The End of Opportunity

NASA has ended the Mars Opportunity mission.  The rover's last transmission was that his battery was low and it was getting dark.  For a rover whose lifespan was supposed to be ninety days, the fourteen plus years spent on Mars was a major accomplishment.

Taxes, Death and the Great Outdoors

Apparently people are beginning to file their income taxes for 2018.  MSNBC reports that 30 million Americans will owe the IRS money this year — 3 million more than before the republicans' new tax law.  Huffpost has an interesting article about the whole issue.  It was also on Yahoo news where at last check it had 13,400 comments.  There is an imbedded video in the article that's worth watching if you have the bandwidth available. 

The high points are as follows:

• The IRS changed the withholding tables in 2018, people received slightly more money than they would have otherwise.  Many people failed to notice this (myself included) and didn't change the amounts being withheld.  Therefore, they're not receiving their usual tax refunds and in some cases will end up paying taxes for the first time.  Some people will cross the line and end up being fined for not having enough withheld.
• There were changes to what you can deduct.  People who live in areas with high property taxes and local and state taxes are being capped at what they can deduct.  Gone is the mileage deduction for people who drive for their jobs and aren't reimbursed.  Police used to have a deduction for the cost of uniforms, guns, nightsticks and uniform cleaning costs.  Gone.  The medical deduction is gone. 

It's difficult to understand how the president and his talking heads can refer to the new tax bill as done for the middle class.  It wasn't. If you haven't done your taxes yet, gird your loins - it may be ugly.

Do you ever find yourself going through life, confident in your knowledge of how things work?  Then you find out you're wrong?  I always believed (erroneously) that if one of us died, the other would inherit the credit cards.  After all, most states are community property, right?  This started when I called the Costco Citicard to request a higher credit limit.  We had been right up against the credit limit which was impacting our FICO score.  The woman on the phone wouldn't talk to me, she had to have the permission of the primary on the card - Jim.  I put Jim on and then she would speak to me.  Out of curiosity I asked what would happen if Jim died, would they then talk to me?  Nope.  They would cancel the card in that event.  So far, for all of our cards, there is only one primary, and then there is an authorized user.  I'm prime on two, Jim is prime on two.  So, the surviving spouse will still have credit, but this just seems archaic to me.  Make sure you and your spouse have cards for this eventuality.  The other mistake I think we've made is not getting both our names of the cell phone contract, the cable contract and DISH network, as well as all of the utilities for the house.  These will be tasks for our next rainy day.

We got out for a hike this afternoon.  The day started out with gloom, but improved in the afternoon.  There were a lot of people coming up the trail from Gates Pass.  Not so much on our side of the hill.

The gray rock foreground is interesting.  I need a geology for dummies book.

That's it!  That's all I've got.

Snowmaggedon February 2019

Washington did get hit with snow.  They're really cold in Spokane with low temperatures and high winds.  This is like the bad old days.  When I moved to Seattle in 1984, winters were cold and it did snow.  Gradually it warmed up and quit snowing for years.  Our heavy winter coats gave way to a light weight fleece jacket and a wind breaker (which I wish I had kept during the purge).  Apparently winter is back!  Tucson is on a wet storm track for the next week, but it's better here than there.

Clallum County, WA.

Seattle area roads.

I guess we'll go out and brave the cloudy conditions for a restorative walk in the desert.

Murals, Cacti and Snow

Ahhhh, what a difference two days make!  We unwrapped the tender non-natives this morning and put the sheets and flannels away.  They're forecasting a low of 33 Monday night, so it all may be coming back out, but for the time being, it's out of sight.  Today it hit 70 and was quite delightful.

Yesterday we went to the Rincon Market for lunch.  For YEARS they have had a great salad bar, a steam table with cooked food ready to go, and on weekends they did made to order omelets.  You stood there and watched them cook and told them what you wanted in the omelet.  No more.  The place has been sold, and now all food comes from the menu.  You have to sit, order, wait and eat.  This will probably kill it for the large groups of cyclists who used to come in on a weekend.  I will never understand why someone buys a store with a good business plan, that is always full, and then they change it to something stupid.  So, they're dead to us now. 

Update to post:  Rincon Market was bought by the guy that owns Time Market in March, 2018.  Peter Wilke plans to bring Time Market’s attention to detail and quality of curated goods.  They're not getting good reviews.  Bad service, music is too loud to hear each other, incomplete food orders, higher prices.  Hopefully they read the reviews and react accordingly.

After that disappointing discovery we went to a high zoot plumbing store looking for a new shower head.  Nope, nothing but fancy sets costing stupid amounts of money.  We did see two new murals in the area.

This is one mural, split in two.  On the right are people wearing rabbit skins, cactus skins, hummingbirds and etc.  It's pretty cool.

On the left, more people wearing desert dweller skins.  It's very well executed, if not just a little weird.

This is our favorite.

Today we went to Home Depot and got a replacement shower head, new pruning shears and a new 16 foot extendible pole pruner.  Everything you need, and nothing you don't!  We also looked at the cactus.

