travis' brain dump

You ever have one of those moments when you just have to giggle to yourself over something kinda funny?  You know, like one of those moments when you’re looking over communications logs on your servers and notice someone from dhs.gov has become a regular visitor to your blog? LOL (dhs.gov is department of homeland security for those that don’t quite understand… if you need further details, feel free to visit their site)

Seriously… it’s one of those things that just makes your raise your eyebrow and think to yourself  ‘does someone think I’m a threat or are they just some individual who finds my technical posts helpful or my rants entertaining?’ With the regular visits monthly why don’t they just sign up and get subscribed to my posts so they can get full copies when I post up?

It certainly wouldn’t offend nor scare me to have a dhs member as a subscriber. lol

bcp4.cbp.dhs.gov	52	98	1.22 MB	03 Jun 2010 – 07:03
sbcp6.dhs.gov	26	49	588.09 KB	05 May 2010 – 16:37

The first visit was on May 5th, then a month later almost to the day a visit with more content viewed. I must be getting more interesting or something. 🙂

*shrug*

That’s me. I am the professional blog slacker. 🙂

Well, to be honest I think I have a decent excuse or ten… It’s been pretty hectic. I think where I last posted was a good sign things were ramping up to drive me completely nuts. To be honest, I don’t recall everything that has occurred over the last couple months but it’s been somewhere in the lines of tons of career work and lots of home related work (remodel, kiddos, car stuff, workout, etc) so needless to say blogging has been the last thing on my list.

So to bring my little online community up to speed for things they may or may not already know. I successfully made it into the 220’s (albeit high 220’s) on the weight loss and I’m hovering around 19% on the body fat count. I can’t complain really, that’s pretty good considering I was out around 270 when I started this whole thing two years ago. So, almost 42 lbs down and more than 6″ off my waist is nothing to be disappointed over. We’ll see how this next round goes. I’m doing quite a bit more cardio as Amanda and I are training up to run the Bolder Boulder at the end of this month. Projections say I should see around 215 again. That would be nice… lol

In other news, we finished cleaning up the three bedrooms and the hallway to the upstairs in the house with a little remodel. Nothing like pulling out all the insulation in the exterior walls and replacing it with 2 levels higher of an R factor to make things a little cooler/warmer in the bedrooms. 🙂 It pretty much wraps up most of the work in the house in the odd areas. All that’s left is the kitchen/livingroom combo remodel and the two bathrooms and this house is done. I kinda wonder what we’ll do after that… Hopefully start building the house in the mountains if all goes well. Some pictures will be posted up shortly if they’re not already there when this is read.

I also passed another birthday… 31, wooo… I dunno. I remember thinking as a kid that I would be lucky to see 21 and here I am with 10 more years on top of that, two kids, a wife, a career, debt and everything else that goes in between. Wow.

Tons of stuff in between but hey, I’m still alive and all is well so that’s pretty much where we’re at. Hopefully I can get at least one or two posts a month as things go forward eh? *rolls eyes* riiiight.

Looks like a suicide note, smells like a suicide note.  Looks like this guy had enough and just lost it.

(link to story on see en en: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/texas.plane.crash/index.html?hpt=T1)

———

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?”  The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.  The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken.  Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it.  I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head.  Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy.  Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all.  We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers.  Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”.  I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood.  These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind.  Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?  Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.  Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”.  It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system?  Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand.  Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand.  The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is.  If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s.  Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English.  Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions.  In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.  We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God).  We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living.  However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0.  It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie.  It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father.  I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker.  Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement.  Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement.  All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time.  When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me).  I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread.  I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made.  I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL – Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. – This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

·      “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

·      “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

·      “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.

 

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated.  The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d).  Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave.  Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time.  I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity.  This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”.  Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise.  The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists).  This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle.  If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks.  Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s.  Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that.  The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco.  However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall.  Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed.  Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare.  Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months.  This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive.  Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY!  After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change.  Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while.  So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done.  I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work.  The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA.  This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income.  I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need.  The sleazy government decided that they disagreed.  But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out.  Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present.  After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again.  But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle.  After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order.  I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting.  Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit.  By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented).  Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone.  The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything.  Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”.  Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone.  The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government.  Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough).  In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand.  It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants.  I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after.  But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change.  I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less.  I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.  Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.  The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different.  I am finally ready to stop this insanity.  Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

 

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

 

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

It never fails…

You finish off a holiday season and you come back to chaos! 😀

Actually it’s not that bad. It’s just been really busy since I got back to work. I had fully intended on writing this blog out a couple of weeks ago only to be delayed consistently with things going on. Anyway, on with the show…

I had mentioned prior to the new year posting up results and such on my latest rounds of working out with Andy. One of those ‘let the knowledge that others are watching drive you to complete the task at hand’ kind of things. Well, here I am. Granted we’ve been back on it for 3 weeks now but it’s never too late to start posting up the fun.

