Friday

TGIF.

I think everybody has a better story than I do today.

I'm off for cocktails.

Be careful out there.

Thursday

Short again today.

I find myself juggling files all day and come 6:30 at night, I'm not sure if I got anything done. These next 10 day will be lots of fun.

Interesting coaching moves at Iowa and Iowa State for their respective wrestling programs. Iowa fired a guy who has won 2 or 3 NCAA chapionships as their coach, but nothing lately, and Iowa State "retired" their guy and immediately promoted assistant coach Cael Sanderson, he of the perfect college record and the Olympic gold medal. Word is that Iowa State was afraid that they would lose Sanderson to Iowa just like they did with Dan Gable 30 odd years ago. The new AD at Iowa State is certainly not afraid to pull the strings.

Mary and Charlie's sorority made the New York Times' Wednesday crossword this week. The clue was, "Some sorority girls", six letters, and I had the beginning "t", so it was kind of a gimme.

I met this morning with an older gentleman client whose return I have been doing for 20 years or so. His wife passed away 3-4 years ago and he has had his share of health problems as well. But he's still pretty sharp and has several regular weekly things that he does. He was griping this morning that the retiree group/club in his Illinois QC town changed their schedule this year and did not do a Caribbean cruise this Winter and scheduled instead a Summer cruise in the Greek Islands. Not only did that keep him away from a Winter trip to warm weather, but it upped the ante with the airfare to Europe. He likes cruises because it allows him to unpack on the road only once. He had told me the unpacking thing a year or two ago and I find that an interesting adaptation to travel. It is interesting watching these people age and deal with their ever-changing realities.

Are all my stories that boring?

So I'll try to meet with more colorful clients tomorrow. Be careful out there.

Wednesday

Mid-week. Lots on the table.

I snuck out and got an short ride in over lunch. Somewhere in the 15 mile range on the bike path. I wouldn't call it a great workout, but not bad for the middle of tax season.

I walked out of coffee this morning when Roy sat down and proceeded to open a Sudoku puzzle book. I took offense that he would take himself out of general conversation by puzzling during coffee. Needless to say, I created quite a stir. In retrospect, I probably over-reacted, but it really hit me the wrong way. I value the coffee hour and I took Roy's action as a bit of disrespect of the occasion. Not that we have any rules or anything.

I spoke with him later in the day and made nice. Tomorrow is another day.

Phil called today to say that the bathroom building at the top of Mt. Rose is literally covered with snow...you can't see a building there! There will definitely be snow in the high country when we get there in July for the wedding.

I spoke with a client today who has regular conversations with the investment banking company where Mary will be working this summer. He had very good things to say about them. Interestingly, his association with them arose from the REVCO, Inc bankruptcy.

Thanks for reading. Be careful out there.

Tuesday

Another day at the salt mines. I'm a little winded and think I will take the day off. Katie had a nice comment about her current life. That can be the blog for today.

Be careful out there.

Monday

Yucky day here today. Cold and rainy. Makes me wish that I had thrown down some grass seed on the part of my yard that I raked yesterday. But there will be another day soon for that task.

Mondays this time of the year are just awful at work. Many people have many requests. I'm glad that I don't have anymore individual tax clients than I do. Bill and Gary deal with higher volume and have even more people out looking for a quick turn-around on things right now.

In some respects, my tax consulting business is a little like Grandpa H's dairy farm. The cows provided a means of family support, but it wasn't the kind of work that any of us kids wanted to follow for a career. It was just too hard, dirty and unending. The professional tax business can be similarly described. I don't think I would encourage my kids to follow my path. But the business has been successful and has enabled our family to live a good life.

The investments business of Criterium does have an intellectual appeal that gets beyond some of the drudgery of tax compliance. There's a dark side. The stress remains, but the upside of Criterium is something beyond just getting a bunch of tax returns done on time.

I have also often compared the tax business to dentistry. For the most part, people really don't like to go to the dentist, but they do so because the alternatives aren't usually acceptable. Going to your tax preparer is almost the same thing. Again, if people could avoid their tax appointment, they would gladly do about anything else (except maybe go to the dentist). But those same people fear the IRS more than they do the preparer, so they swallow the bitter pill and come to me to take their lower dose of medicine as opposed to death by IRS.

Glad to hear from Charlie.

So, a busy week ahead for me. Entries this week may be brief. Visiting authors are welcome.

Be careful out there.

Sunday

I'm getting at this a little late today so it won't be a long entry.

Busy day for me. Among other things, I got in my first bike ride of the year. Yea! Did around 18 or 19 miles on the bike path. Its never great out there on a Sunday afternoon because of traffic, but the weather was right and it felt good.

