TravelTax: For the Mobile Professional

Sometimes I feel like nobody understands me.

My Seattle-based CPA doesn't understand me. Every time I call with a tax question he suggests a time to meet, and I have to remind him that I'm on the road. Then he asks me why I'm away and when I'll be back. Every. Damn. Time.

Enough!

After trolling the NuNomad message boards for a sympathetic ear, I found a post by one Joseph Smith from a company called TravelTax. They specialize in "tax preparation for the mobile professional." Joseph and I had a nice long chat today, and it's clear that he gets it. He gets why I'm working from the road. Most of his clients are, too. He knows how long I can stay in any one place before incurring a tax obligation there. He can handle my books, my payroll, my business and personal taxes; city, state and fed. All my questions? Answered!

Finally someone understands me.

To Live Deliberately

In a space devoted to the ins and outs of location independent living, I've so far been silent one important question: Why am I doing this? Why give away my stuff and travel around aimlessly?

It's a deeply personal question, one that was recently put to me by a close friend. My explanation was shoddy. I couldn't hope to do better here. I'll just say that it was Henry David Thoreau who put the seed in my head over 10 years ago when I first read "Walden". I reread "Walden" every few years and I continue to pull inspiration from it. I'll let Thoreau do my speaking for me.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

The Seattle Freeze: Real or Imaginary?

My Seattle friends and I used to discuss it ad nauseam: is the social scene in Seattle dysfunctional? Folks I spoke to, particularly new transplants, described Seattleites as very nice, but aloof. Local newspapers ran editorials about it. It even has a name: The Seattle Freeze. But is it real?



The Pacific Northwest Magazine in the Seattle Times wrote a really great piece about it, called Our Social Dis-ease, which reads:

... the dichotomy most fundamental to our collective civic character is this: Polite but distant. Have a nice day. Somewhere else.

Having spent my entire post-college existence in Seattle, I had little to compare it to. "Well, of course it's harder to meet people. I'm not in college anymore!" But after months away I'm beginning to feel that outside of Seattle, folks really are more welcoming.

Case in point: I went to a friend's cookout in Oakland for July 4th. (Thanks, D&M!) By the time I got home, I had text messages from 2 people I had met there -- just friendly follow-ups for drinks or whatnot. There's nothing truly remarkable about that, except that it wouldn't have happened to me in Seattle. There would have been polite conversation, followed by vague promises to "hang out sometime," and then ... nothing.

And still, I can't with certainty say that the Seattle Freeze is real. My lifestyle changed at the same time my location did. It's not the same city, but I'm also not exactly same person. I'm new in town; I'm trying harder; I'm following my dream, and I'm speaking with passion about it. That could make all the difference.

So, is it Seattle or is it me?

CouchSurfing Base Camp and the Frogger Theory of Life

Frogger

I have a theory of life. It's hokey, and it goes like this: a life well lived is like a game of Frogger™; don't try to swim for it. Find a log and go for a ride. Then hop on another. Repeat as necessary.



The idea is that opportunities pass you constantly. Find one going in a direction that appeals to you and let it take you someplace new. It doesn't sound like much work, and that's about right. Even if you make nothing but small hops, over time you can go pretty far. Like I said, it's hokey. But it's relevant to recent events ...

CouchSurfing Base Camp

I've posted here before about CouchSurfing. It's a social networking site for world travelers who want to connect with locals who are willing to share their homes and their local knowledge. Simply brilliant. What I didn't know until recently is that San Francisco is home to the global CouchSurfing headquarters, called Base Camp. On Friday, I practically stumbled into it.

In Base Camp, I found the most amazing thing: people like me. Geeks, primarily. Busy using technology to build a community of sharing, giving, open-minded wanderers with a global perspective. Being a geek, I naturally wanted to know how things worked. And then I wanted to ask questions and share my thoughts and my visions, and before I knew it I was participating in technical discussions about new directions for the global CouchSurfing community.

Here comes a new log to hop on.

