But considering the governor theory, you may be quick to question George W. Bush.  Even clear-minded Republicans as myself may agree.  So to that I will insert my Texas caveat.  Not counting George Herbert (who I rate as good president and wasn’t a native Texan, or much of a Texan at all), there were only two.  And I see GW and LBJ similar in that they both aggressively pursued an ill-fated war, both spent way too much and both left the nation in bad economic situations.  I dare say a Rick Perry presidency would hold true.

So, I will try to avoid Texans and congresspeople if possible.

On Friday, I didn’t think I had slept too well, but the day didn’t reflect it as I spent plenty of time at the beach including a coastal jog for over a half hour in the heat. I cooled off nicely in the ocean then read the Rolling Stone I brought.
Saturday started out with breakfast at the Causeway Cafe and then we went junk shopping around New Hanover county and finished by tramping around in the old Wilmington downtown.

Now that I didn’t completely “leave it” this weekend, I am back, incredulous that four days ago we left. This morning I jogged down Lumina Blvd and back then walked along the beach for a final time. We ate lunch at a favorite restaurant then drove back. “Leave it, Leave it” I commanded myself yet again but my teeth remained clinched.

But a little over a week ago, my relaxed relationship with the IRS came to a halt when I went to the mailbox and saw on official envelope from them.  I opened the envelope with no trepidation, unaware that in less than sixty seconds my whole mood going into the weekend would be up-ended.  Like casually telling you your son or daughter had been killed in combat, it notified me that income reported to them did not match what I put on my 2009 form 1040 and that if I agreed, please send them a check for $27,000.

By the end of the day, I was able to start pulling myself off of the ceiling and make some sense out of what happened.  My new found wealth from mom’s death in 2008 was transferred over to an account that was set up for my by her broker at Smith Barney and throughout the year he continued to sell and buy all manner of securities as he had been doing.  What I didn’t realize was that it was my responsibility now to not only report interest and dividends, but also the sales of all those stocks reconciled against their purchased price.  In other words, capital gains.

Well, it wasn’t that I made all that much in capital gains.  But because I didn’t report any of it on a Schedule D.  So, the big IRS computer simply calculated that the total sale was my income.  So, if a security was bought at $2,000 and sold at $2,025, my Schedule D would have told them I only made $25.  Sans Schedule D, they assumed I made $2,025.
By one week later, I had gotten it all figured out in my head and prepared a Schedule D which I sent to them.  What’s next remains to be seen:  will I be asked to submit an amended form, will there still be penalties and interest billed to me?  Probably so, but for now, it has been enough to make me feel there will be substantially less of a ding, perhaps even cancelled out by a valuable learning experience.

So why do I do my own taxes?  When I was younger, I would always change the oil in my car.  I knew how to do it, so why pay someone?  Well, at a certain age, you finally will decide that the hour or more you waste on a Saturday under a hot car, skinning your knuckles and getting absolutely filthy doesn’t give you the satisfaction it used to so you pay an extra $10 and have a professional do it.

I’m not there with taxes yet.  My dad was an accountant with a tobacco export company and as a teenager, I would hear him rail against dopes who would pay a tax preparer money to do your taxes.  So when I started working, he sat down with me long before the days of TurboTax and showed me how to do the 1040.  "Why I’ll be 95% of the customers H&R Block files for could be done on a 1040A," he growled with cigar clinched between his teeth.

Well, it’s funny how later in life you think you can shed the old-fashioned notions of your parents.  But even after they are long in the grave, their distinctive voice is out there talking to you every step of the way.  "Pay somebody else to do your taxes for you?  What a racket!"

I do use TurboTax Online.  But that’s mainly just to keep from going to the library to get the tax forms and making sure my Radio Shack calculator has batteries.  If I can get past this run-in with the IRS and still hold my head high, I’ll continue to do my own taxes.  Maybe one day the feel of hot, dirty oil dripping down my arms will lose its appeal.  But not yet.

Cats run about unattended all the times.  Is it because they won’t attach children?  Maybe not like a Pit Bull, but they are as big a nuisance as any vermin out there.  Like I said, they travel yards stinking them up with their foul urine.  Additionally, they brutally kill the songbirds that beautify our back yards and environment.  And who hasn’t been awakened in the wee hours by their violent fights?

The unfixed ones are out there procreating and creating feral varieties who are even more problematic.  It’s just not fair.  Little old cat ladies, I’m calling my councilman.  Kitty likes to scratch!

