Blog of Chris

…This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together…

-Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4-0UvCfYps[/youtube]

It’s funny what can happen from overhearing a catchy song on a jukebox. As I mentioned in previous posts, I am all about the band Coheed and Cambria since I heard “A Favor House Atlantic” playing in Hull Street Blues a few nights ago. It turns out that they are an easy band to like, but they’re tough to understand.

All of their albums narrate chapters of a science fiction story, parts of which have also been explained in very incomplete series of comic books. I won’t go into detail (mainly because I am still trying to make sense of it all), but it’s a whole different universe where the story unfolds, complete with God, Man, and two other races charged with different responsibilities in the overall structure. This is really nerdy stuff!

To make it even more exciting, the story steps out of the fiction and into the life of “the writer”, who was writing this story for a lover who then cheated on him… So now he is tormented by his subconscious to take out all of his aggression on the characters of the story, and there is almost a separate story going on as he argues with the evil voices in his head on how the story should develop. (The evil voice takes the form of a firey bicycle named Ten Speed)

Shortly after becoming interested in the band and the story, I learned that my friend Jimmy Flemmins has been a fan for several years, and owns some of the comics. He tried to fill me in on his interpretation of the songs, and let me take a peek at the comics(Touch not, lest ye be touched).  It all leaves you with a million questions, but I think that’s the point. They don’t want to give it all away… it’s open to interpretation.

If you go to wikipedia you can get a good synopsis of the storyline, but the best stuff is on songmeanings.net, where people will post their theories on the meanings of specific songs and lyrics (and bicker with each other to no end)

In the same way that the Matrix universe caught on, and inspired a few animated side plots, I could see this Coheed and Cambria universe become more prevalent in popular culture. This animated video is not the “official” video for this song, but it is a good animated view of one little chunk of the story. Enjoy, nerds.

I’m Idaho!

I don’t even like baseball and I am embarassed by this!  This is almost as bad as some of the lacrosse scores we lost by when I was in High school.  3 points would have been a lot for us though.

I am amazed at how many people are so incompetent behind the wheel that they can’t navigate a traffic circle.

Scratch that… It is not really amazing. It kind of makes sense, simply because most people are idiots. My daily commute takes me through the traffic circle in the center of Towson. (Towson Circle, so the internet tells me… it’s more of a traffic oval.) I usually drive through it twice a day, 4 times if I head up Dulaney Valley Road on my lunch break. Just about every time I am near or on it, I see at least one person entering without looking, exiting from the inside lane, or just being too scared to enter or exit because they can’t figure out the rules. These things are supposed to smooth the flow of traffic, but I am thinking that the general population doesn’t come across them enough to be proficient.

This is a simple traffic circle too… it’s not like Dupont with stoplights, medians and 6 lanes! It’s really easy people… figure it out. I wonder how many accidents are caused each year by this. By all means, please comment about people who can’t drive below.

-C

Today I finally sat down to do some much needed repairs and upgrades to my many neglected websites. The most in need of attention was my war blog, which was “set aside” for archiving almost a year ago. I set up this blog to replace it, so that the two were separate entities, and there would be very little risk of me messing up the old one. However, all of the image tags were full URLs, and when I relocated the site, none of the images worked. I have been asked dozens of times when I would fix them, and today was the day. So, a year after the fact, you can visit http://chriswhong.com/milblog and view my Iraq chronicles in all their splendor.

I also upgraded both blogs to the latest versions of wordpress, which improves admin interaction and functionality.

While I am at it, I am going to port my rowhouse renovation page and my research papers to wordpress too, and re-do the front page of chriswhong.com.

-C

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3i1mOtP–U[/youtube]

Apparently, this game is actually out there somewhere, and if you can get it, you can scar your kid for life like this parent did…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsgOl-vedtA[/youtube]

This posting has two purposes… one, I have installed a wordpress plugin allowing me to embed youtube videos and I want to see if it works, and two, this video by Coheed and Cambria is awesome.

-C

I crunched the numbers.  Of course, the tax credit I was complaining about in the previous post is not as huge as I thought.  Still, money is money, and if I’m am eligible, I want it.  Basically, property is assessed every 3 years.  When they come up with a new value, it is phased gradually so you are not hit with a huge tax bill.  The Homestead Tax credit makes it so that you are only paying taxes on 4% of the difference between this year’s assessment and last year’s.  It only applies from year to year, so regardless of what you get back this time around, you will most likely be doing the calculations on larger values next year.  You may get more credit, but only because you’re paying more tax.

Anyhoo, the city and state owe me about $600 for this year, which I am confident I can claim.  The 3 prior years are going to be tough.

-C

As it turns out, in the records of the City of Baltimore, my property is not listed as my “primary residence” and therefore, I have not been considered for an automatic tax credit that all owner-occupiers are eligible for.

The credit basically caps the increase in assessed (and taxable) value of the property to 4% per year.  The assessment does increase, but the credit takes care of any taxes based on the amount over 4%.

My property tax has doubled since 2004, and I found out today that this does not take into account any of the home improvements I have made since then, and is solely based on the rising values of the neighborhood.

I now have two tasks before me, which I am not looking forward to for obvious reasons.  One is to make sure that my property listing status with the department of assessments is “primary residence”.  The second, which is much more important, is that the 4% increases applied to the assessed value are retroactively applied, meaning they should start with the assessed value of the property in March 2004 when I bought it, and apply three 4% increases…  (and subsequently remit all the tax i overpaid for the last three years, that should be a fun one)

That 3 year gap will make all the difference, and while I will still save considerably if the 4% cap starts now, it should have been in place in 2004 when the property was assessed at less than half of the current value.

Stay tuned to see how this all develops.  I have a feeling it will be a very slow and frustrating process, much like every other interaction I have ever had with the City of Baltimore.

-C