Wedneday Special

Hurricane Sandy.  Arlington, Virginia.

In honor of those who take BCOT to the highest level.

OOH-RAH!

Wednesday

I've got a busy day in front of me.  Not sure when I'll get back to this, so I'm just giving a little recognition to the fam in NYC.  Let's make them Big Apple-ers of the Day!  Good luck on getting back to some semblance of normal.

Maybe more later this evening.

BCOT

Tuesday

With daybreak in NYC, the nets are showing visuals of the damage in Manhattan and other NY/NJ areas.  This is a shot that pulled from the Internet showing a "street in Manhattan".  In addition to getting power back on, what are they going to do to get rid of the water?  (From Squawk Box CNBC reports, 3 and 3.1 must still currently be without power.)  Another day of working from home for 3 and 3.1.  4 worked a full night shift and they have her in a hotel close to the broadcast booth.

They're talking about another "high tide" within the hour which will keep up the pressure on shorelines. So do tides get higher with full moons?

Weather reports in the QCA are including the edges of Sandy in our forecasts.  The clouds were noted even yesterday.   What a system!

I'm giving 2 Daughter of the Day status.  She's got some exciting employment news that will get publicized in the next week or two.  Definitely a move "up".  Its local.  With a very highly regarded organization.  4kDays is very proud of her.

My pal Roy had an appointment yesterday morning at a business that he owns down in Fairfield, Iowa, and he asked me to go with him to the meeting. (Turns out the operator was basically looking for more money.  Roy had me along to give a critical eye to the proposals.)  Since my schedule was clear, I agreed.  We took a small prop engine plane with seating for the pilot, co-pilot and four passengers.  (There was a single pilot and Roy and I on the plane.)  It took maybe 25 minutes of flying time to get to the Fairfield airport.

(I remember my first flight in a small plane when I would have been in college.  An Ottumwa businessman (father of a high school classmate) was a pilot and asked me to go up with him on a leisure ride.  I did so, and was very uncomfortable!  Small airplanes have always made me nervous.)

The business in Fairfield was/is an open quarry, not unlike this one.  After the meeting, the General Manager took us for a ride around the grounds in his Ford F-250 crew-cab (with me sitting in the back).  The up and down.  The bumps over the quarry roads.  I was glad to get back to the plane.  For a very bumpy ride home!  I was glad to get back to my desk for the afternoon and do some IRS work.

I have the sense that the campaigns may have welcomed this break for the hurricane.  I know the electorate is worn out.  (Mitt did have an appearance in Davenport yesterday, and Mrs. O was in the state as well.)  Unless there is some totally unexpected development, both sides are now just focused on getting their voters to the polls.  Usually, the last weekend before the election, all parties to the contest and those reporting on it have reached the point where what's done is done, let's take the vote.

I never gave recognition to the SF Giants for their sweep of the World Series.  This thing went mostly under-radar with the East Coast press corps giving it no play, and the weather and the election dominating most of the news.  The basic finding: good pitching shuts down good hitting.  Its always been the case.  And I still have almost no idea who plays for the Giants.  At least they don't use the DH.

The business news shows are really stretching to fill their time with the markets closed for another day.  I can't stand Jim Kramer on a regular day (I go to Bloomberg for Betty Liu...still on mute), but giving him a couple hours to just ramble is really punishing viewers.  The shows are now reduced to reporting how much of the Jersey Shore is gone, how many ConEd customers are without power, and how many flights have been cancelled to and from the NYC airports.

I'm hoping that air travel going South and West from here stays on schedule.  My weekend trip to San Antonio begins Thursday evening.

Hope life in The Big Apple is getting better.  Let us know.

BCOT

Monday

Out of time and energy tonight.  Will add an entry in early AM.

BCOT....especially those of you in NYC!!

Sunday

I had the best of intentions of getting a post up yesterday, and my afternoon just didn't turn out to be very productive.  I still have the goal of getting four entries per week.  This week will be better. 

So ND made a good statement last night.  I really expected the Sooners to use home field and take it to the Irish.  Ultimately, OU made a few too many mistakes, and the ND defense is the real deal.  Which means tickets for the remaining games will not be available at list price anywhere. 

Hat tip to the Clones for their win last night against Baylor.

2 and I watched the first half together on her new big screen.  Very nice.  We were civil adversaries.  We chose the fam's standard wine currency for our libation.

Sounds like Sandy is making waves for the fam in The Big Apple.  If they are shutting down all of the mass transit options, how do folks, 4 in particular, get to work from Brooklyn?  The overnight news show must go on (at Fox News).

There's been two recent moves in the constituency of the local accounting firm community that illustrate just how long-in-the-tooth I have become.  A two-man firm on the Illinois side that I have work with since the mid '80's has split so that the one older guy (but younger than me!) I know best could merge his book with another multi-partner local firm in anticipation of his eventual exit.

Now flying the USAF colors on Maplecrest.

Then in the paper this AM, there was an announcement about a small bookkeeping operation in Davenport (that has sent several good clients over to me) merging into another multi-partner CPA practice on the Iowa side.  The gal who owned the bookkeeping business always did a nice job on payroll and monthly write-up work, and never tried to get out of her element.  I usually got a call when one of her clients wanted to explore a little more tax-complicated investment or business opportunity.  Her husband has been mostly retired for several years, I think.  Again, an exit strategy move that will probably get her a few dollars, and a relatively neat path out the door.  Hmmm.

Interesting that The Des Moines Register has endorsed Romney.  Not sure what that means.  But The Register is still a paper of some influence in Corn Country.  I think that The O may have sealed that deal when he tried to exert some muscle and limit the paper's use of their editorial board's interview with him.  The old axiom of "don't fight people who buy ink by the barrel" may not exactly apply in the Digital Age, but there's something like that in play in this situation.  It seems like there are a few more brave souls in the collective media who are taking in less of the koolade.

