If you drive I-5 in Northern California and Southern Oregon, you may notice some references to the State of Jefferson.  There’s a barn near Yreka with a giant sign and lots of cars on the road have “Resident of State of Jefferson” license plate holders.

photo credit Jill Fredrickson

What’s it all about?

In 1941, Port Orford, Oregon Mayor Gilbert Gable launched a semi-serious — but mostly symbolic — secession movement involving the counties of southern Oregon and northern California.

Frustrated residents felt like their voices and their issues weren’t being heard in the state Capitols of Salem and Sacramento.  The main beef was over state-maintained roads, namely how their lack of improvement and maintenance was hurting the local economies.

The new state would be called Jefferson, after President Thomas Jefferson.  In late November, 1941, armed citizens in “patriotic rebellion” distributed informational Proclamations of Independence to passing motorists.  The pamphlet explained their intention to secede “every Thursday until further notice.”

Days later, Pearl Harbor was attacked and the fledgling movement took a back seat to the war.

Today

Seventy years later, how much has really changed?  Like everyone else, would-be Jefferson residents are still disenchanted with their state governments.

Jefferson gives the sparsely populated area a sense of community.  They’re not quite Californians and not quite Oregonians, but maybe something different entirely.  Something independent.

Jefferson is a state of mind.  It’s a beautiful territory.  With Mt. Shasta and the Siskiyous and kind of this high plateau in between, it’s the most picturesque part of our annual journey.

Did You Know?

Two bears led a torchlight parade through Yreka in 1941.  They’re names?

Itchy and Scratchy.  Not even making that up.

“A little rebellion now and then is a good thing…” –TJ

-Nick

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Yesterday I called Wells Fargo in an attempt to make some progress on one of my goals for the year.

I explained to the customer service rep that our house was “severely underwater”, and that I wanted to find out what my options were.

She asked if I’d filed a Damage/Loss of Value claim.

I replied no, and asked what that was.

Turns out, she thought “underwater” meant we were suffering from flood damage.

If only.

-Nick

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Bryn and I have been sitting on a gift certificate for indoor skydiving at iFly ever since our wedding.  We finally got around to using it last Friday — thanks Christy & Brian!

The set-up is basically a vertical wind-tunnel, with wind up to 180 mph to simulate a real free fall.  It doesn’t really compare with the adrenaline rush of the real thing (WA, 2005, 2006), but was still pretty fun.  You get more actual airtime, and your risk of dying is significantly lower.

But I was actually pretty nervous to get in the chamber.  Why?  The release form specifically asks if you’ve had a shoulder dislocation in the past.  I usually just skip over the medical questions for these types of activities, but that was a very specific and very recent incident to be asking about.  To make matters worse, when I owned up to the fact I indeed had such an injury, the front desk staff strongly advised against my flying.

Well with a month left of free health insurance, I figured I’d give it a shot anyway, and it turned out to not be a problem at all.  I think if we advanced beyond the beginner wind-speed or started doing stunts with sudden changes in resistance it would have hurt more, but thankfully we did not and there were no repeat dislocations.

Here’s Bryn flying:

Good form.

It was pretty cool.  I think if you wanted to get into doing flying stunts and stuff, this would be a great place to practice.  After each group went through, the instructors had a minute or two to showoff and it was fun to watch.

-Nick

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If you’ve driven along 580 lately, perhaps you’ve seen this sign, protesting the construction of a giant new premium outlet mall.  The sign claims the planned Paragon Outlets hurts the local community.  How so? I wondered.

Image courtesy of http://www.arounddublinblog.com

The mall, which is scheduled to open in November 2012, is being built on a huge empty lot, not some protected national forest or even active farmland.  Construction costs will pump $162 million into the local economy, and the outlets are expected to generate over 2000 jobs when they open.  Sales tax receipts will bring in valuable revenue for the city for decades to come.

Looking over the list of stores (Barney’s, Sak’s, Michael Kors, etc), it’s pretty clear I won’t be shopping there, but I’m not sure exactly how a non-competitive retail construction project of this magnitude could hurt the community.

After some digging, I found out the group behind is the protest is a local carpenter’s union.  Their concern is that Paragon Outlets “fails to require their general contractor to use subcontractors that pay area standard wages and benefits.”

Substitute “market” for “area standard” and you have yourself a pleasant oxymoron.  By definition, subcontractors (or any employer) MUST pay market wages and benefits or else they wouldn’t have any employees!

