Yo,
Happy Leap day. Made it by 5 minutes!
We just finished our taxes today. Laurie and I filed joint in ’03 and she
has been working all week to get her tax data gathered. We needed to get
them done early so we could finish applying for financial aid at the schools
Nick applied to. Last week Nick got his first acceptance, to Knox
(Illinois), along with a $14k per year scholarship. Not exactly a full
ride like some of the large public state schools have been offering, but it
does knock the $33k per year fee down a bit.
Two paychecks ago, Zack finished paying off his various debts, including
what he owed me for gas money for his xmas vacation to Montana. So now he
has started saving, once again, for a motorcycle. He tried this once
before, with a big jar that was easy to put money into, but hard to get out,
but he managed to get it out with vigorous shaking. This time, it will
probably build up quicker because of the steady income he has coming from
his pawn shop job. I’m not helping him in any way on this one. No
insurance, no loans, no credit co-signing. But he is determined, so I’m
not optimistic. If he does manage to get one, I might have to help him
with a helmet.
Laurie took Nick up to the National finals of the American Inn chess
tournament in Minneapolis last week. He and 2 other guys won the city
match a few months ago, so earned the right to go. He won 4 of his 5
matches, but there were 200 players in his group. The top 3 were 5 and 0.
Between a set of matches, he fell asleep on some stairs. He woke up in time
for his next match, but his leg had fallen asleep, so when he stood up, he
fell down. He did this numerous times for about a minute. He really was
having a fun time with it, in his classic Nick ‘wow this is something fun
that I’ve never really done before’ sort of way. It would have been fun to
watch … who said chess was not a spectator sport š
Bruce
!DSPAM:4042d4bb231731583273244!