It was closing time...except for me LOL

 If there's a tray of bacon to be prepared, I'm Staying! Have a great weekend.

 Couldn't even eat my prime rib in peace.

The 4 dangers of never saying you’re sorry

*Before I post a belief I don't share, allow me to briefly explain why I'll Never say, "I'm sorry". Let's say that I screwed the pooch by being late to a scheduled luncheon. I will be prompt in saying, "I apologize".
 Many may believe that it's the same thing but it's not. "I'm sorry" is saying, "I am sorry", can you grasp the psychological principles of self loathing and destructive suggestions on your subconscious?
"I apologize" is widely accepted and I don't have to subconsciously put myself down.

Stuck moment: I am sorry that I hurt her, and I do miss her a lot — but it’s her fault if she decides to sacrifice our relationship over such a stupid thing. I’m not going to take all the blame here. It’s up to her to decide if she wants me in her life.

In the best of times, it’s hard to admit you’re wrong. There’s nothing like digging into a piece of humble pie to remind you that — even if you’re a hot-shot, a genuine smarty-pants, or the nicest of nice guys — you still make mistakes. And, in a society that insists we all have to be the best and the brightest, apologizing can feel like an unbearable admission of weakness. So, instead of admitting our fault, we deny, counterattack, make excuses, or simply pretend it never happened.

But at what cost?

Think back to a time when you could have apologized but held back. The apology stuck in your throat for whatever reason, and — because the hurtful or offensive act was never corrected — the grievance persisted, tainting your own quality of life and/or the other person’s. When left ignored, a small scratch can even become a deep wound. And, what’s worse, by stubbornly clinging to our own righteousness (even in the face of another’s pain), we fray the bonds of safety and trust that make our world livable.

For example:

• We signal that we don’t value the relationship — or the other person — leading to loss of trust, love, and respect.

• We make the injured person wonder if it’s their fault, or if their suffering is even worthy of notice. This can stunt a person’s sense of self — and possibly cause the hurt to be paid forward, like this girl who was bullied and then became a bully in turn.

• We sacrifice our own integrity, breeding a guilty conscience and hacking away at our own self-esteem.

• And, if the act of wrongdoing violates a social code of conduct — backbiting in the office, for example — we might slowly find ourselves marginalized and wonder why (think L.A. Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling, whose non-apology after the leak of his racist comments only made the situation worse).

APOLOGIZING IS A POWERFUL ACTFear-based thinking leads us to believe that apologies are a sign of weakness: We’re scared to face the world without our armor. But, by letting our pride stop us from making amends, we narrow our universe and (unwittingly) disempower ourselves.

A sincere apology releases you from the burden of being infallible, and the chain reaction that results can be truly inspirational. You demonstrate that your relationship is more important than being right. You release the injured party from pain. Your apology can reverse the tide of hurt and anger, smoothing the path for forgiveness and healing in a relationship, according to a 2014 study by the National Academy of Science. Instead of closing yourself off with negative thoughts, your apology reopens the door to human connection.

It takes courage and a secure sense of self to be able to check your ego at the door — and that’s something of which to be truly proud. This exercise can help ease the way:

• Separate the objective details of what you did from why you did it. Create an unbiased statement of your actions that isn’t colored by your emotions or the actions of the other person.

• Consider your action statement from the standpoint of your values and the person you want to be in the world. Where is the gap between you at your most authentic and you at the moment of the hurtful act?

• Think about your actions in terms of how the offended person saw and felt them. How would it make you feel?

• If you find yourself justifying your actions with phrases like “But I need to…” or “But she did…,” start this process over until you can remove the reasons and see your actions solely for what they were.

Then, with love instead of anger in our hearts, here’s how all of us, including Donald Sterling, can make a genuine apology.

ANATOMY OF AN APOLOGYAccording to the psychologist Dr. Aaron Lazare, author of On Apology, an effective apology contains four parts:

1. Admit you were wrong. A vague sorry won’t go far. You have to name exactly what you did, without skirting the gory details, even if they’re embarrassing. Describe what you did in plain language, and show that you understand why it was wrong. This might include recognizing, in words, the other person’s pain or humiliation.
2. Explain your actions. Your explanation has to show that, though you committed a fault, your action isn’t the same as who you are. Give context. Tell the story of how X (a horrible day at work) led to Y (a short fuse that caused you to snap at your best friend).
3. Show real remorse. A real apology shows your humanity. It goes beyond your own self-interest to reveal that you genuinely feel bad about hurting others and/or violating a shared moral or social code.
4. Make good. Sometimes it’s tangible: You took someone’s stuff without asking, so you complete your apology by replacing it. But, most times, it’s a person’s dignity and self-worth that are at stake. Ask “what can I do to make this better?” Listening, caring, and honoring the other person’s emotions go a long way toward healing.

