2024 Taxes Filed

My 2024 taxes have been filed.  I did my usual data analysis and reflection.  I had to pay significant sums to both the federal government and the state this year, mostly because the stock market did well last year and my capital gains were bigger than they have been in previous years.  First world problems.  We had a bonus last year, but it wasn't a huge one, so my income still did not compare to the glory years of 2021 and 2022.

All taxes combined (federal, state, social security, medicaid, and property taxes) take a shocking 25% of my income.

As a generally healthy person, my insurance costs are less than 4% of my income, and that includes my withholdings for my HSA.  And usually I spend less from my HSA than I put in each year.  My pre-tax insurance costs have been holding steady with my High Deductible Health Plan.  I'm guessing because with a high deductible, most of the basic things are paid out of pocket, so the plan is only paying for the unhealthy or more catastrophic accidents or illnesses.

2023 Tax Summary

The 2023 taxes were just completed.  It was shocking how much different the total amount of taxes was compared to last year.  Getting no bonus versus getting a large bonus was quite different.  Take a look!

The bars represent dollar amounts, not percentages.

2022 Taxes

Looks like I missed the tax update in 2021.  I guess the 2022 graphs will help catch you up on 2021 as well.  In 2021 work promoted me to a Principal Engineer, which meant a noticeable increase in salary.  Last year was also a good year for the bonus at work, and Uncle Sam hasn't been shy about claiming his part of the pie.  I just finished filing my taxes today, and I noticed that the federal income tax I paid this year was equal to the amount of my starting salary as an engineer 20 years ago.  I am thankful that I'm doing well financially, but it also makes me wonder how many people that amount of money is supporting as it gets redistributed.  When I was looking at the numbers today, the amount of money I pay for healthcare and all of my insurance is quite small when I compare it to what I pay in taxes.

Here are a few illustrative graphs for you.

When I graph it in actual dollars instead of as a percentage of my income, that's when you can see how dramatically the increase in federal income tax has been.

There won't be any bonus for 2023, so that line should take a nice dip next year hopefully.  I hope you find your tax results this year interesting too.  Make those graphs!

COVID19 Thoughts Part 1

All right people - probably I should write down some of my COVID19 thoughts so that I can look back on them in a few years once some of the memories start to fade.  One thing I find very fascinating about the whole thing is the opportunity to analyze data and watch graphs and trends, etc.  But I'll save that for a different post.

I know COVID19 started in the world in China back in December 2019 or January 2020, and they spent their 2020 Chinese New Year on lockdown.  And in February I had some colleagues travel to Italy only to arrive, turn around, and get back on a plane because of the COVID19 outbreak in Milan.  Then they had to quarantine for two weeks when they returned to the U.S.  But for me, my COVID19 experience begins in mid-March.  My in-person Six Sigma training in Colorado was cancelled in March due to COVID19 (work had already restricted all travel), but I still decided to go and see my older sister in Wyoming as I had planned when I was going to dovetail onto my training trip.  Before I left work that Friday, we were told that we should all plan to work from home temporarily due to COVID19.  At the time I was figuring that might last for a couple weeks.

The plan for the long weekend was to fly to Denver, spend a couple days in south central Wyoming, and then drive to Jackson Hole to spend a couple days skiing.  Despite some slight misgivings about travelling with a virus starting to spread, I went.  As we were about an hour out of Laramie heading for Jackson Hole, we got notification that Jackson Hole had closed for the season due to COVID19, so back to Laramie we went.  Once we made a surprise visit to some friends for supper and found a place to stay on short notice, my sister's co-worker got news late that evening that her brother had passed away, so my sister and her co-worker took off in the middle of the night to head to Montana.  Flexibility was the name of the game that trip.  I booked a new ticket, relied on the kindness of friends to get back to the Denver airport, and headed home.

I started working from home on Tuesday March 17th.  I spent that week working on my laptop from the kitchen table, and after 4 days I decided that was for the birds.  I snuck into work on Sunday and got my monitors, cordless headset, keyboard, mouse, etc.  Luckily I did because on the evening of Monday March 23rd the governor put us on stay at home order until sometime in June.  Luckily I was one of the "Level 1" employees who could go into work for business critical work starting in April and May, but I still spent the majority of my time at home.  I spent 11+ weeks working from home.  I spent 10 weeks under stay at home order.  During that time the only time I saw other people was usually when I went to the grocery store, Lowe's, or Home Depot.  One person from my meeting came and visited me a couple times to work on a building project (more on that later).  From those 11 weeks, here are some thoughts.

Pros

• My office view was great
• Good opportunity to learn more about my food allergies since I was eating every meal at home
• Learning all the hiking trails around my house
• Learning about the birds and other wildlife around my house
• 2 weeks of furlough
• Quietness
• God is not limited by our circumstances

Cons

• Loneliness.  It may even be accurate to apply the adjective terrible to that word.
• No face-to-face interaction with people
• Did not touch another human being for more than 11 weeks.  I'm not a very touchy feely person, but after a few weeks even I started to notice the absence of even the simple touches like a handshake after Bible study.
• Did not hear another person pray for more than 11 weeks.  I didn't really notice how special this privilege was until it returned.
• 2 weeks of furlough (both a blessing and a curse)
• Very special vacation to Hawaii and Kwajelein was cancelled
• Cancelled robotics competitions
• Monthly Six Sigma training going from in-person to online  (more than a year later, it's still virtual).
• No fellowship meetings on Sunday or Wednesday with other people.

