Walking is Hard Work

I would like to lodge a formal complaint against anatomy, physiology, exercise as a whole, or any combination thereof. I’m not sure who I should complain to here on earth, however, and I’m not about to complain to God about how my body works. That would be like complaining to Samsung about how my cell phone works. It’s so incredibly complicated and so, so far past my capacity for understanding it, that I have literally no leg to stand on there.

Speaking of legs to stand on, that’s what my formal complaint centers around. Since there’s no earthly authority in charge of this, I believe at this point that I’m just lodging a formal, public whine. So be it.

Here’s my problem: I’m a recovering engineer. No, not my engineer-ish social awkwardness. The other problem. The fact that after a technical college education and a lengthy career in engineering design and implementation, I understand the physical laws of the universe fairly well. At least, the physical laws of motion.

For example, and to my point, work is work. It doesn’t matter if I move one pound up ten feet in the air all at once, or if I move that same one pound up one foot a day for ten days. When I get to ten feet, the amount of work I’ve done is the same for both scenarios. The difference is in the amount of power that was required. Power involves a time component. Work does not. The social awkwardness problem comes in when I think people want an explanation of that concept at dinner parties.

The complaint, or whine, that I am lodging is that walking versus running should work the same. My problem is that I have recent empirical proof that it does not.

We just got back from Washington D.C., where we walked for six straight days. My main/only form of exercise is running. And when I say running, I mean jogging. And when I say jogging, I mean slowly. I run three miles, three days a week. That’s nine miles a week. I think that’s pretty good for a fifty-year-old guy who likes chocolate more than he should. At least, I thought it was pretty good.

Here's my complaint: None of my running prepared me for the walking, and the walking didn’t translate back to the running. Allow me to explain.

My feet hurt in D.C. My legs hurt. I was tired at the end of the days. My feet and legs don’t hurt after running. By the laws of the universe, if I can run three miles in a day, I ought to be able to walk at least nine or so, right? I mean, I don’t really know what the conversion is, because I’ve never timed my walking pace for a mile, but it’s got to be at least three to one against my running, right. I do both very slowly!

We walked a lot, but I don’t think we ever got anywhere close to walking nine miles in one day on the trip. The Smithsonians are big, but they’re not THAT big.

Anyway, we do all that walking, amazed at how tired we are from it, then come home and take a nice two-day break before resuming normal activities. If all the walking was inexplicably wearing me out so much, I should have been getting in better shape, not worse, right? Well, let me tell you, my first attempt at running was pathetic. Or should I say, pathetic-er than normal.

I was sucking wind! It felt like I hadn’t been doing anything for a month. And our sample size of test subjects is not just limited to one overweight, marginally-athletic fifty-year-old man. Our super-trim, very athletic sixteen-year-old, Son Number Two, was right there with me doing all the walking in our nation’s capital. He came home to a lacrosse scrimmage and was a pathetic mess trying to run up and down the field as a midfielder. It was sad.

I am not OK with doing all that work and getting seemingly no return on it whatsoever. Work is work in physics. It should be the same in physiology!

OK, enough whining. I obviously need to get back to work.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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An Open Letter to Washington D.C.

Dear Washington D.C.,

As you know, my family and I are on vacation this week in your fine city. Or non-state district. Or federal municipal jurisdiction. Or whatever you are.

We are enjoying all you have to offer. On our first day, we employed your Big Bus tour, which allowed us to hop on and off at almost all of your fabulous attractions along the mall.

Incidentally, I think the "mall" is misnamed. It seems to be comprised entirely of one big-ass lawn and the world's longest lap pool, surrounded by nothing but hugely imposing granite and marble buildings and monuments. We did find some gift shops in the museums, but not a single Forever 21 or pretzel place. And also, the Capital Police get kinda testy when you try to swim laps in the big pool.

Anyhoo, just wanted to thank you for the attractions. We got a guided tour of the Capitol building. Solid giant artwork selection! Although, one of the rotunda artists put his old, bearded face on a baby, and that was mildly disconcerting when pointed out by our guide.

