Morton Fox's journal

Stayed home today, so it was a day for catching up on various things that I neglected because I'd not been home. Replied to email and postal mail. Did some year-end accounting and financial planning. (Yeah, I know. Accounting on Christmas Day? Very Scrooge-like.) Did some tax planning, although unless I can pull a capital loss out of my butt, I really can't do anything other than estimate how much I'll need to pay at tax time. Also checked Prosper and put in two more bids on loans. Still no delinquencies, so it's doing okay.

Just noticed that Consumerist used my photo here. It's a picture of a Staples store in Bloomsburg, PA, which I took while on my way to Anthrocon in Pittsburgh back in July. I went geocaching in nearly every town along I-80.

Thanks to digeri, hunterwolf, marauderosu, and skorzy for Christmas cards.

( What I got for Christmas... )

Hope you're all having a good holiday season too.

Had the loaner car from yesterday morning until yesterday afternoon. What good is a loaner car if you can't use it for geocaching, even if the geocache is a park and grab? So I went out for B.A.H.'s Potash Lake Muggle Cache. It was at Potash Lake in Oakland. The geocache was actually closer to the parking area than the lake, but I did go to the lake shore afterwards to take a few pictures of the area.

Consumerist weighed in on TD Bank's Commerce Bank acquisition. In their typically irreverent style, they wrote about the coin-counting machines, "People love that sh*t." :) Opinions on TD Bank from Consumerist commenters vary. According to them, TD Bank service is good in most places, except in Massachusetts where it is not as good. One commenter mentioned Commerce Bank's low $100 minimum for checking accounts. However, in New Jersey, that's a moot point. Since 1991, state law has already required banks to provide a low-minimum low-cost checking account.

One lesson to take from this is to not be afraid of change. I knew from the outset that this arrangement would not last forever. Before I switched to Commerce Bank, I had a checking account at United Jersey Bank. Through a series of mergers, that bank turned into Summit Bank, and then Fleet Bank, and then Bank of America. (I got out some time between Summit and Fleet because that's when Commerce Bank came to town.) If TD BankNorth turns out to be sub-par in this area, then I'd say that'll be a kick in the butt to go take a look at the local credit union.