That Seems Too Low...

Sometimes, I feel like a big gullible sucker. The sort of feeling where I look down at the dog and I can tell she's thinking, "Dude, that was weak." I just finished doing my taxes.

When I got to the end, my partner in crime (Turbo Tax) likes to do an "Audit Risk Analysis" - to give me a sense of whether or not the government will believe half of the crazy BS I wrote down. This was the result:

I can feel it smirking.

Now, I play this pretty straight. I report my income. I only deduct stuff I can find paperwork for. I even pay Kansas its "use" tax (I wonder how they came up with the word "use", there's really no adjective in the English language that would make sense there). Still, I appear to have zero indicators that would make me an audit target. From a standpoint of risk management, this tells me I'm probably leaving money on the table.

To make myself feel better, I've decided to pretend that this is just a psychological service for the audit-fearing. Personally, I'd feel like less of an idiot if my bar was somewhere under the right-hand side of the word "YOUR".  Meh.

Nonetheless, our taxes are done. With the help of this happy graphic, I even have a sense of closure.

If you look closely, those happy sparkles are actually tiny daggers.

Shelving Preview

I'm officially half done with my shelving project. I've been procrastinating for the second two boards, but they're in the middle of the garage so I'll probably get to them eventually. Here's what the first two completed shelves look like.

Now I just need to take up stone carving to make some bookends...

I have both of the remaining boards sanded, but they're still pine-colored instead of walnut-colored so they don't get to come inside yet. I'll need three more supports, but that's an easy trip. Strength-wise, the calculations suggest I could sit up there, but I don't intend to try. The books don't seem to have any trouble.

Upcoming

Tomorrow at work is job interview day. We'll be meeting with two summer intern programmer candidates, both of which I'm sure would be just fine. I used to feel all excited and powerful when doing job interviews, but those happy feelings have been replaced by a much more uncomfortable sense of worry and foreboding.

I worry that my programming question will be too hard. Maybe someone won't be able to figure out the front door, have to give me a call, then feel like an idiot for the next month (this has happened, but I don't know about the "month" part). 

One time, I shook hands with a guy that walked in, then greeted him with what I thought was his first name, immediately witnessed a startled and terrified expression, then trudged through an awkward and abbreviated interview. Later, with the help of a single Google search, I learned that his email name (which I had used by accident) must have been the name he used in his social circle of - wait for it - furries. No wonder it freaked him out.

I just want them to get through it and go home feeling like they did well. I guess we'll know soon enough.