The Lincoln Memorial is outstanding! Kudos on all the huge columns and engravings and gigantic Abe. Very impressively imposing. It's a bit high, though. Not to complain too much, but it's kinda hot and more than a little muggy here in June. Less stairs next time, would be super!

The war memorials are all really well done. Thank you for those. Arlington National Cemetery is sobering and incredibly well kept and cared for. Again, thank you for that. And great work with those guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier! I was sweating like a faucet just standing there watching them, and I never heard one of them complain. Just a lot of heal clicking.

And big props on the Natural History Museum! We saw everything from a T-Rex eating a triceratops to the Hope Diamond. That museum is like the upscale Walmart of natural history. It's got everything! Well done.

We are all big fans of the Nick Cage movie, National Treasure, as I’m sure you are, so we wouldn’t have missed the National Archives. I obviously wouldn’t be reporting it if we had, but I wanted to let you know that we weren’t able to sneak out the Declaration of Independence, or any of the other more important documents. Kudos on all the security in the rotunda room! Strangely, the security in the vault room was less formidable. Go figure. Anyway, we promise to take very good care of our new keepsakes. Cheers!

What I really wanted to write about actually has nothing to do with any of the monuments or museums. I’m corresponding with you today mainly regarding your wildlife. No, not the tourists that rent those electric scooters, and not the homeless guys yelling at invisible people on the Metro rail. I wanted to highlight a plus and a minus for you of the non-human variety.

First, the plus. We took a night tour of the mall and absolutely loved the fireflies. We don’t have those in California, and they added an element of magical wonder to our trip. Thanks so much for providing those! We have yet to find any in the gift shops but would love to get some to take back home for our backyard. Any info you could provide on that would be great.

Now, the minus. Your rats. We definitely do have those in California, but we don’t keep them out on the street in broad daylight like you do. And not to complain too much, but walking through our neighborhood at night is like the underground tunnel scenes in Indiana Jones. Rats scurrying in front of you on the sidewalk every couple yards is not a super-relaxing way to stroll home after a delightful day of sightseeing.

Our AirBnB is in Foggy Bottom, which, incidentally, would be a great name for an alt-folk-rock band. As you know, Foggy Bottom is one of the older neighborhoods in town, but it’s quite nice otherwise. The rats really detract from it, though. Especially when you are constantly readying yourself to dropkick one, and you have to shoo them off your front steps when you arrive home. I’m not making that up.

Anyway, just wanted to drop you a quick line to say you have a great town here, but the rats aren’t doing you any favors in the Yelp reviews, if you know what I mean.

Just a friendly heads up, rodent-wise.

Stay classy,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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An Open Letter to the $%*#@ Government

Dear Federal and State Government Yahoos,

I was finally able to complete our tax returns the other day. I would have been done with them much earlier, but I had to wait for you folks from the California Franchise Tax Board to finalize a form. You know the one – the Passive Activity Loss Limitation form.

That makes a ton of sense, since that form in no way applies to the activity that was in question – our rental property. On my taxes I told you that we were active participants in the managing of the rental and we didn’t have losses. So naturally, we needed to delay our filing by two weeks while you let the ink dry on the form that is for people who had losses from a rental they weren’t actively managing.

Once we were able to fill in that handy form with a long column of zeros and N/A’s, we finally e-filed our state and federal returns. As you are aware, I don’t like giving you interest-free loans, but I also don’t like having to send you money at the end of the year either, so we adjust our withholdings accordingly to get a small return back from both of you.

As you federal government whackos might recall, you attempted to buy my love this year with my own money. You sent us six separate paper checks in the mail, totaling half of our sizeable child tax credit we get for being foolish enough to let our three large teenage boys live in our house and eat our food.

Again, I’m not sure how sending me money early that was going to be a credit on my taxes changes my net financial situation, other than certainly causing me a financial hardship if I was foolish enough to spend it.

