Paper makes good insulation

We spent a bit of time moving stuff this morning. A tricky piece of furniture went up the narrow ladder to the attic and one box of Sandra's college papers came down. There are still several boxes of receipts, some dating to the 70s, tucked away in the attic. Y'see, the IRS says that you need to keep records for seven years. There is, however, no statute of limitations on tax liability. In one case back in the 90s, I received an auto excise bill for a car that I hadn't owned for 20 years. Fortunately (and somewhat miraculously), I still had the bill of sale and so was able to prove that I didn't owe the taxes. That one incident justifies keeping stuff for another 20 or 30 years. Add to that my mother's papers and we have quite a stack o' boxes.

The company where I work has instituted a new policy regarding expense reporting. Instead of submitting printed reports with receipts, we fax the receipts to a system that matches up the image with the electronic version of the expense report. The managers then approve the expense reports online. It saves the accounting office a lot storage. But, and there's always a but, we (the employees) have to keep the original receipts, in the case of audits, for five years. Just what my office needs - more stuff for a longer time.

It seems early in the season, but the beavers have brought down many trees, mostly small, some large, and have built another dam in a nearby stream. There was no sign of beavers at the camp yesterday; the lake is still completely frozen.

Some businesses, such as Coke or Pepsi, aim for near-universal appeal, while others are content to satisfy a niche. In this case, boys of a certain age would be very interested in shoes that will help them run away from girls.

When I first saw the headline, Top stars picked in alien search, I thought it was going to be another story about Tom Cruise or Britney Spears, but it's just a story about the possibility of intelligent life someplace else.

The Blackberry isn't very comfortable to use just as a phone, so I often use a wireless headset if I'm on a lengthy call. Invariably, when another guy (and it's always guys) sees me while I'm wearing the headset, he'll check his phone to see if anything cool is going on in there. Guys may be enchanted by the coolness factor, but women are not immune to the cell phone obsession. (You can now say, "Eww.")