OK, obviously I'm hugely biased, but please indulge a Dolberry rant here. Last year, I payed roughly $10K in Federal income taxes. I feel like I get quite a few tangible benefits from this outlay, including but not limited to:
1) having the privilege in a country that does the right thing and provides health care and assistance to the elderly and others who cannot afford it (roughly 2K of my money)
2) getting to live in a country that is safe from outside interference & one that has the ability to promote better living conditions worldwide via an excellent military (roughly 2K of my money)
3) being part of an effort to do what I believe to be the moral obligation to provide financial assistance to the poor, elderly, and unemployed via Social Security ... and theoretically this assistance will be made available to me when I reach a certain age (roughly 2K of my money)
And then for $4,000 dollars I get everything else the Federal government does (in descending priority order): accurate weather forecasts and warnings, increasingly clean air to breathe, supporting local/State education efforts, safe roads and skies to travel, beautiful parks to visit, exploring space, supporting scientific research, assistance to disaster areas, keeping criminals off the street, etc., etc., etc.
There are not many things that Dolberry spends money on that return that sort of value:
We spent over $4,000 dollars on insurance (car, home, health) ... when we had no wrecks, fires, or major illnesses. This was a complete waste of money.
We donated roughly $4,000 dollars & while I feel very good about where we put that money, I'm not sure that money created more "good" than what our taxes did.
We spent about $7,000 dollars to educate APD. He's getting marginally smarter, so we'll call that a decent investment. When he becomes a successful golf course architect and builds us that house on the 17th green then I'll be feeling even better about that one.
We spent $129 dollars on Guitar Hero. Easily the best value-to-expense ratio for the year. I kicked Isaac Miconi's butt this weekend ... & almost kicked Gracie's ... until she narrowly avoided it at the last second ... w/ an extreme amount of luck.
We gave a ton of money (~ $9,500) to a bank to repay a loan to live in our house. Over the life of the loan we will pay for our house something like two times over in interest. I'm grateful to live in a house, but the interest we all pay on these things is ridiculous.
We spent roughly $4,000 on vacations. Wish we could spend more on this.
We spent about $1,000 dollars to keep our car running. Another $1,000 to keep hot water flowing out of our faucets. An outrageous amount of money to feed, shelter, & care for our dog (who i think returns the investment w/ how happy she gets when I come home). And I'm afraid to even guess at how much money I flat out wasted on temporary pleasures or some other foolishness.
I spent $14 for the new House of Heroes CD. You should too!
Yes, there are wasteful Federal government programs. No, I don't agree w/ everything the Federal government supports. Yes, we should do everything we can to make all levels of government as efficient as possible. The way to do that is to engage in honest, open discussions about how we spend our money. Vote for representatives who share your values and respect the rights of others to do the same. If you want to posture w/ tea bags and what not, that's fine. Maybe that can kickstart more dialogue. But incendiary dialogue about revolutions and secession, and whatnot exposes a certain lack or realism and shallowness ... if you ask me (which i don't think you did, so sorry for going on like that).
I respect the right of others to see this differently.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Dolberry in the town of beans
Well, it started a day later than expected. Got to the airport on Monday night for my 7:50 flight. But American canceled that flight and put me on a 6a flight the next morning. Then they canceled that one too. (I think AA is running some sort of Ponzi scheme now rather than an actual airline ... because they did offer me lifetime distributor rights to sell AA tickets in the E. Apex area ... so if anyone needs a flight ... let me know ...) I was about to punt on this whole trip when AA said they could reroute me thru NYC, but the people in front of me caused a stink and got on a Delta flight at the same time. The lingering bad smell must have caused the gate agent to make me the same offer.
Got to the conference only 45 minutes late after all AA's shenanigans and it was a good conference. I took copious notes, but I'll spare you blog readers that. Here's a picture from somewhere on Harvard's campus.
Because Marriott is running a double miles promotion, I stayed at a hotel 1.5 miles away from the conference. After some of those cold walks, I'm just glad they didn't have a triple miles thing in Worcester, or I'd still be out there no doubt. Here was the view from my hotel room.
There were lots of crew teams out in the Charles River in the morning. Seems like a weird thing. You have 8 rowers, 1 person who sits in the boat doing nothing apparently, one person who drives a motorized boat beside them, and one person on the motorboat w/ a megaphone yelling at the 8 rowers in the boat. So, to recap there's three cushy jobs and eight hard ones.
Yesterday, I walked over 6 miles, back & forth to Harvard (see above) and back & forth to Fenway Park (see below). You cross the Charles at the BU bridge & you get a really good view of downtown Boston.
As expected, Fenway was really cool. You come around a corner & then you see the back of the Monster and your heart skips a beat. You follow the mass of people in their Papelbon 58 shirts onto Yawkey Way, inhaling the swirling scents of hot dogs, sausage and pizza. The inside of the park is very clean and it sure doesn't look 97 years old.
The fans there are equally as impressive as the architecture. The Sox were trailing 6-1 in the 8th and not a person had left. They were on their feet when the Red Sox started to rally (YOUUUUUUUUUUK!), even before the tying run even got to the plate. They still expected to win even down 5 w/ 6 outs left. It didn't pan out that way. Scott Kazmir pitched a great game for the Rays ... shutting down the BoSox the same way we saw him shutdown the Reds last month in Sarasota. The Rays can beat you via small ball (hit & run and a safety squeeze in the same inning) and the long ball (Longoria and Pena both homered). Rays 7, Red Sox 2. They play a lot of good music at Fenway. Here's a bonus countdown for ya: top 3 songs played when Red Sox batters come to the plate:
#3 Jason Varitek: Kryptonite (3 Doors Down)
#2 Jason Bay: Alive (Pearl Jam)
#1 Jacoby Ellsbury: Cherub Rock (Smashing Pumpkins)
I headed back today and American still didn't want to take me. They said when the agents switched me to Delta on Tuesday, they switched my return flight to Delta as well (w/o telling me). Eventually, they took me though and I was glad to be home. Looking forward to the day off at home tomorrow.
