I'm sure you're thinking - yeah all this sewer and accounting and band stuff is great, but can you please just get back to the football?
The NFL draft starts tonight. "Starts" is the key word - we can't get this done in one day or even two. It's now a three-day event.
The Denver Broncos have the #2 overall pick - their highest selection in a draft during my lifetime. Who are they going to pick? Well, it really depends on who you ask. It kind of sounds like it is narrowed down to four players: DT Marcell Dareus of Alabama, DT Nick Fairley of Auburn, CB Patrick Peterson of LSU, or LB Von Miller of Texas A&M. They're all defensive players, which is good. If the Broncos spent all of their picks in the 2011 draft on defensive players, I don't think it would be overkill.
I guess the way I feel about how the Broncos should approach this #2 pick is this - whoever you think has the best chance to be an All-Pro-type player for you for the next 10 years, pick that guy. Don't mess around with figuring out where you most need help or taking gambles. After pretty much blowing a decade's worth of drafts, the Broncos cannot afford to blow the highest draft choice they've had in the Super Bowl era.
Unfortunately, it may not be that simple. If the Broncos followed my logic, their choice would probably be Patrick Peterson. The problems are that cornerbacks never get picked that high, and the Broncos already have Champ Bailey. So what good does it do to have two Pro Bowl cornerbacks when you don't have a defensive line?
A lot of people like Von Miller as the Broncos #2 pick. And there's a lot to like - he led the nation with 17 sacks in 2009 and had 10.5 more in 2010. If there is one think the Broncos have struggled with for years, it's getting pressure on the quarterback. The problem is that he played defensive end his junior year, and then converted to a 3-4 outside linebacker his senior year. With the Broncos, he would be playing 4-3 outside linebacker. Traditionally, the Broncos haven't had much luck with this type of hybrid DE/LB type. See Ayers, Robert and Moss, Jarvis. So even though he is compared to former Kansas City Chief and Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas as a pass rusher, there's just no way to know for sure.
Marcell Dareus seems to be the consensus pick among national pundits. And if he's available at #2, the Broncos should probably take him. Not because he may end up being the best in the long run, but because he's what the Broncos most "need" right now and is probably the lowest risk.
Who do the Broncos most want to pick? None of the above, most likely. I'm sure they would love to to trade the pick for multiple lower picks. I don't necessarily agree. One of the reasons they have plateaued in recent history is because they were never quite bad enough to get into the top 10 or top 5 of the draft and pick up a real difference maker. Instead, they were left to take chances on dudes like Willie Middlebrooks and Jarvis Moss.
What complicates the whole matter is that no one really seems to know what the Carolina Panthers will do with the number #1 overall pick. Some of the local talk guys are thinking the Panthers will take Dareus rather than an offensive player. So that could mess up the Broncos' plans for tonight.
We'll see what happens. Keep in mind I don't actually know anything and I'm just regurgitating what I hear and read. I haven't actually seen any of these guys play because I don't believe in college football.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
"When it Rains it Pours" or "Can One Really Get Ahead in Life?"
It's not likely that a person would ever get through life without a financial setback.
But do they really need to happen every other year?
We bought our house three and a half years ago. It wasn't much to look at then, and still isn't, by the way. But there was the hope that we could make it nice with our limited resources.
We've been doing stuff gradually - paint a room here, new garage door opener there, clearing out unsightly bushes and landscaping, etc. The only truly major splurge we did was to get new windows because the old aluminum ones were broken and terrible. Less than six months after those were installed, my already pregnant wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. And so we went through our medical period - childbirth (complete with time in the NICU), surgery for the wife, followed by some brief radiation treatment. Oh, and also some surgery for our newly born son. Medical insurance is great, but it doesn't cover everything, and it was a long time before all those bills and our new windows were paid off - but they did get paid off.
This year was the first year since we moved to Colorado that I didn't have to immediately take our entire tax refund and use it to pay off some other debt that we owed. It was kind of nice to have a little cushion in the bank. During my long working days of the winter and early spring, it was fun to daydream about things we might be able to do with the extra cash. I'm not talking going to Disneyland or anything - maybe just some modest upgrades in our furniture situation or maybe some fun summer activities for the family here in Colorado.
