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Four silent spectators at the start of today’s run

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Tech Friday!!

Since retiring in early 2022 I’ve been using an old all-in-one desktop PC and borrowing Beth’s laptop. The all-in-one was starting to struggle and couldn’t be upgraded to Windows 11. And even though my new consulting employer will provide a laptop, I wanted one of my own. At my last consulting gig I was provided a wide screen curved monitor and now I’m spoiled and need one at home. I bought an HP 34” curved monitor to go with an HP Spectre laptop and a dock. It took some tweaking but I’m happy with the set up.

You may be wondering why the 2nd picture has two Alexa devices side by side. I like home automation and it is frustrating that Alexa routines won’t automatically open, unlock or disarm anything without asking for voice response with a numerical pin. That’s inconvenient, especially when you’re accompanied by friends or guests.

You can, however place two devices in a discreet part of your home and program the routine to prompt another Alexa device to respond with the code. The wake word for the other device has to be changed from “Alexa”; I changed the wake word to “Echo”. Interestingly, the Echo wouldn’t respond to a command from Alexa’s female voice. I had to change it so the request for the unlock code was made in a male voice. This isn’t a huge hack or anything but it is nice that when we pull into the garage, we just say our arrival phrase and Alexa, turns on the house lights, unlocks the door and disarms the alarm.

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Visiting my in-laws was a happy distraction from the somber burial events. They are always happy to accommodate our requests to visit our favorite St. Louis restaurants, even when that list always includes the same pizza place (Talayna's).

I like to stay busy while I'm there so Mike and Sandy provide a to-do list. This time the list included cutting the grass and replacing the switch on a lamp - both tasks which I enjoyed and which earned effusive thanks.

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Final Farewell

My mom passed away last October and my father in November, 2021 - both were cremated but Catholics aren't allowed to have their ashes spread, they must be buried. As a matter of fact, a Catholic may only be cremated after the funeral mass. The rules seem silly to me, but my parents were faithful Catholics so we followed the rules.

The burial in Ste Genevieve, MO, my father's home town, was originally envisioned as a very small affair, but we learned that many people who hadn't been able to travel to the funerals in Evansville, IN wanted to attend the burial. Thirty people attended the burial which included a bag piper and military honor guard (my Dad was an Army officer); the whole affair was presided by the local priest.

Ste Genevieve, located ~ 90 miles south of St. Louis, is Missouri’s oldest permanent European settlement. The village of Ste. Geneviève was settled by French Canadians around 1735 on the west bank of the Mississippi River. It is a small town and the Koetting family name is well known. When I introduced myself to the cemetery caretaker, he mentioned that he had been a classmate of my father, as were two members of the honor guard. The ceremony lasted 30 minutes, ending with the military salute and playing of taps, followed by the presentation of flags to my sister and me, perfectly executed by two, young active duty women.

We hosted a luncheon after the burial in the town's 'fancy' restaurant - the buffet was simple but tasty and I offered a short toast to my parents. My sister brought more wine glasses and other textile crafts of my mother and everyone had the chance to take a remembrance.

As I said in my toast at the luncheon, it is a bit odd to have the burial so long after the funeral but in some ways it is helpful. The funeral comes so quickly after the death and there are so many practical decisions to be made, one doesn't really have the opportunity to fully digest the passing. Now, six months later, my memories of my parents have distilled and crystallized a bit. Now I'm left with the very best of our relationship, the sugar and salt so to speak. They were excellent spouses, friends and parents and even their flaws were instructive to me. I was very fortunate to have them as parents.

I'm happy to have completed this final step for my parents and I believe they would have been happy and proud.

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Air Travel Etiquette

Seat back reclining should be eliminated. I judge harshly those who prioritize their comfort over the passenger behind.

Passengers with 2 carry-on items should be REQUIRED to place one item under the seat in front of them. This should be monitored and enforced. (I'm looking at you Mr. Delta 360 - your status entitles you to board first, not extra bin space.)

You know how you have to answer those questions when you choose an exit seat (ex. are you over 16, are you willing and able to assist, etc.)? I think window seats should require a similar questionnaire about the traveler's frequency of urination. If you're in a window seat maybe ease up on the coffee before you board.

Unless you are disabled, do not touch the seatbacks of your fellow passengers - especially don't do this as you proceed down the aisle to the toilet.

Be mindful of your backpack when in the aisle.

Card playing isn't appreciated by your fellow passengers.

Keep your shoes on and your feet in front of you (and not on the bulkhead dividers).

Long hair may not be draped over your seat back.

Did I miss anything?