After this experience, I think many people could probably see why isolation is considered the most severe punishment in the American prison system.  One of my saving graces was having a job that kept me busy and had some video conference calls during most of that time (except the weeks of furlough).  Usually Friday evenings were the worst.  I was exiting a week a stress from a job and loneliness and staring at another long weekend of loneliness.  In June of 2020, I reflected on how those 11 weeks changed me.  Here is what I wrote at the time:

• I learned to more frequently cry desperately to the Lord.  And to become more familiar with that feeling.
• I started to feel a more deep need for God each day.
• I learned how to sit and wait (a little better) to try to understand what the Lord wanted me to learn and/or share.  There's definitely more that could be learned there.
• I've always known I had a creative side or maybe I should say a need to create.  COVID19 showed me that it has a very big desire to be expressed.  When I was doing more designing of circuit boards and less reviewing of others' work, I think that was easily satisfied.  Now that I lead and teach and review others' work, the creative and creation side needs other outlets like drawing, constructing, or doing things like playing music.
• I temporarily forgot how to laugh sometimes.  I didn't lose my sense of humor , but when I spent most of my days alone, it was easy to get engrossed in my serious thoughts, serious work, etc.
• I can now appreciate taking a walk by myself.  It's still not my preferred exercise mode, but it'll do in a pinch.
• I realized how good it is to have an evening without an agenda or activity.  And how needful it is to have some evenings with an agenda, but not all evenings to be packed full.  I'm sure this lesson will not always be followed in the future, especially during robotics season.
• It will take us as much time to re-adjust post COVID19 as it did for us to adjust to COVID19 in the first place.

When we first started this "stay at home" stuff, I thought about how it was giving everybody a taste of someone else's life.  Woikas were staying in one place and knowing what it feels like to feel "stuck" somewhere.  Friends were having their lives feeling very uncertain and out of their control, kind of like woikas might often feel.  All of us now know what it might be like to be retired and feel more isolated or to be a "shut-in".  All of us now realize that some of those things on our "to-do" list that never get done are there not because we don't have the time, but simply because we don't want to do them.  It was a good experience to help us all empathize.  It also makes me realize how fortunate we are to have technology where we can talk to someone in almost real time.  Back in the day when people lived out on the prairie in North Dakota, you had to send a letter and probably wait months to hear from your family in another country.

I read an article that called the whole stay at home experience "The Great Pause".  It thought that was an apt description.  That's all for now.  Next time I'll cover more of the period from June of 2020 to June of 2021.  And then Part 3 maybe we'll get into some data analysis.

Here was my office during that time.  It got pretty sunny in the late afternoon and required sunglasses on some days.

AC and Furnace Update

I didn't post last fall about when the furnace was turned on.  Mom and Dad came to visit, and they're not as dedicated as I am to "tough it out" for no apparent reason, so I turned on the furnace the first day of October.  Actually, I should say my dad turned it on as soon as he came in the door and felt how chilly it was in the house.

Today I turned on the AC.  That's two years in a row where it was in the upper 80's or low 90's late in May or early in June.  I know it's time to turn on the AC when it's too hot at night and starts to affect my sleep like it did last night.

Stay cool people!

A Unique Day

Today was a unique day.  It started out fairly normal with lots of meetings in the morning for work, and then I went home for lunch.  I almost went to go pick up an absentee ballot to vote early, but then I decided not to and just went back to work.  As many workplaces are doing right now, I'm required to enter through only one door that enters the lobby and step up to the thermal camera to have my temperature read.

After I did that, I gave the receptionist the afternoon cursory nod and hello and was about to turn away when she says to me, "I need to get a hold of my boss.  I just got word that my grandson fell into a pond and drowned."  Well of course that brought me up short, so I paused to tell her I was sorry to hear that, and I asked if there was anything I could do to help.  By this time she was clearly distressed and simultaneously taking and making phone calls, so things were chaotic and confused.  From eavesdropping and observing, it appeared that what she needed was to be given a ride to her daughter's workplace, so I offered to give her a ride.

After some additional confusion and uncertainty, she took me up on my offer after making sure I could drive fast and we booked it out of there for a 15 minute drive to where her daughter was waiting.  What I could gather in the confusion was that her son was at the hospital crying as he waited for news from the doctors who were still doing CPR on his child.  She said her grandson was a year and a half old.  They just bought a new house a couple days before that.  I'm not exactly sure how the pond figured into all of that, but maybe it was related somehow.  She asked if I prayed, and I told her I did, and she asked me to pray.  I wasn't sure if she meant out loud while I was driving or just in general once I was done driving.  To me that seemed like one of those situations where mostly what you need is someone present rather than someone with the right words, so I concentrated on driving and hoped my presence was enough.  I did say a prayer for her and her family afterward once I was done driving.

