Editors Wanted

An AP story today contained the following sentence fragment:

Yet Another Reason to Dump the IRS

From a congratulatory email to me upon reaching an employment milestone:

In the United States, service awards are considered tax exempt and therefore can only be used for tangible awards. They cannot be redeemed for certain gift cards  or travel and tickets due to IRS restrictions.…

So if I win one of our contests, or get an award for performance, I can get a VISA® or Walmart* gift card (which is taxable), but as a reward for years of hard work, I get a golf bag†. And I don't even play golf!

Thanks, IRS!

†For example.

Shaking My Head (Part 2)

This was in front of the new fire station as it was being
built at one corner of the road in question.

Not even two weeks ago, the county road leading to our housing area was resurfaced. It took nearly a whole week, as the part of the road that was resurfaced is about 3 miles long. When it was finished, it was really nice; all the largish holes, dips, and bumps were gone.

Today as I left for work, there were flagman signs, and a work crew was busily drilling a hole in the new surface. Well, one guy was busily drilling a hole; four or five others were apparently supervising and standing ready to offer first aid should anything go wrong.

When I came home tonight, there was (thankfully) a sign warning drivers to the presence of “STEEL PLATES IN ROADWAY”. Sure enough, there were at least four spots in the brand new surface that had been removed and covered with metal plates, about 6'x8'.

Now why would a company be paid to do a resurfacing job, then either that same company or another one be paid to tear it up?

I want to scream. SMH

UPDATE: After a couple of days, the steel plates were gone and the road filled in. But now nearly all my old familiar holes that I'd learned to avoid are back. Winter will only make them worse.

Shaking My Head (Part 1, probably)

As I was getting on the freeway this morning, in front of me was a late-model gold-colored Subaru Outback (NV plates 912-TKR) with a “Keep Tahoe Blue” sticker. For those who don’t know of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, it’s a local environmentalist group focused on water clarity, but also concerned with scenic beauty.

You can imagine my shock and surprise, then, when the driver tossed a blue cardboard package out the window.

Now, I do not know for certain that the driver was the owner of the car, and the sticker. It may be that he was borrowing the car, and didn’t want to forget to remove his trash when he returned it. I only know that he is a litterbug.

P.S. I had tweeted a couple of weeks ago about seeing a KTB sticker in Russian. It is an official product of the LSLT, as is the Spanish-language one.