Our Unconventional Life

We recently took a road trip from our home in New Hampshire to visit my daughter in New Mexico. I had vacation time to use up (who didn't in 2021), and we hadn't seen my daughter and her husband in a while. Our idea for a visit started to have lots of appeal.  We contemplated flying there, but the prospect of air travel under pandemic protocols, unexpected cancellations, unreliable schedules, and the uptick in air rage on top of everything else that was already stressful and uncomfortable about flying was not appealing. It didn't take much convincing that driving there was the best plan. Our Google Timeline Shows Where We Stopped Along The Way Angelika is the master trip planner, so she planned out the route. We decided to not make specific plans, but just drive as far as we wanted per day and then find a place to stay when we got tired. Having the smartphone and internet access on the road makes this really easy. To help break up the trip, Angelika mapped out "points

With Apologies to Dewey Bunnell and America The other day my co-worker Dave asked me what was new? "Well", I said, "Angelika and I bought an ambulance". "Huh...", he replied, "didn't see THAT coming". Actually, Angelika and I have been scheming about the best way to get ourselves into some kind of mobile camper outfit for many months now. This is a means to an end. We each have a long term bucket list goal in mind: I intend to through hike the Appalachian Trail, and Angelika is going to ride her bike across the country. When I hike the AT, Angelika is going to shadow me in the camper and then I'll do the same for her when she does her cross country bike ride. This is just the first step in what we intend to be an adventurous life in retirement, which will be good fodder for more blog articles in the future. We started out down a more conventional path last Mother's Day by going to the local RV dealer to see what they had to offer. We

One of the worst feelings in the world is going to the mailbox and discovering a notice from the IRS in there. Our taxes are pretty simple, but nonetheless, we still have to fill out many forms and one can easily make a mistake that can end up costing you big time. We both have college degrees, one in engineering and one in business, and so we should be able to do our own tax returns. It really shouldn't be that hard. We received two of the dreaded IRS notices this past spring. Luckily these were not demands for additional money or threats of audits, but advance warning that the IRS was going to be sending US checks. Apparently we were eligible for advanced child tax credits because our son is still under 18 and we applied for it last year. This all sounds great, until you realize that when we apply the child tax credit on our income tax return, it really just lowers the amount of taxes we owe at the end of the year. What is really happening is that the government is sending us mon

Welcome to Our Unconventional Life. This is a blog invented to record the notable activities in the day to day existence of John & Angelika Weber that we think make us unconventional. Let's start by understanding the word: un·con·ven·tion·al /ˌənkənˈven(t)SH(ə)n(ə)l/ Learn to pronounce adjective not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed. "his unconventional approach to life" So, the interesting thing about being unconventional is that it is not really totally under your control. You can only be considered unconventional based on your behavior as it relates to what everyone else is doing. Living unconventionally is a process of constant evolution and invention. We're constantly on the lookout for opportunities to go in new and unexplored directions, away from the din, far from the madding crowd. Another curious aspect of being unconventional is that it changes over time. Doing something unconventional today doesn't guarantee it will still