An experience like that can tend to refocus things.  It took a little time to get back into the work groove after that, especially since my computer started behaving strangely.  If you have some loved ones close, hold them tight and be thankful.  And be kind to others.  We all have our unique COVID19 struggles to deal with, and other have some even bigger burdens on top of that.

One of my other friends from work was in a bad car accident about 3 weeks ago.  She's one of the sweetest and kindest people I know - definitely could be described as somebody's mother.  She and her husband both sustained serious injuries (broken leg(s), damaged liver, damaged spleen, etc), and their youngest son died in the crash.  That is what I call heartbreaking.

Those kinds of things highlight how little I know about how to  respond to medical and emotional emergencies.  I only know what someone mentioned in Bible study last night - "let love lead."

I was joking to one of my friends on facebook that all we need now is a freak snowstorm in December that drops about 6 feet of snow on us over the course of 2 days, and then the year will really feel complete.   Probably I shouldn't even think that - it might happen!

On Being and David Whyte

As I was driving home from North Dakota a few weeks ago, I listened to a podcast that was an interview with an Irish-English poet named David Whyte who now lives in the USA.  He read a couple of his poems that I thought were very good and that you might enjoy.  They don't even rhyme! And I'm normally one of those people who favors rhyming in their poetry.

I could copy and paste the full text of them here, but I don't want to violate copyright laws and stuff, and plus, they're best listened to in his Irish-English accent with the emphasis on the words in the way the author intended.  They're both less than three minutes long, so check them out.

Everything is Waiting

Vulnerability

Another good quote from that interview was why we enjoy sitting in nature - because nature is exactly what it is.  A tree is a tree, grass is grass, a rabbit is a rabbit, etc.  Unlike our human tendencies to want to be something we are not or to wear a mask for others.

There's your dose of philosophy for the day.

Taxing in 2020

It's that time of year......time to evaluate your funds and your salary and stuff.  And make sure the government gets its fair share.  One good thing about this COVID19 quarantine is that I had time to do my taxes.  And up my game with some pretty graphs and stuff.  The other good thing is the tax deadline was extended into July in case you need extra time.

A good 27% of my salary goes to taxes.  First the Feds take 15% for income tax, then another 6.2% for Social Security, another 1.45% for Medicare, and then the State takes its 3.6%, and the township takes its property taxes.

After that, all the other withholdings for insurance and my retirement come out of my salary for a total of about 42%.  Visually, it looks like this:

I like to do some analysis to notice trends over the years.  I started originally back in 2007 / 2008 timeframe when the whole Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) was taking shape.  I was curious to track what would happen with my medical insurance costs, so I started tracking my taxes and insurance costs.  With the extra time I have now due to quarantine, I went back into my records and filled in some holes so I could see my data for more than 10 years.

For all these graphs, I'll show 2 different versions because depending on what you're looking at, they can tell a different story.  Sometimes it's good to look at things by the actual numbers (dollar amounts).  And sometimes it's interesting to compare by a percentage of my salary.  For example, social security tax.  It's usually a flat rate up to a certain amount, so it's easy.....6% of my salary.  But.....6% of $50,000 would be $3,000, while 6% of $100,000 would be $6,000.  Is that good or bad?  Hard to say....it's good to make more money, but disappointing to see more money leave your pocket as well.  But it's the same because it's always 6%.....right?

Other examples are my 401(K) and my HSA.  They have dollar amount limits, so as my salary increases, if I'm maxing out the dollar amount, as a percentage they decrease even though the dollar amount is likely staying the same.

Here's the data on the original reason I started tracking this.  What has been happening to my insurance costs?  Contrary to the promises, my healthcare insurance costs increased throughout the Obama administration (2008-2016).  They have leveled off somewhat in Trump years.  I'm not convinced it's all due to the president.  There is a correlation, but correlation does not always imply causation.  Also, the orange bar for the Health Savings Account may be somewhat misleading as that's money that may be spent that your or might be saved and used some other year since (so far) I don't track what I take out of my HSA, only what goes in.  But that's an interesting idea of something to track......maybe if I still have some extra time if the quarantine drags on for months, I'll look into that.  I hear people talk about how my company's insurance plan is not that great.  It is a high deductible plan.  But.....my insurance costs really aren't that much, especially if you compare them to what I'm paying in federal income tax.

Before we can compare insurance to taxes, first let's look at the taxes by themselves.  See that?  Total around 26% - 27% of my income recently.  With federal income tax and social security being the biggest chunks.  This doesn't include the sales tax I pay on stuff, so total taxes I would guess to be around 30% if you count all the kinds of taxes that I pay.  When I look at the dollar amounts (you can't see the total dollars since I hid them for privacy purposes), I realize that the taxes I pay are probably as much as some people's salaries.  Which makes me thankful to have a job that pays well.

Now let's add those together and throw in my 401(K) contribution as well since that money is taken out pre-tax too.

Finally, we compare to my total salary and add the net wages in.  And then we look at the whole picture.  Sometimes the dollar value of my taxes increased because I happened to get a nice raise or I had a good bonus that year.

