Tax

I've left submitting my taxes very late this year - I think the deadline is in something like 10 days time.  So I completed and filed my tax forms today.  And once again I owed the federal government a load of money - about the same amount as last year.  Actually thought it was going to be much worse - the amount I owed was a lot higher when I entered my info into the software late yesterday.  But when I checked the numbers and corrected a few of my responses today, it reduced the amount quite significantly.  I think I entered everything correctly - I hope so anyway, in the slight chance that my tax return gets audited!  But it has made me distrust the software I use to submit my taxes, as well as it being too expensive, so I might use a different one next year.  I hate doing taxes - what a pain in the ass.  But at least I live in a state where I don't have to submit a state tax return as well as a federal return.  I think I much prefer living somewhere that has a higher state sales tax rather than a state income tax.

Space Needle and Tree

Is this a magnolia?  I have absolutely no clue, not my area of expertise - but I like the color of the blossoms.

A rare break in the miserable weather we've been having recently - lots of rain.  And they've issued a wind advisory for tomorrow - so much for getting out and about and keeping my steps up.  At least I can play ping pong at work - just got my pool table at home.

Champions League

I recorded the Liverpool versus Man City game yesterday night.  Very frustrating that they didn't show the game live here, inexplicably they showed the other tie instead, but a replay of the full game was being aired in the early hours.  So I made the Herculean effort to avoid all the sports news all through yesterday afternoon and evening, so that I could watch the game first thing this morning before work without knowing the result.  Amazingly, and surprisingly, I managed to do this.  But as I started watching the game this morning, the ticker scrolling at the bottom of the screen with the sports headlines announced Liverpool won in a rout just as the game was kicking off.  Great, so all the effort went for nothing.  Curse you Fox Sports.  Though still, it was a very entertaining first half.

On The Move

Another 8 week step challenge started today at work.  So I’ve got a pedometer strapped to my wrist and have started recording the number of steps I’m taking every day beginning today.  As part of setting up the pedometer, I had to provide my weight – and this was the first time I have weighed myself for quite some time.  Oh boy, I definitely could do with losing a few pounds (i.e. a lot!).  As feared, and as expected, I have put a little bit of weight on over winter – so this step challenge couldn’t come at a better time!  Though I suspect the bigger impact on losing some weight has to probably come from changing my diet – and that won’t be easy.  Baby steps – and that starts with less snacking and less soda.  I’m also giving serious consideration to trying one of those meal kit delivery services like Blue Apron – so at least I can control my intake that way.  That also has the benefit of potentially broadening my culinary skills and tastes – something I’d like to do, especially when it comes to home cooking.  We shall see – I plan to track my weight a bit more closely over the next 8 weeks, so hopefully I will see some improvements.  Though with a lot of rain in the forecast, I don’t expect I’ll have the most auspicious start when it comes to doing some lunchtime and evening walks and getting my step count up.

And a late addition to the blog.  What is the saying – just as you see light at the end of the tunnel, the roof comes crashing down?  Well, just found out that the guy who was probably going to be my new manager has resigned.  Great, so once again I’m in that area of uncertainty without a clue about what is going to happen, with the fear that nothing will happen.  That will teach me for being too optimistic about my job situation just yesterday….

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

Lots of meetings at work today.  There was a meeting that we were asked to attend in person, but which I decided to take from my desk.  Why?  Because it was an hour and a half and I didn’t want to be stuck in a room with other people pretending not to be bored out of mind.  Instead, at my desk, I can spend my time more constructively e.g. by composing this blog entry, and playing Candy Crush (which I think, sadly, I’ve grown something of an addiction to), whilst listening to the presentations on my headset and occasionally checking out the slides.  I can think of lots more reasons not to attend – the meeting room chairs are notoriously bad and if I’m stuck in one of those for 1.5 hours then I am guaranteed to get a bad back.  And also, we have had more than one e-mail concerning meeting etiquette where we are told not to bring our laptops to meetings like these – so you don’t even have the distraction of that.  Since it is a video conference, everyone in the Seattle office can apparently be seen on a huge screen in the Californian meeting room where the bulk of the meeting attendees are.  So you can’t even doodle, roll your eyes or anything obvious during the meeting because everyone can see you.  Because we are a satellite office in Seattle, we are frequently affected by audio or visual problems at these big meetings since they don’t realize in California that there are issues for the people calling in to the meeting.  Take today’s meeting where they didn’t share the screen until well into the first presentation, so we couldn’t see any of the presentation slides to begin with.  But there are some perks to all these meetings.  At lunchtime we had a Seattle site meeting, which means lunch is provided.  Bonus!  And when these site meetings happen, often because someone in a significant leadership role happens to be visiting our office, they are normally good to provide a lot of info that we (and a lot of the other muggles across our company) wouldn’t otherwise know about concerning company developments.  Regardless, it seems inevitable that the bigger a company gets, the more meetings there are, and the more of your time is wasted.  One of the reasons I don’t like my current manager is because she has set up so many recurring meetings at the study level, on top of all these departmental and company meetings.  I consider most of these as totally unnecessary, but symptomatic of her overly controlling nature.  And it all means that you end up having so much less time during a normal week to actually do proper work.  However, there might be good news on the job front.  Nothing confirmed yet, but it seems more likely than not now that I will be changing groups and manager soon.  Hoorah!

Podcasts

I have a new favorite podcast, and surprisingly it comes from BBC Radio 5 Live.  It's the Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy podcast.  It's more than just a sports podcast, it's a genuinely funny and entertaining podcast between guys with great chemistry.  Andrew Flintoff is a surprisingly good personality, and Robbie Savage is blessed with honesty if not brains, and the whole thing is held together by the straight man Matthew Syed (who played table tennis for the UK - hence the Ping Pong Guy).  Until the next season of My Dad Wrote a Porno starts again, it's probably the podcast I most look forward to listening every week. 

Sunday Night

Counterpart (season finale), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Family Guy, Homeland, whatever English drama is on PBS (today it is The Child in Time), The Last Man on Earth, Silicon Valley, Billions, Trust, Barry, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.  That is close to 9 hours of TV just tonight that I'm either watching or recording.  Jeez, that is disturbing.  And a rather sad reflection of my lifestyle - my priorities need to change...