I was not that foolish.

Since you took it upon yourself to send me a tax credit early, in a turn of events that no one could have seen coming, I actually owed you money with my tax return. I know you can’t see it right now, but rest assured I’m making my shocked face.

I, unfoolishly, kept all the money you sent me, so sending you what I “owe” will be no problem. What was a problem, however, was your tone at the end of my return. You printed me four quarterly tax pre-payment coupons for next year with my return, each one for a fourth of what I “owe” you this year.

OK, that’s one idiotic thing, but what really was even more ridiculous was the stern warning you included with my useless payment vouchers:

If you expect to owe more than $1000 next year, you may be subject to underpayment penalties if you fail to send adequate quarterly payments.

Um, excuse me? If I EXPECT to owe more than $1000?? I expected YOU to owe ME $1000, not the other way around. The only reason I “owe” you money this year is because you chose to send me a bunch of it early! How the hell am I supposed to expect anything from now on?

I have no idea what you’re planning to do, and you sure as hell didn’t ask me if I wanted your pretty green “please love us” checks to be mailed to my house. I might owe you twice as much next year if you get a wild hair and send me ALL of my child tax credit early.

Or are you only planning on sending me a quarter of it, due to budget cuts? Or maybe the whole early child tax credit thing is too passé and you’re planning to attempt to endear yourselves to me some other way?

Maybe you’ll send me a puppy this year instead of checks? I would then have to figure out the street value of the puppy to decide if I should be sending quarterly payments, and how much they should be.

What if you decide to go a little more exotic than a puppy and you send me something like a baby giraffe? That could really seal the deal on gaining my trust and affection, but it would be much harder to gauge its value.

You can see my dilemma here…

In conclusion, I will not be sending you any estimated tax payments over the course of this year, and I wish you would all resign.

With my sincerest disapproval,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2022 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Revolution Liz, 2021’s Weepy Mascot

Whelp, we all had high hopes for 2021. I mean, things were kinda looking up in December. England and Russia were starting to vaccinate people against COVID, and we had reports of our own vaccine that would soon be available to relatives of people high up in the Pfizer organization.

Then we watched New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, coming to you live from a completely deserted Times Square, and got the indication that 2021 might not be all we thought it was going to be.

JLo showed up on a stage full of random statues and pillars, to a crowd of yellow and purple beach balls. Standing thirty-four feet above the stage, she was a feather-covered bride on top of a giant feather-covered wedding cake. She was alone on top of the goose-down cake, because the groom had left her at the altar, presumably because she showed up to the ceremony wearing a homemade diamond encrusted hockey mask.

It went downhill from there.

Well, OK, technically that train wreck happened in 2020, so we’re still going to be good, right?

And then came January 6, 2021.

On January 6^th we all found out that the security at our nation’s capital is on par with the security at a McDonald’s. A large group of very excited protesters turned into an angry mob and decided it would be fun to just walk into the Capitol. The Capitol, as in, the building where The Congress of the United States of America, the largest superpower on planet Earth, meets to make laws and vote on them and stuff.

It only took a few minutes for a bunch of people not authorized to be in the building to be in the building, actually interrupting and shutting down an actual session of Congress. The actual Congress of the United States of America.

What the actual hell? Can I just go sleep at the White House tonight if I want?

Speaking of the White House, Yahoo’s White House correspondent Hunter Walker was on the scene and interviewed a surprisingly dimwitted woman – our nation’s new revolutionary heroine (or perhaps heroin?), Elizabeth from Knoxville.

Hunter encountered this woman crying (understandably) and wiping her face with a towel outside the Capitol building during the riot.

“What happened to you?” asked Hunter.

“I got Maced!” replied the stylishly-dressed, red-faced and snotty (both literally and figuratively) woman. “I made it like a foot inside and they pushed me out and they Maced me.”

