Tax Refunds. Boo?

I filed my taxes a few days ago and I have refunds coming. On federal taxes I'm getting back a bit over $1k, state taxes a bit over $2k. Good news, right? Enh....

Don't get me wrong; I like getting money back. But it's my money being returned to me. As I wrote a few years ago, a tax refund is really a tax fail. It's a failure of planning.

It's interesting that some people use tax refunds as part of their planning. They treat it like a savings account. The thing is, when you overpay taxes you are lending the government your money, and they pay you back with zero interest. A few years ago that may not have seemed so important with zero interest rates and near-zero inflation, but nowadays high-interest savings accounts pay over 3.5% and CDs and Treasuries are yielding 5%. People who need help with the discipline of saving would do better to find a better approach.

Getting Ready for The Mandalorian Season 3

Season 3 of The Mandalorian has started to drop on Disney+. It looks like the first episode was released yesterday.



I haven't started watching it yet. I might watch it in a few days, or I might wait a few weeks so I can binge-watch a bunch of episodes in a few days.

Meanwhile I've read a few articles in my newsfeed summarizing what's happened so far in the series to get ready for watching the new episodes. As I read one of those articles I realized all the stuff it was summarizing about the story of The Mandalorian didn't actually happen in The Mandalorian. It happened in The Book of Boba Fett. Or as I dubbed it, Boba Fett Writes a Book about Someone More Interesting.

I even remade the poster for BoBF/BFWaBaSMI chapter six:



So, to recap, here's how The Mandalorian's storyline advanced in The Book of Boba Fett:

• Din Djarin, aka "Mando", met the two surviving members of his tribe of Mandalorians (there's more than one tribe...) in their new home on a ring-shape space station.


• Mando learned more about the origin of the Darksaber he carries from his tribe's semi-official chief, The Armorer.


• The other surviving member of Mando's tribe challenged him for ownership of the Darksaber. Mando won in a tough fight that showed how the Darksaber must be finessed, not forced. Mando's opponent was physically stronger than him but could not use the weapon effectively because it opposed him trying to muscle it.


• The Armorer demanded to know if Mando has been faithful to The Way. Specifically, she asked if he'd taken his helmet off. He admitted he had. She told him he is banished from their tribe until he atones....


• Said atonement requires washing himself in the sacred underground waters of planet Mandalore— which was destroyed years ago by Imperial bombardment. It sure looks like Mando's own tribe has given him an impossible quest.


• Mando reunited unexpectedly with Grogu, aka "Baby Yoda"— who'd made an interesting choice, choosing Mando's gift of Beskar steel armor over the Jedi lightsaber. Other Jedi said it was tantamount to choosing war over enlightenment. BTW, I call BULLSHIT on that craptastic turd of writing. Grogu chose protection over a literal weapon. Choosing the weapon would be choosing war. Choosing the armor is choosing defense against aggression.

That's a lot! It's almost more than everything worth writing about Boba Fett in his own dang series.

More of the 7 Wonders: Hobbit Narrows and Rainbow Road

North Las Vegas Travelog #11
Valley of Fire State Park - Sun, 19 Feb 2023, 1pm

The 7 Wonders Loop at Valley of Fire state park is definitely... wondrous. There are brilliantly colored views in all directions at every step.



After we crossed the park road, marking about the halfway point of the loop, we passed through some narrows and some relatively open areas. The photo above shows one of the more open areas.... though you can see the trail leads back beneath some of the towering sandstone. The following video shows some of the narrows.

Watch on YouTube

Among the slot canyons was one I dubbed Hobbit Narrows. I figure that's Wonder #5 out of 7. (Wonders #3-4 were the Mustard Cliffs and Roast Beef Narrows, in my previous blog in this series.) Wonder #6 is Bonus Narrows, also in the video included here.

Past these narrows the trail turned to go up a canyon. It was up, up, up to the end. Like, seriously, I did not feel like we'd descended that far. But obviously we did!



By this point in the trek we were starting to flag. We were tired not just from the physical exertion but— dare I say— from too much beauty. It's like we were drunk on beauty and no longer able to appreciate it as much. Even as we were feeling jaded on all the beauty we found the Rainbow Road, which I dubbed Wonder #7 of 7:



The colors are just so brilliant out here. Red, orange, yellow, white, even shades of green.

Through this last leg of the trip we did our best not simply to put one foot in front of the other to get back to the trailhead. Stopping occasionally for the amazing views helped. But even the amazing was becoming ordinary. Hey, I could live like this!

In beauty I walk.