Family – Page 3 – Scott's Own

The GOP Wants to Penalize Me for Being Single?

Posted on May 24, 2010November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

In the Washington Post article dated May 16, 2010, “Conservative thinkers tout three innovative and controversial proposals,” Robert Stein, who served as deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomic analysis in George W. Bush‘s administration, suggests that the tax code benefits retirees who didn’t have children. His theory is that those individuals who marry and have children contribute more to the Social Security and Medicare systems because their children contribute to the system also. More “buck for the bang” as it were…

Personally, I thought that what each individual pays into the Social Security benefits them as to the return. Just because you as a parent have one or more kids paying into the system does not make you any more worthy. While it might look good now to have more people paying into the system, those individuals are just as likely to avail themselves of the retirement benefits in the future as anyone else.

As a parent with children, one already gets significantly more Federal tax breaks than does a single filer. It was always a quasi bone of contention with one of my military coworkers, who had four children, that he paid next to no Federal taxes after all his deductions while I, with no kids, have paid taxes for 32 years…allowed to take only the standard deduction. To take it one step further, non-parents have no children burdening the public school system which makes me wonder even more why there should be so many tax allowances for having children. I am not really complaining but saying that childless taxpayers who put less of a strain on and contribute more to the public well should pay more into Social Security and Medicare is a bit of a stretch.

I am am no tax specialist but to simplify what Mr. Stein suggests which is to up the child tax credit from approximately $1500 per year to $4000, here is how I would have made out on my Federal tax return in 2008 if I had had four children. Could I really have had the government pay me $8000? Just think, if I had ten kids, I could get paid $80,000 a year by the government. What a concept, eh? Right…the tax burden is just reduced to nothing.

File Status	Deduction for Children	Tax Burden
No Children	$0.00	$8,000.00
4 Children (Current System)	$1,500.00	$2,000.00
4 Children (Proposed System)	$16,000.00	-$8,000.00

Pictures from the WWW…Williamsburg Wreath Walk

Posted on January 25, 2010November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

The week before Christmas I drove myself and my parents down to see my sister in Suffolk, VA. My sister and her husband were unfortunately not going to be able to join us for Christmas at my other sister’s house in Centreville. Since my folks were in town from overseas, it was deemed opportune to get them down to Suffolk that week.

While we were there, my sister, my mom and dad, and I went to Williamsburg to check out the holiday festivities. It was a cold, breezy day but we managed to stay comfortable by hitting the shops, having a nice lunch, and walking the main promenade. Walking the promenade included viewing the Christmas decorations, many of which were elaborate Christmas wreaths, displayed on the homes and shops.

And since I was taking pictures like crazy, and my mom and sister prompted me to take more, we have located here the WWW, otherwise known as the “Williamsburg Wreath Walk.” Below are a couple of my favorites.

Pitchfork

Whip and Horn

Round Horn

My Cat, Hamlet

Posted on October 14, 2009November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

My cat, Hamlet, turns 19 next month. I have had him since he was six months old. For 10 or 12 years he has had problems with constipation and weak muscles in his colorectal area. He’s been to the vets for enemas, eats special food, and takes medications for the constipation. He has bad arthritis in his lower spine which makes getting around, including getting in and out of the cat box, and getting in position to do his business painful.

As a result, especially if there is anything in the cat box, he leaves me surprises on the carpet outside of his bathroom. He is also, very deaf and runs around the house screaming his head off, which is very disconcerting. I often say that I won’t miss all these things when he passes away and wonder if he hasn’t lived too long already. But I love the little booger!

Here is from more than ten years ago hanging out at the sliding glass doors of my friend Dave Schleusener’s house when I was renting a room there.

Bear Facts

Posted on September 28, 2009November 21, 2023 by chappyshi

My uncle who has lived in Alaska since 1972 or so sent me this story of a rogue black bear’s recent activity in their area.

“What isn’t normal is having a problem black bear in the neighborhood. One night it pushed open a front door a half mile away and stuck it’s head inside before a very startled guest of the owners yelled and scared it away. It got into an outbuilding a mile or so away and ripped up a bunch of bulk food stuffs (flour, coconut, all sorts of stuff). At the cabin downstream from us (only occupied about a week a year these days) the bear went through a window and made a huge mess of their kitchen area. At our place, one night it opened the freezer in our entryway and pulled out a bag of ice cubes, ignoring salmon, halibut, moose, caribou, etc. Then the next night it pulled up our locked shop/garage door, pulled out a closed plastic garbage can, carted it 50 feet away, and opened the unopened bag of dog food inside and gorged itself. The next night it was back to the shop again, but didn’t appear to go inside, perhaps because all possible goodies were now inside the house. A neighbor apparently wounded it soon after, but didn’t kill it. But we haven’t heard of any sign of it since.”

