I was wondering why the "Wages, tips, other compensation" (box 1) amount on my W2 form did not match the "total earnings" amount on my final pay stub of the year. But I figured out how the Box 1 amount is calculated.
Box 1 amount = (Total Earnings + EGTL Amount) - (Pretax Salary Deductions)

The EGTL Amount is related to employee group term life insurance. This amount is shown on the pay stub in the earnings section, but is not added into the "Total Earnings" amount. It is not an amount paid to the employee, but it is considered a taxable fringe benefit.

The pretax salary deductions include amounts deducted from the paycheck for medical, dental, and vision, 401K plans, and health savings account (HSA). It does not include deductions for Pension, Long Term Disability plans, nor Medical-Retiree benefits.

.. [edited to add the following on 2011/12/22] ..

Box 3 and Box 5 = Social Security Wages / Medicare wages and tips
= (Total Earnings + EGTL Amount) - (Deductions for medical, dental, vision, and HSA)

For Box 3 & 5, 401k contributions are NOT subtracted.

Box 4 = Social security tax withheld = Box 3 * 6.02%

Box 6 = Medicare tax withheld = Box 5 * 1.45%

Amounts paid for Travel Expenses are NOT included in any of the amounts on the W2 form.

[edited to add additional details on 2016/01/06]

I've started filling out my tax forms. There's one part that always gets me... First of all, the instructions for line 10 say that you must either use the worksheet for calculating the value, *or* when certain conditions apply you must read some other publication to figure out the amount. So I spend some time deciphering the confusing conditions to determine that I need to do the worksheet. But then the worksheet makes me refer to Schedule A, so I start filling out Schedule A. Then Schedule A says to put down the value from line 38, and I think "wtf?? I'm still on line 10, I haven't gotten to line 38 yet!" Then I eventually realize that the worksheet was referring to the Schedule A values from last year's form.

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I've got some videos to post. When life hands you a dog, make cute dog videos. Right?

It's hard to do yard work when Zorro is in the yard. She goes crazy when I start raking or sweeping. The first time I raked on the outside of the fence while she was in the yard, she starting screeching and barking from the other side of the fence, in a frenzy to get at the rake. She sounded like someone was beating her. Just now I was trying to sweep the walkway, and she did it again. She was wagging her tail though, so she must think it is some kind of game, or that the broom/rake is some kind of animal.

Last week one evening when Q and I got back from eating out, instead of one dog in the yard, there were two! My neighbor's little chihuahua-bulldog-mix puppy had gotten through a gap under the fence between our yards. That puppy must be about the same age as Zorro, and they've been playing a while, running back and forth on other sides of the dividing fence. But that evening, we couldn't tell if they were playing or fighting. It seemed quite rough, and Zorro seemed worn out. We were able to separate them until the neighbor came to retrieve their dog, and I put some bricks down to block the gap in the fence. I had been worried that the other dog might be male... Zorro's at an age now, about 5 months, where it might be possible for her to go into heat and get pregnant, but the vet wanted to wait until she was 6 months to spay her. I was relieved when the neighbor said the other dog was female too.

I was trying to finish up my taxes, but had to print another form.
My printer indicated it was out of black ink, and refused to print.
Suspecting that the black ink wasn't truly empty, I took it out, shook it, and put it back in.
The ink-out light went off and the printer printed, but without any black ink.
I ran the head-cleaning utility and tried again, but still no black ink.
Caving in, I went to Staples and bought a new ink cartridge.
I also disposed of my old keyboard and zip-drive to be recycled while I was there, hurrah!
Back home, I opened the new ink cartridge package and prepared to do the switch.
I did some more head-cleanings and test prints, trying to spur the ink-out light to come on again, since replacing the cartridge is tricky otherwise.
The black ink started working again, without me having replaced the cartridge.
Argh.
Fine.
At least I didn't pull the sticker off the top of the new cartridge yet.

An electric shock to my brain.
It seems like it would require something strong like that to break through to me, so that I could feel, really feel again.

Once in a very long while, an experience affects me like an electric shock - but it doesn't last.

I am so disillusioned with everything.

I spend all my time doing things that don't really bring me any great satisfaction or happiness, just things that seem like they need to be done, or things that I feel like doing.

The skin on my hands is dry. My hands seem to look so much older than they did a few years ago.

I am not procrastinating doing my taxes; truly, I'm not. I just keep thinking of other things to do first. Surely I can still get them done tonight and still do my daily exercises too, and get to bed on time. Right?

I've started back up doing my daily exercises regularly. It's been about 2 or 3 weeks now. But my legs are still not flexible like they used to be, and I seem to have strained something in my right leg.

Screwing in light bulbs isn't all that easy. No really, I'm not procrastinating. I wanted to write that since yesterday.

The Chinese preserved plums actually taste pretty good. The Watermelon Frost Tea, I haven't tried yet... apparently watermelon frost is some white stuff (fungi?) that grows on watermelon rinds when the watermelon has been filled with Gluer/Glaubers? salt and buried in ceramic pots. The Chinese seem to have a culinary penchant for burying food and digging it up again... It must have been like a form of alchemy.

I am backing up the data on my hard-drive. I keep temporary files sometimes, and I was going through them, seeing which ones could be deleted. Old posts, emails, chats. Some of the more meaningful/affecting ones, I keep around a long time, even though surely I've archived them in my regular backup folders too. But reading one of them brought this post on.

I wanted to let the files copy to the flash drive, while doing my taxes. I had already started doing that this morning, but ran out of space on the flash drive, daggonit, because the files took more physical space on the flash than they did on the hard-drive.