Property Taxes

For those people outside the States, a little background first . . .

ONE of the taxes we pay in Indiana is property tax. It's a hold out from the time when Indiana was mostly farmland, and people didn't really make a regular annual income. Most of the tax revenue goes to schools, but all sorts of things get thrown in - like welfare, new library buildings, police, etc. We basically pay them once every six months.

After a court order said that the calculation for property taxes was unfair, we saw our property taxes essentially double from $1400 to $2800 four years ago. Now we've had another reassessment, and the tax is now up to $5600 for a year. That's a 400% increase in four years.

People were pissed four years ago, and many people lost their homes. This year it's going to be even worse. And oh yes, we get the bill on July 1st and it needs to be paid by the end of July.

Quiet Indianapolis has already had several demonstrations and most likely more to follow. The politicians have shown their total ignorance and irresponsibility once again - the question now is will voters remember all this in 18 months when it comes time for the election. If you figure most people don't even know the name of their representative, I'm taking a 'wait and see' attitude.

So anyway, this is a sign that's in our front yard. Of course, we wouldn't sell the house, but it makes a good political statement.

Mushrooms: Phase II continued

The project continues (and I need to get a better picture) . . .

Last month, I had innoculated the spores into ball jars, and set them aside to fungus away. This weekend, I 'birthed the cakes' - basically openned them up and stuck them in a new home to go fruit. I'm trying two techniques, since online resources can't decide on which one is better - plus I want to see which one yields the most.

The first way is just basically popping the cake out and leaving it in a humid environment - hopefully the aquarium tank with a couple daily sprays of water should be enough. The second way is to put it in a soil mixture in a plastic container with a lid on. Not sure if the second way will be tall enough, if the mushrooms get going - but we'll see.

Cross your fingers, the cakes are doing something - but time will tell if they really fruit out.

Scuba Class

Well, Patrick and my Thursdays are now spoken for the next 7 weeks, so that we can get certified in SCUBA. You may remember we went SCUBA diving for the first time in the Red Sea, and we decided that we would go through the certification process when we got back to the States.

The classes are broken up into half lecture and half pool work. The first class was pretty much about swimming around (I've decided that I really don't like swimming anymore), but the second class we did get to actually do some underwater stuff with tanks.

Turns out certification is not cheap. In addition to the class, we also had to buy fins, snorkel, mask, and boots - and there's also the open water exam which is a little extra - pretty much quadruples the original price of the class. And if we actually really get into it - then we're talking suit, breathing apparatus, etc. Oh well, it's just money.

It also looks like this group plans a lot of diving trips to the Carribean, so we'll probably try to do one next year with them for a whole week.

APICS Certification

The powers that be at work decided that in order to know anything about Supply Chain, you had to be APICS certified. Not sure if it was because people didn't know the difference between a forecast or a demand or what, but basically everyone has taken the courses and exams around here.

Although I had taken two of the five exams before I left for France, I had three remaining. Fortunately, they weren't too horrible, although they each took about 3 weeks of studying. If nothing else it saves time convincing people that you know anything about how a Supply Chain works - now I can just say I'm APICS certified - woo hoo.

Basement: Plumbing is done

Thanks to the advice of Mr. Green, we decided to basically replace all the pipes in our house before finishing off the basement ceiling (it's a lot easier to get rid of those nasty iron pipes when there's not any drywall in the wall - huh). But with most things involving home restoration, it's a little like peeling an onion...

The original plans were to just replace the pipes that were in the half of the basement that we were finishing. But after realizing that would take case of about 70% of the pipes, we figured the other 30% shouldn't be too much more. Turns out it wasn't - total cost $1250, which was about $750 less than the other estimate.

And oh yes, water pressure is much better.

Cycle Counting Wine

Looks like my wine inventory system is working well. In case you missed it, I added all my wine to yourwinecellar.com.

In order to maintain a certain level of accuracy, I need to do periodic cycle counting to make sure everything is still there. Let's just say I'm more accurate than most Lilly plants, right now.

New pedals for the bike

OK, yes, I know these are pictures of biking shoes and not pedals. The point is that I've ditched my old toe clips and moved up in the biking world.

For those unknown to all things cycling, you can buy cycling shoes that have cleats on the bottom of the shoe that hook into special bike pedals - much more efficient than just those toe clips that slip in. Sounds like an extravagance, but it shaves time off the daily commutes like you wouldn't believe.

Jetta gets an owie

Yes, I know I just bought this car - but bad things happen to good cars.

Turns out I was coming out of the driveway, didn't look very well, and ended up hitting the corner of another woman's car - yipes. Although the damage wasn't that significant, it did take five weeks to repair - thanks over-engineering Germans.

Even though I was without a car for that long period of time, it wasn't that big of a deal, since I ride my bike to work anyway. And since I was getting $35 a day for a rental or inconvenience of not having a car - I ended up making money on the deal even with the deductible taken out. Just hoping my rates stay down.

The First Tomato of the Season

Sorry to be so excited about tomatoes - but this is the first one of the season.

Found a variety that works well in containers, so this bad boy is sitting off our balcony - quite amazing what you can grow in a four by eight foot space.

Asiatic Lillies are Blooming

One of my favorite flowers in the garden - not sure why, but probably because their fragrance is so sweet.

They are actually quite large - six foot stems. And we got them years ago from Kelly Lowe, whoc was just in town from Alaska for a conference. Unfortunately, she missed them bloom by just one day.