Barely knew him….

Memories and Melancholy

Posted on August 22, 2009November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

I got a bit melancholy the other day as I was reading the travel section in the Washington Post. For some reason, the article I was reading made me think about Canada and places I had been to there repeatedly due to work. One place is St. Georges de Beauce in Quebec, another is old Quebec City, and the other is Toronto in Ontario. St. Georges and Quebec City were places I went to for business and pleasure when I worked for Canam Steel and Toronto I went to for business while I was working for DDi…that was a pleasure also.

St. Georges is a fairly small town where Canam’s IT department was headquartered. I remember fondly (not fondling) being entertained on the town by my Canadian coworkers. At the end of trip up there I would usually take a couple of personal days at my expense in old Quebec City. It is probably not much harder to find an old world, read “European,” environment than Quebec City in North America expect perhaps for Montreal.

My favorite place to stay in old Quebec City is the Hotel Le Clos Saint Louis which is comprised of two old merged townhouses with a variety of accommodations that were always reasonably priced, especially, considering the location and included a free breakfast in the basement of the place, which kind of put me on edge, being in the basement that is.

I have a vague recollection of departing the place very early in the morning one time, waiting for my cab to the airport, and realizing I had left one of my bags in the foyer and already dropped off my key. There was no one on the front desk that early and repeated attempts to roust someone via the door buzzer were futile. I had no cell phone at the time but when the cabbie showed up we used his phone to call the hotel to no avail. Meanwhile, I needed to get to the airport! Finally, as desperation was peaking, some folks came walking out the door, I ran in, grabbed my bag, jumped in the cab, and made it to the airport on time.

Toronto has supposedly the largest immigrant population of any city in the world…over 50%. That in and of itself meant good things to me. I met people from all over the world and ate their food. The remarkable friendliness and kindness of the immigrants made me question why there was so much strife and hatred in our world. Toronto’s location on Lake Ontario, thankfully, makes up for it’s unbelievable flatness. Best of all though were the friends I made at DDi Toronto. We worked hard together, we had some good times, they had a birthday cake for me in the office one day, and I went out with a few folks who treated me to dinner that night.

So I am a bit sad thinking back. I have been out of work for so long that I reflect back on the work relationships that so define our day to day existence. They really did and continue to mean a lot to me.

Preparing for Chaos and Surviving on the Local Grid

Posted on August 13, 2009November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

The August 9, 2009, Washington Post article “Apocalypse Later? I’m Going Local Now,” by Doug Fine struck a nerve with me. For six or nine months now, probably as long as I have been unemployed, the stock market crashed, health costs escalated, and my savings dwindled, I have been thinking that I need to work on my survival skills including learning how to hunt for my own meat and raise my own vegetables.

These are just a couple skills out of many that one might need should we see a total breakdown of life as we now it. Doug Fine addresses these issues quite well. He lives on a ranch in New Mexico, and along with like-minded neighbors, is trying to attain a lifestyle in which he is self-sufficient as possible. In his own words, “I’m examining my place in a hypothetical post-oil, post-consumer society 40 years in the future.”

This includes using solar power, getting milk from goats, growing his own produce (irrigated w/o electricity) or buying in locally, raising chickens for eggs, etc. Doug talks of a society in which one barters for goods and services and ponders providing security for his family in the case of a breakdown of civil society. His three year experiment in self-sufficiency has lead him to believe that “the only way I can become truly independent (a word I like even better is “indigenous”) is through incremental steps based in a local economy.”

I have some good friends in Vermont from whom Doug Fine and those of us who have similar concerns about the eventual collapse of systems and supply chains could learn a lesson. They have grown their own vegetables, hunted for meat, raised cows, chickens, goats, etc, to provide for food throughout the year. They heat their home with a wood stove and have no AC’s. They barter services such as vehicle and farm equipment repair and meat butchering and packaging for other services and goods.

They really have a head start on preparing for chaos and surviving on the “local” grid.

Calamity Cat

Posted on June 24, 2009November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

My cat, Hamlet, who is 18.5 years old, whom I have I had for 18 years, has always had problems with constipation. Eight or ten years ago he was at the vets for xrays and a serious enema to get the poop out. After a few days at the vets, he was still hurting and the vet recommended that I bring him home to see if he would relax and pass the rest of the poop. Fortunately that did the trick. He passed a huge turd!

