BEARS IN THE WOODS

The Forest Service in Northern Utah is in a Federal lawsuit because as bear killed a kid that was comping in a dispersed area with his family four years ago. The family is sueing for $2 million. I am really sorry that the family lost their son but I cannot believe the courts will award the family a settlement. If they do the rest of you users of the National Forests had better watch out. You will start seeing closures of the forest for weather and for rattle snakes and any other risk factor that might be lurking in the woods. Looney you might need to stop publishing your pictures of snakes as the pictures prove they are around.

ROAD TRIP

Yesterday Inklings and I went on a short road trip. We went south to see how the remodeling of my brother's house is going. I think it is going great and hope everything gets done by the time he wants it done. Right now I would say it is on track to be completed on time. It is going to be a beautiful house when it is finished.







After we looked it over we went to lunch with a couple of friends and then further south to see her parents. We had sunshine, rain, wind, snow and any mixture of the above you can imagine. Shows that spring is for sure comin'. We had a great visit with them and got home before dark to avoid the deer on the road. We saw a lot of dead deer along the side of the road that had been hit in the last few days. Also saw an Eagle eating a dead deer but didn't get a picture. I am pretty sure it will eat a few meals there before moving on.

WASTE OF TIME

Night before last I spent an hour on the phone on Congressman Jason Chaffetz community phone call. What a waste of time that was---he spent the first fifteen minutes saying they were going to repeal the health care law (done in the house but the Senate won't do it), eliminate the No Child Left Behind Law, Eliminate the Federal Department of Transportation, and eliminate the Federal Department of Education. The reason---Utah can do it better---yeah that is probably true but there ain't NO money in Utah.

He was going to personally see to it that rules limiting access and restrictions to minerals got changed, see to it that the US sells it's excess property ($19 billion in 50,000 excess buildings---this might be a good thing---where are they located?), change and enforce the laws dealing with illegal immigration and that allow illegal aliens to get medicaid, school, and food stamps, get the Federal Regulations out of the way so the economy can turn around, assure that the big fee increase (to $200/month) for Forest Service recreation residences gets reduced (so much for fixing the income), change the EPA rules to allow more development of our Natural Resources, fix it so we are oil independant and ethanol (using food for fuel) is not the answer, and rein in the EPA regarding use of coal for generating electricity,

I'm not saying that some or all of these aren't good things to do---but they ain't gonna happen. WHY---because everyone representing us in Congress and the Senate are set on making themselves look good for the next election. YUP---Republicans control the House and Democrats control the Senate so no bill is going to get approved without a lot of compromise. COMPROMISE---CAN'T DO THAT---I WOULD LOOK BAD TO MY CONSTITUENTS AND THE NEXT ELECTION IS ONLY TWO YEARS AWAY.

SSSSOOOOO----for the next two years you can expect---GRIDLOCK---nothing passing no one getting anything done---BEEN THERE DONE THAT. They can't even pass a budget for the Federal Government and are again running the Nation on a continuing resolution where you never really know if you have any money to manage your job or not so no single politician has to own up to where the cuts in budget are coming from.

So where are the leaders going to come from that will actually try to led us out of the mess we are in financially in this country. It won't come from all the LONE WOLVES out there that are going to make all these changes. It is gonna take good negotiations and superb understanding to get anything done---as long as both sides are running for the next election in two years we are in deep S#!*.

WE ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE AS A NATION---I DON'T HAVE THE ANSWERS---BUT CHEST POUNDING LEADERS TELLING US THEY WILL FIX EVERYTHING ISN'T IT---HOPE WE GET IT FIGURED OUT PRETTY SOON!!!! And unfortunately that is my $0.02.

SUPER, SUPER BOWL

I am not the greatest football fan but I do love to watch the Super Bowl. Yesterday was no exception. I enjoyed the game. I cheered for Green Bay---I cheered against the Steelers. It was as good game with a respectable score and a near turn around in the third quarter. I am glad Big Ben got his first ever loss in a Super Bowl. I hated to see so many injuries to great players in this single game. I enjoyed my Super Bowl treats.

Made one mistake though---started the game with sizzling hot Cheetos and a cherry coke zero---ran out of coke before I ran out of Cheetos and nearly fried my tongue.

It was a fitting end to a long season. Hope they have a season next year.

OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB

Yesterday I received a forward from a friend I used to work with. It had been forwarded to him so I looked to see if I recognized any names from the previous forward. I did---the second name on the addresses was the name of my first Forest Supervisor when I went to work full time. So I copied the name and address and sent a message asking if he was the guy. He responded that he was and we sent several messages back and forth. It was fun to find him and communicate a little with him. HE WANTED TO KNOW HOW A YOUNG GUY COULD BE RETIRED ;-). It was sad to find out that many of our co-workers are no longer with us. The intertnet is a wonderful thing for reconnecting with people---even if you have to steal the name from an unknown party that sent it to one of your friends.
'TIS A TANGLED WEB.

THE TAX MAN COMETH

Yeterday was tax day at our house. We went to the tax man and had them done. I do that because the company where we have them done went to the two audits we have had and defended our filing. I had to go too but he did all of the talking and we didn't have to pay anything additional. On top of that they know all the rule changes and about all of the new refund possibilities AND TAKE ALL THE STRESS OUT OF PREPARING THE FORMS.

We usually get refunds from both Federal and State because we over pay the taxes so we don't have to come up with any money this time of year when money has always been tight for us. This year I was retired and the place that sends my retirement checks did not take out any State taxes this year. NOPE---NONE. Luckily when I was on fires they took out our normal taxes and this helped us not to have to dig up more money to pay them. We had to pay a pretty large sum in income tax to the State at the end of the day.

I don't feel at all bad about paying the income taxes---never have---because it means that I made a pretty good sum of money to have to pay them. QUITE FRANKLY I WISH I HAD MADE ENOUGH MONEY TO HAVE HAD TO PAY AN ADDITIONAL MILLION DOLLARS IN. My only point in this is that I wish I had caught that they weren't holding the taxes out before we got the retirement checks. That would have helped us not to have to dig up the money right now. I made the change for next year but we'll probably have to pay some additional because they won't start taking it out until March.

IT WAS A GREAT DAY BECAUSE OUR FEDERAL RETURN WAS LARGER THAN OUR BILL TO THE STATE---IT'LL TAKE SOME TIME TO RECIEVE IT BUT AT LEAST IT IS COMING.