I've always been kind of uneasy about the plumbing in this house. While it worked, there were some things that happened (including smells) that didn't seem quite right. But if it's not broke, don't fix it, right? About three weeks ago, we woke up to water on the floor of the laundry room. At first we thought it was coming from the washer or the water heater or something, before finally figuring out that it was coming up through the drain hole. We did everything we could think of to fix it, but only made it worse. Finally, we gave up and resolved to call the plumber first thing Monday morning.
The problem was tree roots growing into our plumbing out in the front yard, and there were problems all the way out to the main sewer line in the street. To make a long story short, they gave us the option of the temporary fix with assurances that the roots would continue growing into the crappy (pun intended) 1970s era plumbing technology, or we could update all the plumbing and be assured that we would have happy flushing and showering until our kids reach adulthood.
The cost was substantial - we're talking five figures. The major "con" of not doing it was that the potential future repair costs would only go up if we let the shoddy plumbing in the yard and street continue to deteriorate. We didn't know what to do - we don't exactly have our emergency fund that stocked - so it would mean debt and payments once again. On the other hand, who wants to live a life of sewage backing up into the house?
We went ahead with the plumbing work. There's something to be said for indoor plumbing, but it's not like you end up with something that you can show for it - as in, check out our remodeled kitchen or awesome backyard deck/patio! Maybe we're spoiled. I guess if outhouses were still commonplace, our plumbing would be super cool.
The same week our oldest son went to the orthodonist. One major triumph of 2011 has been getting his braces paid off. Only now the orthodonist is recommending more treatment - at more than twice the cost of what we just paid off. We haven't decided about the teeth just yet. Oh, and did I mention that we are expecting a baby next month? Who knows the extent of financial obligations that will be incurred during that visit?
So any and all plans we had or were going to have for the next year or two or three all went down the drain in about a week's time. At least they stayed down.
I can only describe my feelings as discouraged. We try to live by sound financial principles. I track all the money that comes in and goes out and review it monthly. We pay full tithing plus generous fast offerings. I participate in the deferred salary program at work. If we do eat out, it's something affordable like $5 Little Caesers Pizza or Subway. We're still using the same 19-inch TV we bought 10 years ago. We have new iPods but we got them free for opening bank accounts. We don't buy stuff unless we know we have a way to pay for it. Oops, except we just did.
I don't mean to sound whiney. I know everyone has challenges and some are harder than others. I'm grateful to have a job that gets us most of the way there on the monthly budget. I guess I'm just expressing my frustration about the one-step-forward-two-steps-back way that things have been going the past few years.
But do they really need to happen every other year?
We bought our house three and a half years ago. It wasn't much to look at then, and still isn't, by the way. But there was the hope that we could make it nice with our limited resources.
We've been doing stuff gradually - paint a room here, new garage door opener there, clearing out unsightly bushes and landscaping, etc. The only truly major splurge we did was to get new windows because the old aluminum ones were broken and terrible. Less than six months after those were installed, my already pregnant wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. And so we went through our medical period - childbirth (complete with time in the NICU), surgery for the wife, followed by some brief radiation treatment. Oh, and also some surgery for our newly born son. Medical insurance is great, but it doesn't cover everything, and it was a long time before all those bills and our new windows were paid off - but they did get paid off.
This year was the first year since we moved to Colorado that I didn't have to immediately take our entire tax refund and use it to pay off some other debt that we owed. It was kind of nice to have a little cushion in the bank. During my long working days of the winter and early spring, it was fun to daydream about things we might be able to do with the extra cash. I'm not talking going to Disneyland or anything - maybe just some modest upgrades in our furniture situation or maybe some fun summer activities for the family here in Colorado.
I've always been kind of uneasy about the plumbing in this house. While it worked, there were some things that happened (including smells) that didn't seem quite right. But if it's not broke, don't fix it, right? About three weeks ago, we woke up to water on the floor of the laundry room. At first we thought it was coming from the washer or the water heater or something, before finally figuring out that it was coming up through the drain hole. We did everything we could think of to fix it, but only made it worse. Finally, we gave up and resolved to call the plumber first thing Monday morning.
