Today is tax day. Im feeling a bit down because it's raining today. Rain means I can not use my Xootr Roma kick scooter to get down to the lightrail station. I do not like to use MTA buses in the morning because they have a tendency to be unpredictable. Sometimes they arrive early, sometimes late. This is fine and dandy if you need to catch the bus to go to one place. But I am catching the bus to connect to a lightrail train that pretty much runs on schedule. Why the Xootr you ask?

It was in September when I saw a woman on a kick scooter getting around downtown. I said to myself that looks like a good idea! Then a couple of months later noticed a man with a beard on the Woodbury lightrail stop who had a Razor scooter with him. He was a regular at the stop. So I said to myself, WoW! I have seen two adults using kick scooters. Maybe it really **is** a good idea. So I decided to get myself an Xootr for my birthday. It was one of the big purchases I made with the money my father left me after he died. The other big purchase I made was a Fuji Crosstown 3.0 bicycle.

The only problem with the Xootr is that the brakes do not work that well on wet ground. The last time I ignored the product warning about the brakes in the rain I fell off the Xootr. I fell because the ground was wet and I had to make a sudden stop to avoid a car coming out of a downtown garage. I survived with a couple of bruises. After that incident I decided that I would follow the product warnings about the brakes.

Yesterday, I used the MTA and the bus arrived at a good enough time to get me to work. However, as per usual when I use a morning bus I had to run to catch the train. Hopefully, the bus will arrive at a good enough time today to get me to the train.

The only things three things that cheer me up at the moment is that last night I downloaded Corel Painter 11 and my favourite all time co-worker Arnold now owns a hoodie! The other cheerful thought is that tomorrow there will be no rain so I can bypass the MTA bus system with my trusty Xootr Roma kick scooter.

As far as taxes are concerned, I have not done mine yet. This year my tax situation is...complicated. So complicated that I will need an accountant. When my father died he left me everything. So this instantly pushed me into another tax bracket. So basically this means I probably will end up owing more money than I usually do. Thanks Dad!

Today, I decided to start doing more updates on my blog. The reason I have not blogged since last summer is because I was and still am trying to deal with my fathers death. My mother died several years ago. I can not recall the exact year she died. The only thing I can recall is that after she died I could not bring and still can not bring myself to watch the TV show Friends. The reason being is because all the parents of the characters on that show are still alive. Yeah, sounds like a petty reason to boycott a show but true.

So with my fathers death this left me feeling literally all alone in the world, like a 30something year old orphan Annie without Daddy Warbucks, or Sandy the dog. For the the first time in my life I have no one to turn to. Sure, I knew that one day my parents would die. But it was always in an imagined future where I was in my fifties, married, and had a couple of kids. I never imagined I would loose them before I hit retirement age.