That was yesterday. The weather was great, and I ventured out for a walk without a jacket for the first time in 2005. I also did things like get my flat tire fixed (which meant buying two new tires since the other front tire was pretty worn, too), rake up the accumulated sunflower shells from feeding the birds all winter (about 60lbs of empty shells), and clean out the back of my truck so I can move the tailgating supplies in there so I can tackle cleaning the garage. One of these days I’ll be able to get my trike out and start riding that around. Generally a pretty good day.
Inside, things were different. I got some work done, but nowhere near as much as I’d hoped (the time spent outside and at the service station cut into the work), and got a call from my accountant. Seems we somehow grossly miscalculated my taxes for 2004, and rather than being near even, as planned, I owe thousands of dollars. Neither of us has gone through all the numbers to figure out what went wrong back in December when we were estimating, and there’s realy not much to be done about it now but try to figure out where the money’s going to come from. More work will eventually help, but won’t solve my problem for April 15th, since my clients all pay net-30 — even a phenomenal burst of productivity wouldn’t get me any additional money until the end of April. In short: Ugh.
- Evan’s Leap Week Marks Abrupt Change In Fortunes touches not only on the fact that money can buy happiness (
Anyone who asserts that money doesn’t buy happiness simply isn’t controlling for the other variables
), and also on the goofiness imposed on schedules by the fact that daylight savings time changes on different weeks in different parts of the world. [101-280] - The 2005 Libertarian Party Of Minnesota Convention is April 9th. But at $65 for some lecturing and an institutional dinner, I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying home, even though there will probably be some people there who wouldn’t think I’m insane. Which of course means that they probably are.
- There is Tension before the smoking bans begin, especially in bars near city and county boundaries. The quick version: Fridley and the rest of Anoka County allow smoking. Hennepin County does not, and Golden Valley bans smoking even on outdoor patios. Ramsey County allows smoking only in bars that make more than half their money from booze and have applied for an exemption. The closest bar to me that will still allow smoking on Thursday is the American, which is just over the border in St. Paul. [strib]
- Looking for a way to find new music? David Byrne launches internet radio station to help you do just that. It’s basically what he’s listening to, updated every couple weeks. While it was more expensive to handle the royalties than most of us would pay,
the fees weren’t too prohibitive
for Byrne. Cool. It’s at DavidByrne Radio. With any luck you won’t have to listen to bagpipes. I think this is a pretty cool idea. I’m sure there’s new music out there that I’d like to hear, but I don’t have any good way of finding it. The rare times I do listen to the radio and hear something I like, the DJ never back-announces it. [boing boing]