My comment here last week about the Iowa High School Athletic Association being too Kuum-bayah-ish for me was more than on-target.  A subsequent chat with my pal Ron yesterday confirmed a fact that I initially took to be a mis-print...but was not.  A team with a 1-8 record made the big-school play-offs in western Iowa.  Yeah, we qualified for the state tournament.

OK.  I've got some outside work to do.  Maybe more here later.

BCOT

Thursday....UPDATED

Almost 70 early this AM.  Then its supposed to be in the low 30's this time tomorrow.Its that time of year.  Actually, I've said that October is my favorite time of year, and that's mostly because of those cool, dry Fall days. 70 and humid at oh-dark-hundred isn't part of that profile.

As a National League fan, the Giants' win last night was a plus.  But I don't get how they can rough up a guy like Verlander that easily.  The guy throws smoke, and usually looks un-hittable.  The old adage that the guys in The Show can always hit the heater rings true again.

I see where the great minds at the University of North Carolina have elected to take the term "freshman" out of the campus vernacular.  Its an offensive term, of course.  How do we get passed the similarly offensive terms "female" and "woman"?  I mean, you can't have a masculine reference/syllable in a word that is supposed to describe the non-man gender.  I think the challenge for our linguistic experts could be unending.

The NBA has got into the act a little now with their decision to do away with the positions "center" and "forwards" in the league's All-Star balloting.  They now will be referred to as "front court" and "guards".  (If they want to use "front court", why not go all in and use "back court" as well?  But I digress.)  They cite Tim Duncan as the most obvious reason for this change.  Duncan has long been listed as a center, but has usually played more of a forward's game.  Whatever.  At least this change wasn't for PC reasons.  For a basketball guy, getting away from the numbers for the positions may not happen.  Just sayin'.

Speaking of political correctness, the Left has their undies knotted this AM in response to Sarah Palin's comment on Facebook of The O's "shuck n' jive" moves on the Libya mess.  Is there no colloquialism that can't be called racist against this President?  What if she used the phrase "rope-a-dope"?  Equally descriptive, I think, of the White House's effort to dodge any responsibility on the matter.  Does the fact that that art was perfected by Muhammad Ali, who happens to be Black, make it a racist term?

Oklahoma by 10?  Seems like a lot.  Is Norman that big of a home field advantage?  Hmmm.  The Sooners lose to K-State...at home...and K-State barely gets by the Clones in Ames.  But they did kill Texas.

Not that ND necessarily scares anyone from  an offensive standpoint.  As of today though, I'd take ND and the points.

The 2013 TdF route was announced yesterday.  Will there be any "clean" riders available?  They start out with a couple of stages on the island of Corsica.  Interesting.  The are also doing Le Alpe d'Huez twice in the same day with the finish at the top of the second time around.  Let's add some spice to the route. eh?  And they'll finish at night time on the Champs Elysees.  At this point, I'm having a hard time getting very excited about cycling.

Our local cycling club's annual dinner is next Friday (when I will be in San Antonio), and the scheduled guest speaker is Christian Vandevelde.  He's an American racer who has competed in Europe many years, and he was a teammate of Lance's for a few years.  He's one of the guys who rolled over on Armstrong to the USADA and is currently serving a 6 month ban from cycling.  I'll be interested to hear whether he in fact shows for this engagement, and if so, whether he comments on the scandal.  I'll be taking the Under on that commenting possibility.

OK.  All for now. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE....David Stern has announced his retirement as Commish of the NBA in early 2014.  They have already named the current #2 guy as his successor.  Stern has been widely regarded as a huge success for the NBA.  For what will be 30 years.  That's a career.  He tends to be a bit arrogant for me, but its hard to argue with his results.  If the new guy performs as well as Goodell has done in the switcheroo in the NFL, then the NBA will be fine in the post-Stern era.  Not that I really care that much about the NBA.

I'm doing this update in the waiting room as I get an oil change on the Buick.  I chose the dealership (the old Keady-Dawson place) close to the office after a good result here last time.  The second time wasn't much of a charm.  Two other filters to the basic oil change charge.  Like it must be in the DNA of guys in the oil change business. 

There's definitely some disconnect between Blogger on the laptop or desktop, and Blogger on the iPad.  The app that I originally downloaded to the iPad for Blogger seems to work only on original entries from the iPad, and editing an original entry made from the desktop on the iPad, like I'm doing here, is a bit schitzo.  (Another racist comment, I'm sure.)  And I've never been able to add a photo from the iPad.

The Over/Under on OU - ND is 48.  Hmmm.  ND won't score that much.  Can their D keep the Sooners in check?  If the number was 50, I'd take the Under.  I'll have to think about the bet on 48.

BCOT

Tuesday

The Cardinals had no answer to SF.  They couldn't hit a lick.  And they couldn't get anybody out.  I couldn't watch it after the 3rd inning.

And I'm not that big of a Bears fan.  (I see from the final score this AM that the second half wasn't much to watch anyway.)

But I had below-zero interest in the Presidential debate.  So I went to bed and did a crossword.

4 makes some good observations about early voting and the irrelevance of the on-going campaigns to these people.  Actually, there's not been a single person whom I have talked to or even had a brief exchange with while in line at the coffee shop who has said anything but that they will be happy when the election is over.  I suppose that the paid campaign staffs (of the losers, in particular) aren't anxious for it to end, but really, let's get on with life already!

I think most of the political operatives would say that the game is now reduced to getting out the vote.  With only two weeks to go, and all the carpet-bombing of ads run to date, there just can't be that many undecideds left.  Get your people to the polls.  Or, as in the case of Cook County, Vote Early, Vote Often...and that means the cats, dogs and the deceased as well.

I don't think that I said anything here last week when it was announced that Newsweek would cease it's print publication next year.  There was a time when I read that magazine with some regularity when it was available (not that I would actually buy a copy!).  Newsweek had merged with the online site The Daily Beast a few years ago, with mixed results, I guess.  These publications that try to walk the line between more serious topics and pop culture face an imposing task.  There are not only fewer people reading print issues, but there are also even fewer people as interested in news and other non-salacious reporting.  Sex sells.

