Year: 2007

Routing Transit Number

When I filed this year’s taxes like I have for the past several, I filed electronically. I also have what I owe or my refund automatically transfered to or from my savings account. This year our state refund was about twice what we owed Uncle Sam, so I had the state money go into savings and scheduled my payment to the IRS for April 2nd, figuring that would be enough time for the refund to get there first.

Today, in the mail, was a refund check from the State of South Carolina. What? I logged into my bank and checked to see if a refund had been deposited and I was getting double refunded. Nope. I broke out my copy of the state return and looked to see if I messed up the account number. Nope. What about the Routing Transit Number? I remember looking up on the web what my banks RTN was, maybe I mistyped it. Nope, I typed in the right RTN for Carolina First, but unfortunately I used the one for the North Carolina region, not South Carolina. Great, what is going to happen when George Bush wants his money on the 2nd of April?

I called up the toll free IRS Help Line and after about 4-5 minutes listening to classical music on hold I spoke with a very helpful lady and she told me that I messed up. There isn’t any policy to amend an electronically submitted return. When the IRS attempts to get their money, the bank will rebuff them because I don’t have an account there. In essence I will have bounced a check to the federal government. When I asked her what would happen then, she replied I would get a bill in the mail for taxes due and a $15 fee for the bouncing. That doesn’t sound to bad, I just hope it doesn’t land me on some “Let’s Audit This Bozo” list.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 68

459

There are currently 68 photos in the Post Office gallery. That means Donna and I have driven into 68 towns in South Carolina and parked the Miata in front of their Post Office, gotten out of the car and snapped 2 to 4 pictures. Sixty-eight sounds like a lot, but it is not many when you think of how many Post Offices there are. But just how many are there?

The original number from the Postal Gallery site that started this for me was 367, but I recently got a list of SC Zip Codes from Wikipedia and they list 541 of them. I didn?t blog yesterday because I was too busy. I was gripped by my latest obsession (used without permission), I needed to find out how many Post Offices there are in South Carolina. From about 6:00PM until nearly 10:00 PM, I was at the usps.com web site using their Post Office locater. I found quite a few zip codes on that list that don?t have their own Post Office, but I also found a few towns that had more than one post office per zip code.

I now have a number to shoot for ? 459. Here is the excel spreadsheet if you are interested: South Carolina Post Offices.xls I?m sure my total of photos will be somewhat less. There are approximately 20 Contract Postal Units (a CPU is a station or branch operated by a contractor, typically in a store or other place of business) and unless there is an obvious sign out front proclaiming Post Office!, I won?t be taking pictures of those. South Carolina has 3 or 4 universities that may have Post Offices that mainly serve the students and are walkup in nature, so I might not be able to get the Emperor in the photo. Plus there are 5 military bases and I?m not so sure they will let me in, especially after I explain what I want to visit their base for. I already have two Post Offices I couldn?t find, so there is bound to be several more before I finish. My guess is when we are all done there will be 425 photos posted in the web gallery.

Four hundred twenty-five photos with 20 on a page means 22 pages. Sixty-eight so far, divided by 425 total, equals 16% complete. Plus there is the time issue to take into consideration; I?m due a new Miata in 1364 days and I need to have the same car in each photo, so I will need to add a average of one new photo every 3 days until November 2010. The task seems kind of daunting now that I?ve written it all down.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 66

Winter’s Last Gasp

Are You Looking At Me?We went to a local book fair yesterday and picked up some used books. I snagged a couple of Spenser hardcovers for $4 a piece and a couple of early paperbacks with some retro cool cover artwork. The quote below is from one of the hardcovers, School Days, and sometimes I feel just like Spenser does.

“Why would the parents want to discourage an attempt to find their son innocent of multiple murder charges?”

Don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know shit,” Rita said, “do you?”

“No,” I said. “But it’s okay, I’m used to it.”

When I get into the paperbacks I’ll scan the cover of one. I’ve compared the Spenser books to potato chips here before, but with this week’s eating pleasure, maybe I should compare them to a box of Girl Scout Cookies: They are extremely tasty with no redeeming nutritional value and once you start eating a box you just can’t stop until they are gone. Which is exactly what happened to a box of Samoas today.

I’ve uploaded yesterday’ post Office pictures to the gallery. Look for Barnwell, Fairfax, Olar, Sycamore, Ulmer and Williston.

This morning we hit our favorite downtown breakfast spot for a veggie quesadilla, a breakfast parfait (granola on the bottom, vanilla yogurt in the middle and hot blueberries in syrup on top) with a low fat raspberry bran muffin for a kicker washed down with a bottled water.

Meal Cost: $8.75
Tip: 1.25
Spent Today: $10.00
Year to Date: $503.74

Today’s high didn’t make it into the 60’s and tonight’s low will be around 30, but I’ thinking this is the last of the “cold” weather around here for this winter. Next week we will be in the low 70’s almost every day. Some of the Bradford Pears are starting to bloom and the dogwood next to our house has buds. Even though we tried hard to talk ourselves out of it because of the chilly temps, we still ended up spending an hour or so walking in Hitchcock Woods. The weather didn’t scare a lot of people off either, we probably spotted more folks enjoying the woods this afternoon than we have in the past 6 or 7 times total.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 64

The One That Was Suposed To Be, Wasn’t And The One That Wasn’t Supposed To Be, Was

Spanish MossMy longest post title yet?