The problem was tree roots growing into our plumbing out in the front yard, and there were problems all the way out to the main sewer line in the street. To make a long story short, they gave us the option of the temporary fix with assurances that the roots would continue growing into the crappy (pun intended) 1970s era plumbing technology, or we could update all the plumbing and be assured that we would have happy flushing and showering until our kids reach adulthood.
The cost was substantial - we're talking five figures. The major "con" of not doing it was that the potential future repair costs would only go up if we let the shoddy plumbing in the yard and street continue to deteriorate. We didn't know what to do - we don't exactly have our emergency fund that stocked - so it would mean debt and payments once again. On the other hand, who wants to live a life of sewage backing up into the house?
We went ahead with the plumbing work. There's something to be said for indoor plumbing, but it's not like you end up with something that you can show for it - as in, check out our remodeled kitchen or awesome backyard deck/patio! Maybe we're spoiled. I guess if outhouses were still commonplace, our plumbing would be super cool.
The same week our oldest son went to the orthodonist. One major triumph of 2011 has been getting his braces paid off. Only now the orthodonist is recommending more treatment - at more than twice the cost of what we just paid off. We haven't decided about the teeth just yet. Oh, and did I mention that we are expecting a baby next month? Who knows the extent of financial obligations that will be incurred during that visit?
So any and all plans we had or were going to have for the next year or two or three all went down the drain in about a week's time. At least they stayed down.
I can only describe my feelings as discouraged. We try to live by sound financial principles. I track all the money that comes in and goes out and review it monthly. We pay full tithing plus generous fast offerings. I participate in the deferred salary program at work. If we do eat out, it's something affordable like $5 Little Caesers Pizza or Subway. We're still using the same 19-inch TV we bought 10 years ago. We have new iPods but we got them free for opening bank accounts. We don't buy stuff unless we know we have a way to pay for it. Oops, except we just did.
I don't mean to sound whiney. I know everyone has challenges and some are harder than others. I'm grateful to have a job that gets us most of the way there on the monthly budget. I guess I'm just expressing my frustration about the one-step-forward-two-steps-back way that things have been going the past few years.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
We're Nowhere Near the End
Because we still have to wait another two weeks for season 2 of Growing Pains to be released, I decided that now would be a good time to rewatch the season 1 DVDs so that we can be prepared for the season 2 release.
A good reason to release multiple seasons of ANY show on DVD is that the first season usually isn't the best of the lot. The first four episodes of GP are a little rough. You can tell that the actors haven't totally figured out their characters and the cast hasn't fully meshed just yet. At times I was wondering if Growing Pains was Joanna Kerns' first professional acting job.
A few observations from the first disc of season 1:
I didn't know huge oversized clothing was so fashionable for women in 1985. Because Maggie and Carol could wear bedsheets in some of those episodes and they would have been more form-fitting than some of the outfits they had on.
A bit of false doctrine was refuted in episode 4. A few websites, Wikipedia and their ilk, proclaim that Ben Seaver's full name is Benjamin Hubert Horatio Humphrey Seaver. They think it's that because of an episode in a later season when Jason is angry and calls him by that moniker. I knew it was not correct, because who has three middle names like that, but I didn't have a reference. Now I do, as it is clearly stated in this episode that his middle name is just Humphrey. Still not a very good middle name, but at least correct.
The scene stealer in these early episodes is Mr. Simmons, the journalism teacher, who finds fault with Carol's overdescriptive reporting. "I forgot who I was talking to. Your writing is replete with stinkiosity." Great job by that guy.
One of the early guest stars of the series is the late Dana Plato, of Diff'rent Strokes fame. She plays a Madonnaphile who wants to "not watch TV" with Mike while his parents are out. I went online to figure out what their respective ages were when the episode was filmed. She would have been about 21, and Kirk Cameron about 15. Yeah, okay. So that kissing must have been awkward, for one or both of them. It may have even scarred Kirk for life, because he now apparently will only kiss his wife on-screen. Anyways, watching that episode made me want to look into Diff'rent Strokes on DVD.