And I got some work done around the house, including some hard raking of what passes for my front yard. With warm weather here by next weekend, I need to get that next treatment of grass seed and the crabgrass preventer applied or I'll have to look at weeds again this summer.

Looks like the UConn and Villanova folks can go home. Congrats to all who picked Florida getting to the Final Four. In the office pool, I actually have LSU winning it all. For anyone keeping score, count all those Number 1 seeds getting to the finals.

There was a very interesting column in the QC paper this morning written by an Augustana English professor comparing the derivation of the terms crusader and jihad. The gist of it was that the colloquial usage of "crusader" generally is in describing a noble effort to defend what is right and good, while "jihad" is a term associated with terrorists and car bombs. This is how we normally process those terms. In the Muslim world, the meanings of those words is almost exactly the opposite. Now don't get me wrong. I think the Muslim zealots are nuts. And they and the Oriental cultures are centuries behind the West with regard to individual freedoms. But we are not going to be able to impose our cultural doctrines on them through a military action.

I find it difficult to reconcile these issues in my own mind. Mostly, I want to say, "If you don't want to save yourselves from self-annihilation, let me take my stuff and go home." The concern then is the resulting safety zone to plan and execute more 9-11 type acts of terrorism. I go back to the problem of these 3rd World countries being unable to reconcile their interests in maintaining the old ways while also sitting at the table of the modern world economy and demanding equal economic rights.

On a lighter side, Susan had her nannying experience this weekend and has re-committed to the single life. We did a little bar-b-que lunch for her and the kids today at Mom's. She was in need of some adult contact.

Also on the lighter side,Mom found some old boxes of mine in the attic and there are some gems in there. Pictures, from our years in Chicago (and before), some of my college papers, and some copies of The Pink Sheet from Korea!! I'll be going through these treasures in the future and there will definitely be some things to share.

Busy week for me ahead. Typical stuff for the last 3 weeks of tax season.

Everyone be careful out there.

Saturday

Hey to all. Pretty quiet out there this week.

Nice early Spring day here today. High in the upper 40's. I've spent most of the day inside at the computer. Its that time of the year.

I don't think my picks, in any of the pools, are worth the paper that they are written on.

Roy took me to lunch at Crow today in order to give the needle to our friend Jimmy (who is a broker with Smith Barney) by wearing our new Criterium Financial hats. Jimmy is notoriously thin-skinned and Roy likes to yank his chain for the entertainment value. It worked. Actually, Jimmy had already called yesterday to call me "Hatman" for giving out hats earlier this week to a couple more of our mutual friends (who all have accounts with Jimmy). It really doesn't take much to entertain us.

I am asked occasionally about what I would do if I had the financial freedom to make any choice. It is not an easy question to answer. Preferably, I would do something with little or no stress. In my current position, I have the stress of any small business to have enough good clients in order to make enough money to make the business operationally comfortable and to provide a sufficent personal income. Beyond that, I have the stresses that come with providing financial planning services and advice. You can make mistakes. The client can fire you. The IRS can make your life miserable. Investments that you recommended can go bad. Employees can make errors that you have to make right for the client.

Excuse me while I slit my wrists.

If the dollars were there, I would probably find a small house on a cul-de-sac in Bettendorf. I have no interest in moving far away. My friends are here. But I would like a quieter place in a little nicer neighborhood. I would get up early like I do now and do coffee and the papers. Then catch up on the internet news and email. Work out. Do the crossword. Write the blog. Lunch. Dinner. I would definitely cook more often, particularly in the summer when I could grill out. Plan some one or two day trips to ride or go to some games.

As I sit and think about this and write it down, I don't think I'll have a problem retiring. I can absolutely fill my days with stuff I like to do. I just have to get through the next 3873 days (or thereabouts) with enough dinero, health and sanity to carry out the plan!

So, I hope all is well with all the readers. Be careful out there.

Friday.

No blog today. Plans for watching the games tonight.

I did see in the DM Register today that the Iowa U Business College powers-that-be yanked the sponsorship of the guys doing the text messaging deal that I wrote about yesterday. Like that deal should have made it through an initial approval process, regardless of the supposed intent.

Be careful out there tonight.

Thursday

Hey to all.

This will be another fairly short entry. Games are back on.

For all those interested, the Criterium Financial hats are in! And they're cool.

There were a couple of stories in the DM Register this AM about text messaging businesses. The one in Iowa City was basically a student alert for drink specials at the bars. It is run by a couple of business students who have some support from the Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory that is housed in the Pappajohn building. Mary? I know IU students need to get more info on cheap, easy alcohol access.