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More on Transparency

If i had legislative power for 24 hours I think I would eliminate income tax privacy. Internal revenue code 6103 guarantees the privacy of tax returns, but this wasn't always the case and I think there's a strong argument that it is unhealthy for our democracy.

My definition of patriotism includes 'paying your fair share' near the top of the list and it's hard for the public to vote for equitable, much less progressive, tax policy if they can't see tangible examples of who pays what. Mark Cuban is a rare example of a billionaire who proudly shares what he pays. Wouldn't it be great if billionaires earned each other's esteem by bragging about the size of their tax bill rather than the size of their yacht?

The interesting thing is that property taxes aren't private. You can search any property, see the assessed value, the name of the owner and whether the property taxes have been paid. Why can't income taxes work the same way?

Second on my list would be the elimination of gerrymandered voting districts. I've read numerous articles conclusively demonstrating that gerrymandered districts drive polarity in each party as candidates no longer need to seek a centrist position in order to get elected.

Next would be reversal of Citizens United and implementation of new campaign funding laws.

I suppose healthcare would be on the list too, but I'm not sure where to begin with that one.

Serious question... what would be on your legislative list?

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Wage Transparency

Numerous states and some cities now require employers to disclose pay scales, salaries and wage information for existing and potential employees. The applicable jurisdictions continue to proliferate so many companies have simply decided to provide this information in every market. In my experience, the company established such broad salary ranges that the information wasn't particularly helpful, however it did require the company to address the compensation for those few individuals who, for whatever reason, fell below the minimum of the range.

Too much granularity of salary information can, of course, cause conflict with an organization but in general I think more transparency is better than less.

Very early in my career I was given responsibility for the annual budget process. This was before online budget software was available, so I created a very sophisticated (for that time) Excel model with VBA routines, etc. Each manager was given an excel file with the historical costs/revenues for their department and provided with instructions on how to complete the budget for each line item. In order to calculate the correct payroll taxes, etc. managers were instructed to enter the name, salary and bonus of each of their employees. This Excel sheet was then hidden and password protected.

You can probably guess the rest of story. This was before Excel had really strong password and encryption features, so I had a backdoor to the payroll sheet and when all the files were submitted, I could see every employee's salary and bonus.

Seeing which functions were paid the most was extremely motivating and ultimately guided the next decade of my career. I knew exactly what job I wanted and how much to negotiate for my compensation. Beth and I were willing to make the necessary sacrifices (including relocating 3 times) because it would be worth it.

Rather than bitching that I was paid too little, I was motivated to do what it took to get the better paying job. I wonder what would happen if companies were more transparent about their payroll.

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VFuel has been my exclusive energy gel since 2012 and unfortunately they are going out of business. This makes me sad because VFuel was small company and I wanted them to succeed and their gel is unique and I much preferred it over GU.

The VFuel gel has a thinner consistency so you don't necessarily need hydration to use it. I ordered two more boxes which should last a year, but then I will have to find a replacement.

Any suggestions?

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I am a low-key birthday person. Unlike those for whom their birthday is a VERY BIG DEAL, I never took the day off work and don’t have high expectations. I had a nice call with the kids and dinner at the town’s fancy restaurant with Beth. In honor of my birthday, my Togo charity received a few donations and I’m looking forward to using my new hiking poles. All in all, a very nice day.

Earlier in the week Beth and I addressed one of the tasks associated with advancing age: estate and healthcare planning. We’d done some of this years ago when we lived in Minnesota and the kids were young, but we needed to update it now that we live in Washington.

My parents did a good job with these tasks and I want us to do the same for our kids. We now have updated Healthcare Directives (Living Wills), Durable Power of Attorney (General and Healthcare), Wills and a Revocable Living Trust. The objectives of the trust are to avoid probate, protect assets for the benefit of heirs and minimize estate taxes.

We used an attorney to do the work but you could probably do it yourself with an online service. One benefit of using an attorney is that we now have this nice binder with all the information in one place. The only remaining step is to ‘fund’ the trust by transferring and retitling assets to the trust.

A lot of people get really worked up about estate taxes. Washington has high estate taxes, some states don’t have any. Washington doesn’t have income taxes so it only seems fair to have an estate tax we don’t mind paying our fair share.

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Tax Time!

We filed our taxes on Tuesday, once again with the help of a professional (thank goodness).

As part of the tax prep package we receive a year-over-year comparison of 2022 vs 2023.

2022 was the last year for which I was compensated as a full time employee, in 2023 I did some consulting for most of the year before briefly returning to full time work in November. Not surprisingly, my Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) declined by a whopping 91%.