I wonder how long Time will last?  We subscribe to a few weeklies here at the office; Barron's, Bloomberg/Businessweek, Investment News...and several monthly's with finance focuses.  But all of these print issues have on-line editions as well.  Its a matter of time.

I stopped reading USA Today this Summer and doubt if I'll ever return to the fold.  At lunch one day last week, I picked up a copy of that day's edition laying on the adjoining table and it was hardly worth the effort.  They've changed the format, there's less of it, and the content really offers little of distinction.  I'm guessing that it will eventually limit it's target market to the travel industry, being primarily available at hotels and airports.  I say that the Harvard Business School could make USA Today a case study on the birth, growth and decline of a business in the Age of Technology.

When I go through the check-out at Hy-Vee, the magazine racks are dominated by the pop culture publications with cover shots of the Kardashian's, DWTS, The Bachelorette or Kate/Pippa.  Reality TV has just never caught my eye, regardless of the brevity of clothing options on display.  I don't get it.  Sorry.

(Speaking of sex selling, I've been at least raised-eyebrows surprised to see small ad boxes on numerous websites with bikini-clad models not even remotely related to the subject of the ad.  No pretenses.  Here's a little skin.  Buy our super-duper counter tops!)

Tough day in the market.  Good news is at a premium.  Current earnings reports have been so-so, with forward earnings generally pulled back.  I think people and institutions are feeling a need to take some risk off the table for a while.  There may be some buying on the dips in the short term, but count me among da' Bears over the next six months, regardless of who wins the election.  Once there's some order established in the new Congress, and providing that the International geo-political climate remains below boiling, there could be some forward movement in the economy in the second quarter next year.

All for now.  Maybe more later.

BCOT

Sunday

The comment after Friday's entry from 4 was a reminder to the two of us of our visit last year to Lourdes when we were on our cycling trip in the South of France.  They've had some weather there lately.  Compare the pics.  The one with the people is from my camera; the one with the water was pulled from published accounts on the Internet this weekend.  Glad we missed the deluge!

Now I'm running in to Blogger problems with format.  When you do too many pictures to start an entry, the defaults in the program take over and you get what you get.

Very low-key weekend on Maplecrest.  After our Happy Hour at Bass Street in Moline on Friday night, I went to an alcohol-free regimen for the remainder of the weekend.  Bass Street has a 1/2-price bottles on Friday nights, and the bartenders there are old friends from Biaggi's.  So it was fun, but their wine is expensive, even at half price.  And while the Irish win was good to see, they played only so-so.  They'd better get their A-game together for next weekend's visit to Norman.  No comment on the no-show by the Hawks.

I had one of those dreams last night that was weird enough that I remembered portions of it, even now.  I was back in Ottumwa, with several family members of a current client group, and for some reason we were walking from a point in a Western neighborhood, toward our family's original home on McPherson Street.  And I was lost.  Since I never lived in town, and never spent any time in the McPherson Street area, I was just guessing my way.  There were railroad tracks to cross, a church that a priest guided me out of through a secret door, and a cemetery to get through.  Then I woke up.

While I have never had that exact dream before, I have had dreams where I have been searching for McPherson Street.  The cemetery and the railroad tracks may be recurring elements as well.  None of the dreams are scary, but I'm always looking for something or someplace...and not ever getting there.

I think that my dreams tend to be influenced by stress or possibly certain foods.  I'm a big believer in the proposition that stress is responsible for lots of health irregularities, both physical and mental.  Deadlines, difficult decisions, and the IRS are my biggest producers of stress at the office.  And eating late (close to bedtime) keeps the body working when it needs to rest.  Some food elements always talk to me (green peppers!), and I'll pick up that taste even when it is heavily buried in a sauce or casserole-type of dish.

I rarely have fantasy dreams.  No island paradises with nubile maidens.  No winning the TdF or The Masters.  No lottery.  No Ferrari.  I'm guessing that the non-excitement factor in my dreams is driven by the relative disinterest in these things when I'm awake.  If I could just keep the IRS out of my real life...

High School basketball state play-offs have every school participate.  It doesn't take long before the really bad teams are beaten and the the better squads are left to fight it out.  Traditionally, high school football has had a more limited state tournament.  Iowa has tweaked its football tournament this year by creating another class (they now have 5 or 6) and expanding the field for each class to 32 teams.  We now have 3-6 teams in the big school tournament this year.  My pal Ron thinks that it is possible  that a 2-7 team could make it some years.  Kumbayah                                 

Early voting starts this week here in Scott County.  I normally stop at the Bettendorf library over a lunch hour so that I don't run into the lines that tend to appear on Election Day.  2 says that she has already voted by absentee ballot.  How long will it be before we're able to just do it online?  "Mr. Scott, beam my vote to James Tiberius Kirk!"  I gotta believe that the technology is out there that would be able to police things adequately.  My guess is that the Left will be very wary of such a move though, as there would have to be a verification system, and verification is kind of a dirty word when it comes to the voting booth.    

All for now.  Thanks for reading.  Have a great week!

BCOT                                                                

Friday

One of my good friends spends way-too-much time on the Internet.  (Actually, he's not the only one to get caught in that "web".)  He sent out a link earlier this week that is a little scary for anyone thinking that they actually have a little privacy in their life.  Check out www.showmystreet.com.  Once you're there, type in your address, slowly, and be amazed.  You are not alone!

The Armstrong Effect is the gift that keeps on giving.  Rabobank, a long-time cycling team-sponsor from the Netherlands, has pulled the plug on it's participation in the sport, citing the Armstrong scandal as the tipping point.  Hmmm.  Sponsors come and go.  The cost-benefit ratio is always on the table.  But who can blame a company for this decision with the current cloud over the entire sport?  Corporately, it looks like a good choice to me.

I have found myself making a small effort to watch the TV show Person of Interest on Thursday nights.  I kinda of like the two primary characters (James Caviezel was the star of a fam hit, the remake of The Count of Monte Cristo), but I also like the camera work that shows many scenes from everyday NYC.  I especially like their frequent shots in Washington Square Park, where I have enjoyed time with 3, 3.1 and 4.

