I figured it out. You’re welcome.

Warren Buffett has been in the news lately saying (rightly so) that the wealthiest Americans can handle an increase in taxes. He doesn’t want to be “coddled”. He also says he paid 17% in taxes to the IRS last year.

I looked up the tax tables. It was pretty clear that people making $350k+ should be paying 35% in taxes. I myself am in the 28% bracket, and am pretty sure I made less than Warren last year. It would seem to me that many of the wealthiest Americans have their own little loophohes. For example, Bill Gates gets most of his income in Microsoft dividends, which enjoy a special tax rate of only 15%.

So my proposal would be to classify all forms of income, “income”, and enforce the tax tables that the rest of us scrubs have to adhere to. That means inheritance, lottery winnings, dividends, the money you made selling “medicinal” pot out of your garage – all count as plain old “income”, and let the existing tax table tell you where you stand.

That, or I’m going to have my boss start writing “dividend” on my pay stubs.

Sunday Afternoon

Dogsitting again today, the girls are chillin’ while I read my iPad. Bliss.

Blog is Back Online

Sorry for the delay in getting the blog back in action. While I had a couple hiccups along the way, I did manage to delete the images file, so you will see a bunch of broken images until I can dig up an appropriate backup. In the meantime, I’ll be making a few tweaks and upgrades, like adding Instagram and latest tweet things. Enjoy.

Car Wash Conspiracy Theory

There’s one of those spray car wash places at Venice and Centinela that I’ve been to a few times now, but I’m never going again. Let me explain why.

Over the years, I’ve owned a number of vehicles, and have been to spray wash places all over this great country of ours. The way they work is, you pull in, spray/brush your car, rinse it off, then pull forward to the vacuum stations to dry off the car and vacuum it out. You’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all, right? Not so for the one down the road from me.

This magical facility adds an extra degree of angst and frustration to the drying process in that what could arguably be the world’s most overfed and incontinent pigeons bomb the hell out of your car while you’re drying it off. Not just talking a little plop, but a giant gooey purple splat. As soon as you clean it off and make your way to the other side of the car, you discover another. Cleaning that and returning to the original site of the carnage, you discover a fresh one. This stupid game goes on at least four or five times over the course of drying off your car…at which point you’re tempted to just back up into the relative safety of the spray area and just start over with another five bucks of quarters.

I’d be mildly upset if this was an isolated anomaly, but this has happened all three times I’ve been to this place. It has never happened at any other spray wash place I’ve been to.

But here’s the kicker – It wasn’t happening to the lady with the Camry or the guy in the wood paneled station wagon next to me. No – just the guy with the white BMW. Which brings me to the conspiracy part.

Pigeons can be trained. There are residential areas and rooftops that could house coops and spotters on three sides of the vacuum area of this car wash. It doesn’t take much to figure that a spray wash owner could likely bilk more quarters out of the owner of a nicer car who gives more of a shit about it’s cleanliness and appearance. Run it through the wax cycle, the rinse cycle, use the funky tire cleaner setting, etc. Time is quarters for these guys, and they know that people like me are willing to spend a little extra time to get the car looking just right. But for guys with a BMW who spend the minimum amount for one spray cycle just to get the leaves and sap off the hood – that’s not good enough. He calls the mobile of his partner on the adjoining roof, with instructions to deploy the bombers. If the hapless victim is still not backing into the bay and fishing out more quarters, send another wave. And another.

Sounds crazy, right? Maybe – maybe not. If you have a nice car, try the place out and see if I’m just being paranoid. Bring extra rags.

Nerds F-ing With Nerds

If you’re gonna lob a softball over the plate, I’m gonna take a swing at it.

Date: Nov. 1, 2010

Subject: missed robot meeting

Pat,

You missed the robot meeting this past Monday 11/1 for both your team and the combined meeting. What happened?

No one from Cedar Park showed up, so I am trying to figure out what went wrong.

Thanks,

Mr. ********

Computer Science Teacher

CPHS Webmaster | UIL Computer Science Coach

Cedar Park High School

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