Almost done with the taxes

In my 17 years of filing taxes (17 years?!?!?! I'm Fing OLD!), I have never waited this long to file. Never. The reason? Mostly dealing with deductions associated with traveling for a living.

Getting back just enough to buy an IPad. Kelli said that it's fine to use it for an IPad which shocked me. Of course now I don't want one as much. Eh. My other idea is establishing a fund for the baby (First time I used that term in referring to what is growing in Kelli's uterus was last night....my sister in law Jessi noticed).

We have an ING account for "house stuff". We each put $20 a month into it. Not a lot, but there's a little more than $600 in there now. The money is too be used for house repairs and such. The baby account would be along the same ideas. Whenever the baby needs a new fence or duct work...yeah.

The new Macbook Pro's are out. Sexy and fast. Not buying one now. Maybe in August when we go to Oregon. Tax free + my employee discount is major savings!



Every  new Toyota....EVERY  NEW TOYOTA, that's sold in Texas comes from Gulf States Toyota. No matter which dealer, it's one distributor....Gulf States Toyota.

Gulf States Toyota is evil for the most part. They are notorious for slapping on dealer add-on's to nearly every car they bring in to Texas. All the Prius models I looked at had one of the following "Owner Rewards Packages"

The $600 "package" includes:

Rear Bumper Protector

Floor Mats

Trunk Mat

Wheel Locks

Premium Carpet Mat Set (Another one?!?!?!?)

Door Sill Enhancements

The $1800 "package" includes the above plus:

Leather seats

Now all that crap in the $600 package can be purchased separately online for under $240. Gulf States window stickers are very tricky. They make their own and at first glance it looks like all the "Owners Reward Package" stuff is from Toyota....not Gulf States. Ugh.

So how do I get around this? Don't buy from Gulf States Toyota. In order to not buy from them I have to travel outside of the states they control: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

It's not uncommon to fly to a different state and buy a car. Some dealers specialize in it. Seeing as we get cheap tickets....it's doable. The Bridges are looking for a new car right now. They could do the same thing!

Where did this rant come from? Well I was browsing cars yesterday and stopped by Toyota.com. I found out the Prius model IV has everything I want. Leather seats, bluetooth, nice stereo, all the safety features for just $26K. However all the cars around are loaded up with Gulf States Crap.

Kelli and I talked a bit about our vehicle needs. We don't need anything big. Very doubtful we will be driving anywhere further than Wylie. The Mazda5 that I have now is a bit of overkill. Gets good gas mileage though....and can make Ikea runs. The Bridges keep bad talking my FJ Cruiser desire....damn people with kids speaking the truth. Bleh! Keep the Mazda5, Prius, GMC Terrain (4 cylinder) or maybe a 4-Cylinder Toyota Highlander.

Tablet! Tablet! Tablet!

No secret I like toys. He who dies with the most toys wins. Kelli doesn't like this game. I have appeased her by reducing my computers in use from 15 to around 6 on any given day.

I travel...comes with the job. I'm sure you've seen the large bags and luggage flights crews lug through airports. We live out of these bags for up to 4 days at a time in my case. Space is at a premium.

Right now as far as gadgets/toys I carry a laptop/netbook (Macbook Pro or HP 5101 depending on how long I'll be gone), Zune HD and my Nexus One Cellphone. Not a lot. But when I have my Macbook Pro I have a hard time bringing my lunch bag as the Macbook Pro takes up a lot of space. My netbook is fine for the most part and I could likely not get a tablet, but golly darn it's so Star Trek future like.

Which tablet to get. All the eyes are on the Apple Ipad. It's nice....I like it, but I'm going to try and wait for the Google Android Tablet on the way. I've been using Android from the first day it was available when the T-Mobile G1 was released. I used Google Gmail, Google Calendar (makes it super easy for Kelli and I to share events/things too do) and Google Navigation. I also recently signed up for Google Adsense to get a couple of bucks by placing ad's on my pilot blog. But when's it coming out? eh.

A tablet would be great as it would be slimmer than a netbook. It would fit in coach just fine....and it would up my geek cred. Just sayin.