(One critique of the show this season: they have elected to continue a deep storyline on the bad-guys, and one very nasty girl, in the upper-level of a government-connected Black Ops group that wants control of "the machine".  That's just too confusing to me.  I'm not that interested.  Stick with the cute girls, lost kids and other characters that "the system" has screwed.  At one point, I liked The Mentalist, and then got lost and stopped watching when they kept going back to the Red John storyline.)

Today is the 25-year anniversary (can it be 25 years?) of Black Monday on Wall Street.  It was a 22% loss in one day of trading.  Truly devastating at the time.  But interestingly, the market closed up for the year.  People tend to forget that.

According to my Memory Wall in the basement on Maplecrest, this was the weekend that I visited The Big Apple last year.  Lots of great memories.  Including this night at Restorante Babbo where we were joined by MPP.  @srh4 heads out to NYC today to catch up with the crew.  Good luck on travel.

All for now.  Thanks for reading.  Make it a Good Friday.

BCOT

Wednesday

So I didn't get back here yesterday.  Curious.  But I picked up The W after work for a little exercise.  And then 2 came over once she was done at the museum.  And there was another bottle of that Black Stallion Cabernet.  And the ALCS game.  So there ya' go.

Glad to have 3 back in among the universe of active cell phone users.  Her recent experience proves that a person can get along without a cell phone, but it is inconvenient.  She's converting from Blackberry to the iPhone 5.  I'll be interested to hear her comparative observations on the two sets.

Another change in the Home Page pic.  I like this one taken by 1 last month as 1.01 and I had a few moments with the ducks and fishes near our Caribou Coffee shop in Woodbury before I took off for home.

The RCL was a no-show yesterday, which threw my routine off-center.  I'm assuming that my regular gal (who works Wednesday's) is back on duty, and that the substitute (who worked Tuesday's) is now off the payroll.  If there's a no-show today, I'm in serious do-do.

The hits just keep on coming for Lance.  Nike jumping ship and his resignation from his position at the Livestrong Foundation are the latest nails in his proverbial coffin.  I'm guessing that Nike felt the pressure of corporate citizenship, and that Lance just read the tea leaves on the Foundation's long-range strategic plan.  His current negatives weren't helping either organization.  Below radar is his best trajectory for now.  I suspect that there will be no ultimate winners on this tale.  It looks like we may be in for a segment of cycling eating its own until the media can move on to another cause celebre.


The Yankees are poised to get swept by Detroit in tonight's ALCS.  (They do have CC Sabathia on the hill tonight, and he is a load.)  They haven't been able to hit in the post-season.  Girardi has benched A-Rod ($30 million) again, as well as center fielder Granderson ($10 million).  Cano ($14 million) is 0-for-the-post-season. And Jeter ($15.7 million) is out awaiting surgery on his ankle.  That combined salary total exceeds the total team payroll for several lower tier teams.  And really, there are many players on the Yankees whom I have never heard of before looking at the line-ups here recently.  Its only money, eh?

I followed the debate on Twitter last night as I watched the game.  It helps my blood pressure to read the presentation rather than listen to either of the politicians (or the moderator).  From these reports, it sounds like the O recovered from his poor showing in Debate #1, but all I could gather was that 1)it was still Bush's fault, 2) let's raise taxes, and 3) Romney's against women, minorities and the aged.  Shock.  Has The O done anything to run on?  Does the Buck Stop at Hillary's? 

How many more days do we have to put up with this endless mud-slinging? On Wheel of Fortune, even Big Pharma has lost out on their commercial allocation.  The rate for ad time has to be through the roof.  One investment strategy would be to short the media companies for anything post-election.  Revenue turns South once the vote is over.

Maybe more later.  I need to go get The W.

BCOT

Tuesday

This one's a lay-up.  3 is Daughter of the Day!  Sounds like she is on the road in Vegas.  Hope it is a great day, Kiddo!  (I was looking for a non-wedding pic, and this was my first attempt.  I may try to get another one up later.  I have a few more shots on my laptop...or at least I can find them a bit easier.)

75 here today.  One of those windy Fall days.  Looks like rain for the rest of the week.

Iowa gets Penn State on Saturday. A 7PM game in IC.  With PSU a shadow of its former self, I question the value of a televised night game between these two teams.  I mean, how much good can happen on the egress from Kinnick by 60K after 10 o'clock at night?

I did fail to give recognition on Sunday to the Sooners for the big Oklahoma shellacking of Texas.  2 said she even felt a little sorry for UT.  Right.

No plans to watch the Presidential debate tonight.  Since the performance of things over the last four years has been so mediocre, all The O will do is try to paint Romney as a 1 Percenter with a plan to go back to "the policies that got us here in the first place."  And a Mediscare meanie.  An outsourcer and a man against women.  For 90 minutes.  Bring on NCIS reruns for PC.

My RCL is due in today (maybe still the Replacement RCL).  I picked-up a few things in anticipation of her work, as I usually do, and had to put away five jackets and leave two other light-weight pullovers on my hall tree.  How does one guy come up with that many articles of outer-clothing in a single week's worth of activity?  I ain't that fashion-conscious.  But there was rain one day, and W walks in the dark, and some TT training runs, and a couple of days below freezing.  And I don't have a closet at my entry-way.  Whatever.  Seems like a lot of coats for one person.

The Cardinal-Giants game last night offered another glimpse of the unwritten rules of baseball.  Before the game got out of hand, Matt Holliday of the Cards' took out the Giant second basement with a hard slide that looked a little too-much-so on the replay.  And the guy had to eventually leave the game.  Color commentator Tim McCarver mentioned at the start of the next inning that the umps had conferred between innings, possibly to plan their response when Holliday next hit.

As it turned out, the hitter in front of Holliday got a hit, and with no outs, the Giants played it straight and made no effort to retaliate against Holliday.  (I didn't watch the rest of the game, so I don't know if there was any action in the later innings on this issue.)  My guess is that if there were no runners on base, the Giants may have plunked Holliday with a pitch to his backside, just to deliver the proper response in the situation.  And if the pitch wasn't a head-shot, Holliday should of gone to first without a reaction.  That's the way the game is played.

