I ran this morning for the first time this week, though it felt like the first time in years. Given the way things have gone this week — the painful situation with my now-departed dog, the late night in NYC and the head cold that seems to be brewing — I probably should be glad I managed three miles on the treadmill and did it in 26:08..
iPod: The Gutter Twins
I pulled out my tax bills for the last six years the other day to do get a sense of the changes that have occured in our own cost of living as we get closer to the end of our automobile lease. I figured I’d share.
First, consider the 2003/2004 bill, the one issued during the summer that year. The total tax load for 2003 was $4,760.46 — $699.99 for the county, $723.58 to the township, $62.92 for county open space, $64.49 for municipal open space, $3,105.10 for the schools and $94.38 for the Kendall Park fire district.
The most recent bill — 2008/2009: $6,222.79 total — $862 to the county, $983.13 to the township, $102.25 for county open space, $62.92 or local open space, $4,097.67 for the schools and $114.83 for fire.
During the last five years, as you can see, my tax bill — and by extension everyone’s tax bill — has gone up 30.7 percent, with the bulk of the dollar increase coming from the schools.
But that’s overly simple. The school increase, in percentage terms, is actually smaller than the increase in municipal taxes — 32 percent for the schools vs. 35.9 percent.
More significantly, the $6,222 is more than we should be paying for services in New Jersey, though not necessarily because we are spending too much. On the contrary, the state is not doing its part to pay for services, creating an unequal playing field that aids suburban towns with large corporate or commercial tax bases and leaves low-income communities in a hole.
Scott Kazmir takes the mound tonight for the Tampa Rays to open up the 2008 World Series, reopening a wound for Mets fans that runs pretty deep — Kazmir was supposed to take the hill for the Mets under the big lights.
I hope Kazmir does well. The kid has nasty stuff, even if his durability remains a question mark.
That said, the Kazmir trade ranks among the worst ever made by the organization. Where? I’m not sure. But it appears to be rather high — at least on a par with most of these awful transactions:
watching the changes over the last 25 years during Annie's dinner leaves me wondering where things will be in 2033 -O – what kind of technology will carry information and what the news business will be like.
We've moved from print to TV to the Web to portable devices. Where do we go next?
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless LGVX9900 device.
I don’t feel much like blogging today. It has been less than 24 hours now since we had to say goodbye to our beloved doggie, Honey, and this house seems so empty without her. I see her dog bed in the living room, her toys around the house. We keep expecting her to be around the next corner.
Annie was finishing her toast a little while ago and went to give Honey the scraps, an automatic reaction that just reinforces how much our little mookie (one of the millions of nicknames we had for her) was a part of the fabric of our very existence.
I still feel a bit stunned, myself. I don’t think I fully understood the possibilities when we packed her in the car on Sunday night, that it was possible that we’d be without her. But then, as so many friends and readers of this blog have pointed out, we are not without her, will never be without her. She will always be with us.
I know this to be true, because I still occasionally feel the presence of our other dogs — Amstel, who was blind at the age of 2 and had to rely on her feel for the house to get around, and my big, bushy 85-pound lapdog Benny, who like Honey seemed to have a permanent puppy smile even as he reached his final moments at age 14.
Honey’s toys remain where they were on Sunday, strewn across the house where she left them. We probably should clean them up, perhaps place them in a box in a corner where we still can see them (this was my mom’s suggestion — a good one), but I don’t think either of us are ready to do that. It’s still just a bit too raw, too fresh and painful.
