Spring is my favorite season. Although spring officially started on March 21st, it didn’t actually start feeling like spring here until a week or so ago. Where is “here” you ask? Why, none other than the tri-state area on the east coast! When the spring weather finally hit, it felt so good! Finally the end to a long, cold winter.

After work this past Friday, I remembered that there are Cherry Blossom trees around the reservoir path in Central Park, and that the Cherry Blossom trees bloom in the spring. So I decided to take a nice walk halfway around the reservoir and enjoy the Cherry Blossoms. I took a few shots of the trees. The pictures came out much better than I thought they would, considering I used my mobile phone’s built-in camera to take them! Take a look below:

Cherry Blossom trees are quite beautiful in the spring, as you can see. I hope you all are enjoying the pleasant change of weather and the beauty of nature as much as I am.

Another thing I just remembered – with the nice spring weather comes tax time. Even though the deadline for filing taxes has passed, this bit of information will be invaluable for anyone who will be filing a non-resident state return. (If you work in a state that collects tax on income, and reside in another state, you will be filing in this manner) You will be filing two state returns, and you should prepare your resident state return LAST. That way, you will get the most money back. (Or in my case, owed less taxes! )

I learned this when preparing my taxes online this year – I prepared my resident state return first, and I was quite disgusted when the system showed how much I would owe. I then tried preparing my taxes with an alternate online tax service, and prepared my resident state last, (the service actually instructed me to do so!) and when I finished, the system showed me that I owed significantly less.

On a side note, (Yes, another one!) I can’t believe how easy it is to prepare my own taxes online! I used to use a popular but overpriced tax preparer (cough-har-cough-block-cough-cough…), but me and my wife got real tired of paying so much in preparation fees…

Well, that’s pretty much that. Take care all!

Oh, wait! Just to remind you all, I am NOT a tax expert! So make sure to do your own research into your state’s local tax laws and such! Okay.

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I finally got a mobile phone! How utterly amazing, wild, daring, and uncharacteristic of me! Okay, nix amazing, wild, and daring. But it is definitely uncharacteristic of me. I don’t really like the idea of being reachable by phone regardless of where I might be. Sometimes when I’m on the bus, I just want to close my eyes and space out. If I’m walking down the street, I just want to be left alone. The idea of being “connected” actually freaks me out a bit. But a mobile phone does have its benefits. Besides, I can shut it off when I don’t want to be bothered. It’s actually an interesting story of how I got the phone, because I probably would not have gotten one otherwise.

My wife has a mobile phone, and for some reason, her mother wanted to get a mobile phone at a discounted rate through my wife’s mobile phone plan. When my wife looked into it, she found that it would actually be a good deal for her mother, as it would only cost an additional $20 per month, and her mother would send the money each month. So my wife arranged the whole thing, and her mother was added to her mobile phone plan, which had to be upgraded to the family plan. She even had her mom on the phone picking out a specific mobile phone to go with the plan! My wife received the new phone, set it up, and mailed it to her mother, who began using it. My mother in law sent us the phone payments as agreed. This arrangement continued for a couple of months…

Seemingly out of nowhere, my mother in law obtained a new mobile phone and plan on her own with her local phone company. Me and my wife were quite surprised when we learned this. Apparently, she had lost the phone that my wife sent her, and couldn’t find it anywhere! Strangest of all was the fact that my mother in law didn’t tell my wife about losing the phone until a week after it happened! Well, my wife gave her mother a few more days to search for the phone before she reported it to the carrier as lost. It was never found. Fortunately, there was no unauthorized activity on the phone that we could ascertain via the carrier’s web site.

My wife called the carrier to remove her mother from her plan, since she no longer had any use for it. But she would have to pay a cancellation fee – $175. Well, you can see where this story is going. My mother in law sent us the money for the cancellation fee, and I decided to use the money to buy a new phone so I could use the plan. That’s pretty much how I joined the mobile phone club!

It actually took me about a week or so to come to a decision about taking advantage of this opportunity, but the desire to easily stay in touch with my friends influenced my decision. A mobile makes this sometimes difficult task very easy.

Hello?

(lol)

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