Although the conventional wisdom that James Bond would be the consummate martini drinker, I now realize that he was no purist.  Even his signature “shaken, not stirred” violates the purists’ preference for stirring so as not to create ice chips (which I rather like to float in my drink).  In fact, the first Bond novel, Casino Royale showed Bond’s indifference when he first snapped at the bartender’s question for shaken or stirred with the remark, “does it look like I give a damn?”  Later in the book he orders one with Felix with the outrageous instructions of three parts gin, one part vodka and half a part of Lillet instead of vermouth, and a lemon slice.

I vary from either gin or vodka depending on my mood (vodka upbeat outgoing and gin tired and inward).  The purist would strictly be limited to gin and just the slightest hint of vermouth.  Churchill was supposed to have said that just walking near the vermouth bottle is the proper amount to add.

At least I am assuming it is a management problem.  If you looked at the WS/FC school system as though it were a corporation like, say Forsyth Medical Center, they are similar: large operating budget (100’s of million)  and large staff (thousands).  Yet the latter is hiring and keeping well-paid employees, works with the latest technology and plenty of resources, and has a competitive end-product and service: medical care.  The school system has under-paid, stressed employees, making do with limited resources and is under-producing its end-product: educated students.

I believe that is because hospitals are run like a business–which they are—and schools are run like government agencies—also which they are.  If schools were run like a business and they were under-performing in math and science, their math and science teachers would have a higher pay-scale so they could attract better teachers.  That’s not the case.  They make the same as an English teacher, so the good math and science graduates don’t go in to teaching when there are better paying jobs for them elsewhere.  English majors can’t get a job anyway so why not teach?  Since the school system is run like a government agency, when it under-performs and cannot provide a competitive product, it simply begs for more money.  If a corporation was under-performing and the CEO asked for more money, I’m sure the board and shareholders would first rather look at over-hauling management and replacing the CEO.  That is not the cry in public schools.  It’s “more money!”

When I had a school age child, I was a low-income worker and my private school choices were Summit School or Forsyth County Day (go to those sites for pictures of rich white kids).  Sorry, no can do.  So, wouldn’t that be an argument against privatization?  As it stands now, yes.  But with a public option available, a community can only support these “boutique” schools now.  However if K-12 education were turned over to the free-market, private schools would compete for the middle-class and lower income children in a way they don’t do now.   For the abject poor, there could be a Medicaid equivalent in education.  Not-for-profit private schools,  just like hospitals, would accept them to keep their tax status.

What about the American promise of education for all?  Hey, it can still be compulsory, but if it is not working, the promise is not fulfilled just because it is public.

I have always been a little leary of the defense of religion or other movements when one of their extreme members  commits a shocking or dispicable act.  The first thing you hear is that all Christians or Muslims–or environmentalists or Tea Party members–shouldn’t be judged by the acts of a few radical extremists.  True, the majority of people in general are basically good-natured, well-intentioned and harmless.  But when they organize into mainstream religions or movements, a platform is then provided for a “loose wire” member to acheive some initial credibility and following.

Especially religion.  A Sunday service at a neighborhood church may seem harmless enough and an unlikely breeding ground for extremists or terrorists.  But think about the bizarre concepts and rituals that the members are mindlessly supporting and pledging: strange deity concepts, blood-spilling and consumption for salvation, creation stories of the universe, the apocalypse, etc.  Most members are not giving it much thought throughout their week, but some are giving it quite alot of thought.  These folks left on their own would probably be dismissed as “nuts”.  But by belonging to a mainstream religion they are warmly and blindly accepted by the majority.  They are given a platform and can climb the ladder of credibilty for a while giving them unsupervised and unnoticed time to cull resources and support they need to suddenly one day wreak havoc.  We are then shocked to hear about it on the six o’clock news.

Oh well. And I guess I feel creeped out that I’m talking to my blog about it.

I’m generally glad to see a new year or even a school year begin because it promises to shake out, even a little bit, some doldrums.  But I’m particularly hopeful for 2011.  As one of my Facebook friends posted a 99% status bar image captioned “uninstalling 2010…”, I feel kind of happy to brush off this past year and move on.

One of the notable milestones that was to get underway right out of the gate (i.e. January) was the phase-out of the Event-O-Rama, one of my most visible achievements of the decade.  21st century – that sounds better.  I had less-than-secretly wanted to hand over the reigns to someone for a good while and the opportunity finally came.  Doing so cemented a good relationship with Smitty who I had worked with all that time.  He got me nominated for the ECHO award over it, which I won, and also had a Clark Harper Day proclaimed providing much fun during the year.