The union’s literature also accuses the project of “KILLING OUR ECONOMIC RECOVERY” and includes an image of Death with a scythe.  A little dramatic.

-Nick

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You know how everyone looks like a goof riding a Segway?  Turns out they don’t care, because it’s awesome.  We played tourist in SF last weekend, thanks to Bryn and her savvy Groupon-ing.

Look, no hands!

Along the route we learned some interesting trivia, some of which was even new to semi-locals like us.

• In a period of 8 months in 1849, San Francisco’s population grew from 500 people to over 100,000.
• Upon arriving in port, ship captains could lose their entire crew to gold fever.  To recruit new crewmembers, they would go to the taverns and restaurants and look for big guys eating with their elbows on the table, which apparently was a habit of sailors to keep their meal in one place on a rough sea.  The captains would get these former sailors good and drunk and essentially kidnap them to work on the ship.  Eventually people caught on and mothers began to warn their children to keep their elbows off the table.
• Much of the Embarcadero and Fisherman’s Wharf area is built on fill and abandoned ships.
• Because of this, the name of the now-landlocked neighborhood of North Beach makes much more sense.
• Joe DiMaggio grew up and learned to play baseball in North Beach.  He and Marilyn Monroe got married at City Hall, just like us.
• Domingo Ghirardelli and Levi Strauss were buddies.
• In a time before OSHA and harnesses, several workers building the Golden Gate bridge fell to their deaths, so eventually they put up a safety net.  The net saved 17 more.
• No Great Whites have been spotted in San Francisco Bay in over 50 years.  They prefer the saltier water beyond the Golden Gate.
• Pier 39 is the 3rd most visited tourist attraction in the US, behind Disneyworld and Times Square.
• The seal lions didn’t start lounging there until after the 1989 earthquake.

I fact-checked none of this.

-Nick

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In a big political deal between Amazon.com and California, the affiliate nexus law that forced me to move to Nevada has been put on a 1-year hold.  As part of the deal, Amazon has promised to build a distribution center in California, bringing much needed jobs to the state and setting themselves up to collect sales tax regardless of whether or not they have affiliates in CA.

In the meantime, Amazon will lobby Congress for a federal solution to simplify the sales tax laws on a national level so they’re not caught up fighting the same battle in every other state.  The bad news is if they don’t get any action on that front by September 2012, the same law goes back into effect, and I’ll probably have to move again.  (The affiliate nexus law says if you have affiliates in a state, you have to collect sales tax just as you would if you had a real store or warehouse.  In nearly every case, out-of-state retailers have found it more cost-effective to cut off their affiliates in that state than collect and remit the tax.  Try running a valid comparison shopping site without even 1 or 2 of the biggest stores.)  And how likely is anything that could be branded a “national sales tax” by opponents to gain traction, especially in an election year?  I’m not optimistic.

But that’s all down the road.  The good news is our trial separation is over, at least for another 11 months.

I will definitely miss the view, but am happy not to have to make that 3.5 hr commute for a while (and not even get any skiing out of it!).

It was freezing and I forgot my beanie...

I told the pup he better get some energy out before the drive so he enjoyed the early-season snowfall as well.  And probably made some yellow snow as a parting gift.

Hey this is great, why are we leaving?

And then his feet got cold.

Ok we can go now.

Welcome (back) to California!

-Nick

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A recent law passed in California that makes it impossible to run an affiliate-model comparison shopping site from a California location.  Despite the silliness of being forced to move a non-polluting, borderless, virtual, tax-generating business across state lines for political reasons, Mochi and I took a road trip last week to scout out some new potential homes.

It interrupted his nap time, so clearly he was thrilled.

Along the way, we passed my favorite sign.  Kyburz sounds like a word you would play in Scrabble with sincere confidence and say, “It’s a word.  Look it up.”  And then hope your opponent wouldn’t call your bluff.  In case you were curious, wikipedia tells me the town of Kyburz (population 167) is named after Albert Kyburz, a former postmaster.

When we reached the border, I couldn’t help but feel my luck was about to change.  Which I suppose is exactly what the casinos wanted me to think.

-Nick

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I found out last week I was subject to local business license taxes.  Talk about an unpleasant surprise!  Having filed with the IRS and the state, and not having any storefront or commercial office space, I thought I had fulfilled all my obligations.

I had not.  Because my laptop operates within city limits, even without any customer interaction, I owed the city of Livermore 2011 business tax — and back taxes for 2008, 2009, and 2010.  Wonderful.  (Think north of 4 figures… an amount definitely not in the budget!)