Got to the conference only 45 minutes late after all AA's shenanigans and it was a good conference. I took copious notes, but I'll spare you blog readers that. Here's a picture from somewhere on Harvard's campus.
Because Marriott is running a double miles promotion, I stayed at a hotel 1.5 miles away from the conference. After some of those cold walks, I'm just glad they didn't have a triple miles thing in Worcester, or I'd still be out there no doubt. Here was the view from my hotel room.
There were lots of crew teams out in the Charles River in the morning. Seems like a weird thing. You have 8 rowers, 1 person who sits in the boat doing nothing apparently, one person who drives a motorized boat beside them, and one person on the motorboat w/ a megaphone yelling at the 8 rowers in the boat. So, to recap there's three cushy jobs and eight hard ones.
Yesterday, I walked over 6 miles, back & forth to Harvard (see above) and back & forth to Fenway Park (see below). You cross the Charles at the BU bridge & you get a really good view of downtown Boston.
As expected, Fenway was really cool. You come around a corner & then you see the back of the Monster and your heart skips a beat. You follow the mass of people in their Papelbon 58 shirts onto Yawkey Way, inhaling the swirling scents of hot dogs, sausage and pizza. The inside of the park is very clean and it sure doesn't look 97 years old.
The fans there are equally as impressive as the architecture. The Sox were trailing 6-1 in the 8th and not a person had left. They were on their feet when the Red Sox started to rally (YOUUUUUUUUUUK!), even before the tying run even got to the plate. They still expected to win even down 5 w/ 6 outs left. It didn't pan out that way. Scott Kazmir pitched a great game for the Rays ... shutting down the BoSox the same way we saw him shutdown the Reds last month in Sarasota. The Rays can beat you via small ball (hit & run and a safety squeeze in the same inning) and the long ball (Longoria and Pena both homered). Rays 7, Red Sox 2. They play a lot of good music at Fenway. Here's a bonus countdown for ya: top 3 songs played when Red Sox batters come to the plate:
#3 Jason Varitek: Kryptonite (3 Doors Down)
#2 Jason Bay: Alive (Pearl Jam)
#1 Jacoby Ellsbury: Cherub Rock (Smashing Pumpkins)
I headed back today and American still didn't want to take me. They said when the agents switched me to Delta on Tuesday, they switched my return flight to Delta as well (w/o telling me). Eventually, they took me though and I was glad to be home. Looking forward to the day off at home tomorrow.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Dolberry is headed to Harvard
On Monday, for a work conference. Should be interesting. The Red Sox are in town & I'm thinking about trying to get a ticket from a scalper on Wed. night. $50-60 is as much as I think I'd pay.
Speaking of work (briefly ... you might have missed it), one of the rules I've been working on quite a bit was in the news this week. See here, or here, or here. Think this has been my favorite project in my time at EPA ... should do some real good for air quality.
We finally had a softball game tonight. 4 of the first 5 were rained out. We were down 9-3 at one point but rallied to win 18-10. My last AB I hit a ball as far as I've ever hit one. It short-hopped the fence (ok, maybe long-hopped the fence) which is 310'. Very surprising. The time before, I hit a triple and the 3rd-base coach waved me home. About 3/4ths of the way down the line, I saw the catcher catch the ball. So, I braked to a stop and headed back to third. They threw to third, so I headed home and scored. I was out of breath for the next 3 innings. I am not in shape for rundowns. My 3-4 tonight was much better than my 0-3 in Game 1.
Congrats to Chad who won the DCV bracket challenge. At some point in your life you will be getting a pizza gift card from Dolberry. It will be a surprise.
Friendly DCV reader ... you need to join Lala. It's my favorite part of the whole Interwebs. Basically, you can listen to your music from any computer via the internet w/o having to cart along an IPod. You can buy web songs for ten cents a shot which is awesome. And you can listen to any song once for free. Works best at office or sitting at home. Let me know if you want me to invite you (then I get 5 free songs).
Speaking of work (briefly ... you might have missed it), one of the rules I've been working on quite a bit was in the news this week. See here, or here, or here. Think this has been my favorite project in my time at EPA ... should do some real good for air quality.
We finally had a softball game tonight. 4 of the first 5 were rained out. We were down 9-3 at one point but rallied to win 18-10. My last AB I hit a ball as far as I've ever hit one. It short-hopped the fence (ok, maybe long-hopped the fence) which is 310'. Very surprising. The time before, I hit a triple and the 3rd-base coach waved me home. About 3/4ths of the way down the line, I saw the catcher catch the ball. So, I braked to a stop and headed back to third. They threw to third, so I headed home and scored. I was out of breath for the next 3 innings. I am not in shape for rundowns. My 3-4 tonight was much better than my 0-3 in Game 1.
Congrats to Chad who won the DCV bracket challenge. At some point in your life you will be getting a pizza gift card from Dolberry. It will be a surprise.
Friendly DCV reader ... you need to join Lala. It's my favorite part of the whole Interwebs. Basically, you can listen to your music from any computer via the internet w/o having to cart along an IPod. You can buy web songs for ten cents a shot which is awesome. And you can listen to any song once for free. Works best at office or sitting at home. Let me know if you want me to invite you (then I get 5 free songs).
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