I'm currently hanging out at Don Davis Toyota. Kellis Prius had a check engine light yesterday morning. I brought up the idea of swapping cars since I would likely get off early in the morning. Which I did. The swap didn't go as smoothly as I thought.

We swapped cars north of the airport yesterday. The swap went fine...but I forgot my parking pass. Currently I don't have the bluetooth in each of our cars registered to both phones. I tried calling Kelli (she left before I did), but she didn't hear her phone. I take responsibility as I handle the tech in the house. I'm going to register both phones to both cars. Problem should be solved....as long as we have bluetooth turned on.

Need to get on the ball with a backyard camera.

Just another boring Monday

Worked a lot lately. Worked the first 6 days in a row this month. Off one day. Worked Friday. Went to Houston Saturday morning. Dinner with Eric, Angela and Marin Bridges Saturday evening. Back at work Sunday morning at 6AM. Work thru Thursday.

Kelli is very happy with her new phone so far. Better battery life, more snappy...and it's just hip. Did have a slight issue with it yesterday. Hope it's solved.

New Macbook Pro's are supposed to be out tomorrow. Likely not getting one. Still burning desire for a tablet computer.

I gave up a lot of salt months ago. Gave up sugar/high fructose corn syrup and the like two weeks ago.

I go through headphones kids go through clothes. I never spend more than $20. Why? Because I lose or break them about every other month or so. It happens. Amazon.com is best for me. Decent/nice headphones for under $10 shipped. Nice.

I've had a decent linux box running for a while. It did what I wanted....basically download Torrents. With the death of my Time Capsule I wanted to turn it into a print server. After three days I gave up. Threw on Windows. Maybe next time Ubuntu.

Kelli is having a case of the Mondays. Her Zune decided to empty itself of everything this morning. I set it up to reload this morning. Then her phone wouldn't make any phone calls. Then her check engine light went on during the drive to work. Then her political views changed to Democrat....no wait...she's always been a Democrat.

Till next time...

I won't miss it anyway

Right now I am paying a set amount every month paying off our TV's. They are all from Best Buy on no interest plans. Kelli and I love free money. We've done SEVERAL no interest deals. The TV's will be paid off soon. I decided when they are done being paid off, the money will be deposited into an ING account for use for the offspring. There will surely be events that come up where we need money for something. Be it ballet lessons, computer programming classes, flight lessons (what I'm a Flight Instructor...free!) or whatever. By rerouting the money I will never miss it.

Kelli and I have been putting money into a house fund for a while. We are moving and figured it would be a good idea to save up money for a down payment for the next house. Kelli applied for a DNA job in Japan a few months ago. The thinking being I could easily get on with a Japanese airline as they are all hiring and pay $80K a year to start. She was called last night from the company stating the job was hers if she wanted it. She did. Starts June 14th. Moving late May.

I picked up some overtime for tomorrow. Headed to Columbia South Carolina and back. Never been. Something different. Flying with a Captain that also has a Nexus One.

We have rearranged the bedroom. Much more open. Mounted a LCD monitor on the wall on my side of the bed. The monitor is on a moveable arm so  it can be pushed out of the way.

Gas prices going up. Ugh.

Progressive is estimating Kelli and I will save about $180 a year by using Myrate. I'm going to stop by T-Mobile today or tomorrow as I think I can lower our phone bill by $10 a month while gaining more minutes with no contract extension. Here are my savings to date:

Progressive Car Insurance with Myrate vs our old Geico: $210 a year

OOma home phone service vs Vonage: $300 a year

Using Zune's instead of XM radio (previously had both!): $260 a year

Cancelling premium cable (we can watch the shows later via Netflix streaming): $180 a year

Playing an April Fools joke by saying we're going to Japan: $Priceless

T-Mobile new billing plan I plan on getting: $120 a year

All told a little over $1000 a year with barely a hit on quality of life.