Added to the long list of tv/movie ideas which couldn't be reused in 2010 is episode 7 - Weekend Fantasy, where Jason and Maggie hurry back from a weekend getaway to Vermont because the kids aren't answering the phone back at home at 10 PM. (SPOILER ALERT - they were down at a neighbors having a bundt and watching vacation slides) In 2010, at least Mike and Carol and maybe even Ben have cell phones, so that episode is over in like seven and a half minutes.
A good reason to release multiple seasons of ANY show on DVD is that the first season usually isn't the best of the lot. The first four episodes of GP are a little rough. You can tell that the actors haven't totally figured out their characters and the cast hasn't fully meshed just yet. At times I was wondering if Growing Pains was Joanna Kerns' first professional acting job.
A few observations from the first disc of season 1:
I didn't know huge oversized clothing was so fashionable for women in 1985. Because Maggie and Carol could wear bedsheets in some of those episodes and they would have been more form-fitting than some of the outfits they had on.
A bit of false doctrine was refuted in episode 4. A few websites, Wikipedia and their ilk, proclaim that Ben Seaver's full name is Benjamin Hubert Horatio Humphrey Seaver. They think it's that because of an episode in a later season when Jason is angry and calls him by that moniker. I knew it was not correct, because who has three middle names like that, but I didn't have a reference. Now I do, as it is clearly stated in this episode that his middle name is just Humphrey. Still not a very good middle name, but at least correct.
The scene stealer in these early episodes is Mr. Simmons, the journalism teacher, who finds fault with Carol's overdescriptive reporting. "I forgot who I was talking to. Your writing is replete with stinkiosity." Great job by that guy.
One of the early guest stars of the series is the late Dana Plato, of Diff'rent Strokes fame. She plays a Madonnaphile who wants to "not watch TV" with Mike while his parents are out. I went online to figure out what their respective ages were when the episode was filmed. She would have been about 21, and Kirk Cameron about 15. Yeah, okay. So that kissing must have been awkward, for one or both of them. It may have even scarred Kirk for life, because he now apparently will only kiss his wife on-screen. Anyways, watching that episode made me want to look into Diff'rent Strokes on DVD.
Added to the long list of tv/movie ideas which couldn't be reused in 2010 is episode 7 - Weekend Fantasy, where Jason and Maggie hurry back from a weekend getaway to Vermont because the kids aren't answering the phone back at home at 10 PM. (SPOILER ALERT - they were down at a neighbors having a bundt and watching vacation slides) In 2010, at least Mike and Carol and maybe even Ben have cell phones, so that episode is over in like seven and a half minutes.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Stick With What You Know
Just FYI, if you undertake some home improvements which qualify for the Federal Residential Engery Tax Credit, take what tax advice the contractor gives you with a grain of salt - because they may very well be wrong.
I've run across two instances where the contractor as been incorrect. One was for me personally. The contractor gave us a form when we did our insulation last summer saying that we could take X amount as a credit on our return. When I was doing our tax return, I looked up the acutal IRS instructions (cuz that's how I roll), and discovered that what we were entitled to was actually slightly less.
And then I'm just doing a client's return. They had some windows installed and were given a glossy brochure from Home Depot describing the tax credit. On the brochure, it stated that the credit allows only for the cost of the material and not for the cost of installation.
Nope. Per the instructions for Form 5695, under the heading Residential Engery Property Costs: "Include any labor costs properly allocable to the onsite preparation, assembly, or original installation of the energy property."
So there you have it. Also, don't have a car dealer do your taxes.
I've run across two instances where the contractor as been incorrect. One was for me personally. The contractor gave us a form when we did our insulation last summer saying that we could take X amount as a credit on our return. When I was doing our tax return, I looked up the acutal IRS instructions (cuz that's how I roll), and discovered that what we were entitled to was actually slightly less.
And then I'm just doing a client's return. They had some windows installed and were given a glossy brochure from Home Depot describing the tax credit. On the brochure, it stated that the credit allows only for the cost of the material and not for the cost of installation.
Nope. Per the instructions for Form 5695, under the heading Residential Engery Property Costs: "Include any labor costs properly allocable to the onsite preparation, assembly, or original installation of the energy property."
So there you have it. Also, don't have a car dealer do your taxes.
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