(We'll see if the Giants pick a spot in a future game to even the score with Holliday.  It could even be next season.  Teams tend not to forget these things.  Kinda like NASCAR: you put me into the wall, you will get there too at some point in the future.)

I'll definitely get back here later today.

BCOT

Monday

 

Just a greeting to 3.  Happy Tax Birthday, Kiddo!

BCOT

Sunday

Hats off to the Hawks and the Irish for OT wins yesterday.  Both games could have gone the other way.  Always nice when your team wins those kind of games.

Not many days going by in the last couple of weeks without a supporting player in Lance's entourage coming "clean" with admissions of participation or abetting in the PED program with Postal or Discovery.  On Friday it was a female soigneur detailing her work with Postal in an article in the NYT.  I'm guessing that most of these folks feel like they have cover now with the USADA pronouncement.  Outing themselves probably won't be that big of news in the overall scheme of things, and they won't have to worry about the more aggressive accusers trying to leverage them in future litigation.  My position doesn't change.  Lance has never been a guy I would walk across the street to meet.

Put me on the side that says the NFL has gone a little too far with the "pink" campaign for October.  I'm all in favor of a modest recognition on everyone's uniform.  But the proliferation of pink gloves, shoes, towels, belts, arm bands and sideline headgear has become a bit much for the viewer.  Why not just make a contribution to a breast cancer organization rather than purchase all the pink extras?  Just an idea.

I had put "The Boys" pic up as the Home Page feature last week when I came across it while looking for something in my Sent mail, and commented to myself that it was one of my favorite casual pics of the year.  But enough is enough.  This photo from the night before The Boy's shot merits similar praise.

Happy Tax-Tax Birthday to 3.  The Encore?  Didn't see that one coming.

Just another day of overt pressure here on taxes.  Then the amended return process begins.  My work is never done.

Thanks for reading.  Have a good week.

BCOT

Saturday

Saturday, the 13th.  Glad that the calendar didn't throw a Friday the 13th into the mix this month.

I wasn't able to stay up to see it, and I wasn't hard-core enough to believe that they could mount another come-back, but the StL Cardinals managed to do it again last night and win the deciding game of their series with Washington.  Very cool  (at least for the Cardinal fans).  I was down at Geneva for dinner with friends, and watched the Cards go down 3-0 after the first three Washington hitters batted in the 1st inning.  Not a good sign.  When it was 6-0 in the fifth, I figured that it was over.  But not so, oh Ye of Little Faith.  Now on to the NLCS versus the Giants.  (Two of the better baseball venues in the country, eh?)

On the way home, my pal Ron's wife Jane (definitely a hard-core Cardinal fan!) wanted to listen to the game on the radio.  We quickly found that none of the stations that the car radio could pick up were carrying the game.  So I fired up the iPad (which I had brought along for general resource reasons) and searched for Cardinals' stations on the Listenin app that I had downloaded previously.  Interestingly, none of the regular Cardinal stations seemed to be broadcasting the game.  But the Google search got me to ESPN radio, and we picked up the feed clear-as-a-bell.  Hmmm.  So there seems to be some broadcast-rights thing going on with these post-season games.  And ESPN wants to make sure that listeners are hearing their commercials.  Another example of, it's always about the money!

Here's the full email that I received yesterday from 3 asking about a taxation point that arose in the VP debate on Thursday night:

blog fodder:

as an accountant and a small business owner - any clarification on this for the peanut gallery?


RYAN: "This one tax would actually tax about 53 percent of small-business income."

BIDEN: "Ninety-seven percent of the small businesses in America pay less — make less than $250,000."

THE FACTS: Both are correct, but incomplete, when sizing up the effect on small business of raising taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000, as Obama wants to do. Republicans say that would hit small-business owners who report business income on their individual income tax; Democrats say the overwhelming majority of small businesses would not be affected.

According to a 2010 report by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress, about 3 percent of people who report business income would face a tax increase under Obama's plan. That support's Biden's point.

The same report says those business owners account for about half of all business income. That supports Ryan.

My response, which is hardly news:

I'd guess that how people will want to interpret the correct answer here will depend on philosophy rather than math.  Actually, "political sentiment" captures the debatable point rather than philosophy.  The Democrats, generally, favor higher taxes on the wealthy, because 1) they think that the wealthy can afford it without adversely affecting their lifestyles, 2) they believe that "fair share" actually means that "0" is the right number for lots of folks, and 3) taxing the wealthy plays to their political base.

(Side bar:  the O Administration has struggled with the definition of  "wealthy", as in $200,000, or $250,000, or most recently from Biden the Wiz, $1,000,000.  (Kind of like their various  explanations for the recent Benghazi mess, but I digress.)  We do know that wealthy does not mean the Average Joe or Joette making $50K or less, has a couple of kids and is not getting ahead of the game.)

The Republicans, generally, want some course correction to get the Federal Government math to work better.  However you slice and dice the statistics, you find that a smaller group of folks pay for a larger relative portion of total expenditures.  Whether its 3% or 20%, "the wealthy" are carrying a bunch of water. 

I am on the side of the argument where Eating the Rich is not the answer.  Most of my clients fall into a wealthy category.  (Maybe I do too, although raising and educating four girls has put a serious dent on that math!)  Virtually all of these clients have a resentment against higher taxes to pay for entitlements, the bureaucracy system, and welfare programs that run un-checked deficits...and for which there are no plans to righten the Ship of State.

Trying to play the "Heartless Card" on the people who want fiscal restraint is the stuff of political campaigns.  Taxing the Rich may be a cry to rally the base, but to dis-incentivize the very people generating the government's revenue (through taxes) to pay the bills (government jobs and programs) is bad business, and is definitely bad for business.

So there ya' go, 3.

Maybe more later.

BCOT

Thursday

Still hanging in there with the IRS.  Lots yet to get done by end-of-business on Monday.

