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I second all that has been said in the last few posts. Reminds me of a situation I experienced on another forum. I rarely take offense on an emotional level, even when someone gets insulting. Generally insults and personal attacks are just water off a duck's back to me. But for some reason that I still don't fully understand, a person on the TMI forum really got under my skin a couple of years back. And I was clearly pushing that person's buttons as well. After a few grenades back & forth (plus a warning from the moderator), I simply hid that person's posts for a few weeks (as Judy suggested). That removed the temptation to take pot shots at him and freed us both up to focus on what's important. - TAXES. Eventually when seeing people reply to him on legitimate tax issues, my curiosity got the best of me and I removed the "hide". Haven't crossed swords with him since then, and if we found ourselves on opposite sides of something I believe now I'd just move on. Burying the hatchet is always wise, just as long as the place we bury it isn't in the other party's head.

We had 45 mph winds, but not many branches down. Roads that were flooded are opening back up again. My garage is flooded (it always does, so we don't store things on that floor) but basement is dry. And, we did NOT lose power! Hope everyone else fared well and can enjoy a beautiful day today.

Thanks KC for your kind comments. You are correct I don't get here much and I do try to catch up on some of the issues with taxation that apply to the areas I deal with. I will admit to responding in an unfriendly manner at times and I have admitted this to Taxed in another post. I don't like having to weed through numerous responses that I personally feel are off point to get to see a good answer. That is my personal hangup and I cannot speak for how others feel regarding this situation. Your advice to ignore some comments is something all of us should practice. Thanks,

We have natural gas here, and before 24 months pass, we will have a whole house automatic system that is outdoors. We live in town so we do not have a well pump, or water heater to deal with. City water, gas furnace and water heater. We can get a system that is totally automatic and will power almost everything for about $7k installed. When on the generator, using the stove or oven would be a minimal thing. But, microwave, toaster oven, electric skillet etc. are all usable. It will easily power my A/C in the summer at the same time. It starts itself once a week for testing. Takes about 10 seconds to fully kick in when the power drops, and disconnects seamlessly when the power comes back on. I have two clients with these systems and they love them. I like the idea of totally automatic and seamless. I have all the electronics in my house on Battery Backup which will effortlessly keep them up while the system starts, so not even a reboot when the power goes down.

Speaking of trees come tumbling down, my wife and I live in an older residential area on a tree lined brick street. Our house was built in 1904. Our media room is on the second floor in the back of the house. Friday after work, we went and picked up a pizza and brought it home to eat while we watched a little TV. I was about half way into my second piece of pizza when we heard this this sssshhhhooooossshhhhh thump and the power went out. We look at each other and simultaneously said "what was that". I headed down the steps and passed my German Shepherd coming up the steps and I thought "this can't be good". Got to the bottom of the steps and looked out the front door and one of our 45 foot oak trees was laying in front of the house. We had gutter damage to gutters that were installed a week earlier and a hand rail on the front steps got wrecked. But that was it. Upon inspection, we found that the bottom 12 inches of the tree was rotted. The rest of the tree was very healthy. There was no other impetus to that tree falling - no wind, no rain, nothing. If that tree fell two feet in either direction, a tremendous amount of damage would have resulted. Thirty seconds before the tree fell, an elderly gentleman and his dog had passed in front of the tree. Ten minutes before, Rebecca and I had just passed in front of the tree coming into the house. An hour earlier, a young mother, her baby and a friend were standing right where that tree came down. Just a little change in timing would have created a completely different ending to this story. Have I mentioned lately that God is good?

We finally pulled out our generator bids after more than a year debating spending the money. Having the top two electricians come out next Wednesday to update their bids. Really need to do this while I live out in the boonies. Sandy took down five big trees and lots of branches, but there are a lot of dead trees and branches and trees that have grown too tall on our two acres. Talked to our friendly, local landscaper about tree work, but he's too busy (still doing spring clean-ups) to walk the property with us and bid until July. Between hurricanes coming up the coast and nor'easters coming down, we get hit hard. Hurricane Sandy was followed by Nor'easter Athena (or Nemo, depending on which weather station you listen to) before we had all our services back. I just read that we're expected to have 11 hurricanes this year instead of the usual 5-6. My stepdaughter already postponed her Saturday housewarming party since it's likely we wouldn't be outside. I don't get as unhappy without power when the weather's warm, but Athena brought snow. I still get cranky when I can't work and clients are waiting for their returns. Both my business bookkeeping clients have generators, so I catch up on them and recharge my electronics! Stay dry and safe everyone.

None of the on-topic threads should turn into a political debate.

You are right jklcpa a poll should not turn into political debate.

I'm inclined to agree with Judy. This is getting ridiculous. Injecting political debate and passive aggressive barbs into every possible conversation is really starting to take its toll on the atmosphere of this community.

I can only hope that what should have been a simple poll is not going to be another thread that devolves into a political rants. There should have been no need for any commentary, and I thought I included enough choices to allow most of our forum's users to select appropriate answers. I do respect that each and every one of you has the right to express your views, whichever side of the aisle you agree with, but this shouldn't be happening across so many threads in the forums. Could we please try to stick to the topics of the original threads? Many of the threads are being derailed with this type of commentary or pointed questions that lead the conversations off topic or into debates on politics. The above 4 posts add nothing except to incite political banter, which all but a few are participating in, and it is really getting tiresome. That is the reason why we have "N/T" in the title of threads that aren't tax related, so that those of us who try to stay out of the political discussions can do so, but that is getting very difficult. Thanks, after the first thread that I chose to look at on here, now I'm in a really bad mood! /rant

I checked the most likely of the available choices as my reason for using Drake, but if "speed" had been available, I would have clicked that one instead. And of course, Drake's integrity would have been at the top of my list as well.