This year was transitional in my work.  The Web Center had been created – perhaps a toxic combination of marketing and IT people—and I unconfidently moved over.  All in all a good thing to have happened if it stays viable.  But until the worse happens, I have to say it has been cushy work and given me to opportunity to do more that I like in the world of information technology that I ever had.  DotNetNuke admittedly had my name written all over it.

But early on there, I would meet the personable Scott Cross in Marketing and Communications who would invite me to practice with and quickly join his garage band containing other wonderful folks and having been a great enhancement to this past year’s goings on.  During our few gigs I continue to be painfully stage frightened but the weekly practice and camaraderie has made it all worth it.  I should, but question whether I would, make this year’s resolution some kind of determined guitar practice effort so as to better my participation with the band.

I was almost kind of surprised in reviewing my journal that in January I was still decorating the house and the living room furniture was just then being delivered.  Since then I have hosted book clubs, a West End Final Friday party and an Easter lunch.  Yet it wasn’t until later in the year that the switch finally flipped from feeling awkward – or even regretful – for moving back into my family home to feeling like it was my home.   I’ve done further work on the basement, patched up the chimney, painted the trim and landscaped a bit.

On the health side, the year would find me moving from the FMC fitness center and Glade Street YWCA (which closed during the year) to the Gateway Y.  The hot summer seemed to take a toll on my fitness, but I recouped by adjusting my jogging pace and ran the 5K at the Virginia Film Festival this year that I had observed each year in the past.  The plantar fasciitis subsided as promised (it really does take a long time) and I had a good checkup in April.

The Social Network was a 2010 hit and I turned out to be a late-adapter to Facebook this year as well.  I can understand the phenomenon now.  And instead of the fear that all our relationships are becoming “virtual” I think the opposite happens.  My relationships are actually becoming more real.  In 2010 Carol’s mom went from the little old lady up the street in her own apartment with the keys to her car to moving to my mom’s old digs at Heritage Woods and soon to more institutional care at Arbor Acres.  Life comes at you fast even on the back end.  Nathan has been battered by the recession way more than most and is launching out with his own enterprise.  I’m helping them with the website and feel kind of stoked about it.  He’ll do well.  I had Thanksgiving dinner with Mrs. Osborne at the China Buffett, deliver the neighborhood association newsletter, help Carol train her new dog that she’s fostering for one of our friends with breast cancer and on and on and on.  What’s so virtual about that?

Today is the tomorrow you were worrying about yesterday is the mantra I figured I should use for the new year.  Bring it on.

The weather, or something, put out a big swath of power so we sat by candlelight for about 45 minutes until it was restored.  The snow couldn’t have picked a more convenient time to come, but still I get a little stir-crazy when it limits my mobility.  Facebook and internet access is nice, but it’s no substitute for getting out and about.  The week ahead is the last one of the year and holds on-call, a dental appointment and one or two others and starting a new project at work that I’ve been obsessing about too much—it will be healthy to get it started.  Then I should be thinking about a mental wrap-up of the year and looking ahead to the new year.

Usually this time of the year, I can feel some low level stress going on regardless whether I can point to anything in particular that should be causing it, such as gift exchange, travel, events, etc.  And I have always diagnosed it as just picking up on a stressful time of the year for everyone.  Even with the festivities and lights folks seem to be on edge, wondering if they will have trouble after the loss of a loved one during the year, or some other human milestone. 

This year I had almost forgotten about that observation as I had been noticing a bit of a remarkable calm these days, settling into the house and neighborhood as they are transformed from the past to the present.  Work has its worries, but it is obviously even better than it has been.  And some physical annoyances of aging having adjusted to, like jogging again, plantar fasciitis passed, lower back pain handled.

This week we had a pleasant book club and I felt my house and kitchen was a fine accommodation.  Band practice was fun and I continue to reflect on that nice link-up with enjoyable and compatible folks. 

So, are people around me not stressed out this year and therefore I’m not picking up on it?  Doubtful with a poor economy, employment worries all about, aging relatives and friends to be supported.  I don’t know but it’s nice to dodge and annual threat like the flu and holiday stress.  One of my unfulfilled resolutions for this year was to be in the Caribbean for Christmas which doesn’t look like it will happen.  But maybe I’m in the Bahamas in my mind.