Looks like the USADA has hung Lance's dirty laundry all out there for the world to see. http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling/story/_/id/8486013/11-teammates-testified-case-lance-armstrong-usada-says  I don't have that much interest in the details.  If nothing else, it illustrates the commitment of a handful of bureaucrats to get to their point.  Not that I'm against the truth.  I've thought Lance was in the PED business all along.  My sleep patterns were not disturbed  by that knowledge.  I still think that the US DOJ guys made the better choice to walk away from the criminal case.   Who wins when you win that case?  Leave it to the high-minded civil attorneys to keep up the digging.  Whatever.

When I checked my on-line banking this AM, Wells Fargo required me to sign off on an updated agreement to continue to have access to my account.  I, of course, didn't read the attachment, but signed off anyway.  I'm sure that if WF screws up with my electronic information at some point in the future, it won't be their fault, or more likely, they have no liability because I acknowledged the risks.

I also received in the mail last week a notification of updated terms from a bank that I didn't recognize for a credit card number that I couldn't place.  Turns out it was for the bank that backs my GAP store card.  This notice is similar to the ones you get when you set up a new credit card and they send you the 4-6 page, fine-print disclosure on the do-and-don't's behind the credit card facility.  Does anyone actually read that stuff?  Right.  Lots of words to put it out there to make it clear (?) that you pay 1000% interest if you don't pay off your balance each month.  More lawyers at work.

Speaking of risks and data access, we had a situation with a client last week that illustrates the surprises that can come from out of no where.  The client's outside auditor (another local accounting firm) had one of their staff person's car vandalized, and the thief got away with a laptop computer.  A computer that had a boat load of client information stored on its hard drive.  Including spreadsheets of employee names, addresses and Social Security numbers!  Hmmm.  The computer had a security code, and there has been no breach to this point, but you know that there's a nerd out there who could break the security screen in a heartbeat.  Ultimately, we're just talking about more work for our attorney friends, eh?

Glad to have Patrick's comment on NASCAR.  That might be a 4000 Days first: someone actually had a reaction to one of my racin' observations! 

Also glad to have 2 back in the QCA.  She had good things to say about NYC.  Her favorite spot from this trip was the High Line area in the meat packing district.  I had spent some time there with 3, 3.1 (Herky at that pre-wedding time) and 4 on my visit there in May.  Kind of an art-y, New Wave area being redeveloped.  Very cool.

OK.  Now to those exciting tax files.  Make it a good day.

BCOT

Tuesday

Really not a lot new here.  Winnie and tax returns pretty well define me right now.

On our early walk at 0515 this morning, there was a group of 6-8 runners coming down the middle of Maplecrest with miner-lights on all their headgear.  Kind of surreal.  (This pic is only an example of night runners.)  I'm guessing that they are group-training for an event, maybe the NYC marathon on 11/6?  A person needs to be committed to get out on the road like that, in the dark.  Argentinian miner-like.

One of the thoughts that I had when I was on the course at the Twin Cities marathon last week was the story behind each runner's goal that day.  Unlike the normal weekend five or ten K races, a marathon generally requires a substantial plan to complete.  Training for most people is a several-months-long effort with sacrifice to themselves and their families.  You could see it in the faces of the runners, particularly in the last third of the race when the body was tired and the mind was working the doubt-side of the equation.  There was little conversation coming from anyone.  Just a grim determination on their faces to get to the 26.2 destination.

Those baseball divisional play-off games sure are hidden on the TV channels.  That must mean that Law and Order reruns are money.

Big crash on the last lap in the race on Sunday in NASCAR.  Caused by one of the most popular drivers, Tony "Smoke" Stewart.  Talladega is a high-banked "super" speedway where there is virtually no-braking, and with the pack of cars hurtling along, door-to-door, at 200+ mph.  Momentum and drafting are big considerations, and leading the pack on the last lap is not a good place to be.  Stewart was there, and tried to drop down to block a two or three car train that had the momentum and was coming forward on the inside lane.  He was late, and the carnage was massive.

All but a handful of cars got collected.  Really an economic disaster.  The equipment destroyed had to have been worth several hundred thousand dollars.  If a rookie had done that (or worse, Danica!) heads would have rolled.  Smoke will be given a "that's racin" pass.

Here's a final pic from the weekend.  Always a good shot when I can be with one of the girls after the completion of a good event,a fun trip or just a glass of wine on the driveway.

Thanks for reading.  Make it a good day.

BCOT

Sunday

Little suspense.  1 is Daughter of the Day!  She had a cool, but near-perfect day to run.  They do a nice job on this marathon, and it is really well-supported by the thousands of spectators.

I was able to catch her four times out on the course, and then met her at the finish.  Parking was a mess at the finish, and the car was almost a mile away from our meeting point.  And it took a while to get back to Woodbury.  But the race was a big success.  A Personal Record for 1, and she felt not so bad afterwards.  You da' girl, Kiddo!

So I blasted back to Maplecrest, and have The W as a house guest for another three nights.  Thanks to my pals Bill, Pete and my PN for pinch-sitting for my trip North. 

Big work week ahead of me.  But I'll jump on here as best I can when I need a break from the IRS.

Hey to the girls in NYC.

BCOT

Saturday AM

Throwing on a few lines this morning before getting a couple projects done here at the office and then departure for the Twin Cities.  Cold came in over night.  Not quite a hard frost, but close.  And I think that its supposed to be even cooler tonight.  I moved my ficus trees inside from my deck for the weekend. 

I didn't watch the game, but the replay makes the umps' call for the infield-fly-rule look dubious, at best.  The fans obviously didn't think much of it.  I doubt if MLB will uphold the Braves' protest.  But how do you call an automatic out on a fly to left field?  Even the "regular" officials make so-so calls, eh?  As a Cardinal fan, I don't have much empathy for ATL.