That's all folks.  No super big revelations this year.  I was surprised to note that my social security taxes actually went down in 2011 and 2012.  So did my property taxes.  Maybe that was because of the economy being in the tank.  It looks like Congress realized social security still needed funds, so they increased the amount again.

Until next year when it's time to talk taxes, this is your tax commentator signing off.  Stay tuned though.  Maybe later this week we'll talk about COVID19 and all the exciting graphs that can be made.

2019 Thankfulness, and the start of 2020

As promised about a year ago, I did keep a thankfulness log again in 2019.  I continue to maintain it as a way to sleep better and improve my mood.  Some experts recommend to make your list in the morning to start your day off right.  That doesn't work well for me since I'm not a morning person, so I do mine before I go to bed.

Here are some highlights and themes of my thankfulness from 2019.

I was frequently thankful for these things throughout 2019:

• Friends.  Of all types - those I travel to see, those who come to see me, those I travel with to big destinations, and those who live nearby that I go out to eat with once or twice a month.
• Family.  One should hope so since they are important to me - my parents, my brother, my sisters, my nieces, my nephew, cousins.....
• Getting a massage.  If asked, some of the best things I do for myself over the course of the year are to get massages and hire a cleaning service to do the general cleaning maintenance.
• Sunshine.  Where I live now is in general much cloudier than where I grew up, so I always appreciate a day with sunshine here.  It's amazing how some sunshine can improve a person's mood.
• Bible study.  I found these very encouraging this year.  I think other meetings made the list too, but this specific type of meeting was very helpful this year.  Maybe it's the breath of refreshing air it brings to my soul after a long, stressful day at work that I appreciate so much.
• Prayer.  (And other similar things related to God and getting reminders about the true meaning of life.)
• Leftovers and canned food.  Because when you eat a lot of meals by yourself, it's nice to have an easy meal that I can quickly heat up in the microwave.
• Safe travels.  I drove many miles and took lots of plane trips this year.  As I get older, I think I appreciate more and more having a safe trip without any major problems.

And now for a few of the more "unique" thankfulness items.

January

• Appreciating feeling happy.  After a tough 2018, it was refreshing to pause and notice how good it felt to be happy again.
• Seeing kids get excited about applying math to solving problems (i.e. mentoring robotics)
• Seeing a full lunar eclipse
• A good performance review at work
• Feeling motivated
• Having an operational furnace (we had a big polar vortex in January)
• Having willpower to follow a strict diet, and learning to be creative while on that strict diet

February

• Finding some good "special diet foods" at Wal-Mart
• The "spark" of interest and excitement when reading a book at supper.  As Plutarch said, "The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting."
• Adding things back to my diet as part of the big diet experiment (Celery!  Raspberries!  Mushrooms!  Oh my!)
• Prescription scuba mask
• Making progress on design validation plans at work
• Learning kayak skills in a pool
• Robotics - seeing the robot coming together
• A tropical vacation to Aruba (e.g. dolphins, scuba diving, relaxing)

March

• Hearing frogs sing for the first time in the year
• Interesting pecha kucha event
• Canned chicken (it makes for a quick, easy meal on the go)
• Eating red meat (for the first time in more than a month)
• Figuring out how to do a certain calculation needed at work
• A 2.5 hour car ride to decompress
• A very nice visit with my special meeting company
• Being reassured of the things we are sure of
• Amazon Prime
• Positive feedback on how I'm making an impact as a mentor
• The excitement of a possible job opportunity
• A quiet day at home
• Hearing birds sing when I open my garage door
• Driving with the windows partially down
• A cute picture of my nephew on Snapchat

April

• Fritos (because the ingredients are so simple)
• The fun of data analysis
• Temperatures in the 60's and 70's
• Being able to work from home (when feeling slightly ill)
• Having co-workers who care
• Celtic Woman concert
• Not eating lunch at my desk (because often I do)
• A 3 hour nap
• Yoga
• Eating potatoes after a long break from eating them
• A quiet day at work to get things done
• Talk radio
• A neature walk
• Help from God for the day
• Time to play the piano
• Intestines showing some improvement

May

• Home Free concert
• Eating lunch with some long time work colleagues
• Seeing a local parade for the first time
• Impromptu supper with a friend
• Solving interesting problems
• Things that pull our heart strings and remind us life is short
• First day of outdoor kayaking
• Zone out time at the YMCA on the exercise machines
• Living close to work
• Owning a foam roller (and using it of course)
• Cancelled work meetings
• Making progress in getting answers about my health
• All gave some; some gave all (Memorial Day)
• Muscles starting to feel better
• A thunderstorm to lull me to sleep
• Eating pork for the first time in months

June

• Unique kayaking experience paddling down a flooded road
• Fun at beach volleyball
• Riding my bicycle
• Sleeping well (partly because my help was getting better)
• Lunch outdoors on the bluff
• Doing the first test drive for a new car
• An awesome 2 week vacation to Greece
• Deliciously flaky croissants
• Seeing the marvels of Roman and Greek ruins, aqueducts, and archaeological digs
• A super fancy Michelin start dinner
• Being in Sunday morning meeting for the first time in several weeks
• A medical procedure going well
• A hymn coming to mind
• Lounging in my hammock