The other operation is in DM and has a somewhat broader business purpose although it sounds like it's customers are also bar related. They use text messaging and other mobile technology to advise customers about events and to do other advertising. I guess that at some point we will all have wireless devices for all business and entertainment uses. Star Trek is here.

There was also a story in one of today's papers about minimalist living concepts. I'm not out there advocating that everyone has to eat off of paper plates (and re-use the ones that really don't get dirty!), but the world does get a bit obsessed with style. We all conform to the facts at hand when our conveniences are rendered useless. Think power outage. Or being standed in the sticks when your car breaks down. How many chick flicks have that scenario as a starting point? It also becomes a bit of a way of life for the aging. I don't consider myself a minimalist, but I don't need a lot. Which is good.

So be careful out there. Good luck to the college girls (including the grad student). And the artist.

Wednesday

Not much to add tonight. Tired.

Was caught in a waiting room at a client's briefly today and picked up the closest magazine which happened to be a Women's Something and just leafed through a few pages. I read one relatively brief 2 page story written by a man about the reality of male conversations in a locker room. His premise was that naked men in a locker room can converse about a wide range of topics from sports, to politics, to general life things in a way that women generally do not. I don't think he was on to anything new. I've said for a long time that the Mars and Venus thing is real, so get used to it.

The thought that occurred to me was that here was a guy writing for a national publ;ication, and I assume getting paid for it, about a topic that was only unique in the angle from which he chose to deliver the thought. Yet another example of how my writing interest has spent a lifetime on the shelf while others with no more talent have made their way to some level of publishing success. I think the same thing everytime I read the Wednesday human interest column in USA Today. My Starbucks group has at least as much material.

Then you have the mental giants writing and broadcasting about the NCAA tournament. Actually, those cretins are only worried about generating enough passion in their audience to augment their ratings. What they say or write has no other purpose. Billy Packer has a long line of peabrains behind him. Notice, that I put him at the front of the line.

My buddy Pete says the Alford is staying at Iowa. His son on the team there has been told as much. That means one of two things. Indiana doesn't want him. Or it is too expensive for him to leave. There's a $300K longevity clause that kicks in in June. If the Indiana information is wrong, and they do call, he's gone.

All for tonight. Be careful out there.

Tuesday

Welcome to Tuesday, and the first day of Spring.

ND's bball season ended last night with another last second loss, this one to Michigan in the NIT. Not the ND was a great team this year, but they lost every close game, and not by bad coaching or stupidness, just bad carma and improbable shots. The last one was an off-balance, fall-away trey with two guys in his face with .5 seconds left in the second OT. I never saw the team give in, but I do think that they became somewhat resigned to the Fates always being on the other team this year.

Iowa State got the drop on Iowa today by getting the bball coach from UNI. He will win in Ames and will run a clean program.

I consolidated a couple of the piles on my floor this AM, and if I do the same chore tomorrow, I'll regain control. I just can't keep enough balls in the air anymore. I forget.

Enjoyed Kate's comment yesterday. We spent a lot of time in that Coralville McDonalds at Exit 242. Did you point out my favorite tree to the tagalongs?

I was in the car from 5:30 - 6:00 this evening coming back from a client meeting near Sterling and tuned into the NBC Nightly News which a local FM radio station broadcasts. Lots of talk today about the President's news conference and his comments on how long that troops may be in Iraq. I don't like where things stand anymore than most, and I do think that this administration cockily ignored hundreds of years of ethnic warfare/hatred in overestimating the ability of the US military to oversee the establishment of a modern democracy. The various sects don't want democracy. They want the other sects killed and the West incenerated. There's a story on the internet today about an Afgan Muslim who said he was a Christian convert and he is being tried in court for this offense. With the death penalty one of the possible outcomes. And we're going to change these people into butter-fly ballot voters?

Anyway, NBC ran a segment at the end of the newscast about whether the media promotes an anti-war, anti-Administration sentiment by primarily reporting on the deaths, bombings and other terrorists' activities. The Administration and The Right have a cross on their shoulder about this perceived bias. Duh. The media resents the insinuation that they have a bias. After all, they know about ethics. Its the politicians who have the agenda. If the media thinks they are balanced, they have a lot of one-way mirrors in their dressing rooms. But NBC felt that they needed to run something on the debate about media fairness, to show their fairness, I guess. So who but the open-minded (sic) hen Andrea Mitchell do they trot out to sneer her way through 45 seconds of border-line tripe.

Not that I have anything against good old (and I mean OLD) Andrea.

