The downside to the San Diego Police Department’s decision to disband their horse unit is that there will be no more pictures like this one, and my fantasy of someday seeing one of those horses trample the Westboro Baptist crowd will never come to pass.

Let’s face it: software is never as easy to install as it should be, and food never tastes as good coming back up as it did going down.  But at the end of the weekend I lost a couple pounds and have Windows 7 up and running on the desktop.  Wish I could have worked a swim in there somewhere, but it just didn’t happen.  Still, I think the scales for the weekend balanced out pretty well in the end.

Rain stopped for the weekend, and for the first time in too long neither Spinner nor I had any outside commitments.  We started the weekend on Friday night with Killer Pizza and (500) days of Summer, bumped it up with dinner and martinis at 333 Pacific on Saturday night.  Said martinis led to a nighttime walk on the Oceanside Pier admiring the monster surf and committing a few PDAs.  Headed up to Disneyland for a few pre-crowd E-ticket rides on Sunday morning, and then just chilled our way into a new workweek.  Life as it should be.

Ignoring for the moment the substance of a certain new Supreme Court decision issued this morning, I’m going to be talking law to Spinner’s 5th graders tomorrow, and wondering if I should try to make them Venn diagram this:

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and SCALIA and ALITO, JJ., joined, in which THOMAS, J., joined as to all but Part IV, and in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, BREYER, and SO-TOMAYOR, JJ., joined as to Part IV. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a concurring opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a concurring opin-ion, in which ALITO, J., joined, and in which THOMAS, J., joined in part. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part,in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I’m taking the ’scared straight’ approach to their exposure to the world of law. Just say no, kiddies.

Stumbled on this N.Y. Times video this evening brought a bit of a flashback.  I visited that ski lodge on Chacaltaya at least three times while assigned to Bolivia from 1991-1993.  The world’s highest ski resort was a tourist attraction, and it was cool to take visitors on an easy trip up to the 17,ooo+ foot peak for bragging rights.  My little Ford Escort could easily drive from La Paz to the lodge, and the hike to the peak could be made in tennis shoes as long as you had the lung capacity to survive the walk.  Have admit that beer was a particularly cost-effective buzz at that altitude as well, as I learned on a hash with the local Hash House Harriers, at least as long as it didn’t completely foam away.

Sad to see the glacier’s gone.  I know there was also an astronomy site nearby.  Hopefully people can still get up to the lodge for a good time and a drinkee even without the glacier to ski on.

Just kinda drifting here.  Work (billable hours) and coding (unbillable hours for a good cause) and waiting for the washing machine to get repaired (the personal gratification of clean undies).  Can you guess which is highest in my priority list?

It would be too easy to just say 2009 sucked and be done with it.  It brought a lot of stress and heartache, and gutted my business, but there were some plusses, even if I had to browse the archives here to remember some of them.

January: Our third Penguin Plunge together, a quick trip to Pismo Beach and Morro Bay, and the arrival of the magic Roku box.

February: Cal Rugby.

March: Turned 45.

April: Las Vegas and La Reve.

May: Still married, despite the best efforts of the H8ers.  Baseball.

June: Pismo Beach (again) and the  San Luis Obispo farmers’ market. First anniversary of our marriage.

July: Comic-Con.  New car.

August: Body surfing championships in Oceanside.

September: Triton Invitational water polo.

October: Disneyland, and the decision to become annual passholders.

November: Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with the in-laws and my little brother.

December: Christmas and a new laptop from Santa.

Sure it had some rough spots, but despite whatever else I can say, 2009 certainly wasn’t all bad.

Made it back to the pool this morning for the first post-Christmas-gluttony swim.  Minor panic attack when I pulled into the parking lot, but fortunately all the New Year’s Resolutionists were staying in the dry areas of the  gym.  Either they’re committed non-swimmers or they haven’t resolved enough of their body issues to be seen in swimwear yet.  Either way I won – I had a lane to myself for the entire workout.

We’ll see if the effort pays off on Friday.  Weather permitting, at 11ish we’ll plunge into the ocean like little penguins with 300 or so of our closest friends to celebrate the New Year.  Most of our friends normally wince at the thought of going, with the imagery of icebergs and hypothermia shivering up their private bits just as surely as the cold water itself would.  Still fun though, and free coffee, doughnuts and certificates always make for excellent motivators.  See you there?  This will be the 24th annual plunge, and our fourth together.

I can almost appreciate the rationale behind Randall Stross’ piece in today’s New York Times that more sales tax revenue would help states like California in the current economy.  Everyone could use more money right now.  But the article just seems to assume the money comes from some great pot of money, as though the California state legislature were to stumble across a pot of gold while on a romp through the field.

Even if Amazon (and other online retailers) were to collect a tax that they aren’t obligated to collect, and even if they were to do this collection without significantly adding to their own overhead (reducing profits or increasing prices), why should consumers sit by and let 8.75% be added to each and every purchase for a tax that that retailer has no obligation to collect?  I wouldn’t, and I’d certainly be taking my business elsewhere or reducing my spending.

I also object to the implication in the article that online retailers are abusing states like California by not collecting sales taxes even though they may have employees in those states.  Those employees are paying income taxes, and sales taxes on their purchases.  Many probably pay property taxes on their homes too, and countless other fees and taxes here and there.  The state and localities are getting their pound of flesh.  If a company chooses to structure it’s operations to avoid passing additional taxes (or other costs that add no value) onto their customers, more power too them – they just became more competitive.  That’s supposed to be good in capitalism.

The article reads like the Professor is simply asking for the retailers to do what the legislature has decided not do do; to raise taxes directly on consumers during the middle of a massive economic downturn.  Corporate interests may run amock in Sacramento, but they can’t directly amend laws yet, and I doubt any well run company’s leadership is actually so short-sighted as to follow the professor’s suggestions.

Even if retailers were inclined to add a surcharge on purchases to help fund local services such as police, fire and schools, I would hope that rather disguise it as a non-existent tax they would be honest about their intentions and give the funds directly to worthy groups rather than letting the moral defectives* in Sacramento get their grubby little fingers in the pot.

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Using Paperless Post for the office holiday greetings this year.  I’ve dabbled with it since seeing a review of the site a while back (in the N.Y. Times?) and used it for a couple of small invitations, but this was the first large “mailing.”  So far so good, and certainly more affordable than snail mail.  I know I love getting paper cards, and love the collections on the walls and shelves of other people’s offices, but I think with this site e-cards are finally crossing over into the “classy” range.