Old Photographs Don't Lie

I spent about 10 minutes this afternoon looking through old photographs and they scared me. I ran across old pictures of girlfriends, people I hung out with, and me skiing in my youth. While I don't claim to have the best memory, I remember being a much better skier than those pictures would indicate. I also confess thinking that my old girlfriends looked significantly better in my memory than those pictures would indicate. Perhaps my wife is just that much better looking.

The other thing I remember wrongly is the quality of film photographs. I have been using a digital camera for so long and they have continued to evolve from rather poor results to now when they are significantly better than the film photographs I remember. Now one important thing to remember is that not all cameras are created equal. That is true for film cameras as much as it is for digital ones. I'm sure I used a lot of those crummy disposable cameras as they easily fit in a pocket and could be pulled out to take very blurry pictures. Then you didn't know what you got until you spent money developing the film. With a digital camera, if you don't like the photograph, you can delete it and try again. While I have some poor film photographs, I also have some really nice ones taken with a top-of-the-line Nikon from that time. While they look amazing, I still prefer my high-end digital camera.

In going through my old photographs, one of the first thing to note is that I used to have hair. I found a great picture from my teenage years and I look much better with hair. I wish I still had it. Unfortunately my genes conspired against me and I'll have to be satisfied with being bald. It is a good thing I got married before I lost my hair.

I have also decided to hide all of my old ski pictures from my kids. I ski much better now than I did back then. Part of it could be that I ski over 100 days every season now and I was lucky to get 20 back then. The important thing is that if my kids see those old photographs I will be ridiculed and made fun of the rest of my life. I should probably burn those pictures.

Mobile Phones for Children

Yesterday my 5-year-old granddaughter got a smartwatch with a phone built into it. She can only use it to communicate with a very small number of people. Naturally my wife and I are on that list and we have each received no less than 5 phone calls in the past 12 hours. While some might be bothered by so many calls, my wife and I love it as we enjoy speaking with any of our grand kids.

My son got the watch for his daughter to help locate her while playing with friends. she is very socially active and her parents often have a hard time finding her when it is time to come home for dinner. That is the primary reason she has the device and I agree with his thinking.

My slightly older grandson also has a similar smartwatch and he behaved the same when he got it. He wore it constantly and sent me voice messages all the time. Then he discovered he needs to charge the device and it often had a dead battery. Eventually I stopped getting messages from him and he stopped wearing the device. It became an unreliable way for me to contact him. Now that his sister has a smartwatch, they have been competing with each other to contact my wife and me. My hope is that with two of them having devices, we will have a great way to contact our grand kids.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and mobile phones became ubiquitous, I set 15 as the age for my kids before they got their first mobile phone. I wanted them to have practice using one before they started driving. That way if something happened in the car, a child could reach Mom or Dad. Now mobile phones have evolved to contain a lot more functionality including cameras, location data via GPS, and a number useful applications. It makes more sense to lower the age I originally set but still am not sure what that age should be. Fortunately I don't have any young children as my oldest is almost 30 and has kids of his own. Ultimately I don't think there is a specific age that works for everyone as I prefer to look at maturity. Not all 5-year olds are created equal and some will do well with a smartwatch while others won't. I'm interested in your thoughts so feel free to leave a comment. Others may appreciate your advice as well.

IRS Does Not Seem to be Slowed Down

It is tax time again and there seems to be some fear this year because of all the people being cut from the federal government. A lot of people are worried that Elon Musk and his seemingly gang of 20-year-old thugs is going to slow down tax returns being mailed to honest working Americans. Knowing this, I sat down last week and worked to get my extra complicated taxes filed. It took all week but I submitted them on Saturday afternoon. I then read the fine print and discovered I should expect my return within 21 days.

One of the reasons I have a complicated tax return this year is I cashed out a rather sizeable investment which I promptly reinvested in something with much better returns. The only problem is that I have to pay capital gains on the increase over the past 30-plus years. In doing so, I withheld federal taxes as if you owe more than something like $1,000 you will get hit with penalties. The state of Utah is different in that as long as you pay your taxes by April 15th, there are no penalties. My hope was that I would get enough back on my federal taxes to cover what I owe the state. I am actually getting slightly more back than I owe so I might be able to take my wife out to dinner or something. I did my taxes early enough that receiving the federal return within that 21 days would give me more than enough time to pay my state taxes.

Today I had to log into my bank account for a completely unrelated issue and noticed my balance is larger than expected. I clicked on the details and noticed that my federal tax return is sitting in my account ready to be sent to the state of Utah. It only took 5 days for me to receive my refund! This is the fastest I have ever received a tax return.

Let me return to my second sentence in this post about Elon Musk and his seemingly gang of 20-year-old thugs slowing down tax returns. I think this is one myth that doesn't fly with me. Granted my experience is one in 300-plus million Americans and your experience may vary. However I'd like to believe that the mere threat of dead wood being cut from the federal government has lit a fire under IRS workers and they are working with the speed we haven't seen in decades.