I don’t have a problem paying taxes, so long as the money isn’t wasted, and the rules are applied fairly.  But aside from the surprise factor (I honestly had no idea a home-based business could be taxed like this), there are a few things that bothered me.

What is Local?

I guess I technically do most of my work from my home in Livermore, but I do no work in Livermore.  I don’t meet with customers or contractors or store inventory.  It’s a nice place to live but as far as “business-necessities” go, it’s a place with an Internet connection.  And I pay Comcast for that.  Unlike other businesses that are location-dependent, I can operate from anywhere.  So why should my non-invasive, non-polluting, non-resource consuming cyber-business be taxed at the same rate as other operations that are all of those things?

Home Occupation Permit

I was required to pay $90 fee to “apply” for a Home Occupation Permit.  I sure hope I get approved because I didn’t see an application for a Car Occupation Permit.  Call me Ron Swanson, but I think it is ridiculous to have to submit a formal application to the city, and pay a $90 fee, for the “right” to use my own property.  If I’m not doing anything illegal or bothering my neighbors, what’s the big deal?  I could literally be sitting at home watching YouTube all day and the affect on the city would be the same — except then I’d have less money to spend at the real local businesses.

Gross Receipts

The city business license tax is imposed on gross receipts, which is the top-line sales of a business.  Someone needs to explain to policymakers that this is NOT the same as net income.  Imagine if the IRS taxed you on the full amount of your paycheck, without allowing ANY deductions, and that’s what a gross receipts tax is.  In businesses that can pass this tax along to the customer, it’s not a huge deal, but in high-volume, low-margin businesses without that control, it’s absolutely brutal.

When I asked Rhonda, the Business License expert at City Hall, what my benefit was from paying these taxes, she replied, “There is no benefit, it’s just the municipal code.”  Great answer.  But of course that’s not true; the taxes go to pay for valuable services like roads and police and firefighters and teachers and libraries and softball fields.

I’m just bitter to have to pay 4 years at once, and to have no recourse against the pain-points above.

Every city has different rules and tax rates when it comes to local businesses.  I guess I never stayed in one place long enough before to find out!  Before we move again, I will definitely do my research to see how certain communities feel about home-based businesses so I don’t get stuck with this kind of surprise again.

-Nick

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Our friends are tackling ambitious projects around their houses; installing flooring, building decks, ripping out walls, remodeling bathrooms, etc.  In a way, I’m impressed by the knowledge, planning, and do-it-yourself-enthusiasm these projects require.  But in another, much more powerful way, it just doesn’t sound like that much fun.

I’m not handy.  Never have been, probably never will be.  I had every opportunity to learn — I mean Dad is quite the handyman.  He had every tool imaginable, and used them to remodel the house, fix cars and lawnmowers and sprinkler-systems, and even build a cabin in the mountains.  I didn’t mind helping, but would have had no idea where to start if I was on my own.  You would think I’d have picked up at least something through pure osmosis, but not so much.  Sometimes I think Mechanical Engineer Bryn is the daughter he never had.

So it should come as no surprise that when it comes to home improvement, I haven’t initiated much work.  Plus, it’s tough to find motivation to invest in big capital improvements when your home definitely more than qualifies as “good enough”, and you’re $150k underwater.

That said, I have undertaken a number of home improvement projects even a not-so-handyman could finish.  They are laughably small, and I’m pretty proud of myself, so please enjoy:

Hose Rack (2 screws, 1 nail)

Bike Rack Hanger (1 nail)

Chin-Up Bar (4 screws)

Bird Spikes (2 pieces of floss)

Coat Rack (4 screws)

Beyond that, I’ve installed some weather stripping (no tools), and some towel hooks (2 screws).  We’ve also done some painting, hung a mantle and some shelves, and had laminate floors installed by a contractor.  And Bryn Macgyver-ed some mouse-proofing for the kitchen.  But that’s about it.

I’d like to think the time not spent at Home Depot was put toward something productive, but we probably just wasted it blogging.

-Nick

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Team Dunder Mifflin took home the Spring title in the co-ed San Ramon league this week.  After a nail-biter in the semi-finals, the bats came alive for a blowout in the championship game.

The season had more than it’s fair share of drama and hospital visits.  Aside from my shoulder dislocation, our manager suffered a broken leg defending third base the following week.  Dangerous game.  He was on hand to witness our victory:

Champions!

We’ve come a long way from our first season in Hayward.  Now to repeat.

-Nick

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