Rainy days are here again

This week is going to be rainy in the city.  Busy cranking away at coding changes for webchalet.com and updating my blogs.  Last weekend I was extremely tired.   I think part of it was stress, but I'm feeling better this week.   I had endeavored to try to put something on-line once a day, but I stopped for almost a week, and realize that it will probably be too hard to do every day.

For a while I was wondering what the point of it was to try to come up w/ something new to say on these blogs, and so I stopped for a while, but I'm realizing how important it is to put something up, even if it's small (and seemingly) insignificant.

Years later, someone else will read these thoughts of mine and reflect on what I say. 

IRS dependant child deductions

My wife is asking me about the US Federal tax dependent child stipulations -- i.e. what qualifies a person to be a dependent and what doesn't, including how much of that child's income is spent for tuition.. I am getting lost in all the details.

She's asking me about all these details because she's taking a course from city college on the IRS 1040 Federal Tax form.

Why does our tax system have to be !@#$% complicated?

A resolution

Helping Kiyomi with her homework while working on my blogs tonight.  I am setting a goal of putting something (even if it's not substantial) up for each blog every night... let's see how long I can keep it up.

Cold weather again...

It was a beautiful weekend in San Francisco, Friday and Saturday night were crystal clear and over the weekend the daytime temperature reached into the 70s, I even got a sunburn on Saturday!

Of course the fog has rolled back in and the night skies are overcast.  Tomorrow, evening temperature is expected to be in the low 40s.

The moral of the story if you live in San Francisco:  take advantage of the warm weather because it will quickly turn cold again!

Need someone to watch your dog ?

My wife recently signed up on a site called dogvacay.com.  The site makes it easy for you to find someone to take care of your dog if you need to go on a vacation and can't easily take your friend w/ you.  I could have used this service last year when I visited Hawaii for mom's funeral.   (Fortunately, a good friend was able to take care of Whiskers the week I was gone.)

What's really cool about this site is you can also sign up to be a host for someone else, so it's a great way to earn a little extra income taking care of dogs... something you love love anyway.
 Check it out!

Dogs and Startups

I went to the Bay Area Startup & Dog Enthusiasts meetup today and had a very enjoyable time.  Met two guys running startups - Chris Wike (spotwag.com) & Peter Olfe (near2there.com).

About Spotwag.com (taken from spotwag.com's site):

"Coordinate help for your pet from friends you already trust, quickly and easily with Spotwag. And never again feel pressure to leave your pet with a stranger. Spotwag makes asking for help, or offering it easy for everyone."

Near2there.com is a way to "bookmark" places you see while driving or walking around using your mobile phone.

Both are very interesting services and will probably utilize both in the near future.

First Post

My first personal post.  I have 5 other blogs I am maintaining, but I thought this one should go up for good measure -- a "personal" blog, not related to tech per se, or consulting or startups  or dogs, just about me.