Given my baseball history, I find it borderline stunning how little I know about the teams, individual players, and basic facts in (and about) MLB.  I couldn't name one player on the Oakland A's.  I didn't know that the A's won their division.  I didn't recall that the Washington Nationals were a National League team.  Even right now, I'd have to look up on the Internet to confirm the teams in the divisional series that begin today.  Pathetic.

I've had the same information-deficit for the NBA and the NFL for many years due to a lack of interest.  But I kinda like baseball.  Aging is a terrible thing.

My entry in the History category from earlier this week seemed to garner a little more interest than some of my other on-going mental meanderings.  I'm not sure that that gives me much of an ego-boost for the exciting (or maybe not so much) life that I currently call Home. 

Reaching back into that archive, here is a pic of a comparable of my first car, a 1949 Pontiac.  I can't remember for certain, but I think that mine was a 4-door model like this one.  And certainly black in color.  And like this one, a bit frayed on the edges.  It had a "straight-8" motor (unlike the V-8's that became the norm), and a hydromatic automatic transmission. 

Given that I would have been driving this car in 1964 as a high school sophomore, do the math: I was driving a 15 year-old car!  That makes the BEATER a youngster in comparison!  Years later, Daddy told be that the Pontiac was a gas and oil hog.  Which probably explains why he traded for a later model Chrysler for my junior/senior years.

OK.  Maybe an update later from Harvest Path. 

BCOT

Thursday

Count me as among the readers who enjoyed Aunt Martha's Comment on her memories of school transportation.  Thank you for sharing.

I didn't watch the Presidential Debate last night.  I've reached the point where I even "mute" the commercial time on Wheel of Fortune as the political ads are just awful.  All this money, time and energy being expended for those precious few middle-percenters called "The Undecided's".  Think of all the teachers who could be trained and hired if the politicians could only spend money in support of public service endeavors.  Hmmm.  Not a bad idea.

I paid zero attention to the new MLB play-off format during the season.  The way things were prior to this year was that each league had three divisional winners and one Wild Card team.  So essentially, you had a Quarterfinal Round, the Semifinals, and then The World Series.  Usually when a major sports league (Or the NCAA) add another Round, money plays a role.  I'm not sure that a single, win-or-go-home play-in game between the top two non-Division winners in each League will be a windfall for anyone.  Do they really just want teams to have to keep playing hard until the 162nd game?

2 is headed into NYC tomorrow for an extended weekend with 3, 3.1 and 4.  That means that The Winniferous comes over to Maplecrest until next Wednesday.  With @srh4 going to a college reunion in Decorah on Saturday night, and me doing a lightning strike to Harvest Path Saturday evening so that I can be the primary support team for 1's marathon on Sunday AM, you could say that there are lots of moving parts in the fam these days.  (My PN and other friends will be on W Duty while I'm on the road.)

ND has one of it's "money" games this weekend at Soldier Field in Chicago.  Miami.  Curious opponent.  The series was discontinued years ago when it had become too contentious.  I guess enough of the protagonists have moved on.  And the money thing makes everything more palatable. But those special uni's look like the losing entry in a Community College design class.  Ugh.

Good luck to RevKev and crew, as well as Tahoe Phil, on travel to the Aloha State.  Rough duty.

Make it a Good Friday.

BCOT

Wednesday...Comment from Aunt Martha

Below is the complete, unedited Comment that Aunt Martha sent to me on my Yahoo mail account last night, as Blogger found it too large for the system.

========================================

Charlie,

Enjoyed your History posting and your pictures from your recent Ottumwa visit.

Tried to post the following from my family history story but the blog wouldn't let me because it was too long. Some of it is from before your time. (I was always told it was 6 miles to town)

All is well here.

Schools


Attending parochial schools for our family involved some complicated logistics, at which our father was a master.

I had started kindergarten at St. Marys in 1942, so I finished the school year there after we moved to the farm in March of 1943. staying during the week with the Boblenz grandparents who lived on the North Side at that time, about half way between 402 and St. Marys.

The first year we lived on the farm, my sister Margaret and I attended St. Patricks Elementary School on the South Side.. At the end of the year approached, my parents knew that we wouldn't be able to buy gas or tires to drive the six miles to town to school, so they convinced the nuns to let me make my First Communion early. (I wouldn't be the required age seven until June.)

The next year Margaret and I attended the Horan Country School, a one room school about a mile from our house and close to the Horan grandparents. We rode to school with the teacher because she drove by our house on the way to school. . She was the one who told us about Roosevelt dying. (At that time we didn’t have electricity so had no radio to get the news.)

The Horan school was typical of what you see in movies about the pioneers attending school. There was no electricity; kerosene lamps were used. We had a water pail with a communal dipper. Heat was from a pot belly stove and there were boys and girls restrooms outside. There were less than twenty students for grades kindergarten through grade 8 and I was the only one in the second grade.

The folks weren’t very happy with the quality of education there, so the next year they found a way to get us to town to school at St. Patricks in spite of the gas rationing. Over the years our transportation to St. Pats varied.

We rode with the mail contractor who transported mail from Bloomfield to Ottumwa. We rode in the back of the panel truck with the mail. A Black girl about our age from Bloomfield was also a passenger and St Pat’s student.

Part of the time we rode with Grandpa Horan who lived at his place east of ours at that time. He was still on the Board of Supervisors. He had a Chevy coupe and listened to a soap opera on the radio and we were not supposed to tell that we also listened to One Man’s Family with him because Mother considered it inappropriate for young children.

We also rode with a St Patrick parishioner who lived south of us on highway 63. He worked at the Western Union office. His daughter worked at the public library and that may have been the connection for my job there in later years.
For a time we rode the Missouri Transit Bus for a grand total of 45 cents for Margaret, Phil and I. (Can’t remember how the costs of the other rides were taken care of.) We flagged down the bus and rode it to Vine Street across from the John Deere plant and then walked the rest of the way. (The only colder walk was on the Iowa State campus as you made the turn north at the Botany Building to get to the Home Ec building)

When I got old enough to get a school-driving permit, Daddy taught me to drive, bought the famous Packard funeral home limo that had been used for pallbearers. The seats in the middle folded up and we put the cream cans there and delivered the cream to the dairy, and ourselves to school. This didn’t last long because the farming operation changed when we began selling Grade A milk and it was picked up on the farm. One of his favorite stories was the time when he was teaching me to drive that we got stopped by the cops on the Ottumwa viaduct because I kept switching lanes.
One of the interesting things about St. Pat’s to me as an educator is that it was a laboratory school for the teacher education program at Ottumwa Heights College. I think the quality of the education was probably good. The nuns were selective about what was taught and discipline was tight. We did school plays, I remember being Lucy in one about Fatima. Don’t remember any PE or sports.