Then, presumably to make sure we all knew the name of our new national savior, she added, “My name is Elizabeth, I’m from Knoxville, Tennessee.”

When Hunter then asked Elizabeth from Knoxville why she had been trying to get into the building that she very clearly was not allowed to be in at the time, she responded, with a surprising amount of indignation in her voice, bordering on all-out participation trophy generation entitlement, “We’re storming the Capitol. It’s a revolution!”

So, just to be clear here, Elizabeth from Knoxville, you are upset that the man with the can of Mace didn’t like your revolution? Is that it? And hats off to you for the heads-up thinking to announce on camera that you just committed a federal crime, and then to give your first name and city of residence for good measure. I’m actually a little surprised you didn’t give us your Instagram handle, too.

“I’m Revolution Liz. Follow me in Insta! OMG, I love how my scarf actually still goes with my red Mace eyes! Revolutions are hard, guys, like, for real. OMG, I’m probably going to end up suing that Mace guy or something.”

Thanks for the wake-up call, Elizabeth. You’ve actually been a great help to your country. You’ve shown us that our nation’s seat of power has the security of Chuck E. Cheese, and we’ve raised a group of people who get personally offended if they happen to get Maced while actually attempting to actually overthrow the actual government of the actual United States of America. Holy crap!

Maybe they should have used an actual mace to get their point across to Elizabeth from Knoxville.

Who knows? Maybe a cop in riot gear swinging a giant heavy pole with spikes on the end might be the deterrent we need to help folks remember to not commit treason?

Apparently pepper spray and bullets just aren’t doing it anymore.

Looking forward to seeing what you have to offer, 2022!

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2021 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Your Tax Dollars? Look at these Cartoons Instead

Your taxes are due in five days. Don’t blame me, I voted against them.

A few years ago I thought I would try to make us all feel a little better about our tax bills by calling attention to some of the wonderful government agencies that our hard-earned dollars go to fund.

So I went to USA.gov (motto: “Because we can, that’s why”), and looked up the A-Z Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies. After reading for a while, I realized there was no way I was going to make anyone feel better about paying taxes, so instead I bet myself that I could click on every letter of the alphabet and come up with a ridiculous agency that should never have been started in the first place.

I failed to find an insane waste of money under each letter of the alphabet, but that was only because there were no agencies that started with the letters Q, X, Y or Z. (I’m happy to announce that the government was able to add a K agency since last year.)

I have updated the list of current agencies for you again this year. Here’s the fun places your 2016 tax dollars are headed:

Administration on Aging (motto: Good for wine and cheese, bad for people’s bodies.)

Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (motto: Buyer beware. And seller, too. We’re coming for all of you.)

Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (motto: It goes in the upper right corner, dammit!)

Delaware River Basin Commission (motto: Getting paid to stare at water since 1961.)

Economic Adjustment Office (motto: Please be patient. We’re redistributing your money as fast as we can.)

Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (motto: Just kidding, we have no standards.)

Government Ethics, Office of (motto: We can’t even fit all the irony into one building.)

House Office of the Clerk (Main functions include running the offices of deceased and retired representatives – I am not making that up.)

Interagency Alternative Dispute Resolution Working Group (We’re using your money to figure out how to play nice. It’s not working.)

Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (motto: We will sue you in as many places as possible.)

Kennedy Center (motto: Please stop asking about Marilyn.)

Legal Services Corporation (motto: That might be legal now. There’s been a lot of changes.)

Marine Mammal Commission (We’re investigating the narwhal. He seems like a troublemaker.)

National Technical Information Service (motto: Dumbing everything down for you as fast as we can.)

Overseas Private Investment Corporation (This is not where we hide all the bribes and kickbacks and stuff. We swear.)

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (Just kidding, we spent it all. Here’s a third of what you were promised. We borrowed it from social security. Don’t tell them!)

Rural Business and Cooperative Programs (motto: We don’t trust you rednecks to handle things on your own.)

Surface Transportation Board (We don’t trust those Department of Transportation guys to handle the surface. There’s just too much of it. It covers the whole country, you know?)

