Monthly Archives: October 2018
They’re From The Government, and They’re Here To Help Us!
Although today was Tuesday, and I don’t normally work at my client’s, I went in today to kind of make up for being gone for 3 weeks.
I had been monitoring things remotely so I knew that nothing had really cratered, but you never know. However I ended up spending most of the day working for the US government, specifically the US Census Bureau.
My client had received a letter from them requiring that he fill out an online 2017 Economic Census form. ‘Requiring’ as in a $5,000 fine for not doing it, and a $10,000 fine for ‘deliberately’ submitting false or incorrect information.
Ouch!
Apparently a tiny subset of US small businesses are selected at random to participate in the survey.
Lucky us!
And some of the detailed questions are for things we don’t really track. Like how much we charge customers for shipping on the items they order. Since we only pass on the amount that USPS, UPS, or FedEx charges us, we have no idea what the total amount is. So now I’m having to try and pull all this info out of the USPS and UPS apps.
And this is just one of 100’s of questions. So I’ve got my work cut out for me for the next few weeks.
After I got home we turned right around and headed back out to first have dinner at Los Ramirez Mexican Restaurant, the first Tex-Mex we’ve had since before we left for Florida, so we’ve been going into withdrawal.
Then it was on over to the storage room to break out our electric heaters for the winter. It was down in the low 50’s last night, with more of the same tonight. And the high tomorrow is forecast for the low 60’s.
Nice!
Then coming home, we stopped off so I could buy the winning Mega-Millions ticket. At $1.6 Billion+, it’s certainly worth risking a few bucks. And as usual, I got the 30 Annual Payments option, rather than the Cash Payout. As far as I know, Texas is the only state that requires you to make that decision up front when you buy the ticket. Or at least the only one we’ve encountered in our travels around the country.
The Annual Payment value is $1.6 Billion, with the Cash Payout just a little over $900 Million. So you’re giving up about $700 Million to get the money up front.
If you take the Annual Payments, you’ll get about $32 Million a year after taxes for 30 years. If you take the Cash Value and then spread it out over the same 30 years, you would have about $18 Million a year.
And realistically, what could you do with $900 Million up front that you couldn’t do with $32 Million per year?
Thought for the Day:
Did you ever notice how good you can be at something until somebody actually watches you do it?
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It’s Good To Be Home . . .
We pulled out of Poche’s RV Park right at 10am, and were back out on I-10 about 15 minutes later.
Except for the really rough roads leaving Breaux Bridge, and then coming into Texas, it was pretty smooth sailing for the entire trip.
As I’ve mentioned before, from 1994 to 2005, I drove back to Birmingham once a month to check in on my mother. And I swear some of these same roads that were under construction back then, are still under construction now. They’re just never done.
And the section of I-10 leaving Lake Charles to the west is just as rough and potholed as it was back then.
Since we are going to be parked for a while, I wanted to top off the diesel tank before we got home,so we detoured down to La Marque and the Buc-ee’s there to fill up. As I was doing that, I also added a bottle of Diesel Kleen and a dollop of Biocide to keep the algae at bay during the cooler, damper winter weather.
After we unhooked the truck, Jan followed me back to our home site at the Petticoat Junction RV Park. Then after we got plugged in, we headed back out in the truck to have breakfast / dinner at the nearby Denny’s. Coming home, we stopped off to get our mail at the Santa Fe Post Office, before settling in for the night.
It’s Good To Be Home
Even though Tuesday’s not normally a client work day for me, I’m still going in tomorrow since I’ve been gone for almost three weeks, and I’m curious to see what cratered while I was gone.
Yesterday, after getting to Poche’s, we drove into Breaux Bridge to have dinner once again at Crazy ‘Bout Crawfish once again. And as before, Jan had the Grilled Catfish and Grilled Veggies,
while I had a cup of Seafood Gumbo,
and the super spicy Shrimp Boil.
And of course we had to finish it off by splitting an order of their Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce and Ice Cream.
Thought for the Day:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
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