A few things are clear to me at this point.

• I want to be more involved in CouchSurfing.
• I can use my programming skills to help build something that I believe in.
• I need to learn more about web and mobile development.

I have plenty on my plate already, but I think I have room for just ... a little ... more.

BlackBerry / iPhone Throw Down

To a remote worker, few things are more important than a mobile phone. So I'd like to devote this post to my ongoing love-affair with my BlackBerry and why it's a better choice than an iPhone for the world-traveling remote worker.

I've already devoted a whole post to why I won't buy an iPhone. My reason at the time was the extortionate international data rates AT&T charges iPhone users. But with experience comes wisdom. Or something.

Unlocked Phones

Way back when I first decided to buy the BlackBerry Bold, I thought I'd also need to buy a second unlocked handset so I could use it with SIM chips bought overseas. Since then, I read this great travel article on CNN.com about taking your cell phone overseas, which has this to say:

... if you are an AT&T or T-Mobile USA customer, you can also unlock the phone you have. Simply call your provider's customer support number.

Terrific! I got right on the phone with AT&T and unlocked my BlackBerry, just like that! The article later goes on to say:

(This applies to most GSM phones except the iPhone, which AT&T will not provide an unlock code for.)

Sorry, iPhone users. Want an unlocked phone? Too bad.

Internet Tethering

Hey, check it! iPhone OS 3 is out and it supports tethering! W00t! I devoted a whole post about getting this to work with my BlackBerry and how cool it is to be able to wirelessly share my BlackBerry's Internet connection with my laptop. And now iPhone users can do that, too! But wait, let's look more closely at Apple's announcement:

Internet Tethering

Share your Internet connection with your laptop with Internet tethering via Bluetooth or USB.[*]
_{[*] Tethering is not currently offered in the U.S. and some other countries. See your carrier for availability.}

Oh. So you're American? Sorry, you can't tether your iPhone. There's no reason, really; we just don't want you to.

Can someone please explain to me why so many people in this country wait in a line to be $%^#'ed in the shorts by Apple and AT&T?

I'm not the only one who feels this way. Here's another digital nomad's take on the BlackBerry/iPhone issue: Five Reasons Why the BlackBerry Bold Rocks the iPhone's World

"You can take a road that takes you to the stars now ..."

Sitting at the quiet and peaceful Bernie's Cafe in Noe Valley, I had a yen to listen to the sad, sweet music of Nick Drake. Dialing it up on my iPod, I got a few bars into "Pink Moon" before the battery died.

Fortunately for me, I had recently uploaded all 25Gb of my music files to cloud storage, brought to you by Jungledisk. Since Bernie's has free wifi, I just opened my network share, plugged my headphones into my laptop and got my Nick Drake fix.

After giving up on Allmydata.com, I've been busy trying out different online storage and backup solutions. Jungledisk is nice because it does differential backups and it also maps a network drive and lets me drag-and-drop files to it through Windows Explorer. That means that all my files are available to me anywhere I can get an Internet connection.

Jungledisk meets my needs, but there are other better services out there. I just set my Dad up with SafeCopy, which has a nicer interface and also lets you sync external storage. That's a nice feature that Jungledisk lacks.

If online storage and backup interests you, I found this site pretty helpful: Online Storage Service Review. (Note: it looks best in IE.) It recommends SugarSync. Although SugarSync doesn't yet support syncing external storage (darn!) it does everything Jungledisk does and more: it has apps for mobile devices like iPhones and BlackBerrys, and it even streams mp3s! Nick Drake, and all my other music, would be available for streaming on-demand, anywhere, from my phone. Who needs an iPod?

Road by Nick Drake

You can say the sun is shining if you really want to
I can see the moon and it seems so clear
You can take the road that takes you to the stars now
I can take a road that'll see me through
I can take a road that'll see me through.

You can take a road that takes you to the stars now
I can take a road that'll see me through
I can take a road that'll see me through
I can take a road that'll see me through.