My tendency was always to obsess about every possible scenario that might possibly happen, assume the worst, and then try to plan for it. To some extent, it’s a smart way to plan. But not if it makes me have a stroke.

As you know from my past musings, we are having to pay back the unemployment that we’ve been paid the past few months. If you didn’t know that, go back a couple of posts. But that’s a big chunk of change, and of course, we already spent it on bills.

That introduces a cash flow problem. I still have all of the same bills to pay, but now Kansas wants several thousand dollars. And they want it now, they want it all at once, and they want it in large, non-sequential bills. Seriously, they want it all now.

Add to that April is coming up and IHS had a better year than expected, so i will also owe several thousand dollars to the IRS and frickin Kansas then, too.

That’s a LOT of cash to come up with between now and April 15th. And I have to do it without the unemployment Jenna still should have been getting through this October.

So basically, cash in has gone to zero, and cash out has gone to about ten thousand dollars.

I’m not imagining the circumstances. That is reality. But I am probably not helping the situation by making myself stroke out. It is what it is, and at the end of the day, the government can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. They can’t have what I don’t have.

If that’s the case, then the worst thing that can happen is I get nasty threatening letters from the IRS.

How bad can that be?

This is really not smart on his part, since I could post anything I felt like on his website. However, the businessman in me says “Pete, you are running a business, you can’t be unprofessional, even to a turbotool like this guy.” So rather than potentially give my business a black eye, it gave me great pleasure to write the following letter, terminating his hosting with my company (click to enlarge):

Against the advice of my dad, I decided to write him a refund check for the unused portion of his hosting. I probably don’t have to legally, and I definitely don’t have to morally, but I still want to keep my business totally on the up-and-up. Unlike him. The main benefit of writing a refund check to this bozo is that I got to write the letter you just read. It just wouldn’t have the same flair if I wasn’t sending him money.

I think of it as a payment on continuing education… I learned never to work with Chiropractors. Legitimate medicine has been proving over and over that Chiropractic Subluxation is total BS for the past 110 years. Why would I think that someone who charged people money to do something that doesn’t fix what he claims it fixes while also risking serious injury or death (strokes, etc.) is a good person? Don’t take my word for it:

Don’t Let Chiropractic Fool You

Anyhow, after about 200 emails, I thought “Wow, this would be a really funny post for incredipete!”

So, I contacted them about my impending “nomination.”

They were pleased to hear from me and just wanted to interview me to “make sure I met their standards for qualification.”

In an attempt to find out how well they screen applications (after all, I don’t want to be in a publication that hasn’t been edited and fact-checked), I decided to embellish my credentials a bit.

Naturally, I told them I had a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from MIT. And I told them that I was employed by NASA designing circuit boards for the upcoming Creed manned space exploration (and yes, I did pick Creed because of Apollo) rocket. I told them I was in charge of the team designing all of the sophisticated equipment that would be on board the spaceship, and that my team included nearly 90 of America’s best and brightest minds.

While I was at it, I told them that I also had an MBA from Purdue University that I finished in 1988 before my first executive job running the research division at GM. I told them that I predicted that GM would go down the drain which is why I bailed to work for NASA in 1999 (brilliant foresight, wouldn’t you agree?).

I sit on the Board of Curators for the University of Kansas, too, in my spare time.

Ok, that’s the end of my grand experiment. After I told him all of this stuff, he was VERY impressed and immediately told me he wanted to include me. And of course he pitched all of their expensive products they want you to buy. Then I hung up.

In addition to being blatant fabrication, it’s OBVIOUSLY blatant fabrication. I live in Kansas. NASA doesn’t have offices here. I’m 31… I couldn’t have graduated with an MBA when I was 10. I’m not Doogie Howser. NASA has no such plans for manned space exploration, and they certainly don’t have a program with a stupid name like “Creed” which is obviously a Rocky reference.

Oh, and the KU Board of Curators is public information. He could have Googled it and seen I wasn’t on it.

He terminated her for violating a policy which he did not have, had never mentioned, and made up only AFTER she pushed him to explain his reason for terminating her. He lost the initial dispute for unemployment because he didn’t have any documentation.

Then, as if by magic, he produced a photocopied page from “a” policy manual, which Jenna had never seen, and another page from somewhere else (that didn’t even have the same font or font size) that he ALSO claimed was part of his policy manual. Jenna was never given a copy of this document (probably because it didn’t exist), and EVEN IF THE DOCUMENT DID EXIST, HE DIDN’T FOLLOW THE DISCIPLINE STEPS IN THE FRIGGIN DOCUMENTS! It said two written warnings would be given, then possible termination. Well, he didn’t give written warnings.

His other point in his appeal was that Jenna had a job and was, in essence, scamming the unemployment system. He was referring to Jenna being on the radio… which she is. However, what he didn’t know (since it was none of his damn business) was that she is a volunteer. She’s killing time while she looks for work. She’s never been paid a cent.

He sent a page from her blog on the radio station’s website claiming it proved that she was working.

The fact that he won this appeal only proves that he must have lied through his teeth to the judge. There’s no other way he could have won. The facts were not on his side. He couldn’t produce one solid piece of evidence that she violated a policy, and he didn’t even follow the policy that he submitted (which was apparently downloaded from the Internet) to the judge as evidence. And his second claim of her being employed was just bunk. He assumed.

If you just go by the “facts” that were presented in the documentation, he can’t win. He must have just lied and lied and lied.