There. I feel better.

Good luck on stuff. Be careful out there.

Monday

The start of another week. As expected, the pace of play here picked up a couple of notches today. Most clients get just a little more interested in their stuff as the tax deadlines approach. This is good because they tend to be more responsive to information requests, but sometimes they get a little over-anxious for an immediate answer. Over the years though, I've managed to mostly retain only those customers who can keep a lid on their anxieties. But there's lots to do in the next few weeks.

In all the basketball hoopla this past week, I neglected to keep up with NASCAR. They got rained out Sunday and ran the Atlanta race today. Only 20K of the original 80K from Sunday showed up to watch. Kasey Kahne took the checkered flag in a Dodge. He looks like he might be 14 years old.

Today is Mother's birthday. She would have been 98. As an adult, I always had to call Martha to keep track of Mother and Daddy's birthdays and their anniversary. They all occurred in March and April, but I could never keep straight which was which. I still have to consult a calendar, although I think I have Outlook hard-wired at this point.

Speaking of remembering things, I admit to being 100% male with the requisite defective memory gene. I'm pretty good with the girls' birthdays, and a couple of sibling birthdays, but after that, I'm pretty hopeless. (In an interesting piece of psychology, it did come out in a client tax return interview that I do remember my high school girlfriend's birthday. What's with that?) Anniversary's? Fagitaboutit! If I don't put a sticky note on the dash, I'll forget what I went to the grocery for.

Women's games are on tonight. For the Trivial Pursuit affectionados in the crowd, name the major college gym where the benches are at the ends of the court. Answer is below.

For the not-so-faint of heart, there were two 50+ age male runners in the LA marathon who literally didn't make it to the finish line. You might say they were finished out on the course. I have learned in these last few years that my body talks to me occasionally and tells me to take a break. I do. Not that a heart attack is caused by over-exertion, but there are times that backing off for health reasons is ok. I mean, its not like I'm getting paid to do any of that fitness stuff. Moderation is ok in drink, exercise and politics.

My clean desk is now producing a by-product that might be call piles-on-the-floor. I need a better system. I gather things up each night and set the stuff on the floor next to my desk. Then I have to go through the pile the next day and pull out the stuff that really needs to get looked at that day. The remainder goes back to the floor. I've now got 3 little (ok, not so little) piles that are all mixed up and I have lost mental contact of some of the "I'll get back to you on that" pieces of paper. I need to spend a couple hours this week and get things prioritized.

Good luck to all on your own (vanderbilt) daily things. Be careful out there.

Sunday

Well, a very successful St. Patrick's Day weekend for the 4000 Days clan. That is, discounting the status of everyone's NCAA brackets.

FFF on Saturday night at my place was a big success. We watched the NCAA games, grilled supper, did some Trivial Pursuit, and even shot a little HORSE (actually, PIG) in the driveway. The girls enjoy each other's company, although the best results are often during these short visits when there's not enough time for little things to get under anyone's skin.

We tried to make some summer plans, but the only definite thing that came out was the Thursday night (and possibly Friday night) of the Kansas City wedding. Chicago will have to wait until Mary has got a clear picture of her schedule. St. Louis will be a long shot.

My next two-three weeks will be busy. April 15th gets here real quick as I have lots of responsibilities to attend to on a daily basis.

Good luck to the undergrads and the student teacher this week. Be careful out there.

Saturday

No blog today. FFF tonight at my place with the whole fam, plus Kate's two tagalongs. Great to have us all together. These are the best of days.

Beautiful day here. Lots of bball on the tube. PV plays for the state big school title tonight in DM.

Be careful out there.

Friday

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tough day for the Hawkeyes...and UNI. The worst of it is that with Indiana winning yesterday, and Alford losing, the Hoosiers may not be as anxious to extend the offer.

Susan and I had a very so-so time at the Figge last night. The speaker was not all that interesting and she couldn't close up the discussion.

Kate and Matt get in tonight. A little FFF this evening and more of the same tomorrow. Should be fun. Lots of games to watch.

I had trouble getting on the blog this AM. I don't know if they were doing maintenance on their servers or what. I had made no unusual additions or deletions to the site. Computer voodoo.

So all for today. Be careful out there.

Thursday

No blog today. Too many games.

Susan and I are going to a presentation at the Figge tonight. Kate and Matt come in tomorrow. And lots of games to keep up with.

The first Thursday and Friday of the tournament are great days. Enjoy.

Be careful out there.

Wednesday

Busy day here. The Ides of March. "Yond Cassius has that lean and hungry look. He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."

