Thanks, Google!

New Toys!

A while back, I created a Google personalized homepage.

Now, Google has added themes to decorate your home page with - mainly a banner across the top of your page. And the banners change over time.

I chose a beaches theme. If I wake up at a decent time, I get to see a very nice sunrise. The spectacular colors fade to blue and the bright sun moves across the banner. Late evening brings a beautiful sunset, followed by the moon moving across darkened skies.

Bascially, there's a new banner for every two hour time block! I'm lovin' it!

Lunar Eclipse Photo/Art

APOD: 2007 March 22 - Goa Silhouettes

A truly amazing picture.

What a great contest!

I think my application for it must be somewhere in my mail stack.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN1618495320070319

Sponsored by publisher Little, Brown and Co., the competition promoted "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder," by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, a new book that argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity.

I might be the most effective person in the world!

Talk Amarillo has been shut down

The message board sponsored by our local newspaper (and Morris Communications) has been shut down, possibly for good.

Trolls (who may or may not be alter egos of regular members) came and started posting a lot of really stupid threads, dredged up threads from 2 and 3 years ago to clutter up the "most Recent Posts" page, and finally, posted porn images on the board.

Here is a link to the message board main page:
http://forums.amarillo.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi

Do you think that the fact that the listed e-mail address is defunct is telling us how much consideration they're giving to re-opening the board?

Medical Savings Accounts...

... are the creation of Satan...

There are Medical Savings Accounts I believe that really ARE savings accounts, where money can carry over from year to year.

Alas, mine is not one of these. You have to guess by January 1st how much your out-of-pocket medical expenses are going to be. Guess too much and you lose the excess. Guess too little and you lost the benefit of paying untaxed income for health care.

So far I have learned that I am a horrible guesser. I should back up, and say that I am new to the game of health insurance and medical bills, having been sheltered for nearly 24 years in the Army, and not surprisingly, given what I do, being stationed near major medical facilities that met all of our health care needs. So I have no sense of what things cost.

Year 1, 2004, I signed up for the max of $5400. Lost about $4200 of that.

Year 2, 2005, I signed up for $1300. Spent about $3600 in out-of-pocket expenses and so paid about $700 in taxes unnecessarily.

Year 3, 2006, I signed up for $2600. I just got through turning in all my receipts and stuff for about $1900 worth of expenses. So, another $700 down the drain.

This year, I'm signed up for $1300 again. We'll see.

France's Villepin calls for 2008 Iraq troop exit

France's Villepin calls for 2008 Iraq troop exit - Yahoo! News

Hey, dude, go ahead and withdraw all the French troops in Iraq by 2008. Oh, wait. . .