July

• Getting flower beds weeded
• Seeing an awesome fireworks show
• Freedom and liberty
• Playing in the pool
• A nice canoe paddling excursion with Bex
• Fun playing rook
• Having experience at work
• A lunch time ride in a convertible with the top down
• Team lunch with delicious pizza
• Seeing the beautiful sights of Chicago
• No cavities
• Fresh local blueberries - the first of the season
• Hot summer weather
• Leaving work early on a Friday
• A refreshing rain shower
• Talking to my parents
• Forgiveness
• Freshly grilled bratwurst
• Making progress on car shopping / test drives
• A good report on the tests from the medical procedure
• My neck and back barely hurting

August

• Fun at the zoo
• An evening walk to the lake
• A new Kindle
• Starting a new long-term training program at work
• Chocolate
• Delicious BBQ brisket
• Compliments from my classmates and instructor on good data analysis
• Enjoying discussing details of a nerdy data topic
• Flights not cancelled
• Diary free ice cream (yes, it's a real thing)
• Having snacks in my backpack
• Being excited to see people at convention
• Walks on a country road
• God speaking
• A perceptive friend

September

• A singing kind of morning
• A delicious Danburger
• Sleeping in my own bed
• A big presentation going well at work
• Getting some emotions off my chest
• The end of car shopping in sight (and getting a new car!)
• Stores with gluten free stuff
• Muscles feeling good in the morning
• Interesting book club meeting
• Finding peace in unexpected events
• Contemplation while doing yard work
• A friend making me laugh
• Sending a silly e-mail about snakes
• Fresh raspberries
• The excitement of a Wednesday evening at convention
• Going to bed before midnight
• Easily finding a buyer for my old car

October

• A beautiful, warm day (>80 F in October!)
• Resisting temptation
• An evening without an agenda
• Getting my roof rack installed
• Getting back in the exercise groove
• Decent leaders at work
• Impromptu lunch with co-workers
• Learning glass blowing
• Doing some last yard work in warm weather
• Having an iPod for a long drive (can you say podcasts?)
• Hiking
• The help of a co-worker to manually take data
• Being able to keep my emotions mostly under control when I started feeling upset
• A walk with a friend on a beautiful day
• Crockpot meals
• Final product approval on a project that I've been working on for 1.5 years
• Road trip talks
• Financial independence that allowed a change in plans
• Hearing of a faithful finish

November

• A beautiful walk in Garden of the Gods
• Daylight savings giving an extra hour of sleep
• A lunch invitation
• Mousetraps
• Fall colors
• Guy at work looking out for me and making a gluten free waffle
• Making scrapbooking progress
• Beauty of falling snow
• Responsible parents
• A hymn in my head when I wake up
• Unlimited cell phone data
• Beautiful moonrise
• Sister workers
• The way my muscles feel after aerobic exercise
• Piano Guys concert
• Lots of time to read my Bible in the morning
• Finishing leaf raking before it rained too hard
• Soaking in a hot tub

December

• Eating a second Thanksgiving dinner
• Peace in prayer
• Liking my job enough to get engrossed in it
• Other engineers helping me get tasks done
• Fun judging middle school robotics competition
• Tater tot deliciousness
• Getting more than 8 hours of sleep (that's a rarity for sure)
• Cleaning out my e-mail inbox a little bit
• God given gift of intelligence
• Previous hard times that help me appreciate what I have now
• Feeling thankful
• Getting exercise outdoors
• Reading a good book
• Getting a house project done
• Dealing with the mail pile
• Stretching
• Standing up for myself
• Feeling someone cares
• Helpful salesmen
• A very helpful gospel meeting
• Piano playing therapy
• Extended family to spend Christmas with
• Rock climbing
• Ice skating on an Olympic sized skating oval
• Cute smiles and snuggles with a 7 month old baby
• Fireside chat with a good friend
• Exercise and a shower to blow off some emotional steam
• The fun of finishing a puzzle

Whew!  I think that's plenty.  2020 started with having the stomach flu on New Year's Day, but it has been improving since then.

Happy New Year!

Conf Call

I think I might have posted this one before, but it was still amusing again since half my day at work is spent on conference calls.  The "being on mute" one is a common mistake.  And the guy who doesn't know how to work the access code to get into the meeting is another common one.

That's all for today.  I actually get a break from most of my conference calls this week because I'm in in-person training all week.  For nerdy stuff. Which is a whole different ball of wax.  Maybe more on that later.  Have a good week.

Retiring Something

It was a sad day on Tuesday.

I put on one of my favorite shirts and noticed that it had a bit of a "thin spot".  It was too late to change clothes, so I wore it to work that way.  When I polled my family and one friend for opinions, they varied from "ready for the gardening/rags pile", "cut off the sleeves and make a short sleeved shirt", "put a sweater over it", and "change your shirt and never wear it again".

The decision became easier by the end of the day when it looked like this.