Sorry to have made the literary faux pax yesterday. I'll try to be more attentive in the future. Glad you guys have the eye for grammar.

Final warning. All picks for all pools need to be in by 10AM CST tomorrow morning.

PV boys are playing this evening in Des Moines in a quarterfinal game.

The report from St. Paul was that classes went pretty good. That's good news.

A pretty ugly report on CBS sportsline.com about some shady game-scheduling and money transfers that included Iowa State among others. Apparently, some guy with connections to an LA junior college got in the business of being a clearinghouse to schedule non-conference games and made arrangements with schools that just happened to have players from this one JC. The hosting school would pay his company a fee to arrange a game (or games) which would include the appearance fee for the visiting school. The appearance fee actually paid by the clearing house to the visiting school was often considerably less than the fee paid to the clearinghouse by the hosting school. The clearinghouse dealt with only a handfull of schools, all of whom had a connection of some sort to the JC. It doesn't look real good from afar.

At dinner with the girls the other night at the Olive Garden, we got into a discussion about red versus white wine. I have reached the point where I very rarely will drink white wine. When I started drinking wines several years ago, I was into exclusively white wines, particularly the dry chardonnays and pinot griggios. I really can't remember what led to the change, but I think that it was just being out to dinner with friends at an Italian place and the guy ordered a red wine that tasted great. From there, it was a case of being out a few more times and ordering similar red wines and then buying comparables for home. In business, most occasions that serve wine will empasisze the reds. The acquired taste of red wine makes the taste of white wine a little blah. How's that for snootiness?

Roy and I joke about the "fine wine crowd" of buddies who now buy wine by the case and argue about the legs, bouquet and other characteristics of good wine. From the peanut gallery, we might ask,"Don't it taste good?" Let's hear it for a nice ice-cold beer!

There was a time in the Air Force in Dover that I dated a gal who was into what I now know was cheap, white wine. I drank it for the summer that we dated, but once she was gone, so was the wine!

All for tonight. Thanks for reading. Be careful out there

Tuesday...for real!

So this is the new place and we'll see how it works for a while. Seems easy enough.

Din-din last night with the girls at the Olive Garden was really nice, although it ended on a little bit of a bummer note when Mary's KC plans came officially unravelled. The girls have all had to deal with parents whose Spring Break plans have always been spelled I-R-S and not B-E-A-C-H. Sorry. In any event, the undergrads will have to make do in the QCA this week.

Picks are due for the NCAA tournament in the very near future. Things actually get started tonight with the play-in game in Dayton.

I was thinking today that the NCAA could resolve many of the "who gets in" debates by adding another 6-8 play-in games. I know that there will always be a debate about those last couple of spots, whether its the 63-64 slots or the 71-72 positions. But given history, the gripes have never extended beyond 3-4 teams who felt they got hosed in the selection process.

Another alternative that exists is to simply let everybody in and expand the tournament to another weekend. That's what happens in state high school tournaments. This would further diminish the relevance of the conference tournaments, and would create academic hardships for all the "student-athletes". Mostly, the money from the conference tournaments would be redirected away from the conferences and toward the NCAA. Put that way, I'm surprised the NCAA hasn't pursued the idea.

This site has a spell check feature, but I just tried to use it and either I'm a great speller, or the thing is asleep at the switch.

Since Kate has had experience with the site, I may want her to help with pictures and other refinements this weekend when she's in town. The other girls are welcome to add their expertises to any element that could improve the blog on this site.

My running has been non-existent the last several days. The weather has been a little uncooperative, but I just haven't been as determined as I should be. The leg is probably ok for the old man "shuffle" so I will get back out there this week, I hope.

When I did the "Pink Sheet" daily publication for my staff at the Korean air base in the early mid-70's, I would pull a daily saying from Bartlett's Book of Quotations. Not going to do that here, but the blog only becomes interesting if the discussion goes beyond the daily trivia of life and gets to thoughts and points worth pondering. I bet priests and ministers have books that they go to for pre-packaged homilies for all those Sundays in "ordinary time". (I doubt if the priests at St. John's have even heard of such things.) So readers here will have to put up with a little dose of country boy philosophy along with a healthy dose of sports commentary. So just for yucks, here's some isolated words of wisdom. You name the sport.

1. Hang it in his ear!
2. Bump and run. (multiple answers!)
3. Tear drop.
4. Splash and go.
5. Green. White. Checkers.

Pretty easy. Add you're own!

Be careful out there.

Tuesday No. 2 Entry

Mary says this works. So we will try it.

Tuesday

This is an effort to do 4000 Days on a less-cluttered site. Let's see how it works. More later.