I believe that religious education is the only valid reason for sending children to a private school. That conclusion comes after 12 years of being educated in them and over forty years involvement in public schools. However, comparing today’s parochial and public schools with those of 40-50 years ago is like comparing apples and oranges; since they’ve both changed so much.
========================================

Tuesday

I haven't really done "History" for a while.

That trip to Ottumwa last week triggered many memories.  Interesting to the extent that my visits have been so infrequent in the last dozen years or so that the emotional side of the memories was largely tempered.  Maybe that's just another sign of aging.  Few of the places that I visited carried the same names except the public buildings and the churches.  The streets had the same names.

My life through eighth grade was spent mostly on the Southside of Ottumwa.  (The Des Moines River runs through town, and while the river tracks generally from the northwest to the southeast, the townspeople were considered either Southsiders or Northsiders.)  St. Patrick's parish and the South Ottumwa Little League fields were where I spent most of my time when away from the farm.  The Church and school dominated my non-farm life from September through May, and the Summer was baseball season.

We always said that it was six miles from the farm to town.  On the "old highway", there were several curves and hills that made the trip more of an adventure.  And I don't use that term gratuitously.  The road was narrow, the shoulders weren't much, and there was always lots of traffic. And like most highways back then, there were rounded "curbs" on each side of the road, especially wherever there was a grade, to channel water.  Mother and Tahoe Phil each rolled cars on the last hill into town within a week of one another one Winter, and a picture made the Ottumwa Courier for their troubles!

The "new highway" was completed when I was a junior or senior in high school.  This road was decidedly modern and took out many of the curves in its predecessor.  The curbs were gone, and passing lanes were even added on the longer hills.  I remember a night out with friends walking/hanging out on the new pavement just South of town before the road was open to vehicles.  (A non-alcoholic event!) I don't recall Mother and Daddy ever saying that the trip was less than six miles, although it had to be with the direct route.

St. Patrick's Grade School was a busy place for us.  Mother was a cook for the school for many years when "hot lunch" was the regular deal.  That was my first exposure to "dining hall" food.  Goulash was one of my favorites.  Lots of potato dishes.  (Michelle O would have a cow!)  Milk was sold for a nickle or dime by the school (white or chocolate) in the paper, half-pint containers that you see now in the dairy cases for creamers. 

By the late grades, Mother wasn't cooking anymore, and I graduated to the standard Brown Bag Lunch of bologna sandwiches (PB&J on Friday's!), chips and Hostess Twinkies.  Why wouldn't I?  By eighth grade, we were sneaking over to a little "lunch" place called Mamie's (I think) just to the South of the school for a pop and a Snickers.  For a quarter!  This pic from last week shows Mamie's still there (see the school roof in the background), but converted to a (very small) residence!

The church and school held many evening and weekend functions.  And I must have had to wait for rides after school quite a bit as I became buds with the school janitor (who became a big fan of mine when I played basketball a few years later).  Mass was always on Sunday morning.  Our Sunday meal was always fried chicken with mashed potatoes.  (Mother told us after we were grown that Daddy was a bit of a picky eater!  But I'm guessing that finances came into play in that equation as well.)  Some Sunday's in the Summer, we would stop at a gas station on Madison Avenue on the way home for a 30-40 pound block of ice that would be used as the "ice" ingredient to make ice cream in an old hand-churner.

(On school days, we often got to stop at a Dairy Queen-like shop also on Madison Avenue on the way out of town for a cone.  I clearly remember a 5 cent cone!)

In those grade school days, Ottumwa still had it's own "sale" barn on the Southside where livestock was bought and sold.  The sale was usually on Saturday morning, and I remember going there with Daddy.  He would always sell male (bull) calves born to the dairy cows, and would occasionally sell grown cows who had either become too old or too ornery for milking.  The sale barn had a lunch counter and I'm guessing that I got a small treat while Daddy sat with other farmers for a cup of coffee.

Not far from the sale barn was Shumaker's Feed Store.  This was another frequent Saturday stop.  That was where Daddy bought feed supplements for the cows  like soybean oil meal, salt blocks and miscellaneous other farm supplies.  Think of Shumaker's as a period Farm and Fleet store with no "Fleet" department.

The Ottumwa National Little League fields were just  a couple hundred yards or so from the sale barn and Shumaker's.  I played there from age 8 to 12.  There would be a couple of games each week and at least one practice session.  I'm sure that the folks, as well as my older brother and sisters must have grown tired of getting me to the ball park for those Little League games.

Ottumwa had two other Little League leagues that played at other locations in town.  The American League played on the West side of the Southside, and the Midwest League played somewhere on the Northside.  Following MLB tradition at the time (I say with tongue in cheek) there was no inter-league play until the city tournament.  My team was the Olsen Sporting Goods Dodgers.  We were always pretty good, but I think we won the city championship only the year that I was 12.  And our National League All-Star teams never won more than 3-4 games in the tournament that leads to Williamsport.

(Ottumwa always had a lot of baseball.  I even played on a town team through college.  As the town re-developed in the '70's and '80's, new baseball diamonds were constructed in the city parks that were constructed in low lands on the Southside salvaged by big dikes from the Des Moines River.)

One other activity that took up some time and transportation was the Green Cornhuskers 4-H Club. These monthly meetings were usually held at a Township house a few miles from the farm. I'll add more on 4-H another time.

Really not sure how I got here tonight.  When I edit this tomorrow, maybe I'll figure that out.

BCOT