I have been regularly (no pun intended) giving him special food, laxatives, and fiber to keep him loose. That has generally done the trick but occasionally he has problems dropping a turd. On Monday, he was in the hurt locker. He was wandering around my apartment (read “not in the cat box”) trying to take a shit. I watched him do this for a bit. The poses he struck as he tried to do this were both humorous and painful to watch. At some points he looked like a turkey in mating season. Hard to describe but I wasn’t into taking pictures. Between trying to drop the massive gassive, he would lie down, breath heavily, and occasionally have spasms in his lower body. Plus he had a wicked hardon for whatever reason. I called the vets to ask for an urgent appointment and they were able to get Hamlet in within about 1.5 hours.

Come to find out, he has arthritis in his spine (I saw the xrays, did not look good) that is causing him pain getting around and particularly when getting in position to urinate or deficate. This makes me wonder if much of the problem he has had over the years pissing and shitting are related to arthritis that started years ago. It supposedly can set in in cats 8 to 10 years old… Once again, Hamlet is 18.5! Nonetheless, the vet gave him an enema and prescribed medication to reduce the swelling associated with the arthritis and pain killers should they be necessary.

So far Hamlet seems fine. He is not taking the huge pisses he used to take that soaked a good 25% of the cat box but still hasn’t dropped a turd. That bothers me a bit. I had planned to go down to Suffolk, VA, to hang out with my sister Kim, her husband Don, my brother Reid, and his family but decided I’d best stick around to be sure that Hamlet is okay. I also did not want to leave my sister Julie responsible for Hamlet after the incident and the new medicinal regime.

200905 Vacation in Salvo, NC.

Posted on May 18, 2009November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

Thanks to my sister Kim and her husband Don, I got to spend last week in Salvo, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We ate well: beef tenderloin, Caribbean Jerk chicken, bratwurst and hotdogs, Talapia with mango, habenero, and tequila sauce, Chicken Divan (an old family favorite), shrimp, and pizza. We drank Margaritas, Pina Coladas, Mojitos, and beers, including a very good Bell’s Brewery IPA called Two Hearted Ale.

It was a pleasure to share the house with, at various times, Kim’s ex-husband’s sons, Brian and A.J, and Brian’s wife Sarah as well as AJ’s girlfriend Tina. Kim’s ex-husband’s first wife, Judy, who is a beach fanatic and the mother of Brian and AJ, joined us on Sunday and stayed the night. That was good since she could be with her two sons for Mother’s Day.

I must say I enjoy the company of all these people. The relationships are very comfortable even though not blood kin by any stretch. I’ve known everyone for so long that the are like cousins, nieces, and nephews I never had. I look forward to the time when my blood nephew Henry and niece Ava can hang out with us all.

The house was cool and within easy walking distance of the beach. I must admit, that since it was early in the season, we didn’t spent too much time on the beach. The house had a pool and a hot tub which we made good use of. The water in the pool was a bit chilly but quite refreshing. The ocean in contrast was much colder and rougher. The waves and the undertow were intense. Any time spent in the water would have involved a struggle and a swimsuit packed with sand.

We did bring the Cornhole boards down and get some good action going. Tina was very competitive. She and Julie did their best to dominate the men but AJ and I were able to fairly consistently come out ahead.

I paddled twice in the Pea Island NWR. That was okay, basically on the Pamlico Sound side, but there were times when the water was just too shallow and I had to get out of my boot and wade to deeper water. I had hoped to paddle twice at the Alligator NWR but worries about the weather kept me from going there for a second day. And of course the weather was fine but by the time I saw that, it was too late.

Overall, the weather was nice, and cool, enough that I slept out on the balconies for four nights! That was good training for camping out this holiday weekend at a friend’s house on the Shenandoah River!

Creatures sighted include:

Great Blue Herons
Snowy Egrets
Great (American) Egrets
White Ibis
Red-winged Blackbirds
Scarlet Tanagers
Goldfinches
Ducks
Brown Pelicans
Laughing Gulls
Common Terns
Tri-colored Herons
Plover, Willets, etc?
Alligators

I am terrible at identifying shore birds so I can’t be too specific on many of the birds I saw.
Here is an alligator I spotted on Sawyer Lake in the Alligator River NWR.
Alligator from Sawyer Lake

There were hundreds of these butterfly’s feeding on these plants as I drove on the wildlife routes in the Alligator River NWR.

