Death and...

Let me start this out by saying I hate preparing taxes; I get more wound up about doing them than just about anything else. There’s something about the complexity of trying to figure out what number goes on which line, and whether you’ve got the right number, the one that’s going to get you the lowest tax due, that just sends me over the edge.

So, I pay someone to do my taxes for much the same reason I pay someone to perform surgery, cut my hair or tune my car’s engine: this is completely beyond my capabilities.

Last year, I was so paralyzed by the prospect that I filed an extension for the 2016 returns and still barely made the 15 October deadline for getting them in. This year, being now a homeowner, I took all my records in to the accountant who used to do my taxes right up until my third year in California. This was in March—a tad late for the April filing deadline, but not the latest I’ve ever been.

My guy looked at what I’d done for 2016. He discovered that my employer had unaccountably withheld taxes for California during that year (I left there in December 2015), so was due a refund for that. Also, he reckoned that there was a big enough delta in the partial reimbursement for my relocation expenses that it was worth filing an amended return to get a refund. Woohoo!

Well, come around 14 April, the firm sent me the completed extension form and told me I should send it in with a check for close to three large. Shortly after that, I got an email and then a letter apologizing that the new tax preparation software they’d got was proving much more challenging than anticipated, and that the staff would get to all client returns in a timely manner.

In past years, I know that Tommy and his team have taken the latter part of April off—it’s like priests after Easter: they need a break following the big push. So I didn’t expect immediate follow-up. However, months passed, and long about mid-September I pinged them, leaving a voicemail on Tommy’s line. A few days later I got a return VM from one of his staff, saying that “they’re going to start working” on my taxes the following week. This was very unsettling because I got the impression that my taxes hadn’t been on anyone’s schedule, and wouldn’t have got on it if I hadn’t reminded them of my existence.

I emailed in response to tell them not to FedEx the returns to me because I was going to be out of town the entire next week and did not want the package just sitting on my doorstep for that period of time.

Silly me. Because on 4 October I got a call from the assistant saying that someone named Hugo had started work on my taxes and all was well.

Let me remind you that the deadline for filing both federal and state taxes is 15 October. I was not charmed. But then it got worse.

Because last Friday I got a call from this Hugo, who was checking on a discrepancy in my driver’s license number. I can’t recall why, but evidently Virginia requires you input your driver’s license number (perhaps for the same reason they require you to show them your Social Security actual card in order to get a driver’s license, which is why I haven’t got one), and mine—being California—is one digit short. For Virginia.

I’m actually grateful for this anomaly, because in the course of our conversation, and after he told me that there’s no change in my 2016 taxes, it transpired that he was only vaguely aware that there was something about my relocation expenses, and he wasn’t sure why there was withholding tax for DC…

So I explained (as I had done back in March to Tommy) that I’d lived in DC for two months in 2016, and the whole reason I was filing an amended 2016 return was because of the deduction for unreimbursed relocation expenses. Again, as discussed with Tommy in March.

As a friend said that evening, “Was no one taking notes?”

Soooo, okay. Late Monday, the assistant called me to say that all my returns were ready, and did I want them to send them to me, or did I want to pick them up. I did not fancy paying a marked-up FedEx fee, so I said I’d go out to Leesburg on Wednesday. It’s occurred in the past that I’ve caught errors in the preparation, so I thought it would be better if I gave them a dekko while at their office, since we’re that close to the deadline.

And thus it was that Tommy, the assistant and I collectively discovered that the wrong state W-2s had been stapled to the California and DC 2016 returns.

But then, as I was gathering everything up, having signed all the forms (for electronic and snailmail submission), I told Tommy that I hadn’t been overjoyed at owing so much un-withheld money for 2017—i.e., not enough money had been withheld during the year—and what strategy should I employ for a more reasonable obligation. He said it depends on what “reasonable” means to me—some people like getting a big refund, after all. I broke in that I’d like it to be a little over-under zero, not having to write a check in four figures.

So he fished around the return and looked at it. (I think, being the owner and chief accountant of the firm, that he was supposed to have checked Hugo’s work before, but…) And that was when he discovered that nearly $5000 of property taxes hadn’t been entered on it (and, clearly, not in the calculation made back in April that dictated what I sent to the IRS with the extension). There followed about 15 minutes of searching through all the papers I’d given him in March before we found the annual statement from my 2017 mortgage holder. Turns out that Mr. Cooper (which rebranded last year from Nationstar after multiple lawsuits and civil/criminal penalties paid to various states, and which has embarked on an ad campaign touting how kind they are to small animals) puts property taxes in an unexpected place on that form, so Hugo hadn’t picked it up.

God give me strength.