I can't remember what this is called.  It looks like a grass, but has these interesting blossoms on it.  Update to post:  They're Kangaroo Paws.  They're from Australia, and would have to be overwintered inside to survive the freezing temps we sometimes get.  So, no, not going there!

A euphorbia that looks like things I have seen in sci-fi horror movies.

A member of the opuntia family.  It's a cheerful looking cactus.

And this looks like a microfiber duster.  It's also a euphorbia.  They're not cactus, but are very similar.



Seattle is expecting 7 to 8 inches of snow today, which will probably hit during the evening commute.  I got these off the local TV website this morning.  There is nothing much left at Trader Joe's.

From Google Maps, we see that traffic is indeed terrible as of about an hour ago.

I feel bad for the Seattle drivers.  It snowed when the new tunnel on 99 opened, so there wasn't much traffic.  On Wednesday the roads had cleared and they were having four mile backups.  The ventilation fans are not yet calibrated correctly, so people were smelling fumes as they sat in their cars.  It's been a tough week for moving around the area.

Representative John Dingell died yesterday.  He was the longest serving member of the House.  His seat is currently occupied by his wife.  It was previously occupied by his Dad.  He's the last of the old time FDR democrats.  Before dying, he wrote out his last words to the country.  They really bring home how rotten our political systems have become.  The op-ed can be found here on WAPO.  Here is an exerpt if you can't get past the paywall.

Impoverishment of the elderly because of medical expenses was a common and often accepted occurrence. Opponents of the Medicare program that saved the elderly from that cruel fate called it “socialized medicine.” Remember that slander if there’s a sustained revival of silly red-baiting today.

Not five decades ago, much of the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth — our own Great Lakes — were closed to swimming and fishing and other recreational pursuits because of chemical and bacteriological contamination from untreated industrial and wastewater disposal. Today the Great Lakes are so hospitable to marine life that one of our biggest challenges is controlling the invasive species that have made them their new home.

We regularly used and consumed foods, drugs, chemicals and other things (cigarettes) that were legal, promoted and actively harmful. Hazardous wastes were dumped on empty plots in the dead of night. There were few if any restrictions on industrial emissions. We had only the barest scientific knowledge of the long-term consequences of any of this.

And there was a great stain on America, in the form of our legacy of racial discrimination. There were good people of all colors who banded together, risking and even losing their lives to erase the legal and other barriers that held Americans down. In their time they were often demonized and targeted, much like other vulnerable men and women today.

Please note: All of these challenges were addressed by Congress. Maybe not as fast as we wanted, or as perfectly as hoped. The work is certainly not finished. But we’ve made progress — and in every case, from the passage of Medicare through the passage of civil rights, we did it with the support of Democrats and Republicans who considered themselves first and foremost to be Americans.

As I prepare to leave this all behind, I now leave you in control of the greatest nation of mankind and pray God gives you the wisdom to understand the responsibility you hold in your hands.

Windy and Cold

Yep, worst snowbird season yet.  As Lisa reminded me, 2012/2013 wasn't great, but I think this is worse.  It rained pigs and chickens all last night.  Today was extremely annoying; really windy and cold.  We covered all the tender plants this afternoon.  I would like my snowbird rebate now. 

However, we did have a pretty decent sunset.

Weather and Random Stuff

This was much of yesterday.  It rained!  In February.  Actually, it has been known to snow in February.  We came down to look at real estate in 2006 (I think) and it snowed and it was really cold.  Tucson has zero implements to deal with snow.  The entire city pretty much shut down.

Later the sun came out and lit up the palm trees.  I love seeing that.

There is an ocotillo on the other side of the wall.  It looks dead, doesn't it.  It'll come back to life, grow leaves and bloom before long.  There is a hummingbird sitting at the top.  There was a lot of zoom being used on the point and shoot so he's pretty indistinct.  I'm not sure if it's an Annas or not.

Here are a couple of random photos from Tucson.  There is a style of bicycle racing that is done on a track.  It's a sprinter's event, short bursts of high intensity effort are required.  To win, you need to get your opponent in front of you, so that you can draft (ride in his slip stream) and save energy.  Then you come from behind at the line and win.  To do this, everyone must be able to balance, un-moving, on their bikes on a steeply sloped oval track.  This is called a track stand.   Eventually someone will go, and generally the guy who is drafting wins.  This person was seen in Tucson, doing a perfect track stand.  He's not wobbling, or moving back and forth, he's just motionless.  It was a thing of beauty.

This just tickles me.   Look at the bottom sign.  Who doesn't want to take up knife fighting?  Sign me up!

This is what they woke up to in Seattle today.  They got six inches.  People on Twitter have been bashing Seattle's inability to drive in snow all day.  What they forget is that it rarely snows in Puget Sound.  There are no fleets of plows and sanding trucks.  Generally they do some de-icing of the bridges, but there's no concerted effort like there is in Chicago.  Plus, the area was carved by glaciers.  It's not just hilly, it's steep, like 12 to 15% grades in places.  Getting off of Queen Anne Hill is just harrowing in these conditions. 

Our rain is supposed to stop today.  However, Wednesday it's supposed to go down to 29 which means we'll be covering the non-natives and the new lemon tree.  I think this is going on record as the worst winter (that we have been here) ever.