BEWARE THE APOLOGY FAUX PASAnyone’s who has ever been on the receiving end of an insincere apology knows how a hollow-sounding “sorry” can actually aggravate the situation. Watch out for these pitfalls:

• The non-apology apology. “I’m sorry that you felt that way” is a highly unsatisfying way to make amends. It admits no wrongdoing — and shifts responsibility to the other person for being just too darn sensitive.

• Making excuses. There’s a distinct line between explanation and excuse-making. Excuses are when you let yourself off the hook; an explanation reveals the unbiased truth about your bad behavior.

• Faking it. If you don’t know what you’re supposed to be sorry for, don’t apologize until you genuinely understand the nature of the offense. Sorry for its own sake isn’t reassuring because it offers no guarantee that you won’t do it again.

• Avoiding saying “I.”  By saying “mistakes were made” instead of “I made a mistake,” you blame a third party, instead of yourself. You need to own your own actions for the apology to be effective.

• Acting indifferent. A quick, emotionless “I’m sorry” signals that you don’t really mean the apology — even if you do. Be vulnerable enough to show your real emotions. Look the other person in the eye.

• Playing a drama queen. Don’t grovel or go on-and-on about how unworthy you are. When you’re chewing the scenery, the focus is all on you and your ego — when it should be on the other person’s perspective and feelings.

• Over-apologizing. If you repeatedly apologize for the same offense, you may keep wounds open and prevent the process of healing and moving on, for everyone involved.

• Taking forgiveness for granted. It’s the other person’s right to forgive you or not, and you need to be generous enough to allow that. By assuming it, you undermine the sincerity of your apology.

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The nicest thing about my life?

I know that I know nothing & understand even less.

A Look Ahead at Expiring Tax Provisions

The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) added numerous temporary provisions to the tax code, which can be hard to keep track of. Thankfully, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) recently put out an overview on all expiring and already expired tax provisions between 2016 and 2027. While many of these temporary provisions are relatively minor, some, like the numerous individual provisions expiring in 2025, are particularly worth noting.

The first provisions set to expire in 2018 are the Airport and Airway Trust Fund excise taxes, which are set to expire March 31st. Following that, at the end of 2018, the medical expense deduction will become less generous. Currently, taxpayers can itemize their medical expenses if they exceed 7.5 percent of their Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), but come January 1st, 2019, medical expenses will have to exceed 10 percent of a taxpayer’s AGI if they are to be itemized. Lastly for 2018, taxes related to the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund will also expire.

September of 2019 will mark the expiration of fees applied on both specified health-care insurance policies and self-insured health-care plans. The new markets tax credit, employer credit for paid family and medical leave, and the work opportunity credit will expire at the end of 2019. Additionally, the end of 2019 also marks the last possible beginning-of-construction date for wind renewable power facilities eligible for the electricity production or investment credit. The look-through treatment of payments between related controlled foreign corporations (CFCs), which required corporations to file assets and income of certain subsidiaries as their own, will also expire. Lastly, numerous provisions which generally lower alcohol tax rates will also expire at the end of 2019.

The end of 2020 will see only one tax credit expire, a narrowly applied credit targeting advanced nuclear power facilitates.

In September of 2021, a surtax on fuel used in aircraft in fractional ownership programs (where multiple owners share the costs related to purchasing and operating an aircraft) will expire. Additionally, December 31st, 2021, marks the expiration of the credit for individuals for residential solar property and the final beginning-of-construction date for businesses claiming the increased credit for solar energy property.

At the end of 2022 perhaps the most important temporary tax provision will begin to phase out: full expensing for equipment (also known as 100 percent bonus depreciation). This provision will begin to phase out starting December 31st, 2022, at which point the deduction percentage will decrease by 20 percent yearly, resulting in its complete expiration by the end of 2026. Full expensing for equipment is one of the most pro-growth aspects of tax reform, yet temporary implementations fall short of delivering on growth and inevitably cost substantial amounts of revenue.

The end of September 2022 will mark the expiration of numerous Highway Trust Fund excise taxes. This includes the tax on heavy truck tires, the tax on retail sale of heavy highway vehicles, the reduced rate of tax on partially exempt methanol or ethanol fuels, and all but 4.3 cents-per-gallon of the taxes on highway gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, and alternative fuels. On a relatively minor note, the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) trust fund financing rate will also expire in September of 2022. In 2023, the annual use tax on heavy highway vehicles will also expire. Congress last reached a deal on extending funding for the Highway Trust Fund at the end of 2015, and has yet to propose legislation that permanently appropriates a satisfactory amount of revenue for the Highway Trust Fund. Despite these taxes expiring in 2022 and 2023, it is also unlikely that the Highway Trust Fund remains solvent past the end of FY 2020, warranting a solution before tax provisions expire. It is possible that all taxes related to the Highway Trust Fund could continue to be extended shortly before they expire, but a more permanent source of revenue would be preferable.

