Welcome to my refreshed site!
I’ve been around since 2000, but this new look is to celebrate 2008!

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Pictures

please note, transferring my picture pages to my new design will be a larger project then anticipated - they are there, but in a different format.

• Climbing Pictures
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• Travel Pictures (found on Tori Travels.com)

What happen to April?!
I’m skipping April’s Net Worth post for a few reasons, mainly though because I’m making a major purchase that will change my financial picture. While that is in the works any snapshot of my money will be misleading and inaccurate.

I’ll wait until the first week of May, once the financial dust settles.

Meanwhile, in April, just after I sent in my Federal Tax Return, I realized I had forgotten a very small W-2. Very annoying, but it had to be corrected. I dreaded doing my first ever tax amendment - it sounded intimidating. But using Turbo Tax online it was pretty straight forward and simple.

Three words I never thought to see together as a serious statement. I have heard of “weasel-poo”, but only as an adjective to describe bad coffee.

Unlike “weasel-poo” the adjective, cat poo coffee is actually coffee made from cat poo…or rather coffee beans taken out of cat poo. Apparently this is a good thing. ?? And very expensive.

LONDON, England (CNN) — A London department store has started selling coffee for $100 a shot.

If the price sounds unappealing, then shoppers also have to overcome the unusual method of cultivation, which sees the coffee beans harvested from the faeces of an Indonesian jungle cat.

Even so, the Peter Jones store says the luxury blend — called Caffé Raro — is one of the world’s rarest and most premium coffees.

Made by the Italian company De Longhi, Caffé Raro combines Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kupi Luwak, two extremely rare coffees.

The beans of Kupi Luwak are harvested after first being ingested by Civet cats and only around 260 kilos of the coffee is produced each year.
Don’t Miss

“The cats select the best beans to chew. It’s rather like a natural filtering process,” Carie Barkhuzen, a spokeswoman for the upmarket store in London’s upmarket Sloane Square told CNN.

The coffee, which went on sale yesterday, is either available at $100 for a shot at the Peter Jones Espresso Bar, or shoppers can buy 100g packs of the coffee beans to take away for the same price.

“It’s not exactly flying off the shelves — it’s very expensive after all — but customers are buying it,” Barkhuzen said.

…who knew?…
I had no idea such a thing existed. It actually turns out there are a few of them - annually.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, after all coffee rocks! And a well made coffee is most definitely an art appreciated by coffee-lovers.

There is nothing as disappointing as getting a poorly made coffee drink, after looking forward to enjoying at least a decent cup.

Apparently the most prestigious competition in the US is the USBC (United States Barista Championship) held every year. Judged by seven USBC-certified judges, the barista challengers have to prepare and serve 12 orders consisting of: four espressos, four cappuccinos and four original signature drinks of their own creation. All this in 15-minutes. The competition is held over four days and this year it is in Minneapolis at the beginning of May.

The USBC winner gets to move on to the WBC (World Barista Championship) held in Copenhagen this June.

What I want to know is where are all these talented baristas working when they aren’t competing?

Hooray! I’m done.

With my self-imposed deadline of March 31st approaching fast, I dedicated all day Sunday to completing my taxes that were started over a month ago. After dallying the morning away - I realized that I had to get going…then I put it off for another hour or so before I got busy. Time flew by, but I got it done.

First, I have to say we have some seriously whacked tax rules!
Second, I loved having my hybrid car purchase tax credit. It even has its own form: Form 8910 “Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit”.

What I use to file…
The previous three years I used H&R Block’s online filing program. I really liked how it worked. The program was user-friendly, easy to find help when you needed it and seemed to cover everything. Last year, however I had a small issue so it was the first time I had to actually communicate with their customer “service”. I got one of my worse customer service experiences ever (at least in the top three) - and it wasn’t from just one person. For that reason I went through the extra hassle of switching up companies this year.

I would not recommend using H&R Block’s online tax program if you think you may ever have to actually communicate with someone.

This year I went with the TurboTax online program. Pretty much the same setup as H&R’s. In my opinion the Federal was a little easier with Turbo Tax, but the state return was more complicated. The state interview is not as well done in the program as either their own Federal or as H&R’s state return section.

I didn’t have any need for their customer service yet so I can’t compare that - but I can’t imagine it could be worse…or even as incompetent as H&R’s.

….at least for me it was.

Even though I was suffering from a cold I picked up on the way back from CO, the camping reservations were made and The Valley weather was forecasted to be perfect.

Although the place is amazing, I sometimes dread going to the Valley because of the crowds, crazy tourist and noisy dirty campgrounds. However in late Winter or early Spring the crowds - both tourist and climbers - aren’t in full swing yet and the daytime weather can be in the perfect climbing range of 60’s and 70’s. This is one of my favorite times of the year to visit so I was really looking forward to climbing there this weekend - sickly or not.

It happened to be Easter weekend so we had a larger tourist crowd than I had expected, but there weren’t many climbers.

On Saturday we climbed three pitches - I felt pretty miserable from my cold, but was happy to be on the rock. Then on Sunday we climbed four pitches.

All of the climbs were repeats, being the first weekend out in 2008 and not feeling well, that was fine with me. I just wanted to have fun and be outdoors…..and I got both done