We went on another Post Office Photo Safari today. We started with a longish dip in Georgia for lunch. Ever since last November’s visit to the Blue Moon in Statesboro, GA we have wanted a return trip, today was it. The small iceberg salad & crab cake were for her and the roast beef sando was for him, but we mostly shared everything between us. Donna drank water and I had sweet tea to drink. This place is now 2 for 2 in excellent meals.

Meal Cost: $22.25
Tip: $3.75
Spent Today: $26.00
Year to Date: $493.74

We hunted and hunted all over the little, and I mean little, downtown of Hilda, SC for the Post Office that the USPS web site was located at 125 Broughton Ave. We drove up and down that street several times, any further cruising and I’m sure a resident would have called the sheriff on us if we did it one more time, but it just wasn’t there. The only thing we could think of was that it was located inside the one little convenience store located at about where 125 should have been, but there weren’t any outward signs of a PO. No flag, no blue mailbox outside and no sign. For the heck of it, on Monday I may call the phone number listed and see what happens.

Hilda was our last official Post Office destination of the day, but I was lobbying for a brief stop in Windsor to retake the picture there. They used to have a rundown trailer for a Post Office, but now they have a new building. Donna doesn’t want this to turn into a project like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, i.e. once you’ve finished one end, it has been so long that you need to start all over again at the beginning. I am arguing that it won’t be like that, as I won’t actively seek out newer structures, but if I happen to pass by one during the normal course of life it should be OK to retake the image. While we were spiritedly discussing the matter, we came across something that both of us felt solidified our argument.

Back when I first started this foolishness, I mapped out a couple dozen Post Offices that were close enough to us to make nice short half day outings. Some of the bitty towns strung out along eastbound US78 made for one. Between the SMALL towns of Windsor and Elko, both with Post Offices, sat the decent sized town of Williston without one. I didn’t see the logic in that. As we drove through Williston today, what should we spy on a parallel street to our route, that’s right, a Post Office. We stopped and took a picture.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 62

When Will The Madness Stop?

Do-Si-Dos and Thin MintsWhy, when all 10 boxes are gone, of course. We polished off a full box of Do-Si-Dos today. Most on the drive this afternoon and the rest when we got home. A half a box of Thin Mints we used as desert after our evening meal, while we watched “Trust the Man“. TTM did have it’s funny moments and it had a Hollywood over the top, never happen in a million years ending, but, and I’m sorry to have to admit this, it didn’t have the usual Hollywood predictable plot and it needed it.

I think we are down to three boxes of cookies left, so it all should be over by Tuesday.

Another One Bites the Dust

TagalongsTonight’s dessert was a fesh out of the freezer, very chilly box of Tagalongs.

Donna was having a bad morning so at noon she called me and asked if I had heated up my TV dinner yet. I said no and immediately asked, “Where are we going for lunch?” Evergreen Chinese Buffet of course. Two lunch buffets and two waters.

Meal Cost: $11.98
Tip: 2.02
Spent Today: $14.00
Year to Date: $467.74

As much as I was prepared to hate “Failure to Launch“, it wasn’t all bad. Worth the hour and a half of my time.

Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates were great as the parents, Mathew McConaughey’s two friends were good, Zooey Deschanel as SJP’s roommate was fantastic and even though the story line was predictable, you actually wanted it to turn out the way it did.

Because we did care enough for these two characters, they could have chopped off the last ten minutes, as soon as they made up while locked in the friends apartment, she unties him, they kiss, roll credits. We really didn’t need to know that both MM’s buddies found relationships too. And we most certainly didn’t need the dolphin making nice with McConaughey at the very end, to show that he was in harmony with nature and everything was just wonderful now that he and Sarah Jessica Parker were together.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 62

Café Cookies

Café CookiesWe ate almost all of a box of Café Cookies tonight. We didn’t finish them for two reasons, 1) while good cookies, they are definitely second-tier tasting compared to Somoas, Tagalongs and Do-Si-Dos and b) we had a MMC meeting tonight, so we are kind of stuffed from BBQ.

At Papa Russ’s BBQ we split the Big Platter, 1/4 chicken and pulled pork with green beans and baked beans for sides, Jalapeno corn muffins to sop up the plate. We bought a bottled water to split, but it turned out to be fru-fru fortified water with vitamins and berry flavoring. I ended up drinking that, while Donna got a cup-o-regular water to drink.

Meal Cost: $14.08
Tip: None
Spent Today: $14.08
Year to Date: $453.74

While Netflix is very, very good to us, but this week we have been stepping out on them.

We are on Netflix’s 1-at-a-time, unlimited rental plan which costs $10 a month. Now that they have added a bunch of distribution centers, there is one a mere 60 miles away, we can turn around a movie in 4 days at best, to 6 days at worst. This means we are watching at least 4 movies a month, but probably average 5, making our cost per movie in the low two dollar range.

Last Saturday we got a promotion in the mail from Movie Gallery with three coupons, one for a free rental, another for rent one, get one free and the third for rent 2 and get 1 free. Monday we went into the local Movie Gallery for the first time since our last Lost Weekend back in September. I meant to bring the 1 Free Rental coupon, but I brought the “Rent 1-Get 1” by mistake, so we picked out 2 movies and it cost us all of $4.23. When we were checking out we hit some mystery bonus thing because the clerk gave us a receipt that included a coupon for another free rental. We used that tonight and picked out “Trust the Man” (this and “Failure to Launch,” will possibly make up for the gore, violence and F-word usage in “The Departed.”) When we take this back we will use the original Get One Free coupon and will have watched four movies at an average cost of a hair over a buck.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 61