Monarch Butterflies?

Here I am at the end of Sawyer Lake starting my return trip…before I saw the alligator.

Sawyer Lake Water Trail

These are the remnants of a shipwreck on the beach right near our rental home.

One of the Many Shipwreck on the Outer Banks

These are White Ibis’s…many of which I saw in two paddles in the Pea Island NWR.

What I Think Is a Whte Ibis

Where Eagles Dare

Posted on March 29, 2009November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

I had a nice time last weekend. I went down to Suffolk, VA, to see my sister Kim and her husband Don. Being with Kim and Don was relaxing. The trip down and the trip back were not. On the way down I was talking calls from a company that wanted to interview me. I took the first call while I was trying to eat lunch and pack to head to Suffolk. I had little time to spare, if any, but ended up on the phone talking to the HR guy for about 20 minutes.

He said he wanted me to talk with the guy whose position I was interviewing for. Come to find out I had a window of about two hours to talk to the guy before he left at 4:00 PM never to return. I found this out on the road. I scheduled it so I could get off the highway to take a leak and talk to the dude. I thought that we have a fairly good chat. The HR dude called me back and scheduled an interview for early Monday afternoon. More on that in the near future.

Friday night Don was late getting home. He has a horrific commute from home in Suffolk to work in Williamsburg. Kim made ricotta cheese filled shells blessed with marinara sauce. We went ahead and hate since Don was running very late.

Saturday afternoon Kim and I headed off to the Chesapeake Arboretum to walk a bit and hopefully see some interesting flora and fauna but it was not tOo exciting. It is still early in the spring though. En route, we stopped at a bead store right near the Arboretum. Kim makes jewelry and such out of the beads. I never realized how big this hobby could be.

That evening, I had my first “Blue-ray” movie experience. Kim and Don had recently bought a 46″ LCD TV and Blue-ray player. We watched the first Harry Potter movie. I could definitely tell the difference between the Blue-ray and a regular DVD. As Don said, it almost looks 3-dimensional! Combine that with a nice 5.1 music/theater system and you’ll never need to go to the theater again.

On Sunday, we all drove down to look at Don’s house which he has been trying to sell but has been embroiled in a lawsuit filed by his former fiance so he had to take the property off the market. He forgot his house keys so we couldn’t see the inside of the house but it is on a large piece of property far out in the country south of Virginia beach. It looked nice from the outside. Of note, it looks like the lawsuit will be dismissed and legal fees paid for by the former fiance. Hopefully they have good luck selling the place.

From Don’s house we drove to the Norfolk Botanical Garden. Things were a bit slow there, like the Arboretum, due to the time of year. It was still nice to get outside, stretch my legs, work the knee out, and get some pictures of the plants that were flowering. Additionally, there was a pair of nesting eagles in the garden that had two chicks hatched, one that day, and another egg in waiting. You could see mama eagle from an observation tower but mostly only her head. The best way to view the action is from the Eagle Cam. All three eggs have now hatched.

View of the Garden HQ from the garden

Norfolk Botanical Garden

A random flower picture

Random Flower

A few more flower pictures from the Garden

Brian and Sarah Marry

Posted on November 24, 2008November 24, 2023 by chappyshi

Here are a few photos…I will post more in my photo album shortly…from the wedding of Brian Derr and Sarah. Brian is the son of my sister Kim’s ex-husband. She did not adopt him so I guess he is kind of a pseudo-step nephew. No matter how I describe the relationship, Brian is a great guy and Sarah is a great gal.

He and Sarah, who met at a JMU running club, are privileged to have each other. I was thrilled to have been invited to their wedding. The ceremony took place in an Episcopal church in Smithfield, Virginia. The reception was at a hotel in Suffolk. Both the ceremony and the reception were well attended and very enjoyable. I wish Brian and Sarah great happiness in their life together!

The priest, Father Ross, if I remember correctly, asked we attendees to completely turn off all wireless devices and refrain from taking pictures or movies. A number of us discretely stowed our cameras and leaned back to take in the ceremony.

Later, after the ceremony, at the reception, while everyone was finding and/or occupying their seats at the dining tables, Father Ross came up to my table, where I sat alone, for the moment, and said that his place card indicated that he was sitting with us, us being at least Kim, Don, Julie, Ed, and me. Somewhat disconcerted, I asked him if that meant we had to stop drinking and swearing. He hoisted his glass of wine to me and said “Hell no!”

Christ Episcopal Church, Smithfield, VA.