Taxes Made Easy

For almost ten years, we have paid a local accountant, Marie Kirchberger, to prepare our taxes. We pay in the hundreds of the dollars, but it's easily the best money we've ever spent. Every year around February, all we do is send her an envelope full of W-2s, 1099s, and other tax papers. By the end of March, she sends us an envelope containing completed federal and state tax forms. We don't even meet with her anymore, although we did those first few years. We correspond by phone and e-mail.

I used to feel that I had to do my own taxes. The first few tax seasons after college, I spent hours reading those big tax preparation guides. My eyes would always glaze over: standard deductions, alternative minimum tax, interest from savings versus investments. Figuring out these terms, and then figuring out the appropriate numbers for these terms always put me in an agitated state.

Jenn and I decided to get an accountant the first year after we moved into our house (1997). We didn't want to mess up our mortgage deductions. We went to Marie on a referral, and we've been with her ever since. And even though we've become more comfortable figuring out our own deductions, we're even more comfortable having her prepare the papers.

The crux of the matter is the the time value of money (or in this case, the money value of time). I guess I could buy tax preparation software, fire it up, enter the numbers, double check the figures, and then print out the forms (or file it electronically), but how many hours is that? How many moments will I have second-guessing myself? And isn't Project Greenlight on television tonight?

The amount of time I spent thinking about my taxes this year is about an hour. Certainly not more than an hour. Most of it was spent collecting stray tax papers (we get more organized about it every year) and tallying up checks we've made to charities.

On the eve of the nation's filing date, taxes are the furthest thing from my mind (except, of course, for this BLOG entry). Our forms were sent almost a month ago. I'm grateful for Marie, and that I can afford her fees. It's totally worth it. Thanks, Marie!

One Week Into My New Year

This day last week was my birthday. Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven!

Requiescat in Pace

Pope John Paul II has been referred to as a 'politician' in some of the broadcasts that I watched over the weekend. I disagree completely. The Pope is unlike any politician the world has ever known. Pope John Paul II has never wavered from the principles of his platform, a life-based platform that causes many American Catholics to treat Catholicism as a buffet: only take the parts you like.

I recognize in myself the way that I have casually treated my faith. When I started college, I drifted away from accepted church teachings. After a childhood of regular mass attendance, I attended church irregularly in college. I didn't see anything fundamentally wrong with birth control, premarital sex, a woman's right to choose, married priests, swearing, or same-sex marriage. I returned to regular mass attendance after getting married (1995) but since my church closed last Fall, my attendance has gone way down. I don't know whether my absence is more political protest or whether I was just "tired of the message."

The Pope of the Catholic Church since I was ten years old has never wavered from this message, the "Good News" of Jesus Christ, the message of life. His steadfastness comforted me. I reach for my faith because it is the only thing that I have ever known to "believe." I was raised a Catholic and I continue to declare myself a Catholic. I may be skeptical about my faith. I may be critical about my faith. I may be sullen about my faith. But I don't deny my faith.

This weekend begins a mourning period the world over. There are complex and well described rituals that must be followed in the coming days to handle the pope's funeral, the mourning, and, inevitably, the selection of a new pope. As a critical and curious Catholic, the rituals remind me of the man-made 'construction' of my faith. But the rituals will also allow me and the rest of the world to celebrate the life of a man who believed in Jesus Christ's message completely and utterly.

Happy Birthday, Mia!

Mia, my daughter, turned four today. All she knows is that there's lots of cake, presents and people saying Happy Birthday to her. She thinks Mom is 'five years old' and Dad is 'six'. She can say that she's not a baby, but she can still cry like one. Life with her has become 'routine', but when I let myself, I easily feel amazed that she is in my life.

Happy Birthday, Little Girl.

Counting Up the Words

I spent a few hours tinkering with TokeParser, a Perl module that parses HTML files. I wrote a small program to count every word in my old BLOG. Here are the top ten words:

     1  3400 the
    2  2518 I
    3  1848 to
    4  1806 a
    5  1430 of
    6  1349 and
    7  967 in
    8  802 was
    9  701 my
   10  699 that

So. I wrote 'the' 3400 times, and I wrote 'I' 2518 times.

I think I read somewhere that the most frequent word in any memoir or diary is "I". me appears in my list as the 30th word. I'll post the full list and program in a few days so that you too (with a little help from Perl) can count up the words in your web pages.

By the way, the grand total number of words from my old BLOG: 73404 (over 517 entries).

Bobby Short

Last month I was paying praise to the opening minutes of Woody Allen's Manhattan. Fast forward from 1979 to 1993, and Woody Allen again makes an impression on me with the movie Manhattan Murder Mystery.

Manhattan Murder Mystery's opening sequence features a New York in the evening, overhead shots capturing the brightness and vibrancy of the city below. We pan past familiar landmarks, guided by a distinctive voice performing "I Happen to Like New York" (a Cole Porter song). The shot ends with the viewer circling Madison Square Garden on a game night.

When I saw the movie with my wife many years ago, I was swept up by this song. The proud lyrics ("I like the city air, I like to drink of it") mesmerized me. It was everything I felt about New York City. I made a mental note to watch the credits. The name of the singer was easy to remember: Bobby Short.

I watched the movie a few other times, each time savoring the opening sequence. The performance isn't on a CD that I could find. I've since heard other performances of this song, but Mr. Short's is the one that I remember.

Bobby Short passed away today in New York. He was 80.

Napolean Dynamite

I watched Napolean Dynamite tonight. This is the first movie that I've watched in 2005. (The last movie I saw was Sideways on December 30, 2004.)

Uncle Rico in Napolean Dynamite asks "wouldn't it be great to go back in time, knowing what you know now?" Somehow, I don't think so. Of course, I've had failures and it would be great to go back to those moments and change what caused them. Of course, there are things I wish I could have done differently. I have regrets and I do get wistful. But dwelling on them to the point where going back in time becomes an obsession strikes me as insane.

In the movie, the lead character is constantly getting into absurd situations. He is socially inept and his lanky frame spotlights his awkwardness. But throughout the film, he's constantly wondering what he should do now.

We can't go back in time. The characters in the movie learn this (in a very comic way, I might add). The movie is a terrific reminder that living in the present is the best way to be living.