Since I don't have a sewing machine to hem it for a short sleeved shirt, it went into the garbage that night.  You know what that means.....a dreaded shopping trip some time in the future!  Either that or an online shopping spree, but sometimes that is difficult for shirts since how they're cut determines a lot about whether they fit correctly or not.

Heating and Cooling Report for 2019 (and 2018)

The furnace had a tune-up on Friday, so I decided to leave it on for the season.  I think I could have toughed out more days, but I decided I wanted to inhabit all of my house rather than stay in the one room where I have my little oil heater thing.  October 18th seems to be a relatively "average" day to turn on the furnace.  Last year I had to turn it on earlier because I had guests the weekend our first cold snap came through, and I thought it would be impolite to make them freeze.

Oh, and this summer I turned on my AC in the average range as well - maybe a little bit toward the early side.  Once again, I was having some guests (and it was getting real hot and muggy in the house).

In other news, I have some car suggestions from friends and family.

For a boy:

• Donald
• Clifford  (related to my car having a nose on the front)

For a girl:

• Peppa  (because my car kind of has a 'snout')
• Harriett

I still haven't decided if it's a girl or boy, but Uncle Bex is lobbying hard for Peppa, especially after I got a speeding ticket last week.  She said Peppa has too much pep!

A Big Week: Car Doings Part 2

Besides selling my old car, I also bought a new car.  Like most big decisions, this one needed to marinate for at least a year.  Last summer I vaguely thought about getting a new car, but then I paid almost $1000 to fix Herman's brakes, so I decided to keep him another year.

This summer I started getting serious.  I test drove a whole bunch of cars.  Chevy Equinox, Toyota Rav4, Hyundai Tucson, Subaru Outback, Subaru Crosstrek, Subaru Forester, Honda Civic Hatchback, Honda HRV, Honda CRV, etc.  I think you get the idea.  A decision matrix was involved.  It looked like this:

Key learnings were that a checklist of features you're interested in helps prevent surprises that features are missing.  It also helps to make sure you check to ensure all the features are present when you test drive.  The other key learning is that a test drive can make a big difference on your opinion of a car.  It can make a car be quickly struck from the list (not enough pep, seat uncomfortable) or move it quite close to the top of the list (fun to drive).  The funnest car to drive of all the ones I drove was the Honda Civic Hatchback and was very tempting.  But......"fun to drive" isn't everything, and it didn't quite overcome not having a factory roof rack option.  And, it didn't overcome a smaller cargo area compared to my existing car.

What I decided to do was to be a loyal customer and stick with the Mazda family.  I bought a Mazda CX-5.  So far I like it and it's working out.  Not too many surprises other than the salesman telling me AFTER I wrote the check that the dealer couldn't get a roof rack for almost two months. WHAT?!?!  I almost returned the car right then.  It's prime kayaking season, so a roof rack is essential.  He suggested looking into aftermarket options.  So I did that a little bit, but the I also checked Amazon and YouTube.  The installation video looked relatively uncomplicated, and Amazon could sell me the parts.  So I had the parts ordered and installed in less than a week!

Here's the car as I bought it - before the minor operation:

 And here it is post operation.

Winking in the sun

The other side.

The roof rack is right at the maximum height where I don't need a stool to put the kayak in the rack.  But maybe I'll get a small stool just to make it a little easier.  I'll see what stores have that might be convenient. 

I was assuming the car was male because my previous two cars have been male.  But my one friend thought it was female.  What do you think?  Male or female?  Like usual, name suggestions are welcome.  When I looked at the previous suggestions, a few favorites have been put on the list as a starting point:

1. Hamish
2. Rex
3. Floyd
4. Clyde

A Big Week: Car Doings Part 1

It's been a big week.  A new car was purchased.  And I sold my old car (Herman) after driving it for a little over 11 years and 212,000 miles.  Remember when I bought Herman?  A few memorable times we had were:

1. The fun naming process (and the interesting suggestions)
2. Driving to ND at least once (maybe twice)
3. Getting his first big dent from a giant cottonwood limb during a wind storm at Mom and Dad's when he was less than six months old.  I never had that one fixed - he left today with that first dent still there.
4. Driving to the Cheesy and Corny states countless times
5. Hitting a deer once (just a small flesh wound - only body work was needed)
6. Carrying 3 kayaks home from the store (not all at the same time)
7. Getting started on kayaking, including learning about roof racks and roof rack accessories
8. Trying to drive into the garage with Kermit on his roof.  That was the source of the other major roof dent that Herman left with today.
9. Getting stopped by the police in Illinois and refusing to be searched
10. Many hours of contemplation about emotions and life.  There were some good hours and some dark hours.  Like this.

Like Reggie, Herman was sold to a good home.  He's going to a single mom in her late 20's or early 30's who needs a "slightly" newer car than she has right now.  It would be cool if she could get him to 300,000 miles, but we'll see.  There were no tears for Herman's departure today.  When I cleaned him out on Sunday I did pause for a few moments to feel nostalgic.  It's easier when you know he's going to someone who needs him.  And, having a new car helps numb the pain.

