I feel great.

I’m going to hit a full week without more than a sip of K’s Coke of caffeine in the past week! And let me tell you, it was rough going to get started but now I’m really glad I decided to cut it out.

As I’ve told people, at my peak here is my standard day:

2 Mountain Dews in the morning, a soda of some sort with lunch, go by 7-11 after lunch and get an energy drink (Red Bull or Amp) and then a soda more in the afternoon.

I had energy to spare but when I crashed, I crashed hard. That’s a lot of caffeine and very unhealthy for someone. I’m going to begin cutting out candy next, it’s going to be fruit for me!

The health benefits are numerous here. It’s a major step towards cutting out empty calories, though I still have a Sprite on occasion but it’s been a lot of water for me lately. The caffeine is an addiction and the idea of being addicted to something bothers me deeply even if it is “harmless” like caffeine.
Also, would anyone out there be interested in attending a Word Camp which is basically a mini convention aimed at Wordpress, blogging and such? I’m considering trying to organize one for Orlando. It would be a few months off, August at the absolute earliest.

Let me know!

Two weeks ago I was searching my own name on Google to see what sort of presence I had for my name. I know there is a hockey player who has a fair bit of attention and there used to be an Olympic sprinter, so how did I fair?

I did alright, it turned out that at that time my Twitter account was higher ranked than this blog! I was shocked.

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. And it means understanding, at the most basic levels, how Google (and other engines to a lesser extent) search and rank your website. Yes Google is largely based off of other links to your page, but also is a whole host of factors you as a blogger can affect. While we (SEO people) don’t know the exact formula for Google’s secret sauce, people with infinite patience and a algorithmic approach are able to determine the importance of various factors.

For example we know that having the search term in your domain is a major boost. So “PatrickJarrett.com” would immediately be better than “TrickJarrett.com.” Things like the use of the <H1> tags, the appearance of the search phrase inside the body of the page, whether it is bolded, or in links or in image alt text. The list goes on. I’ve seen lists of over 250 things which affect how your page is ranked.

All I did to bump TrickJarrett from the 2nd page of results for “Patrick Jarrett” is add an H1, add it to the title tag, modify some wordings to use the full name and sure enough this morning I’m front page and #4 on the results. With a bit more work I can be the #1 result for my name.

My friends on Twitter got the news that all was on its way to being well after Saturday’s discovery of some financial craziness with my bank account. Now it’s time to give everyone the full details. Let’s start, back in 2005.

In 2005, while a student at Georgia Tech, I got a job with a company in Atlanta which paid me as a contractor meaning they didn’t withhold any taxes. My two bosses were quite up front and clear that this meant that I needed to save money for tax time. A lesson I did heed and paid for the 2005 taxes quite easily (I only worked there for a month during 2005.)

photo credit: Paul Keleher

For 2006 I did my best to save money but this was when I left school and then made the sudden decision to return home to Orlando. The move itself and life in general sapped any savings I had made, and the dire warnings of my old bosses were forgotten until tax time came and I was staring at over $2,000 of owed taxes. Well, on my pay at the theatre that was hard to come by but I did my best sending off two payments fairly quickly.

Then mom went into the hospital and the rest was forgotten for a while. It was a few months before I got notice from the IRS that I was late on my payment. I tried to pull the money together but in truth I didn’t try that hard, the threat wasn’t imminent and I was living the high life. I managed to get a third payment off eventually and I marked my calendar for a fourth but I let that deadline come and go and slacked off.

Soon the letters and calls began to come. They caught me one day when I went home for work turning my 30 minute lunch at home into an hour and a half as I sat on the phone waiting to talk to a live person.

I made a payment by phone, the women said that I should call to confirm the payment went through, but when I saw the money had been withdrawn I didn’t call them, I just assumed all was well.

A month or two passes, I file my 2007 taxes and paid them, under the full belief that all was right and I was clear.

Come Friday night, I had money withdrawn from my account to the tune of more than $730. Meaning the vast majority of my paycheck. So with this money gone I call the banks to discover it was the IRS taking money that I “owed” them. Since it was Saturday when I came to this discovery I had to wait until today to call them.

The offices opened at 8am so I called about 8:07 and spoke with a gentleman, he was very helpful explaining that my payment in March over the phone had actually been applied to my unfiled 2007 taxes. How helpful of them considering the payment was over twice what I owed the government for this year.

So he switched the payments for me and asked for the fax number to send a stop to my bank. Unfortunately since it is Citi Bank I couldn’t find a fax number on their website, so I had to hang up with him and call them to get a number. Call the IRS back to re-explain my situation and provide the fax number.

I’m not convinced it’s all taken care of yet, I will wait to see the money restored to my account, but I am glad to hear and learn several things.

1. I’m most glad to learn that the levy was filed incorrectly.
2. I’m glad to learn that the IRS is not an impossible beast unwilling to help me, as long as you speak up and remain calm the people there are happy to help you.
3. Citi bank has to go. Not having a physical bank I can go to with problems is beginning to pose more of a problem as my forms of income begin to diversify and grow more confusing.
4. Pay your taxes. I’m not getting three years like Wesley Snipes but I did temporarily lose control of 3/4s of my pay check and just before rent is due.

photo credit: carencey

It’s a horrible feeling to log into your bank account and see withdrawals you didn’t make. Marked as teller withdrawals and over three quarters of this week’s paycheck gone in a flash. I immediately call the bank to report the incident in hopes of reclaiming the money in time for rent this month.

The indian fellow on the other end was less than helpful just saying that the charges hadn’t posted yet and so they couldn’t file any investigation until Tuesday morning when the charges post. So now I’m left feeling utterly helpless, the bank won’t help me for two more days, which would be two days before rent.

After a few minutes I decide to call back and try to figure anything else out, this person was much more helpful as he informed me that the withdrawals were actually IRS withdrawals, apparently taking money for last year’s taxes. Now, I admit that I f*cked up last years taxes horribly, but I had paid it off back in March. My bank shows the withdrawal for a similar amount to what was taken today.

So the truth appears that now I just have to wait until Monday to call the IRS and try to straighten this all out. But knowing what happened doesn’t make me feel any less helpless or any less violated. I’m just sort of in shock right now as I sit watching the Magic play Toronto.

I hate taxes

It’s a topic that has been lightly touched on several times over the years. The tales of families trying to regain control of deceased family members emails or blogs etc, but it has never been put forth that a serious solution is needed.

With the passing of mom, I was lucky in that she used the same password for everything and that I knew the password. Allowing me to go in and take care of things, archive emails etc. For example, my family has a little used family mailing list through YahooGroups and I wanted to reclaim control of it for our use but I didn’t want the red tape that would be required to get through for them to take care of it. So I instead logged in as her and switched control as needed.

There is something eerie about logging in to her email or to her yahoo groups and seeing the pile of messages from her knitting group, or things like that. I was struck with the question - do I remove her from these groups? Or do I let her account sit there? It’s a very deep and philosophical question.

On the one hand, many probably don’t even notice the idle account on the list, but on the other hand I don’t want mom’s email address continually getting these emails because there is a sense that you should take care of these sort of things, just like stopping mail to a vacant house. Gmail will continue to expand her box and it’s unlikely her account will ever fill up, but there is just something about it that bothers me.

So how should sites like Google, Yahoo, Facebook or Myspace handle the death of members? What about World of Warcraft players or other MMOs? Or on an even more important level, how about domain registrars? It must be a solution which is fool-proof safe from pranksters as well. Is it simply a procedure for handling the submission of death certificates?

The libertarian in me cries out in pain as I consider this suggestion: Is it something the government should regulate? I need to think more about this.