, and other unidentified art). It’s a little hard to read due to the geometry of the driveway, but for what it’s worth:

It was a cool idea and we appreciated it.

More to the point, I appreciate my wonderful wife. She’s the best thing that ever happened to a bum like me, and 16 years is only a good start on a long life together.

Laralee accidentally became a blonde a few days ago.

While visiting her mom and sister Cecilia in Idaho, somehow Cil managed to talk her into getting some highlights in her hair. They bought the goodies and went to work, but from what I understand (I wasn’t there) the result was pretty awful. The highlights were too bright– almost white– and a little too overwhelming. So they bought some more goodies, and undid the highlights by just coloring everything a uniform blond.

It’s been around ten years since she was a blonde, so this is a fun return to those days. In her heart she thinks of herself that way anyway.

Ahh, spring is here and the weather was a gorgeous 65 degrees and sunny. Perfect for a bit of ultimate at lunch. And it was the first day of the year when I could go barefoot again. I miss that in the winter, but the hard cold icy snowy concrete-like ground is pretty rough on bare feet for a few months.

Too bad I’m out of shape. I need to play more so I’m ready for summer league in June!

Last week Sarah came out to Colorado with her husband Grant. They have a timeshare up in Vail so they invited me to come up and join them. Although I couldn’t stay for the week, I managed to get up there on Monday night and spend the day with them skiing at Beaver Creek.

Bonus: Zvonko came out from New York City to visit as well. I haven’t seen him in, like, a decade. And it was pretty much like old times.

(Old times being 1994 or so, back at UMR.)

The weather was sunny and an astounding 50 degrees, making the skiing a little questionable. Okay, it was a lot questionable… the bottom was sort of like gliding through slushy soup. But it was all right, because we had an awesome time together.

To add to my pile of Google schwag, Rick sent me a backpack as thanks for some work I’d done for the company.

This backpack is hands-down the coolest backpack I’ve ever owned.

It’s built really well, including a nice carrying handle on top, sturdy loops for attaching things, straps to cinch different areas and keep them snug, and pockets. Pockets upon pockets! In some cases, the pockets themselves have pockets inside them. Everyone knows a good backpack is measured by the number of pockets it has. Awesome.

Zack built a birdhouse for one of his Cub Scout belt loops. Laralee was thrilled to help.

The other day, Laralee decided to head down to Savers (a thrift store) in Boulder. She wanted to find a new pair of jeans on the cheap.

Of course Kyra wanted to come along, because she knows that when Mom goes shopping, there’s a good chance she can sweet-talk her way into something as well. Since she wanted clothes, and since her room usually has a few stacks of clothes tucked in various corners, we made a deal with her. She could only get new clothes if she first got rid of some old ones. Eager for the opportunity, she ran upstairs and came down with a few loads of clothes that she’s willing to trade.

Who says teenage girls are big on clothes?