In 2022 I was in the 37% tax bracket and my effective tax (the ratio of the tax I paid to my AGI) was 33.3%. In 2023 I slid to the 24% tax bracket and my effective tax was a lowly 11.5%.

Why was my effective tax rate so low? Well for starters, a significant part of my income came from qualified dividends which are taxed at a lower rate. I was also able to itemize deductions so I got a break on my home mortgage interest expense.

I'm sharing this with you in hopes that you will resist being drawn into the latest effort to distract voters with the latest social issue hysteria while rich people continue to protect preferential tax treatment like capital gains and home interest deduction.

I guarantee that continuing the current concentration of wealth in this country is a much greater risk to our democracy than drag queens, gender neutral bathrooms and unfettered access to reproductive healthcare for women.

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Despite temps in the 40's, the nets are up and so we feel compelled to play tennis; 2 hours on Sundays and Wednesdays. We had a rather large group of 7 yesterday and generally 3-4 including Beth and me on Wednesdays.

My return to running is going well - Saturday's 11 mile run was the furthest I've run in 2 years and it felt good. My running pace and VO2 max are still a long way from where they were before I shifted exclusively to bike training in early 2022, but I'm happy with my progress.

I took a bike FTP test last week and was a little disappointed that my FTP had plateaued until my bike coach directed my attention to a Training Peaks performance management chart which highlighted the load created by simultaneously pursuing bike and running training programs. You can see my fatigue (the pink line) begin to rise dramatically in February when I added half marathon run training to cross-Pyrenees bike training. Simultaneously my Form (the yellow line indicating, 'race readiness') began to decline. Fortunately, my overall fitness, the area under the blue line, began to accelerate more quickly too.

These are all just estimates and calculations made by Training Peaks but it is helpful to see objective confirmation of the stress of training.

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In the weeks prior to my Mom’s death last fall, I agreed to a six month consulting engagement at a company I’d worked at 14 years ago. I agreed to be the EVP of Transformation and rented a house near the HQ.

This company suffered during the pandemic, was forced into bankruptcy, had to recapitalize and was still having a hard time. I felt some loyalty to the company and a few of my old colleagues who were still there. I hoped I could help save the company.

The good news is that my efforts were very fruitful. The bad news is that the private equity owners were too impatient and decided to sell to a competitor. That wasn’t the outcome I was hoping for, but I feel satisfied that I delivered more than had been expected. As soon as I was disclosed on the pending transaction I decided to end my engagement after only 5 months.

The best news is that I get to retire again and resume goofing off with Beth full time! A side benefit is that my earnings (and a few other donations including from a few Tumblrs) have funded the construction of new latrines at the school Beth and I support in Kovie, Togo.

Construction should start soon and should be completed in time for the next school year.

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Watch closely and you’ll see something fun.

Up until a few months ago there was a back door app that would connect to MyQ (the Liftmaster garage door app) and Alexa. It allowed Alexa voice-control routines to open/close a Liftmaster garage door.

That 3rd party app went bankrupt and Liftmaster, hoping to sell their own home automation hub, continue to refuse full integration with Alexa. The odds of liftmaster displacing Alexa or Apple Home are less than zero, but Liftmaster is resolute.

I really like the automation of Alexa routines though so I mounted the circuit boards of two openers next to two switchbots. If you look closely you will see a small lever extend from the switchbot and press the opener.

Now when we tell Alexa we are leaving she turns on the garage lights, opens the garage door and then 3 minutes later she turns off all the lights, locks the door and sets the alarm.

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Post run hot tub is a critical recovery component.

I’m very happy with the Garmin training plan. I am motivated to keep the confidence high.

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I’m watching Love Is Blind and was very surprised that Clay backed out on AD. I hate to say it but it seems like the men are generally less mature on this show and Married at First Sight.

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Pay attention the next time you check into a Delta flight using the Delta app. The app may ask if you want to use a digital ID. If you agree and you are flying out of ATL (and perhaps other airports) your boarding pass may include this small green box indicating that you can use a special Digital ID TSA screening line. The process is simple; you just stand on a blue circle and look at the camera 5 feet away. Two seconds later the TSA agent waives you through to the precheck X-ray and magnetometer. You don’t have to show an ID or boarding pass. Best of all, few people know about it so it is faster than Clear or any other screening line.

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Despite a 2 hour, 2 Manhattan dinner, I made to the hotel gym for an hour on the bike while I got caught up on the Bachelor. I’m attending an ELT meeting at a very swanky hotel. As usual for hotels like this, the gym was very well appointed and completely empty.