DailyGenesis.com

Today, my wife gave me the ok and I put down a deposit to reserve a new scooter. The picture to the right shows the exact model I ordered. It gets somewhere around 100 miles per gallon. I have been considering getting a scooter for a while now. Nearly 100% of my motivation is for the fuel economy. A tiny percentage of my motivation is that I think they look fun, but that part is offset by the higher risk involved in riding a two wheeled device, so it’s pretty much all about the economics.

Given my driving requirements, I think it is a great fit and I look forward to riding it. I have to wait a bit, however, because they are in great demand so I have to wait for our local shop to get to me on the list. There is a chance it will be within the next week as they think they have a black one coming in June, but there’s no guarantee. We shall see.

Just thought I’d give a little follow up on my last post. SunRocket bit the dust so I went looking for a new VOIP service and landed on voip.com. So far, so good.

For a while there, I was really upset at voip.com because I thought I wasn’t getting any email communication from them. I signed up, asked a few support questions … etc., and nothing. No feedback. I was beginning to get worried.

Well, a couple weeks later I checked my spam folder (which I need to start checking more often) and there were all of my communications from voip. Nice, friendly letters every step of the way letting me know that everything was moving along. So, sorry voip.com that I doubted you. All is well now. We’re still friends, right?

Took a little extra time to get the conversion equipment, but that’s understandable considering the fact that they’re dealing with 200,000 SunRocket subscribers who are now without service. Even with that, I was up and running in under two weeks with my old number transferred and everything.

Quality is great and, as always, the price is right. And they do have a responsive support ticket system and even a support phone number. Let’s just hope they stay in business.

Well, I really loved SunRocket — right up to when they sent me that email last week saying they are closing up shop. You can read their corporate announcement on their homepage. Wow, what a shocker.

In case you don’t know, SunRocket is (was) a VOIP (voice over internet protocol) telephone provider. You’ve probably heard of Vonage because they are the biggest. Well, SunRocket was the second largest VOIP provider in the world. Over 200,000 customers just lost their phone service when SunRocket shut the doors with very little warning.

I’m really sad about it mainly because I liked them so much. They must have really had a bad business model, which makes you kind of wonder about the whole VOIP industry. But, I’m a glutton for punishment so I’m re-upping my commitment to VOIP. I just can’t pass up the unlimited long distance at a fraction of the price of regular telephone. And hey, I’m already paying for the broadband internet, I might as well use it, right?

After a bit of research (all very discouraging), I’ve chosen VOIP.com. Not that I recommend them to anyone. I used to recommend SunRocket. Actually, I got at least one person to sign up on my recommendation and, well, you can see how that turned out.

Yesterday, I almost sang the national anthem at a minor league baseball game. But I didn’t.

The game was scheduled for 7:05pm and I was to arrive at 6:30. When I got there, signs were posted announcing that the game would start at 8:30pm. My contact told me to come back at 8.

At 8pm, I returned and I was told I could take my seat and they would get me when the time was near. My family and I took our seats, but noticed how strange it was that there were no players on the field, in the bullpins or in the dugouts.

At 8:25pm, I went back to check in with those in charge. They looked a little concerned and said at that time they didn’t know when the game was going to start, or if it would be played at all. Since my five year old son was with me, and it was already well past his bedtime, I knew it was time to go.

So I left.

In case you’re curious, the game was delayed because the visiting team’s aircraft had mechanical problems and never got off the ground. Our local team sent a charter plane to get them and they landed at 7:15pm. At 8:30, when I checked in with the folks in charge, the players were on site but they didn’t have their uniforms or their equipment.

This morning, it appears that they did play the game last night, but I have no idea when it started.

This weekend, I finally completed my 2006 tax returns.  Once again, I used TurboTax online, though I am starting to get little disappointed in them for continually raising their prices.  Of course, being back in Oklahoma means State Tax as well and not only do you have to pay state tax, you have to pay more to file the state tax.  Oh, well.

2006 was an interesting tax year for me with self-employment and a couple of salaried jobs all rolled up into one.  Luckily, I set aside monies throughout the year to cover what I knew would be a tax liability.  After paying the federal taxes I owed, state taxes I owed, plus making an estimated payment for 2007, I ended up almost to the penny on what I had set aside (big sigh of relief).

2007 should also be an interesting year, especially if my goal of learning how to trade works out and I start making trades in a taxable account.  Reporting all of that should be loads of fun for early 2008!