Accomplishments

On Friday, my wife and I were elected to become our church’s new Sunday School Superintendents for the next 3 years. We were kinda asked at the last minute, but I think that it’ll be a good experience for us. I’m looking forward to it.

Yesterday, I passed my DCI level 2 judge test with flying colors, and am now unofficially a level 2 judge. (In order to be official, the testing judge needs to submit his review of me, and that review needs to get approved, but those shouldn’t be problems.) It appears that I will be the head judge of the Connecticut Limited State Championship on June 24 (although the link is still about the prior Champs for now), which should be a good time and good experience. (I’m also running a Junior Super Series challenge on June 3, but that’s a much smaller event and I doubt any readers of this are eligable to play.)

*ding* *ding* *ding* Check Tire Pressure

So, about 5 to 10 minutes into my journey to work today, I hear the *ding* *ding* *ding* sound of my car trying to tell me to check my tire pressure, and the car starts to handle a little oddly. So I pull into a convenient parking lot at Ted’s and discover that I do, in fact, have a flat front right tire. What a wonderful way to start the day. :)

So, since I was going to replace the front tires in a few months anyway (before Winter, at any rate), and I was gonna be late for work anyway, after getting the spare donut put on I headed to Southbridge Tire Co. for two new front tires. They were very quick and efficient at what they did, starting to take off the spare almost as soon as I got out of the car, and being done with putting the new tires on after just a few minutes. They did a great job, and I highly recommend them to anyone in the area who needs tires.

We also get our home heating oil from them, and they do a fine job with that, too.

Property Taxes

Every quarter, I have to pay property taxes on the land and house I now own. If I don’t pay them, the town has the right to take the property away.

So in some sense, it feels like I don’t really own my land, and that I’m kind of just leasing it from the town. I mean, I know that it’s not really that way, but that’s what it feels like.

Property taxes are really different from other taxes in that they’re not based on one’s income or ability to pay them. They’re taxes for simply existing. If one lived long enough, one could pay more in taxes on a piece of property than one paid for the property in the first place. That seems… odd.

Question of the day

Why are “mail fraud” and “wire fraud” different charges? Why isn’t there just “fraud”, regardless of the medium used for it? Likewise, why is “vehicular homicide” different from plain “homicide” or “manslaughter”? Does the medium used really change the severity or importance of a crime? Aren’t there already degrees of crimes (such as the difference between 1st degree murder and manslaughter)? Why would the medium used change the act that was committed?