Tag Archives: Events

Pay It If You Have It

I hadn’t given much thought to the taxes paid by other people until this week when I started talking about how I just sent mine in Sunday, and I was surprised with how many people told me they’d already sent theirs in, received a refund, and spent it. Which makes me think that if I receive a refund, then I need to spend it. I’m thinking gigantic party “down by the river on a Friday night. Pyramid of cans in the pale moon light.” Who’s with me?

Stupid taxes. Ah, not really. I can go either way on this one. It’s not very exciting. Except that today is the last day if you didn’t request an extension. It’s my understanding, though, that the extension doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay by today, just that you have more time to complete the paperwork. But, if you’ve completed enough paperwork to know you have to pay, why not just send in the entire package? Plenty of reasons, I’m sure.

All is well.

April Fools' Day

What is that, anyway? An April Fool? I don’t get it. Generally I can’t, for whatever reason, get interested in this holiday of non-holidays. A day of joke-playing and practical pranks. Elaborate hoaxes. Maybe it’s just that I’m upset at never having been the punchline for one of these laughable scenarios. I don’t believe that, but let’s leave it at that for the sake of not having to think about it any longer.

Even though I’m not a fan of the practical prank/joke, I do enjoy an unexpected outcome. While moving through the day with my boss, she received a call from her son where he told her that he’s engaged to be married to his girlfriend. His mom, my boss, is not immediately jumping for joy with excitement, the response I’m sure her son was seeking so he could then holler “April Fools!” Instead he was met with the sound of fear in his mother’s voice and the dreaded “Why?”

It was all I could do to keep from laughing, and I wasn’t on the call. Needless to say, my boss was much relieved (and jumping for joy) when she found out the engagement wasn’t real. At which point she directed her son to tell his girlfriend that “she was excited” when she heard the news and “let down” when she found out it was just an April Fools’ Day joke. Ha!

I’m not sure which of the three characters is the true butt of the joke, so we’ll have to wait and see how the story plays itself out. Until then.

April Fools’ Day

I’m not sure which of the three characters is the true butt of the joke, so we’ll have to wait and see how the story plays itself out. Until then.

How Twittering Sent Me Beer Drinking

All of a sudden, this week only, every blogger seems to be writing about Twitter, the cool new service for updating all your nearest followers as to what you’re doing right now by answering the simple question, “what are you doing?” What am I doing, that’s a reasonable question, but why would you, or anyone else want to know if you don’t already know me? Seems like a better question, but I’m not sure what the answer is. I suppose it has something to do with adding value to your world. Well not your world, but the worlds of anyone who decides to follow my Twitter feed.

Nevertheless, or needless to say, I started my twittering in late January of this year, and I couldn’t figure it out. I wasn’t really talking to anyone, and my account just kind of sat there looking back at me wondering when I would begin to understand what this service was for. Early March rolls around, and I’m still looking blankly at the space for 140 characters, not knowing what to do. I start twittering a bit more, and I begin to add the authors of blogs I follow. And here we have it, the space between blogging and emailing — Twitter.

Do you hear me? The space between blogging and emailing. Twitter.

Then the SXSW conference hit, and there was all sorts of Twitter activity taking place, from updates about the panels to flash mobs at the pubs. This was my biggest draw to making an active effort toward Twittering. The idea that you and your followers could meet up in real life and have a beer. And between meeting up and having beers, you stay in touch and spread ideas. Or nonsense. Whatever, whenever, just keep it to 140 characters.

St. Patrick's Day

bike crash

It’s the international American holiday of get drunk and crash your face while riding your bicycle drunkenly at two in the morning, which technically is the next day. It’s a glorious holiday, one I’ve been doomed to miss this year as the result of a terrible cold by-product. We’ll call it chest pain.

I’m sure with all the bicycle-riding pedal-pedants I know, at least one of them is also doomed — doomed to crash his face while riding drunkenly. It’s to be expected. They celebrate pretty hard, and are proud of that. I hope none of them is hurt badly. While it can provide for great entertainment, including side-bursting gut laughter, it’s kind of a drag if you have to take your pal to the emergency room at two in the morning. Undoubtedly, on this particular holiday, the emergency room will be filled with other drunken face-crashers, some more severe than others, and there will be no where to nap comfortably without getting a hollering from the nightly nurse who’s tired of drunk people all together. Good luck, she says.

St. Patrick’s Day