Abby Normal

The camera on my pixel 2 phone is pretty amazing. And I finally got the hang of taking panoramas. I want to print this one and hang it on my wall.

I've nicknamed Karin, SoNot Normal, which, if you knew her well, you'd know is perfect. We left MD last Thursday and made it to Crossville, TN by dinner time, despite my transmission groaning up that last long grade to the top of the Cumberland Plateau. The day was overcast, but we like to travel with cloud cover so the sun isn't heating up the car through the windows. The mountains are always a pleasant sight to us flatlanders. Along the way, we stopped in Abingdon, VA and had an excellent Turkish Coffee. I had them make it with half the sugar they normally use and it was perfect for me. We stayed at a lovely AirBnB on a golf course in a quiet resort area near town. Our host, Brian, gave us a nice tour of the area to get us oriented. I think I got more disoriented, but it was nice to know what was out there. I had an excellent and reasonably priced steak and some craft beers at Spike's, our first night there. It was a great surprise after our long drive, because it looked like a dive bar from the outside, but it was so good, we went back the next night for more. We were pleasantly surprised on Friday to find a great coffee shop in Crossville, and a very good, reasonably priced lunch in town, too at Forte's. (I'm going to stop saying 'reasonably priced' because everything was so cheap compared to back home.) On Saturday, we took the big swan out for a spin on Lake Dartmoor. It was a bit breezy and the wind pushed the boat in circles a few times, but we made it back to dock eventually, and got in almost an hour of very pleasant exercise. I have to buy a pedal boat. I'd much rather pedal a lake or creek than deal with cars on a bike. The seat's more comfortable too. Saturday afternoon was the gathering at Rita's, where I and others survived a Rita hug. Those who haven't survived can be seen here: After much laughter, joke telling, feasting (thanks for the great food Rita & others!), and some really terrible corn hole playing, the group decided to try the Japanese restaurant Rita had recommended, and the laughter and story telling continued into the night, over another great meal. I had some excellent sushi and sake to round out the day. Very cool sake decanter with an ice chamber so the sake doesn't get watered down. On Sunday, Crossville was closed for church, so after discovering that the Quaker meeting was defunct, we drove to Cookville for coffee and then hiked a mile to see the Burgess Falls (more pleasant exercise - I did not gain any weight on this trip, which is always a good thing!). So cool that I accidentally captured a rainbow in that pic! While at the falls, a storm rolled by and one thunderclap sounded way too close for comfort, but we had no choice but to hike back out through the woods. SoNot's fitbit registered 6,000 steps and 20 flights of stairs! Our final dinner in Crossville was another round of sushi. We took the scenic route back through the mountains to Asheville, both to have a relaxing drive and to be gentle with the transmission. There were several scenic overlooks along the way, and we stopped at most of them. Spent the night in Asheville, NC with my nephew and his family, and had lunch downtown before heading to Durham, NC on Tuesday to spend the night with a client who had moved away. They had emailed me two weeks before the trip to thank me for my help and said, 'if you're ever down this way, we'd love to have you spend the night'. And I replied, 'well, as a matter of fact, we'll be by there in two weeks'. I bet they weren't expecting that! We got back to MD yesterday, early afternoon, well rested and still smiling from all the great times we had! Thanks again to the lovely Rita for hosting all of us wackos and allowing us a chance to meet and get to know each other better! I will remember this trip fondly for a very long time.

MD went from 2 to 3 and now 4 but really didn't add that much. I prefer compact but easy to read. The trend in computers is more spacing resulting in more scrolling. I'm looking at you, QuickBooks!

It's not 'postcard sized', it's half a page, which is stupid. Just make it one page! And since we efile everything, this is an exercise in ridiculousness. I'm hoping the software companies will be smart enough to print it on one letter sized page and not two pages that are half blank.

Hopefully, the AICPA and all the other organizations, along with the tax software companies will fight this ridiculous move. And it's a big deal because we should not have be subject to these changes. As a preparer, I can only see this slowing me down. As a taxpayer, it's a tremendous waste of time.

This is simply a scam so politicians can push the false perception that taxes were simplified, when they were not.

And thank you Tom for your great humor and kindness. Tom is also a very fun guy. And Catherine is fun size, and very fun to be around too. Everyone was great, really. And it was super cool to meet you all... sorry, y'all. Personally, I had a blast! And I survived a Rita hug! Was also pleasantly surprised to find good coffee and sushi in little ole Crossville. And, man are the prices reasonable!

Ditto, ditto and ditto.

I remember the short form being half a page... in the 70s. But I only print on letter sized paper.

It seems silly that they say to count home office because it is also simultaneously used as your main residence, in most cases, so you would enter zero for number of days not used as principal residence. Right?

I'm told this is the biggest attraction in Crossville.

Be there for supper!

I'm from MD but I'm driving to TN today. I'm crazy like that.

The 'fair tax' is highly regressive, increasing the tax burden on the poor. Also, I'm sure a national sales tax would lead to a lot off-the-books cash deals, because it's such an easy way to avoid the tax. I much prefer the Robin Hood Tax.

I don't think that any states will allow the PTE deduction, because it's not a 1040 page 1 AGI adjustment and it's not an itemized deduction. It's probably going to be slipped in where personal exemptions used to be.

When I was encoding the screen capture videos into hi-def wmv files, my computer started overheating. I use SpeedFan to monitor my computer temps and alert me when it's too hot. My CPU normally runs about 45-55C, and the alarm sounds at 60C. The alarm sounded and the CPU temp climbed to 64C, so I turned my AC down to 68F and had to blow a fan on my computer to get the temp down to about 57C. Maybe I should have a bigger CPU cooler installed.

Here are a couple of my short and sweet letters, if you want to play around with them. I don't add the late payment penalties part of the letter until after 4/15. It's a little tricky getting the estimate portion arranged because each payment must be pasted into ATX separately, and you need to rearrange the 4 lines that are the default in ATX, into 2 lines. Federal Refund Direct Dep.rtf Federal Refund Direct Deposit Partially Applied.rtf Federal Bal Due-Penalties.rtf

I prefer the simplicity of a financial transactions tax that is a tiny percentage collected every time money changes hands. Not that it could totally replace an income tax or other taxes.

If you switch it to HD, it looks pretty good. Not sure why YouTube was playing it on 480p for me. I'll also need to research why I ended with with a black frame around the video. I learned a few things making this video. I used Microsoft Expression for the screen capture & audio, and Microsoft Movie Maker to edit out all of my tongue clicks and 'ums' and mistakes and long pauses. I was quite annoying the first time I watched the raw footage! If you're wondering why ATX seems to work so fast, it's because I cut out the delays when opening the return and when bringing up the print dialog. They don't seem that long until you're watching them in a video!

You're welcome! So glad you liked it! I'm going to do another on tips and tricks. Someday.

I'm not overly satisfied with this video, but I've spent around 10 hours to get this far, so, be gentle. The video looks much better before I upload it to youtube, and I'm not sure how to get around that. So with no further ado:

Good stuff!

She could have used direct pay with no fee.

They are also likely moving to a cellphone app for millennials (and others) to do their taxes the same way they do everything else.