Tuesday

The new Home Page photo was taken at lunch today with my NSSP from a picnic table on the levee near downtown Bettendorf. It really is amazing the quality of pictures that can come from a feature that is really just a "throw-in" for cell phones. Chicago style "dogs" from the Riverfront Deli. Suite!

It's definitely a Top Ten day here in River City. Cool on the early bike ride, but perfect by late morning. In another lifetime, a return to the office wouldn't have even come under consideration for the afternoon.

After several years of delay, I went through the process this AM to receive a "military" exemption/credit for the real estate taxes on my house. This is just a little "bone" that the state of Iowa has thrown the way of honorably discharged veterans. You need to provide a Form DD 214 to the local assessor to receive the credit. The DD 214 being the paperwork documenting a soldier's separation from service. I have long since lost my DD 214, signed in September 1974, so I had to write the Office of Records to obtain a true copy. Which I did last week, on-line, and then timely received the form by snail mail yesterday. (A surprising result on it's own. My bet is that that process is 100% automated.)

It took three re-routing's within the local courthouse to get to the right office, and the girl there had me go to a fourth office to properly "record" the document that she needed to then authorize the tax credit. It took something along the line of two hours from the time I left work, to the time I got back to my desk, which doesn't include the 30 minutes that it took to go on-line for the DD 214.

The credit, that I will begin receiving on the bill due in September 2011 should be around $65 per year. Whoopee. I'm not saying that government bureaucracy doesn't work, but the analysis of marginal benefits/opportunity costs on this one isn't pretty.

More later.

BCOT