Daley Ponderings

The IRS hasn't published their calculator yet, and I have been reading about lots of people trying to figure out what to do with line 70 on their 1040 (ie. the famous RRC that is causing probably more time wasted than was worth the money that was sent out last year. So, I wrote a... (More)

I figured I'd be getting some birthday money from someone, so I went ahead and spent it last week, by buying a handful of CDs from Sovereign Grace , which happens to be having a fairly big sale.  It will go for the rest of February, so you should probably check it out.  It seems to be... (More)

Heather and I spent several days over the last week at our old house, cleaning and fixing various things that our previous tenants broke. It is pretty annoying to have people totally not care about your property, and live in pretty disgusting conditions, presumably to get back at me for... (More)

We've gotten two calls in the last couple days from people claiming that we called them, and quite irate about it.  What they didn't realize is that you can't really trust the caller-id values displayed on your phone - they are trivially forgeable by anyone, and I think relatively hard to... (More)

Mydad had mentioned a news article story a month ago about some company charging a whole bunch of people $.01 each on their credit cards; presumably with the thought that no one would complain about a $.01 charge, and since they charged a million people or something, they made a bunch of... (More)

Very early in the morning, we got up, had breakfast and said goodbye to Sarah (all the other Dutlers said goodbye the night before.) Janet and Stephan came to pick us up and we crammed all ourselves and stuff into the mini-minivan. They took us to the Basel airport where we spent quite... (More)

I thought I had written about this before, but I can't find it, so maybe we just talked about it over email. We purchased health insurance through Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield when I first started working for myself. It was the same plan as we had when workingfor Dynavox, though... (More)

Once again we took an early tram to thetrain station, meeting Janet and Stephan there. Then we rode to Zurich and the first thing we did was walk to the historical museum. We saw ancient gold, medieval and more modern weapons, and costumes, elaborately panelled rooms, banners and medals from... (More)

And we just discovered that there is yet another Pittsburgh tax we didn't know about, and maybe even a couple different taxes we may or may not owe.  I called Pittsburgh to cancel our estimated tax forms that they have continued to mail to us, even though we now live outside of Pittsburgh. ... (More)

I have been quite behind in my magazine reading, and this morning I caught up to August (2008 - at some points, it has been necessary to specify the year when saying how far behind I am). There is an interesting article in Dr. Dobbs, by Scott Ambler , regarding methods of estimating... (More)

We signed up for a new phone number for dealing with rental stuff, and bought the numbers to go on the sign today.  Three hours later, we got our first call.  Crazy.  I haven't gotten around to getting it on Craig's List yet or anything. The guy is deciding between a house and a... (More)

On a Wednesday, two days past my due date, the midwives scheduled me for post-dates testing at the hospital the next week. At first these only consist of a non-stress test (monitoring to be sure the baby's heart rate increases when he moves) and an ultrasound to confirm adequate amniotic... (More)

Our first daughter was born this evening at 6:35, weighing in at 9 pounds, 3 ounces and 20 and 3/4 inches long.  She doesn't currently have a name that we know of yet, but those of you who have been around at the boys' births probably won't be too surprised at that.  So, I guess for now,... (More)

I have to say that the real baby is much more squashed in me than that little graphic baby is on the sidebar.  (S)he pokes up knees and heels all the time and increasingly presses on my bladder.  I am ready to go, but still have plenty of things I can do while waiting.  When Mom and Janet... (More)

Having prenatal appointments every week is not giving me much leeway for blogging.  I just had another appointment today and realized that I have not blogged about last week's. First, Noah had his 2 year appointment last Wednesday.  35.5 lb, 37"  He didn't like the poking and... (More)