Death of a Phone

Sunday was a sad day for me as I had to let a household comrade go the way of Wilson in Castaway, slowly drift out of reach into the depths of the unknown. With apologies to Poe,

The Phone

As we had been working outside mildly seeking,
she of who we will not be speaking,
placed the phone upon the hood of my car
No less and nothing more,

So while working could hear it ringing,
Gently calling somewhat singing,
Up upon my gentle car;
And oh how sweet it would to hear that ring again,
But it will ring nevermore, quoth the headset "nevermore"
All this and nothing more.

We were driving on the Merritt deeply,
while I accelerated gently steeping,
I heard a rumble on my windshield yor
Alas I shouted "What's that?" and cried,
To see a small item turning, bouncing down the turnpike's side,

Silence from my co-pilots seating,
I turned to see heart slowly beating,
Lost in agony of the phone we had before,
All this and nothing more.

We turned around and stopped and seeing,
If perhaps the phone was not yet fleeting,
Perhaps not mangled on the roadway yore,
All this and nothing more,

And so it sits there slowly turning,
Out of luck and out of reaching,
Among the dust and cigarette butt,
Its sits there calling still;
Never to ring upon the counter,
Never to call again or after,
Calling out from my chamber door,
Quoth the mangled phone, Nevermore

And so today it sits there turning,
While I Talking not, and nothing ringing
With the sounds that were before
Its life is gone of this its sure,
Of the simple life it had before,
all this and nothing more.

Debt Clock!

I was working on my taxes the other day it dawned on me, that this year is a great return! I mean the new home-buyer thing is pretty cool (for me at least) and let me be honest it couldn't come at a better time. Now after a scare (turbotax imported some data from my brokerage, and proceeded to tell me I owed like 10k (slightly scary)) I then realized that it assumed I bought the shares for nothing- growing money on trees literally. I then realized that it failed to import about 70% of my other sales/transactions so I had to do those manually; so much for technology. Anyway we get down to the nitty gritty and I fill out the section I had been excited to reach; the First Time Homebuyer section. Well I(we) qualified for the full value so I got my 50% which is a cool $4000. Now as I said, I could use the money (who couldn't use it?) but it got me thinking; who needs it more? Maybe this a dumb thing to think about but I was curious- how far would my 4k go towards my share of the national debt. Enter Debt Clock (you should check it!) After the first wave of nausea and dizziness associated with just a terribly constructed page, try and focus on certain sectors, and it is actually quite interesting, and scary, and downright depressing (or maybe you just don't care- but you should!).

So my share (and your share too) $40,368, and my share as taxpayer is $113,831, which means that I am getting BACK, 10% of my share of the debt or 3.5% of my share as a taxpayer. Not a trivial amount to be giving away in this humble payers opinion. I suppose in the large scale its less than pennies; I just get concerned if we're not mortgaging our future with my(and many others) mortgages today.

Getting warmer?

I thoroughly enjoyed the Winter Olympics as they wrapped up this past weekend, (I also think that the Winter games are MUCH better than the summer ones- but that could be because I like the winter better in general.) So once again I find myelf concerned about the hypotheses about climate change and the warming that many say is inevitable and to some degree already happening. So it was sad when the Vancouverites had to truck in snow for the mountains above the city (not Whistler- they had too much snow) sometimes you have bad luck- before getting 7 feet in Utah I had been watching and they hadn't had snow for 2.5 weeks; VT had no snow in February then 4 ft last week. Its just how winter goes; or is it? Global warming folks jumped on this saying clearly its global warming; no snow= rising temperatures, but this a gross misstatement. It also is that the colder it is the less snow you will have- its simply too cold and can't hold the moisture. Conversely on the other side of spectrum they quote the coldest year in recorded history (some ~150 years) and 2 of the 10 largest recorded snowfalls in the East in 3 days! say that global warming? where? (now going forward warmer= holding more moisture and its also been made a case for warming)
I fall somewhere in between, I find Al Gore to be a fear mongerer, and complete deniers of climate change to be deluded. But I think our effort to 'prove' the global warming theory (carbon in the atmosphere directly related to warming temperatures) is (in the wrong hands) dangerous. Conservative talking head Pat Buchanan published this today. And while it too is a blunt (and one sided piece- but isn't that the definition of an op-ed?) it brings up some valid points. Anomalies are part of research but its very frustrating to me to watch people (dangerous?) spout the terrors of global warming and selectively chose facts that support them. As I said before the only way that climate change can be 'pure' is using the double blind system; the same system that the medical field uses where the true experiment is done by people who don't know the intended result.
Look, I want my snow; and I want lots of it, so a cooler climate is in my best interests, and I support efforts to reduce carbon emissions where feasible, but coming off the coldest year in recorded history (yes- an anomaly but still...) there is no tempered way of looking at it; and just because I question something doesn't mean I'm not paying attention- it just might be I don't always take things at face value.