Taxpayer Advocacy Panel (We changed our name from “Taxpayer Advocate Service” because too many people thought we would actually help. You’re still screwed.)

U.S. Election Assistance Committee (motto: Helping you get crappy officials for generations to come.)

Veterans Day National Committee (We’re thinking November 11^th again this year.)

Washington Headquarters Services (We are here to serve headquarters. In Washington. Don’t ask a lot of questions, OK?)

It bothers me that we don’t have Q, X, Y, or Z agencies. I really don’t think our government is applying itself here. We’re only four more ridiculous money-wasting agencies away from having the whole alphabet covered. Just off the top of my head, I can suggest the Quicksand and other Swamp Dangers Mitigation Exploratory Committee, the Xylophone Standardization Council, the Yo-Yo Injury Prevention Task Force, and the Zeppelin and Lighter-than-Aircraft (Unmanned) Aviation Standards Advisory Board. Get on that, will you Washington?

As far as the current agencies go, keep in mind, folks, I limited myself to only one department per letter of the alphabet. This list of agencies whose only concern is to justify their funding for next year could go on for days.

Even more disturbing than the fact that the lists grow each year, is the fact that not all the agencies are listed under the “Complete A-Z Listing” of government agencies. And here’s what’s really scary – you used to be able to dig a little deeper on USA.gov under the Executive Branch and find the rest of the disheartening lists – a list of Independent Agencies and Government Corporations, a list of Boards, Commissions, and Committees, a list of Federal Advisory Committees, and my personal favorite, a list of Quasi-Official Agencies.

But now all those lists are gone. When you click on the Executive Branch now, you get moved to a Kids.USA.Gov site with an animated Ben Franklin taking us on a Learning Adventure, explaining how government “works” to second-graders.

Umm… Is there an agency that can look into why someone is hiding quasi-official agencies from us using a cartoon? No? OK, never mind then, I guess.  

If that isn’t scary enough for you, then I invite you to forget all the agencies, boards, commissions, committees, and departments, quasi-official or not, that we may or may not be allowed to know about and simply ponder this:

According to Congress, it takes around $5.3 billion per year just for them to turn the lights on and run the show. Not all of Washington, D.C., mind you. Just Congress. Not the White House, plus the Supreme Court, plus the Pentagon, plus the army and stuff. Just Congress. Five and a third billion dollars. Billion with a “B.” Five thousand millions.

They “work” about one hundred seventy-five days per year. That means we’re talking $30 million a day.

Even if we generously assume they work twelve hours per day, that’s $2.5 million an hour.

That’s $42,000 per minute.

That’s $700 per second. For Congress to keep the doors open.

(And, let’s keep in mind that it was Congress themselves who told us how much they are spending. So, in reality, it’s probably a much higher number, since they stopped letting us know about all the agencies and stuff and gave us a cartoon instead.)

In the time it will take you to read this sentence, the U.S. Congress will spend $8,500 of your money (or probably more) on nothing more than working hard to dream up even more hidden quasi-official agencies to help spend the rest of it.

But never mind. Just look at the fun animated Ben Franklin and forget about what you were concerned with. Ben has video games for you, too!

Holy crap.

The real April Fools’ Day is not April 1^st. It’s April 15^th.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

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Let's Make America Awesomer

We have no good options left, America. This election is looking like a choice between Holy Crap! and Are You Kidding Me? That’s why during the recent Cinco de Mayo tequila tasting at my house, a new partnership was formed to give you, the concerned voters of America, a more palatable option. Derek Miller (my neighbor) and I will be running mates for president. I lost the Ro-Sham-Bo for the vice president slot, so I’m the presidential candidate.