While nothing is currently set to expire in 2024, December 31st, 2025, will be a significant day for most taxpayers. Twenty-three provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act directly relating to individual income taxes will expire, meaning most taxpayers will see a tax hike unless some or all provisions are extended. Some of the most impactful provisions scheduled to expire include the TCJA’s reduction of individual income rates, increased child tax credit, the increased AMT exemption and phaseout threshold, and the increased standard deduction. The individual income tax code is effectively scheduled to return to what it was before the TCJA, meaning personal exemptions, the overall limitation on itemized deductions, uncapped state and local tax deductions, and many other miscellaneous itemized deductions will return. Despite most of the individual income tax code returning to its pre-TCJA structure, inflation adjustments will continue to be determined by the Chained Consumer Price Index (C-CPI), as set by TCJA, which will result in most taxes increasing when compared to their pre-TCJA levels. Additionally, the qualified business income deduction, which allows pass-through businesses to deduct up to 20 percent of their income, will also expire. For a full list of the twenty-three expiring provisions, consult this JCT publication.

From then on at the end of 2026 the only two provisions that expire are the remaining portion of full expensing for equipment (following a five-year phaseout) and the election of additional depreciation for certain plants. Following along, at the end of 2027 the only provision scheduled to expire is the expensing of certain costs related to replacing citrus plants.

While many of the expiring provisions only apply to narrow subsets of the general U.S. population, the expiration of the TCJA’s individual provisions at the end of 2025 remains of particular importance. There will likely be an upcoming policy debate on whether to extend individual tax relief and other structural reforms, and many metrics directly related to the TCJA’s impact on the economy and government revenue over the next eight years will shape that debate.

Tax Foundation

Are you tired of paying for Microsoft Office

End the Madness.

Food Prep is a Labor of Love

 If you don't love food prep, trust me when I say, "You & others will know".

What the owner of "Sys Nica" questions

Can anything actually be proven?

Where are we with Minkowski space?

With no past and no future, is it safe to say that my now ushers in my next - priori?

Why did Thomas Troward say that only good things could be created in the spiritual then manifest into reality? Not so good things exist.

Iron floats, iron flies, iron boils, can iron become a gas?

When Nietzsche spoke of the superman, had he gone against his own sentiment about Jesus?

God being omnipotent and omniscient, he knew we would be here as a race so why did he create us?

Followers? Why would anyone intentionally follow anyone else? If the leader has a mental cataract, the followers will meet his fate, why?

Why don't Black people look up their lineage to determine who they really are instead of just being labeled Black?

People tell others what to do, why can't they see that they are now responsible for everything that happens next?

People of color that claim to hate Whites follow their religion, why?

We are all trapped in our own perceptions, were my dreams as an infant facets of my undeveloped perceptions?

Some individuals of the Islamic faith believe if they complete jihad they will be rewarded with 44 to 99 virgins *with no A/C, no soap, no douche in a hot assed tent, what makes them go through with it?

Why can't people see that their reality is just as unique as their fingerprints?

Men that can grasp science / the alpha and the omega / being created in a specific time and place still continue going to church, do they think they're going to all have a big party on a cloud after dying?

Self-replicating Nanobots could destroy all life on Earth, warn experts

Nanobots, which are theoretical tiny robots a single nanometre wide – one billionth of a metre – are currently being worked on and in the future may dominate the planet if they get out of control.

They can be used for several purposes but boffins hope to use them mainly for in-body procedures, such as replacing cells in the body for fighting things such as cancer.

Such would be the technology that the nanobots would be able to act as if they are cells and self-replicate, most likely through protein folding, where they can split and create another version of themselves.

Louis A Del Monte, physicist and author of the book Nanoweapons, wrote in an article for the Huffington Post: “You can think of them as the technological equivalent of bacteria and viruses.”

The minuscule bots are expected to arrive in the 2050s, according to Dr Del Monte, following the rise of artificial intelligence, which will help to create the revolutionary bots.

While experts are developing nanobots for the good, there are fear this could quickly get out of control.

Eric Drexler, an engineer who is considered one of the pioneers of nanotechnology, warned in his book Engines of Creation way back in 1986: “Imagine such a replicator floating in a bottle of chemicals, making copies of itself…the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight.

“At the end of 10 hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. 

“In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined — if the bottle of chemicals hadn't run dry long before.”

He goes on to warn that they could begin destroying and replacing all biological life on Earth – leading to the end of humanity in what is known as “The Grey Goo Scenario”.