We could fight it, but frankly it wouldn’t help. The next appeal step doesn’t allow any new information to be added, a panel just reviews the current file to make sure the JUDGE didn’t break any rules with the judgment. Which I’m sure she didn’t.

We could hire an attorney and sue the idiot. But Jenna and I have already had 4 months of this guy trying to cause us sleepless nights, stress, and just general anger. I think 4 months of him upsetting us is enough, and so my decision is to let it go.

It’s not fair, in fact it may be criminal. It’s DEFINITELY jerky, for someone who acted like he was friends with Jenna up till the day he fired her then fought tooth and nail to stop her unemployment. And the thing is, it might have cost him a few hundred bucks on his unemployment rates, but the money was coming from the state, not from him. If he had any understanding of the system he’d know that it was only a few bucks to him but ten THOUSAND bucks to us.

Either he’s evil and trying to ruin us, or he’s a complete moron who doesn’t understand how the system works. Before the appeal hearing, I might have guessed moron, but after all the lies, it has to be evil.

Anyhow, we will be accepting donations, because we have to pay back the unemployment money they paid us for the last 4 months. Talk about adding insult to injury!

But truthfully, we will be fine. We will even be fine financially. It’s a temporary (and brief) setback. And in the end, I can still say that I never got a DIME from the government, ever. When I was laid off back in the 90’s, they wouldn’t let me have unemployment because I signed up for classes. Now, we’re paying back what we got for Jenna, with interest I’m sure.

I can preserve my pristine record of never getting a handout. I hope he’s happy with his 3.2% UE rate instead of it going to 3.3%.

And yes, I did tag this post in the category “Gay Stuff.” LOL

The message read “You are an idiot!”

This message was perspicacious while simultaneously useless, so I found myself compelled to post it. Incidentally, J C will probably have to look up the word “perspicacious” before he’ll realize it has nothing to do with sweating.

He did not refer to anything I’ve written. He did not use a real name or email, so my assumption would be it’s someone I know, but who knows. It’s these random notes that make me just scratch my head. Even if you’re too much of a sally to leave your real name and email address, you’d think if you were that upset by something you read, you’d at least state your objection. Not so in cyberspace. People are very brave when they’re protected by anonymity.

I’m to the point in my life where this type of message just makes me laugh. Someone took the time to stop at my site, get riled up enough to write a note, and mad enough they didn’t want me to know who they were. That is quite a lot of power I have.

Or rather, to J C I say “Dance Monkey, Dance!”

For that reason, I’m going to demonstrate my deductive prowess by listing off what Obama said last night, with no actual knowledge of what he said. Let me know if I miss anything or I mention something he didn’t actually say:

1. At least 5 references to how the economy already sucked when he was elected
2. At least one dig at the Republicans for blocking his Obamacare plan, cleverly disguised as a call for bipartisanship
3. He will HAVE TO talk about why Americans don’t trust the government, and he will claim it’s because Americans voted for change and they aren’t delivering (he won’t mention the fact that most Americans think his specific plans are insane)
4. He will talk about returning to the awesome budget surplus that always gets credited to Bill Clinton (in spite of the fact Republicans were running Congress when that was happening). He will do this while maintaining his position that the government is going to a) keep the country safe, b) give insurance to millions of miscreants, c) keep social security and medicare going, and d) only taxing the bejeezus out of people making over 250k. He will cleverly fail to mention that most small businesses make over 250k and fall into that category which will undoubtedly result in more layoffs
5. He will make nicey nice comments about Michelle Obama that will make people realize that he’s just a cool, regular guy
6. He will make multiple calls for getting rid of partisanship, and will NOT mention the fact that Republicans were completely shut out of the drafting of Obamacare by Pelosi and Reed
7. He will talk about how his administration is transparent and ethical, and will use as evidence the fact that he publishes White House visitors on the website, keeps lobbyists out of policy jobs… not mentioning that basically his entire staff was part of the lawyers’ lobby
8. He will definitely talk about the evil earmarks, which will be pointless since Democrats are responsible for most of them in the first place. He will mention it because he knows he has no influence over it, but it makes him look like a man of the people to say it
9. He will say that the loss in Massachusetts is because people “don’t understand” the health care bill, because it’s easier for him to believe that Americans are stupid than for him to believe that the bill is a steaming pile of crap.

Let me know what I missed or got wrong.

Discuss.

Avatar sucked.

Last year, my resolutions were pretty basic. I resolved to get my blood pressure under control, which I accomplished via diet. Last year it was around 160/100, and as of this past Sunday, it was 120/82. And that was while I was sick. So yeah, mission accomplished.

I resolved to have my giant tax bill paid by the end of the year. Well, I paid it back in April. Mission accomplished. I resolved to go to at least 6 non-routine social events with Jenna. I more than accomplished that goal, albeit mostly in the past 4 months. I did prepare harder and make myself more interesting for the class I was teaching. I also decided not to teach again in 2010. I also resolved to play outside with my dogs when the weather is nice, which I did.

Five for five. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Now for the 2010 resolutions:

1. I will pay off (In addition to my large tax bill) at least $10,000 in debt in 2010.

2. I will not buy things I do not legitimately need.

3. I will not postpone the surgery on my wrist despite my desire to do so.

4. I will only agree to do photo shoots I WANT to do.

5. I will start charging people for photography and web hosting/design enough that I actually make a little bit of money rather than just breaking even. It’s far too much work to do for “free.” (I know all my web customers just had a cold chill run up their spines)