As a tax professional, upon seeing an annual mortgage statement, should it not occur to you to expect that there should be property taxes involved somewhere in the year’s activity? And therefore should you not look around until you, you know, found them? Somewhere?

Tommy entered the taxes into my tax forms and re-ran the calculation; I get more than $1000 back now from feds and Virginia. Which is nice, but I can’t help wondering what’s been left out that we didn’t catch in that hurried confab?

I guess I’m in the market for a new tax preparer.

Ruling out vice

I hadn’t seen one of my colleagues for a while, so I stopped by his office yesterday for a chat. While catching me up on the scuttlebutt, he mentioned having listened to some of his colleagues bitching “at the happy hour.” He’s in a department that’s been hemorrhaging staff—I think he said they’ve lost 17 people in about as many months—so I asked, “The happy hour for [latest guy to leave]?” He confirmed.

I said, “Man—with all the leaving-related happy hours, y’all are on your way to becoming drunks.”

He laughed and countered, “Except for the cost!” Seems an ex-colleague had shown up for this do and my mate magnanimously offered to stand him a beer. Ex said he fancied a Guinness, and Marc said he’d have one, too. Jolly conversation; then the bill came. All $19 of it. And that was at “happy hour” prices.

I did not think to ask where this event was held—if it was at the bar of a hotel, I suppose $9.50 per beer is the going rate, even at “happy hour”. Because no matter where the hotel is located—out in the country or smack in a city—there’s always the hotel markup. (I’ve written about this before, and it pisses me off.) But I certainly took his point: if two beers run you $20 (yes—he left a $1 tip; as he told me, “I have three kids!”), you’re not likely to sink into Repugnant SCOTUS-nominee territory. (Unless, like the most recent Justice, your massive debts are suddenly made to disappear. I’m expecting news footage of a Coors truck backing into the SCOTUS loading dock pretty soon.)

Well, this caused me to remark that, while in Houston a couple of weeks ago, I indulged at a Tex-Mex restaurant that had been recommended to me by having a quesadilla and a margarita. The former was okay, their chips and salsa didn’t quite make it to pedestrian, but the margarita was absolutely fine.

It was also $13, and about 70% ice.

I marveled that the last time I had a margarita it cost about $6 (and had more actual, you know, margarita in the glass). If they’re now $13, I’ll not be frequenting any bars, happy hour or not. Which may or may not disqualify me from SCOTUS.

Sharp radials

We’re creeping up on Halloween, so perhaps some local business establishment’s take on the holiday is in order:

Scary, no?

Designed to last

In addition to Peter Norman Day, 9 October is also Ada Lovelace Day, when we honor women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). In years past, I’ve written about such brilliant minds as Grace Hopper (whose celebration I attended just two weeks ago); Nobel Laureate (for physiology/medicine) Rosalyn Sussman; Hedy Lamarr (who developed the radio frequency hopping system that underpins mobile telephony); research chemist Marie M. Daly; IDEO designer Barbara Beskind; and Joan Struthers Curran and Beatrice Shilling, engineers whose work contributed to our victory in the Second World War.

This year I’m branching out on the engineering theme, and giving you the noted American architect of the 20^th Century, Julia Morgan. Born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland, Morgan was the first woman to be licensed as an architect in the State of California, following studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and l’École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris (where she was the first female student).

After a stint with another architectural firm, Morgan opened her own practice, embracing the Arts and Crafts style. She ran her firm in the atelier style, and was exceptionally generous in teaching those who worked with her. She designed a number of structures for the women-only Mills College and several YMCA buildings (including the one in Pasadena, where I learned to swim).

Morgan is perhaps best known for a single client, being the architect for William Randolph Hearst’s mansion at San Simeon, on the Central California Coast; we know it as Hearst’s Castle. Morgan had to incorporate a whole range of styles and architectural pieces that Hearst had picked up in his travels. Frankly, I do not find it particularly inviting as a result, but there are certainly some spectacular elements, notably the truly spectacular Neptune Pool.

But she was exceptionally prolific. Here are some other buildings she designed:

The Berkeley City Club:

The Ladies Protection and Relief Society’s The Heritage nursing home (one of only a few pre-WWII buildings to survive the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989):

Fairmont Hotel:

Morgan got the job of redesigning the hotel, which was damaged in the 1906 earthquake. She was a pioneer in the deployment of earthquake-resistant materials, including reinforced concrete.

Chinatown YWCA:

Girton Hall (UC Berkeley):

The Sausalito Women's Club:

And those are just a few from around the Bay Area.

