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Tuesday, Jun. 01, 2004 - 8:41 p.m. The first installment of our property tax bill is due in just a few days. I always put off paying it as long as possible. No reason giving the government their share of our money any earlier than necessary. And I say this being a government employee myself. I KNOW how this money is spent. Speaking of which (Warning! Roadiepig is about to go on a rant!)�. Our state legislature couldn�t get a budget hammered out by midnight Monday. That means (according to our state constitution) that any budget that now (somehow) passes, it will require a 3/5ths majority by both houses, and the Governors signature to become law. By engaging in a pissing contest, the party in power (all three branches are of one party, btw) wasted a chance to pass a budget without any input by the minority party. Now? They HAVE to work with the minority, or they won�t get a budget. They also have to throw a few bones their way, or they won�t play along. Like watching sausage being made. Not a pretty thing to see. So it is looking more and more like we will be either working without a contract or laid off come July 1. On the positive side, Governor Little Big Man�s popularity has taken a nosedive in the past 6 weeks. The latest statewide poll has him at 39% approval. The last poll, taken mid-March, had him at 58%. Outside of Bismarck, his numbers are really bad. He has an approval rating of 28%, and a disapproval rating of almost 60%. Good. That means people are finally seeing through all of his posing and self-serving press conferences at children�s hospital burn centers, demanding that the house and senate do whatever he tells them to do. Give him another year, and he might be joining Grey Davis on the �unemployed due to voter recall� line� Oh yeah- I was writing about my property taxes before I got off on this subject that bores most of you to tears. Sorry. Anyway�. This year, for the first time our local taxing body is offering online payments for your property taxes. Sounds like a good idea, right? You don�t have to head down to the county building, stand in line while the one clerk working the counter decides whether they want to wait on you or not. It saves the county money, because they get direct deposits of money. No employee has to feign interest in waiting on you. The money comes from a credit card or your personal bank account, so no checks bounce. Great deal, right? Well, since this involves the government- no. Why? Because the service adds a �convenience fee� to your payment. I could see paying a buck or two for this service. Maybe even $5. Worth that much to avoid the county building. But no, that�s not what they want. For each installment of our bill (2 total), they want $17.00 ! That is just crazy! They get guaranteed money, no employees involved, and they slap a 2% surcharge for your effort. I know- Visa charges them something like 2% for their services. But what about using your savings account? No bank fees there. At least I don�t think there is, anyway. Am I using this wonderful new service? Hell no. My credit union takes property tax payments with no fee. Our escrow account for the house is there anyway. Think I�ll just wait until Friday (the last day you can pay taxes before they are considered late) to stop by the credit union. Might even wait until 5 minutes before closing time�. The garden is starting to produce small harvests almost every day now. I have been picking enough radishes to keep Lease happy for about 3 weeks now. To that, I have also had tons of leaf lettuce. Most of that crop has been handed out to coworkers and family. I can only eat so much, and Lease prefers Iceberg lettuce, which can�t be grown here in North Dakota. I have now had two decent pickings of snow peas (maybe 2 quarts worth today out of my small planting- steamed and coated with olive oil and garlic tonight for a side to our ravioli). Three decent (small) heads of broccoli have been removed from their plants. And I have several nice heads of Chinese cabbage heading up as I type this entry. Looks like slaw this weekend. Today I harvested the earliest garlic I have ever grown. This variety (I think it was called China Rose) was advertised as being the earliest garlic available, maturing a full month before any other variety. That seems just about right. The plants had started �falling over� last week, and were completely down today. Whenever the leaf tips turn brown, I pull them out of the ground, clean them up, and hang them in the garage to dry. I used a couple of the smallest bulbs in the pasta sauce tonight, along with the snow peas. The bulbs aren�t as big as most of my other varieties. No problem- they will be a welcome addition to our table for the next month or so while we wait on the rest of the crop to mature� Long winded tonight�I know. I want to leave you with one last bit of news from our household. Lease has spent the last 6 weeks or so studying for a test she needed to take for her job. Her newest company likes their employees to continue to learn about their business , and offers paid courses they can study at home. After passing the course, they get a bonus. Pretty cool benefit. But since Lease has been in the business for so many years, they won�t let her take any of the courses that pertain to customer service. She would pass them without even having to study the material. Her boss told her that would be like just giving her free money. So what did she have to study for her continued education? One of the most technically- oriented manuals I have ever seen, explaining how cable modems/telephony ACTUALLY WORK! Nothing to do with what she does for her job- just nerd-level gobbledygook. I helped her study for this test for the entire time she worked on the bookwork. Let me tell you- I knew almost none of the information before reading it in the books, and I can honestly say I still don�t understand how it really works. I always figured elves and nymphs moved the information around somehow� Anyway� She finished the 11 chapters (something like 200 technical-term filled pages), passed all the �open book� end of chapter tests, and was ready to take the big exam. She spent several hours cramming this weekend, along with me reading the tests out loud for her. She reviewed all of the questions she missed yesterday (when I read her the multiple choice answers), and decided she was ready to take the test. She told me they made her wait until 4 pm today to take it. The longer she waited, the more sure she was going to have trouble on the final. I talked to her around 2, and I just told her she would do fine. She scored 100%. Yes, I am both happy for and very proud of her Anything that she puts her mind to, she can do. I have always known that fact about her. Even if it involves something as unfamiliar and unknown as this was to her�..
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