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David Rodeback's Blog

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Scattered Thoughts

A bit of free association, almost, on income taxes, people who don't back up their data, a new local wetland, strong-arm tactics in South America and American Fork, and words that hurt worse than sticks and stones.

In no particular order . . .

I finished my federal income tax return and sent it electronically at about 11:10 p.m. last night. (Thank you, TurboTax.) By 11:48 p.m. I was at the post office mailing my state return -- because you can't file electronically at the state Web site if you itemize deductions, and I'm too cheap to pay for a state tax software package.

I didn't do my taxes over the weekend because I spent about 30 hours rescuing data for an organization elsewhere in Utah, which, unbelievably, wasn't backing up its database. The data itself is worth far more than the hardware it runs on, and probably more than the building that houses the server. They got lucky; as of this morning the data loss is minor. Now they're spending some money to set up a proper backup system.

Speaking of work, there's a pothole in the parking lot of the office complex where I work in American Fork that is wide, deep, wet, and old enough that I'm afraid the Feds are about to declare it a protected wetland. Don't blame AF City for the pothole; it's a private parking lot.

Speaking of politics, I hear that in Venezuela the folks who signed a recall petition against their President Hugo Chavez are experiencing retaliation such as getting fired from their jobs, which is not something you want to happen in a Socialist paradise. See this Bloomberg report.

Not that we should point fingers. I'm also hearing that some of the 400 or so people who signed a petition against changing the zoning of a piece of land on the west side of American Fork from residential to commercial are being harassed by the party on the other side of the dispute. Apparently, the abuse is strictly verbal . . .

Speaking of which, whoever coined the adage, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," was a wild-eyed optimist with a happy childhood and an idyllic marriage. Often the words hurt worse and longer than the beating, according to some people I know who . . . know.

Copyright 2006 by David Rodeback.
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