We don’t know much about Morgan’s personal life; architecture seems to have consumed everything for her. In the span of her career before her retirement in 1951, she designed hundreds of public and private structures, taking commissions from the ultra-wealthy to help subsidize her work for organizations serving women and minorities. Her legacy is somewhat localized, but truly impressive.

A moment of grace

The Games of the XIX Olympiad were held in México City fifty years ago this month. There was a lot of political overtone to the Games—for one thing, they followed by less than two months the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring movement, and while there was no visible bloodshed (as had happened in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 when the pool holding the Soviet-Hungarian water polo match was red), there were real tensions.

It was also the time of the Black Power movement, and one of the most iconic images of an Olympiad was of Tommie Smith and John Carlos bowing their heads and giving the clenched fist Black Power salute. They had finished first and third, respectively, in the 200 meter sprint; Smith’s 19.83 second finish was a world record.

Photo by Angelo Cozzi

Smith and Carlos provoked massive controversy with their gesture, but what’s not widely known (outside of Australia) is that Peter Norman, the Aussie who finished second in the race, supported them wholeheartedly, and his athletic career suffered for it.

Norman, from a devout Salvation Army Christian family, deeply believed in human rights. The Americans had told him before the medal ceremony what they intended to do, and he supported them fully. Carlos later told a journalist that he’d expected to see fear in Norman’s eyes when they told him. Instead, he said, “I saw love.”

At the ceremony, Norman wore a badge for the Olympic Project for Human Rights he’d borrowed from another athlete as another symbol of his support.

The controversy that enveloped Carlos and Smith extended to Norman. Australia kept him out of Olympic competition, and he was not even acknowledged in the 2000 Games held in Sydney. He died in 2006 of a heart attack. Carlos and Smith were pallbearers at his funeral on 9 October, which was declared Peter Norman Day.

In a 2012 interview, Carlos said, “There is no one in Australia that should be honored, recognized, appreciated more than Peter Norman for his humanitarian concerns, his character, his strength and his willingness to be a sacrificial lamb for justice.”

In our current social climate where vicious tribalism makes all the headlines, I’m finding it heartening to recall that there are indeed individuals willing to stand (literally) for the right thing.

Gratitude Monday: friends old and new

Well, the country took a dark turn on Saturday, and headed down a path that will be dangerous for humanity for a long time to come. Voting out as many Repugs as possible will help, but realistically, we’re well and truly stuffed for the foreseeable future.

So on Gratitude Monday, I’m taking it local. As in: me.

Because—while my personal and professional life pretty much mirrors the dark hopelessness of our national politics—I am not alone. And in the past few days, two men stepped up to give me a hand and haul me out of the hole.

First was a long-term friend, who spent two and a half hours Thursday night untangling me from a Microsoft-induced meltdown. We don’t know what happened, but on my most recent reboot of Win10, Office365 helpfully bollixed Outlook, swallowing up both my Gmail accounts. I still had webmail, but nothing in my desktop client.

This Great Nothingness included my contacts. Which, ah, is where I store my passwords. As you might imagine, I was distraught.

John talked me down from the ledge and restored my accounts. I am in for it for storing passwords (I don’t have them en clair, guys; they’re coded) this way; I have to look into password managers. And I also have to figure out either how to get Outlook to not be such an asshole when it comes to working with Google, or find a desktop client to manage Gmail. (I reckon Microsoft is trying to drive us to use their poncy email—which has gone from Hotmail to MSN to Live to Outlook, because they keep trying to fool us into thinking they’ve changed anything. And I’m not going to do it. I have one Outlook account, which I had to create when I bought this machine with Win10 and Office365 loaded. That’s one Outlook account too many, as far as I’m concerned.) But I have my data back, and I’m grateful for that and for my friend who patiently restored it for me.

The second instance was someone I know from Twitter. He’s in information security (infosec), which is something I’m interested in. He’s launching his company’s website; he asked me to take a look and tell him what I think, which I did. (Good start; could do a better job of storytelling on the company, its services and its people. I like good stories.) A couple of weeks ago I might have mentioned that I’m looking for my next gig, and he offered to help.

Well—I’ve heard this song before, so I didn’t pay him much mind. But one thing led to another, and I sent him my résumé. He read it, offered some suggestions (which I didn’t read at the time, being at GHC) and we set up a call on Friday, which was when I ran through his résumé revamp. Totally helped me step back and rethink how I present myself. The call was also extremely helpful, and I’m feeling reenergized—for the job search, at least.

So, between getting my Outlook/Gmail data back (but completely mistrusting anything Microsoft does going forward), courtesy of my old friend, and having a new friend show me new paths for my professional life, I’m really, really grateful for…the power of friendships. They offset some of the shite generated by this completely fuckwitted regime.