The taxes are done. I love electronic filing! I’ve been using H&R Block’s TaxCut program for several years (switched when Intuit put that stupid copy protection scheme on their TurboTax program). Once the program got installed (required their helpdesk to get the installation done — more later on that), I was able to go quickly through the interview and file. Because we’re getting a small refund the process went very smoothly. This is probably the earliest I’ve been done with taxes in many years.

H&R Block sent me a CD in January with the programs ready to be installed as soon as I paid the small fee for the program. I’ve just kept the CD on the desk until time to actually do the taxes. Tonight was the night since the rest of the week is occupied with other stuff and I didn’t want to wait to the weekend to find that I needed a piece of paper that I couldn’t find. So, I popped the CD in and started the install. The system quickly dinged my credit card for the $24.95 charge for the program, got 21% done, and stalled. I finally killed the program and restarted the install. Same place, same thing. So I called their help desk. Several menus and menu selections later, I got to a fast-speaking person who knew exactly what the problem was. “TaxCut and Windows XP don’t like each other,” she said. What? The program is incompatible with one of the most popular operating systems? That turned out to be true. She talked me through turning off a whole bunch of services, rebooting my computer, doing the install, turning the services back on again, and rebooting a second time. Very strange. I’d think that they would have tested this program before issuing it! That was the only glitch, but I’m afraid that my confidence in this program is more than a little shaken. Maybe next year, Intuit gets my $25.00…. While I’m sure that H&R Block pays no attention to anything being said about them on weblogs, they should be!

My dad celebrated his 85th birthday last Sunday. We drove over to Soda Springs to spend the afternoon with them and had a very nice time. A few weeks ago he was feeling quite out of sorts. He had an irregular heartbeat and appeared to be in some pain. Since then he’s gone into the cardiologist who shocked his heart back into rhythm and dad is pretty much back to normal. He’s bought a band saw at a pawn shop in Salt Lake (without a motor) and is rebuilding a motor to make it functional again. I sure hope I’ve got his energy and desire to be up, about, and doing at eighty-five. Way to go, Dad!