Now, I know many of you might be saying to yourself, “But I don’t know Derek Miller.” That’s a fair concern, so let me tell you a little about him. He’s tall and handsome with no hideous facial scarring, he has an actual job and a lovely family, he has some really good tequila at his house, and he’s not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I’m sure many of you are also saying, “Can Smidge really be president? Is he qualified? All I’ve ever seen him actually do is be sarcastic. What is his IQ?” Those are also fair concerns, so let me put your mind at ease. Technically and legally I can be president, and after the presidents I’ve seen in my lifetime I’m starting to think I might be overqualified. I think the office needs a lot more sarcasm, and as for my IQ... that’s none of your business. Sure, I have no idea where Kazakhstan is, but does anyone? And does it really matter? Of course not.

And I’m also not Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I think I’ve made the case for Schmatjen/Miller 2016.

At this point, I’m not sure we can actually get on the ballot, chiefly because neither of us have looked into it at all, so please just write us in.

And we only have $2.58 in our campaign fund, which was the amount of money we got from recycling the Cinco de Mayo beer bottles, so donations would be greatly appreciated.

Even after all the good reasons I’ve already given you for voting for us, if you’re still on the fence, here’s a list of our major platforms. (This is only a partial list since we’re still trying to remember everything we came up with that night. Seis de Mayo was a little foggy.)

First and foremost, free beer for every person in the U.S.A. That’s a no-brainer. We did the math, and with 323 million people in the country getting a fourteen dollar twelve-pack of beer each month, it only costs us $54.3 billion. Done! We can handle that just by eliminating the State Department.

And keep in mind, in case you think we’re being stingy, you get a twelve-pack for every person in your family. If you are married with three kids, and grandma lives with you, that’s six cases of beer headed your way each month, like a huge, frosty-cold paycheck. And if you’re like me and have Mormon or Muslim friends and neighbors - score! They usually have a ton of kids, and you can probably have their beer, too.

Speaking of eliminating the State Department, we’re going to be doing a lot of that as well. The short list of redundant federal departments doing things that are already being handled by the states will get $336 billion back in our pockets. Goodbye Departments of Energy, Education, Labor, and Transportation. It was nice knowing you.

You nice folks can have that money back in the form of a $1000 check for every single person in your family. Spend it however you want, America.

In the interest of inclusion, all this applies to the nice folks in our outlying territories as well. It’s about time they got full citizenship, voting rights, and free beer. And it’s about time we got five new states. Welcome to statehood, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Glad to have you aboard.

Subsequently, we’ll be launching an exploratory committee to figure out how best to fit five more stars on the flag, and also to determine where exactly those five new states are. The committee will also look into whether Costa Rica is the same thing as Puerto Rico. There has been some question.

Back in D.C., we’ll be firing everyone we have the power to fire. Then we’ll hire lawyers to figure out a way to fire the people who say we don’t have the power to fire the other people. Then we’ll fire all the lawyers.

We’re going to pay ourselves $10 million a year for the eight years we’ll obviously be in office, but don’t worry. That’s only a couple of drips from the faucet in Washington, and it will reassure you that we’re not for sale to special interest groups. We’ll still take tons of money from special interest groups, but we’ll turn around and give it all to you! As a thank-you, you guys can vote to repeal term limits for us. That’s a win-win.

And lastly, we’ll immediately instate Cinco de Mayo as an official national holiday, on par with the Fourth of July and Memorial Day. To reduce any potential hurt feelings or appearance of North American favoritism, we’ll also adopt a lesser Canadian holiday to be named later.

Also, recognizing the brilliance of the New Year’s Day holiday immediately following the New Year’s Eve celebration, all national holidays will now have a minimum of two days off work and school. Welcome, Fifth of July and Seis de Mayo. You’ve always been there, but now you’re official.

Thanks for your support, and tell your friends.

“In 2016, write in Schmatjen/Miller. Free beer and money is totally killer.”

I’ll get back to you if we come up with a better slogan, or if we can remember any more of our great ideas on how to make America awesomer.

Vote early and often!

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2016 Marc Schmatjen

Check out The Smidge Page on Facebook. We like you, now like us back!

Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!