A blog post from Jason

Yesterday was my first furlough day, and the place literally fell apart without me. On Saturday, there was a fire caused by a not-so-careful welder in one of the machine rooms. Then on Sunday, a piece of masonry reportedly fell off the building, causing the south entrance to the Main Library to be closed.

This weekend was also my third 29th birthday, and it sure was a great one. Candice took me out to Timpone’s for dinner, which was absolutely exquisite. I listened to the Phi-Life podcast last week, where Brad Pilon and John Barban told me that the healthiest food you can eat is birthday cake. The theory is that happiness is key to health, and what could be happier than a birthday! By that standard, I had a really healthy weekend. As for the more traditional measurements, well, I didn’t gain any weight.

I was also able to fully assemble my new bookcase, and populate it. Candice mentioned that it is of much higher quality than the one we already had, which she assembled with a shoe (good ol’ college days). With most of the boxes out of the way — we’re ever so nearly unpacked from moving in three years ago — there’s room for one more bookcase, and then we’ll be all furnitured-out. That makes two rooms that are fully furnished, the first being Nicholas / Akilah’s room. The other rooms all have space to grow (or furniture to be replaced).

The joy was compounded when we finished filing our taxes. It looked like we were going to owe, but some last minute changes swung the balance back in our favor. The tax code was apparently designed to promote families with two children. With one child, you don’t get a whole lot of credit. With two, you get a whole bunch of credit. With three or more, you get the same credit that you did with two. Or at least, that’s how I understand it, but I came pretty close to buying the extra audit protection from TurboTax this year.

Oh, and speaking of that, H&R Block Tax Cut absolutely sucks. I used it last year as a protest for TurboTax’s deceptive pricing structure, but the stupid Tax Cut software refused to read my files from last year. At least, the online version did. I was very displeased.

I have my next furlough coming up this Friday. The morning will be spent at the RSO complex assisting the APO chapter with filing their taxes. It’s a non-profit entity, but they took in more than $25,000 in gross receipts last year, so they have to file a 990EZ instead of the usual “Yes, we have a non-profit organization here” postcard (990N). Then it’s off to the ‘burbs for Nicholas’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Yay for rat-made pizza! I shouldn’t have a problem keeping the calories low this weekend.