Monday Musings - March 14, 2011

1. Tomorrow is one of the most famous days in infamy-- The Ides of March. "Et tu, Brute?" I found it interesting that technically only the months of March, May, July, and October have the ides falling on the 15th; during all of the other months the ides falls on the 13th. Go figure.

2. My thoughts and prayers this morning are again with the Japanese people as they struggle to recover from the devastation caused by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor partial meltdowns.

3. How about the Big East placing 11 teams in the March Madness NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament? And Syracuse got its expected 3-seed. I hope they play better than they did in the Big East Tournament--although they did lose to the eventual champion.

4. And here is a tribute to capitalism: Price of preemie-preventing drug to skyrocket: Who will pay? It seems that once a company won exclusive rights to make the drug in the U.S., the price per shot went from $20 to $1500. Way to go! And who is going to pay? Well, we are of course.

5. We were blessed with an exceptionally pleasant weekend, weather-wise. It was nice to be outside in the warm sun working around to house or even being in Washington, DC as Chris and I were for Saturday afternoon. We checked out the National Portrait Gallery and wandered around F Street for most of the afternoon.

6. I'm running a bit slow this morning--the first weekday morning after daylight savings time occurred this year. Ugh--I couldn't believe it when the alarm clock went off. I just wanted to hunker down deeper into the bed and resume sleeping.

7. Just a note for everyone out there--I hate tax season. Why don't I qualify for a bailout? Oh yeah, I'm the consumer that everyone is out to gouge.

8. And speaking of taxes--did you ever consider the psychology of the process when it comes to taxes? People seem to be singularly focused on whether they get a refund or not? They forget to look at the real line--the total amount of tax due before we offset it against the amount of taxes withheld. And when the federal tax bite is added to the state tax bite AND don't forget to throw in property tax if you own your own home--anyway, I coulda bought a new car last year--and not a cheapie, either. But I'm sure someone in Congress or Annapolis thinks I should be paying more.