What did you do today? - 2020 version

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What I did today

Spent hours in the pool! Actually was working with the little vacuum brush head to clean all the algae off without turning the pool green! Back and neck seriously sunburned.

Then edged the property and mowed about 60%... say an acre and some with a walk behind mower. 6 miles of mowing... need a riding mower! But is great exercise....
 
Last night, F bought a new (used) car! So today we went for a pleasure ride in it after taking it to the gym and restaurant.

It's a 2018 Ford Fiesta with 40K miles on it, and fit his rather tight budget very nicely. It has a very smooth ride and a lot of zip for a 4 cylinder engine. It seems to get very good mileage and will be great for short trips around our suburb (which is about the farthest we drive these days anyway). I am very happy that he got it because the Murano was 17 years old and had 260K miles on it, and after many years of good service it was becoming unsafe and unreliable.
 
I made some hummus in the Instapot. Also, followed up with a contractor doing road work in another municipality where our new car was damaged. No clear answer on liability yet. It’s okay. I’m retired and have plenty of time. If I was still working I’d be steaming.
 
I may finally be done with work. Although I’ve been retired for almost 6 years, I continued to occasionally work on one last eminent domain case that has been going on for 18 years. Today was supposed to be my deposition day for a new trial. But the two parties settled this morning as I was leaving the house.

So instead I took a nap and went out for a hike.
 
Ironed out all the details on our March/April trip to Berlin, Dresden, Krakow and Budapest. Looking for high quality moderate hotel rooms is time consuming but not difficult with the internet. No need for travel agents any longer.
 
After waiting all day, our flight out of Guadalajara was cancelled. It will now take another 2 days to get home. Alaska Air fed us and put us up in Hotel Tapatio on top of a hill overlooking the city. It reminds us of the old castle in Edinburgh.

If you are ever in Guadalajara, suggest Holiday Inn Express by the airport. Western plumbing, Chili's and Denny's right there. Hampton Inn shares the parking lot. All known quantities when you are traveling and bone tired.
 
Last night DW mentioned a place north of here, called Santa Claus Lane. She said people would come from all over to get their date milk shakes.
Well, that all it took. I picked up some dates and vanilla ice cream at the market, then took the blender outside so she could not hear it, and whipped her up a date milkshake:D
She said it was just as she remembered.
 
Made a minor grocery run for salad stuff, then came home and sharpened most of the kitchen knives with the wet wheel grinder (Tormek Supergrind 2000) then made a big salad that will last about a week or so.

Although it was definitely pricey I've never regretted buying that Tormek grinder. It'll sharpen knives (or just about anything else with the right jig) literally razor sharp.
 
Generational Shock. :LOL:

The, just turned eight in late December, granddaughter is here for a sleepover.

We were playing online Scrabble when DW called us for lunch. Granddaughter asked "How do we put this on 'pause'?"

Replied..."We just walk away from it."
 
Getting together for brunch with siblings to plan our summer trip for a family reunion. We do this every 2-3 years, its fun to visit with cousins.
 
Souschef said:
Last night DW mentioned a place north of here, called Santa Claus Lane. She said people would come from all over to get their date milk shakes.
Well, that all it took. I picked up some dates and vanilla ice cream at the market, then took the blender outside so she could not hear it, and whipped her up a date milkshake:D
She said it was just as she remembered.
Click to expand...

Touched by this. And the milkshake sounds good too.
 
I won a blue ribbon with my beagle pup. It was our first time for points, and we won one.
 
Have had two very frustrating days dealing with TurboTax online, which has been completely reliable for me for years. This year --- awful.

Yesterday finished everything up online and got to the eFile screen. Paid $110 for fed and state, printed out the 2 returns to PDF to check them, and there was a rando form 8995 included with my federal return. Form 8995 is "Qualified Business Income Deduction". It is new for 2019.

I don't own a business, don't have any rentals, not even any REIT mutual funds. 2 of the amounts on the form are income from my 1040. 1 amount "Qualified REIT dividend income" is a complete mystery - nothing I entered.

There are other people on the TurboTax forum with the same problem. They were told to just delete the form but it won't work for me. TurboTax wants me to pay more money to their online "tax advisor" to tell me why this form is being generated. LOL.

I don't trust TurboTax any more. Looks like I'm out $110. I guess I could just print out the return and mail it without 8995 but now I don't trust anything on it. Better to start fresh somewhere else.

Sigh. I was so close ...
 
I decided to finally go through a box full of family history stuff which Dear Old Dad left me. I found a fascinating collection of oral history stories written down over 60 years ago, with tales of pioneer ancestors in the Appalachian Mountains fighting Indians, bears, and wolves (and making little distinction between them). Dad never shared any of that when he was living.

This afternoon I took advantage of the warm weather to cut back the knockout roses, which had already broken dormancy.
 
Cleaned the carpeting in the high traffic rooms, walked the dog (several times), organized old clothes I won't need anymore for donating. Other than that, just screwed off.
 
Assembled with the help of a neighbor a barrel sauna. Now contacting the electrician to get it hooked up soon.
 
I smoked a brisket for dinner.
 
Very little, really. Went to the gym just after noon, came home and researched a couple of exercises to be added to my strength routine, then went out for dinner with my wife.
 
"Bad boys bad boys what you gonna do" thats been suck in my head since we came home from movie Bad boys for life! It was 2 hrs of non thought and a whole lotta f*** bombs thrown in just to do what? It was a just ok movie, that would have been better with less cursing.
 
3 weeks ago I went to an event with a silent auction. I bid on and won a 3 month membership to our local YMCA. It was my intention this year to walk in a buy a membership anyway, since I like to swim for exercise and it is the only place to swim here in the winter.

Last week I attended at Tai Chi class there for the very first time in my life. It was amazing. I now look forward to my Tuesday afternoon class each week. We are doing Chen form and Yang fan form. Fan form is a real joy.

Part of my fitness journey-balance, strength, cardiovascular, and flexibilty. And joy along the way. Tai chi is for balance, but it builds strength too.
 
Did a bunch of research on my TurboTax problem of Form 8995 is "Qualified Business Income Deduction" getting attached to my federal return. It was triggered by an amount on on the VTSAX line of the 1099-DIV in the Section 199A Dividends box. I thought surely it was an error and TurboTax support agreed and tried to help me to delete the form.

But after 2 hours of "help" I was told by a third support rep that a form dependent on an amount you entered cannot be deleted. This rep also told me that the deduction was valid.
I've done enough of my own research to believe that. Thanks to audreyh1 for setting me on the right track. TurboTax did not make an error doing my taxes.

See https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2019/aug/sec-199a-dividends-ric-interest-reits-ptps.html

for the explanation.
 
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