Buy something nice for yourself

Kelli finally spent some money on herself. She's been saving money for a while. I think she's been dosing my coffee for a while to condition me to have an offspring. The amount that she's saved up is too size able to have been saved in the last year or so. Hmmm well I guess I first brought up the idea of increasing the intelligence of the gene pool back in May 2007 when I registered Byrdintheoven.com. Hmmm. Bleh.

Kelli got a nice bonus at work yesterday. Previously she was going to buy me a Nexus One or Ipad for my birthday. I ended up spending my own birthday money on a Nexus One.

We stopped by the Apple Store and I test drove an I-Pad. In the scheme of Marble Slab....I liked it.....didn't love it....don't gotta have it. The biggest "Doh!" was it couldn't load up my company scheduling software as there is no full java support. Fail. Maybe I-pad 2.0.

Kelli is a saver. She wanted to save the money for Fluffy. Leaving the Apple Store I told Kelli she should spend her bonus money on something she really wanted. She wants to ride the new Harry Potter ride out in Florida. Preggo my eggo means she can't. So instead I convinced her to buy a new phone. It took some prodding but she finally ordered a Nexus One of her own. It should arrive Thursday.

I'm still very happy with my Nexus One. Snappy...runs all my apps. It's great. I am sure Kelli will be happy. Our former T-Mobile G1's were never super devices. They did things just fast enough to be useful. The Nexus One is light years ahead. Everything just works. Better than an I-Don't for sure.

For my birthday Kelli bought me something much more sensible and less expensive than an Ipad or Nexus One. She bought me a car dock for my Nexus One. Being sensible she didn't buy one for herself. Eh.

No pad yet

Here I sit for 2 hours in the Abilene Regional Airport. This part of the job sucks.

Wanted to try out the Ipad over the weekend. I had to work overnight Saturday. Sunday Kelli and I went to the Apple store in Southlake.....closed for Easter. Boo. Still not sure if I really want one. Don't need one.

Think we are close to a name. Thinkin' Natali....not a typo. Why? Well I like the name thanks to the witty, intelligent and nice on the eyes Natali Del Conte. She is a very popular tech reporter.... go here for more.

The plane  I fly will soon have a First Class section. Saw the very first plane today. New car smell. Pretty exciting.

My geeky buddy Kerry lent us a Doppler machine. Kelli can now listen to the heart beat whenever she wants...when she can find it that is.

Making progress in preparing for both my mother in law next month and Fluffy in August.

Today was a long day. Left the house at 5:15PM...might be back by 8PM. Was kinda fun...flew an empty airplane from Abilene to Dallas. Being empty means it acceleartes and climbs like a rocket...literally. Screw your 0-60 times. We went o-150MPH in under 12 seconds. I hand flew it from 1800 feet to 12000 feet....got there in under 3 minutes....better than a rollercoaster. My Captain flew the next empty plane back from Dallas to Abilene...we were even lighter...reached 17,000 feet in 4 minutes. Most of the time we climb at 2000 feet per minute with people on board. We easily doubled that.

Here I sit for 2 hours in the Abilene Regional Airport. This part of the job sucks.

Time to go Shotgun shopping

I already have a shovel. I need to read up on shotguns. With 42 now deemed female....I need a shotgun to ward off the boys.

During the ultrasound yesterday the tech scanned all around. I kept looking for "it". She didn't get to "it" until almost the end. Seeesh. She was positive it's a girl.

They allowed for us to bring in a DVD  for the session. It stated DVD. I thought it would be a video of the entire session plus photos. Nope...6 photos....less than 1MB. Are you kidding me? A DVD holds 4700 MB! A CD would have been fine....hell a USB key. Eh. Neat tech I guess.

Eventually there will be an Amazon Baby Registry. I started one (click here)...please don't buy anything on it...well the I-Mac I guess....ha!

Gonna do the taxes today.

Our homeowners insurance is down to $925 a year. New policy from State Farm written for people with newer homes. Nice savings.

Wingstreet "burnin hot" wing sauce is no Fing joke. It's really hot. Taste awesome...but really F'ing hot. A pleasurable pain for sure...but it's really F'ing hot.

Photos of my daughter (which is damn odd to type) is over at Byrdintheoven.com.