Here's Herman a few hours before leaving today.  He aged fairly well, although as I gave him a car wash today I noticed how many paint chips he had and even *gasp* a couple small rusty spots.  Given how old he is, he still doesn't look too outdated.  I chose well if I do say so myself.

I was paid in cash.  I think this is the most cash I've ever held in my hand at one time.  All of this cash was less than half an inch thick.  Imagine how much money is in those bags full of money that you see in the movies!

Tomorrow or Friday I'll post a picture of my new ride once I remember to take a picture out in the sunlight and not in my cramped garage.

Boundin' and Shells

Toward the beginning of March, I spent the weekend in the cheesey state scrapbooking with Uncle Bex and Cousin Mowla.  It was a good, relaxing weekend with progress made on scrapbooks of course.

As part of that weekend, here are a couple of the interesting videos I saw.  This one came from facebook.  In the last six months I've learned from my sheepish friends that shearing normally occurs in early spring right before lambing starts.  This video caught my emotions because of the lesson, "Now sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down.  When you find that you're down, well just look around.  You're still got a body, good legs, and fine feet.  Get your head in the right place, and hey, you're complete."

This other video is more for entertainment value.  It's one of those that is so ridiculous it's funny.  Marcel the Shell - "For adventure, I hang glide on a Dorito."

Have a good week!  Ours started here with rain, snow, and high winds today, but I think we can recover.  I spent today taking a long nap as part of recovering from being sick last week.

Purl, Role Models, and Food for Thought

Over the last 4-6 weeks I've been reading a couple books related to work and research on females in the workplace.  And how we all have unconscious bias (we're all a little bit sexist, even females themselves, and we're all a little bit racist, even black people themselves).  Someone at work e-mailed me this short Pixar video (see below).  It seems related, at least in my mind.

Since I work in a male-dominated profession (engineering), this video has some resonating points for me.  And it reminds me of a time in January in the late evening when I was driving and happened upon some conservative talk radio.  I didn't recognize the talk show host - it wasn't Rush or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin.  It was soon after the State of the Union address, and the host was giving some analysis of that.  He was talking about how Nancy Pelosi (and other democrats) didn't applaud and give a standing ovation when President Trump said unemployment for African Americans was down.  And that unemployment for other minorities was down.  What they did give a standing ovation for was a statistic related to women (can't remember what the exact statistic was).  One of the host's points was Nancy and friends were being a bit hypocritical in only cheering for a good statistic for women and not for other minorities.  Which I think is a fair point.

The next statement the radio show host made I completely disagreed with.  He said that women have already won equality, so nothing more needs to be done.  Why are they still fighting?  Nancy Pelosi has already been Speaker of the House in the past, so the battle has already been won.  Everything is equal now.  That is where I disagree.  That's like saying "we've had a black president now, so racism no longer exists and we don't need to do anything."  Not true - there are many people and pockets of places where there is not racism.  However, ask any black person if they have felt discriminated against in the last 2-3 years, and I'm fairly certain they will tell you they have been.  Sometimes very openly by people calling them names or threatening them, but often it may be subtle, kind of like in the video of Purl.  Often it wasn't anything they said, it was the body language, what they didn't say, what they would stop saying when a certain person walked by, or what they didn't invite you to participate in.  Or their insistence on conformance to be accepted rather than appreciating you for your differences.  For example, I have black friends (respectable engineers) who say sometimes security follows them through a store.

Is it really "equal" if we've had 230 years of Congress existing, and a little over 4 of those years have had a female as the speaker of the house?  Would it become equal if for the next 222 years we have a female as the Speaker of the House?  Is it equal now when women make up 25 percent of the Senate and 23 percent of the House, though they comprise almost 51 percent of the U.S. population?

This year at robotics I've also been mulling over what it is I bring to the robotics team as a mentor.  I'm the only female technical mentor on the team.  There are 2 or 3 moms who help with administrative things or "craft/advertising" things, but I'm the only female mentor helping to work directly on the robot.  All the other mentors are white, and many of them are middle-aged.  Some of them have talents I admire.  One guy is a highly engaging person who makes everything fun and teaches in a very fun style while still being very clear about the technical concepts or goals for a project.  He's always dreaming up fun "extra" projects.  Another guy brings more of a take charge approach.  If kids are wandering around without something to do, he gives them something to do.  He has a loud voice and is OK with telling others what to do frequently, so at competitions he can tell the kids to "clean up your trash" in the bleachers before leaving, and they do.

What do I bring?  I'm not loud.  I don't have the voice to be loud even if I wanted to be.  I have a bit of a monotone and tend to be serious if I don't know someone well, so I'm not making every activity "fun".  I'm not bossy and I'm not telling the kids what they need to do all the time (although occasionally I will if the situation warrants it).  After reflection this season, the conclusion I've come to is I bring diversity and a role model to the team.  How will girls on the team aspire to work on the robot if they don't see other women or girls working on the robot?  How will girls aspire to become an engineer if they don't know any women engineers?  Less than 20% of engineers in the workplace are female.  If we ever want to improve that number, I think part of that is to have role models.

