I'll give you the best piece of advice I can, now: play the Seniors (maybe even you qualify for the Super Seniors by now?).

I've played in a few since becoming eligible. It's a pretty soft field, as such things go. But more importantly, it's a bunch of old people sitting around, playing cards. Everyone's seen everything there is, no blowups over suckouts or whatever. I've seen exactly one hoodie-and-sunglasses guy (I think he was doing it as kind of a joke) and run into a couple of dickish players, but mostly it's a good crowd.

I haven't played for a couple years; maybe we should get a Team Old 2p2ers to try to meetup and crush.

a 2p2 olds poker team pooling buyins would probbaly do very well as a group in the seniors circuit

no the pro tournament players play at a higher level than ever before. you are throwing your money away on a pipe dream.

go play local tournaments or go play at the tampa hard rock ones where lots of bad players go.

I'll check this out, but I'm definitely going to play the main event.

I get that, but this is purely bucket list. I could spend as much going to Europe or something. Plus, the goal is to be broke when I die.

Fun with property taxes.....

So, we moved into our house last July (2023). We didn't sell our old house until February (2024).

When we closed, there was a homestead exemption on the old house.

So, I just got my property tax assessment on the new house. O....M......G......... Almost four times what the previous owners paid, which was also about what we paid on our old house.

Part of this has to do with transferring the homestead exemption. I'm not clear on the exact rules, but there's some sort of credit you get or something that prevents it from jumping too much.

Anyway, the county I moved to won't give me a homestead exemption for this year on the new house because there was one on the old house during the calendar year. They told me to call the county where the old house was and somehow remove it for the two months, then they would transfer it to the new house.

Of course, I call the county where we had the old house and they said that was nonsense and the other county should be able to do it. You know what's next. Several phone calls to each county, both pointing the finger at the other county.

FINALLY, I got someone at the old county that said they could remove it for that two months if I paid the difference. hallelujeah. They still haven't given me the paperwork but hopefully I can get this cleared up.

It's pretty much my fault for not staying on top of it, but I didn't think it would be this complicated to fix. Nor did I ever imagine how much money it would be if I didn't.

every time i wonder why america is losing its place in the world i quickly remind myself just exactly how our government actually functions

I'm not sure what has happened, but I didn't receive any paperwork the lady said she would send. I'm wondering if maybe she didn't get my email address correct.

Anyway, I am now on hold with another rep that began to tell me that it cannot be done, even though one of her coworkers was going to make it happen.

sigh.

Allright, finally got back to the lady that seems to know what to do. She says she's working on it but might be a minute. It seems to be really complicated.

She told me that somehow the new owner of my old property gets some sort of break because I never took MY homestead exemption off but that makes no sense to me. And, she said she would have to contact them to tell them they didn't get the break. I dunno, sounds weird to me.

But she told me she is pretty sure she can get this fixed.

Well, good luck, boat. At this rate, you'll almost be up to minimum wage for the effort and hours you put in, trying to get the system to work the way it's supposed to.

hehe

I think it really comes down to being able to get to a person that really understands the system. I just kept calling until I found one.

I have to say, I'm somewhat impressed with my progress in such matters. Years ago I would be screaming at the people on the phone and being a total butthead. But killing them with kindness really works. Catch more flies with honey and all that.

The book is really sort of stuck right now. I am writing words and adding and subtracting things from the plot to hopefully firm it up and have it make more sense. But the words are so frickin' bland now. I've sort of lost my "flair". Mostly because it is just so big and daunting now and to get each chapter where I think it will be interesting to the reader is really a chore.

I guess I'm making progress, but I feel like I'm walking through waist deep mud.

Maybe instead of firming things up, you should be throwing things away. Remember, it doesn't have to be true, and it doesn't have to make sense, it only needs to be fun.

Yeah, I definitely need to pare it down. There's a lot of fluff I think.

Short tr.

Just got back from LA. I mostly helped my sister unpack into her newly remodeled house so there wasn't a lot of vacationing stuff.

My niece also just moved to LA from DC so we checked out her new place. It's an apartment on Hollywood Blvd. She's like a block from the famous Hollywood and Vine. Way too busy for my taste but she's young and likes the vibe. We walked around the area some. The stars on the walk of fame are everywhere. I had no idea there were so many. I didn't see any that I was particularly interested in except maybe the munchkins.

We walked up to Grauman's chinese theater. Way too many tourists but I guess I needed to see it. No desire to go back.

We did an escape room which was a lot of fun. It had a live actor and he was awesome. We died, though.

My sister is obsessed with Sean Hayes, so we drove by his house. It was really near the house shown in the opening of the old TV series Soap. That was the extent of our star search.

The weather was absolutely awesome. It was pretty hot in LA, but my sister lives in Hermosa Beach. Probably 60s and 70s all day, with hardly any humidity. I could handle that climate for sure.

My wife and I talked a little about maybe moving out there at some point in out lives. My sister suggested Palos Verdes. OOPPSS. She hadn't seen the recent news. Apparently the whole neighborhood is sliding off the hills.

I'm surprised they were able to move that house all the way from Connecticut. Maybe they did like the London Bridge in AZ.

It occurred to me the other day you haven't mentioned the book lately.

Then, just today, I was reading the acknowledgements of a book written by a former astronaut. He mentioned On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King as something that helped him improve his writing.

Thought it might interest you as well.

I'm definitely going to check this out.

I've been pounding away at it. I work on it when my wife is at work. I've tried when she's home and it's difficult. That's less about her than it is me. I have to get in my own head and any little distraction just throws me off.

I remember my dad (who was an artist) locking his bedroom door every day so he could work. I used to look back and be a little angry about this, but I kinda understand now. However, I saw the effect it had on my family and my mother so there is no way I'm taking that approach. I'll just use the time I'm home alone wisely.

The book is still expanding. I'm really trying to not keep adding to it because it's just so big now, but I feel like I need a little more character development.

My biggest challenge will be going through the entire thing to do some much needed editing.

I really think that at some point in time I should probably hire someone to go through it and clean it up some.

On another note, we finally got out to do a little fishing. My back went out a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to do much. But, it was pretty calm and the weather was wonderful AND we caught fish. Great day.

I used to have pretty bad back problems for most of my life. Someone on the H&F forum gave me some exercises to do and I haven't had any issues in probably 10 years. At least not since I met my wife. But this one was a doozy. Took me down hard. Getting better every day though.

You have to be jealous of your time if you want to create something. This is something that no one can understand but you. I used to get up at 3 and write until 6:30 just to minimize conflicts.

If you want to get anything done in your life, you have to be assertive with yourself and everyone else.