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.

Tags: car, goals, Life, Money

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….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

Tags: Climbing, Climbing, The Valley, Yosemite NP

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…again

A couple weekends ago, I headed up to Northern Colorado to house hunt again. Several months ago, I had visited Felix in Fort Collins and while he enthusiastically showed off the virtues of Fort Collins, the agent I had been working with remotely showed me some homes for sale in the area.

From a real estate point of view, the visit was a bit frustrating. I saw a lot but none of the houses struck me as “the” house for me.

That frustration is what lead me to my later visit to Bend, OR in search of a house.

Although Bend has the terrain I like and the benefit of close proximity to Northern CA, I realized after my visit that, as much as I liked Bend, the homes there were a bit too pricey for me.

After that I refocused on Northern CO again. This time on Loveland, just south of Fort Collins. The homes seemed cheaper and there seemed to be potentially more that met my many unique criteria. Being close to Fort Collins, I could still enjoy the benefits of the city, including the Felix-factor.

This trip involved a lot of homework and I came prepared for a house hunting blitz of 2.5 days.

Felix again was a gracious host! While I think he enjoys looking at houses, I’m sure it is not at the top of his list of things to do for an entire weekend.

My agent found a bunch of great properties to look at in Loveland as well as in Horsetooth and Fort Collins. When we weren’t with him, Felix and I drove around scoping out potential neighborhoods.

I was disappointed in what I saw of the city of Loveland and decided I would definitely be driving to Fort Collins a lot if I lived there. However I did like several neighborhoods in the north west side of town.

Yes - it Snows in Fort Collins

Regardless of what you read on Felix’s blog - it does indeed snow in Fort Collins. I know because I was there when it happened. It is not all perfect sunshine and roses as he would have all his blog-readers and CA friends believe.

Except for the snow incident it was very pleasant weather. It started with light hail Sunday late afternoon, then progressed to snow that didn’t stop until morning. There was probably about a foot of snow on the ground….ok not really a foot maybe 3-4″. Monday the weather was overcast, kind of dreary out but not wet or extremely cold. By the late afternoon it was sunny and warm out again. The snow lingered on the lawns and some roads for the rest of the day. Of course Felix claims that the day after I left it was t-shirt and shorts weather with not a hint of snow on the ground.

Detours

Felix took me on two really nice detours on this trip. The first one was on the way up from the Denver airport when I first arrived. We stopped in Boulder and had lunch there. I love the downtown and general ‘feel’ of the city!

Then on the way to the airport on Monday, we made a nice detour round trip visit to Estes Park. Cute mountain touristy town… with lots of granite rock! I’m guessing there are some amazing routes there. With awe-inspiring views of the mountains all around and the huge granite cliffs, Estes Park was a great ending to a hectic, sometimes frustrating, but productive weekend.

It was also the end of the mini wildlife tour I was getting this trip. First there was the very cute and bushy fox we saw up close and personal in Horsetooth. Then there was the far off coyote hunting and pouncing I watched from one of the homes we visited. And in Estes Park we first saw a small herd of big horn sheep trotting down the road (head-on near a blind turn), and then a bunch of elk munching on grass in town near some stores and houses.

…house news to follow in a week or two…

Tags: fort collins, goals, Life, wildlife

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