When I was younger and growing up in a state that is used to strong pioneer women and has a relatively homogeneous (probably >90% white) culture, I didn't really think about this type of stuff, and I probably didn't believe issues with race and gender still existed.  And now I'm approaching middle age.  Or you could maybe say I've reached middle age.  So this is what middle age is.....realizing you're old and are now the role model rather than the one looking at role models.  Middle age is realizing that things are more complicated than you used to think they were.  And yet they aren't more complicated.  Sure, every story has two (or more) sides, and often the truth is somewhere in the middle between the stories.  But it still comes back to understanding that all people have three very basic emotional needs:

1. People need to feel loved.
2. People need to feel respected.
3. People need to feel accepted.

Book Review: Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks

I just finished reading "Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks:  Everything You Know About Cooling Electronics is Wrong" by Tony Kordyban.  You may be thinking, "That sounds kind of nerdy."  You would be correct.  It is nerdy - because it's about the thermodynamics and heat transfer of electronics.  But I think even a non-engineer could enjoy it if you have some basic interest in heat transfer principles.  It's written to be a bit Dilbert-esque and has lots of funny jokes and makes tongue-in-cheek jokes about corporate America.  At least I thought the jokes were funny.

The examples and advice given in the book are very real-world scenarios and examples, and the author does a good job of relating heat and electronics to real life.  The book illustrates well the typical dilemmas in a day (or year) in the life of an electrical hardware design engineer.

For my fellow engineers and science lovers, I recommend this book.  For those not deeply interested in science, you may want to give this one a pass.  Even though the writing is funny, that may not compensate enough for the technical lessons and details in the book.

Random Old School

As I was driving home from robotics today and was scanning through the radio channels, I heard two older but good songs that I had never really focused on the words before.  One was Michael Jackson's "Man In the Mirror".  I think lots of times I picture him singing silly songs or singing songs with somewhat obscure lyrics and making strange music videos.  This one has one of those classic messages like "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

The other song was "Try" by Pink.  Now THAT is a funky music video.  But the chorus has some interesting lyrics.  Maybe I was just feeling philosophical tonight and I would have thought anything was interesting.  "Where there is desire there is going to be a flame.  Where there's a flame someone's bound to get burned.  Just because it burns doesn't mean you're going to die - you gotta get up and try, try, try."

Have a good Wednesday.

New Year 2019 and 2018 Reflection

I thought I'd start by stating the obvious - it's a new year!  You may have noticed my thankfulness posts got seriously behind last year.  I've still been faithfully keeping my log for the whole year so will try to slowly finish out 2018.

The question becomes then what to do about 2019.  I'm still planning to keep my own personal thankfulness log, but I think I might not log it here on my blog on a weekly basis like before.  I'd prefer to leave more blogging time for whatever comes to my mind.  Maybe on a monthly basis I'll talk about a few things that I was especially thankful for.

In 2018 I fell behind on my blogging for a couple reasons.  At the end of the year I was trying to do less stuff on the computer to take a break from the screens after spending all day at work.  And part of the year I just wasn't feeling up to blogging and work was quite busy and taking a lot of time.

I won't promise I'll be super faithful in blogging in 2019 either, but we'll see what happens.

2018 was a chaotic and tough year.  In some ways it was easier than 2017, but in some ways it was harder than 2017.  The end was better than the beginning for sure.  I spent two weeks of vacation in New Zealand, traveled to China for a week for work, spent a week in Barbados for vacation, went to ND to visit my parents five times, kayaked a whole bunch including joining a local kayaking group, joined a couple three-week exercise and healthy eating support groups, had three different bosses, sat in three different cubicles, worked on 3 different circuit boards plus solved 2 quality issues on 2 other circuit boards, and made progress on resolving some personal emotional stuff.

Oh, and a new year usually means a new robotics challenge.  Destination Deep Space.  Check it out:

I'm looking forward to a brighter 2019.

Today's Contemplation on Democracy

As I'm sure all my informed readers are aware, today was election day.  I think what's good about a controversial president is that in some ways it helps people care more about their local politics.  They may not be able to have much say in what the president does, but they're taking the opportunity to care about who their other elected officials are.  In self-help speak you might say they're focusing on what they can control.

Today there were lots of people out along main street holding their signs to encourage you to vote for their candidates.  I even saw one guy who is running for State Senate - he was on the street corner holding a campaign sign himself along with his supporters.  It almost made me want to vote for him.

Even though I don't agree with all the philosophies of some of the people running for office, I'm encouraged to see people being passionate about our country's democracy.

Speaking of democracy, I'm reading a book that's about the opposite of democracy.  It's making me appreciate the democracy we have.  The book is called "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin".  I learned about the book several years ago when I visited Ukraine, and I got around to reading it this year.  It's not really light bedtime reading.  It's quite horrific actually - the number of people in eastern Europe who were killed.  The were killed by purposeful starvation, execution style, harsh overwork in gulags, exposure to the elements, etc.  I don't think I'm even halfway through the book yet, and all that has happened already.  Since my world history teacher was very lax on the teaching part, this book is really improving my knowledge of World War II.

That's all for today.  Tomorrow we'll already be halfway through the week - enjoy the rest of it!