Complete Article

I need to go but I don't celebrate holidays & here's why

 Are you trying to tell me that this piece of paper with boxes and numbers dictates your life? That's some real status quo bullshit if you ask me.

 I BBQ when I want to, I give gifts when I feel like it, I buy special coffees when the taste hits me, I even pop firecrackers whenever the hell I want.(No I don't, I don't like useless noise)

 Who invented the calendar? So you're following a piece of paper with no clue of who made it? Tisk tisk tisk...

  People love to cry that they're trapped by the system! When an intelligent observation of the circumstances suggests that you're trapped by your own hand and measure.

 *I once knew a woman that bought Christmas gifts in the summer when they were better priced. She sat and wrapped those presents and hid them away waiting for the special day to arrive.
 On Christmas Eve she gathered the gifts and was grabbing her car keys when she began to cry.
She had looked on one of the gifts and the recipient had passed away before the 25th of December.

 Shove that where the "status quo" sun doesn't shine.

 And oh yeah, Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar, Europe adhered to the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C.

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If you desire a successful career & a happy life, Never Move to Daytona Beach

 I've lived all over the world and I've never seen a level of delinquency, drug abuse, illiteracy, alcoholism, racism and stupidity in all my life.
You literally have to step over vagrants on Ridgewood to enter the 7/11 after 9pm.

They show you pictures such as this.

But this is what's really here.

Daytona Beach among the country's worst cities to live in, says study

A new report is claiming Daytona Beach is among the country's top 50 worst cities to live in. 

The Central Florida city ranked 25 out of the nation's top 50 populated cities for being one of the nation's poorest, according to a report by 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinions site.  

The company collected information from about 600 cities with at least 50,000 citizens from the U.S. Census Bureau, and analyzed metrics like crime, economy and education, to reach their "50 worst cities." 

According to the site, in 2016 Daytona Beach had a population of 66,649, a median home value of $132,300, a poverty rate of 20.1 percent and about 21.6 percent of people with at least a bachelor's degree. 

Daytona Beach is one of the poorest cities in the country, with a median annual household income of just $31,273. The city’s low median income is likely due in part to a lack of jobs. Some 6.3% of the Daytona Beach workforce is out of a job, well above the 4.9% annual U.S. unemployment rate.

The lack of jobs may be partly due to the city’s high crime rate, which may drive potential employers and small business owners away. There were 1,221 violent crimes and 6,297 property crimes for every 100,000 Daytona Beach residents in 2016, each nearly triple the comparable national crime rates.

Though the crime rate is surprising, what this report fails to mention is that a sizable portion of Daytona's residents are seasonal second homeowners and retired, which would help account for the low employment rate and low net incomes. 

Daytona Beach is ranked alongside five other Florida cities, including Homestead, Miami Beach, Tallahassee, Miami and Gainesville. 

Detroit was named as the worst city in America because of its economical depression and detrimental unemployment rates, followed by Flint and St. Louis. 

This comes just a couple days after Florida was ranked as one of the worst states to live in for low-income citizens. 

I love my "Sys Nica" viewers

 Please don't get sentimental, I don't mean it like it sounds but I appreciate you.

Facebook is no longer for me if it ever was

 I recently posted another individual's account of his experience with Facebook, thank gosh I read what I post.
 Upon further inspection, I have come to accept that it is, for the greater percentage, garbage. If you want to talk about "who did what back then, each other's girlfriends and affairs, talk about saving the world through the church and prayer or just post mindless vents", I guess it's for you. (There are other aspects but that was enough for me)

 I already know this is going to sound cold.

 I don't give a shit what my neighbors do, I don't care about their weddings, new shoes, where they ate, where they danced, the friend of theirs that died, how much weed they smoked or where they got drunk and laid. These things do nothing what so ever to better my mental, emotional, physical, spiritual or financial well being.

 I was once told if you find yourself hanging with 4 nuts you're bound to be the 5th nut, just look at a car tire.

 I have to stick with the books, active study keeps your mind sharp, it can reduce the possibility of dementia, it gives you the upper hand in all dealings with the less informed and so much more.

 Facebook is a low life gutter social, this is not saying anything about its subscribers yet that is what it boils down to.

*The Catholic Church was created to bring people to the word of God / Jesus yet look at the menagerie it's become.

 My final note: I'm a disabled vet that gets a check but I never stopped working once. I never stopped having a business once and I never stopped traveling once. 
If you "feel as though" you're washed up and a loser, you are washed up and a loser.

 Not me buddy, I'm beginning my 3rd or 4th career with more careers or career choices to come. I began my first business at 16 installing sound systems on drug dealer's cars.

 I did not go around the world twice to now sit and chat with a "guy" pretending to be a "girl" only to end up asking me for money after some nude pics have been sent.

 Now? I will only go to FB to post the same things you see here.