Before I get started on me, there are some funny observations to cover and some advice to hand out. Anyone who hits the gym on a regular basis will understand fully where I’m coming from here.

Do you ever notice how trying to hit the gym in January is like trying to go shopping on Black Friday? Not only is it completely impossible to work with your usual routine without constant interruption to your normal flow, but it’s usually interruption by the absolute worst perpetrator possible, the gym noob. Most of the time, these poor souls make desperate New Year resolutions to lose weight that only ends in their own disaster and embarassment. They seem to come into the gym and see everyone in there busting out workout routines that they have been doing for months and try to “fit in”. They only end up getting in the way or more often getting hurt. Seriously folks, you will experience first hand the EPIC FAIL that will end your resolution as quickly as you came up with it. You will not meet your goal, you will not lose weight and you will only get frustrated and continue to get larger if you rush into something for some stupid reason like a New Year’s resolution.

If you are truly concerned about your weight and would like to take steps to resolve those concerns, take some advice and do one of three things:

a) Get yourself a trainer, someone who can review your current fitness level and help you with a plan to meet your goals. This individual will be your gateway to a new, more fit lifestyle if you take to heart their advice and accept the structure they give you.

b) Get a workout buddy who has lots of experience and will help you start slow and ramp your way into a full blown routine. While this is not exactly using a trainer, if you have a friend who you feel can really help you, try it. If it doesn’t work, you can always choose another alternative.

c) Do some research. Don’t just show up at the gym expecting to dive right in and learn what to do by looking at what other people are doing. You will not figure it out the secret to weight loss and getting in shape. Go online, pick up a book, talk to people, etc… learn what it is you can do to meet your needs and create a routine that works for your fitness level and beyond. 

Most importantly, please go see a doctor if you have any health concerns.

Regardless of the method you choose remember two things when you are at the gym with other people around you. It’s not about the size of the weight you’re using or how fast you can move on a cardio machine. DO NOT get caught up in what everyone else is doing and try to ‘fit in’. You will fail. If you are weight training, pick a weight that works for you. It’s all about form and motion, not about how much you can lift. If anyone gives you a bad time for using a lighter weight or moving a little slow, ignore them. More than likely they will be the one to fail due to poor attitude and lack of intelligence in the first place and so long as you stay focused you can exceed even your own expectations when you come out on the other side.

Ok, enough with the advice column and on to my workout progress thus far. 🙂

Prior to heading out on vacation I had come close to hitting my previous goal of 230 (from 264). A little bit of a bummer but hey, I still lost 25 lbs coming in at 239 and hitting a bodyfat percentage of 19.83%. I can’t complain. Of course, like the holidays do, they added back some of that weight. I did pretty good considering all the fun stuff I ate and tallied in at 246.2 just prior to starting this latest round of working out. The more sad thing was having the bodyfat land at 24.31%. Oh well. That’s why I started another round. 🙂

So far so good, the results are as follows:

Week 1 -> 246.2 lbs/24.31% BF
Week 2 -> 245.4 lbs/23.46% BF
Week 3 -> 241.4 lbs/21.94% BF

I’m interested to see how this week will turn out, hopefully pretty decent but we’ll see. With a huge jump in week two I may be looking at something more modest this week. 2lbs/week is the goal though so as long as I stick to it, I should see 220 by April4th. It’s been hard to get in all the cardio I want but the drive is at least still there. I’ll actually post up some pictures when I hit the end of this round since it will give a good view of a year worth of changes. If that’s not something to motivate me to get this goal I don’t know what is, lol.

What lies beyond? Probably not much… lol 220 would more than likely put me back in a pair of 34’s with the rate I’ve been changing out fat for muscle so going beyond that may be futile. We’ll see though as I start to creep closer to my goal. Either way, 25 lbs down, 21.4 lbs to go. 😀

I will be posting up the weekly results to keep myself in check. Even if they are bad. *shrug* it’s not like I’m on “The Biggest Loser” and have Jillian or Bob in my face about not hitting a good number in a week… I just want to post losses in the form of wins, no matter how big or small.