I’ve decided I’m in no rush back to work because of a side effect of being a W-2 contract employee. A W2CE doesn’t submit quarterly tax estimates; each paycheck bases my yearly income off that period’s gross pay. This also leads to the annual raping of the bonus many wage slaves experience; you’re taxed on that period’s earnings and bonus as if you make that every single paycheck. It’s actually a pretty clever way to avoid withholding too little because it’s based on actuals instead of estimates. (I’ve been hanging around with accountants too much lately.) My actual annual income is always lower because of unpaid time off, like being between. The result this year is a fat refund because I took the last three months of 2007 off. Half of that goes to the mortgage, the other half to my discretionary fund.
With a little belt-tightening, that boost to the discretionary fund means more time off and a few road trips I’ve been meaning to take. Going to SF this week, reconnecting with friends out there, has me thinking about traveling along the East Coast to catch up with more friends and spend quality time with the Civic and my mobile technologies. If this unseasonably warm weather continues, I may even temporarily lift my “not above 72nd Street in Manhattan” winter prohibition after that oh-so-cold winter in Marlborough, MA.My domestic agenda should be clear by the end of February. I’ll ramp up the search in March; something starting after 16 March 2008 would be ideal. I also have plenty of draft posts to finish like part 2 of the Duplicate Folders mystery. I’m trying to secure the original test code for that article before posting it. Maybe a kind soul will run it against SQL Server and we’ll learn if Microsoft snipped out some junk DNA inherited from its common ancestor with modern day Sybase.
I say “modern day” with tongue firmly in cheek because I think of Sybase as the Neanderthal database that just doesn’t know it’s extinct yet. To be fair, my opinion is about Documentum running atop Sybase; Sybase itself might be fine for some things. Some people think there’s value there and even wonder why Sun bought MySql instead of Sybase [Computer World: Why Sun should’ve – and probably could’ve – bought Sybase]. I’m just glad Sybase isn’t my problem anymore.