View 513 April 7 - 13, 2008 (original) (raw)

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Sunday, April 13, 2008

0450: Sleepless in Studio City

At least I got to sleep about midnight, so it's not so bad. I may or may not be able to grab another hour or so; probably not. Had my daily steroid at dinner time. Indigestion not bad.

Better progress on taxes than I thought. I have finished corrections of data entry errors, and posted all the journals to ledgers. It all went smoothly, Deo gratia. Now to start entering numbers into Turbo-Tax. Long time readers may recall that Turbo-Tax originated at MacInTax, which combined spread sheets with tax forms, and ran only on a Mac. I said then -- and very much meant it -- that it was worth keeping a Mac just to use MacInTax. Eventually TurboTax bought MacInTax and ported it to Windows, and Quicken bought them both. I presume but don't know that there is a Mac version, and I probably ought to be using it, but all my past taxes are in Windows, and this is sure no time for experiments....

I have the first part of Joel Rosenberg's commentary onmy notes on the future of Israel. I have asked him to expand on a couple of points; I see his reply arrived as I was writing this. I'll post that plus my commentary sometime early next week. I feel much more confidant about getting the taxes done and catching up with everything now. Four hours' sleep does wonders... In any event the matter is important because the US has no real strategy for the Middle East, and whether we intend competent Empire or a return to something like a Republic, we need to develop one; the US relationship with Israel, and Israel's importance in domestic politics -- imperial or republican -- makes that certain.

I continue to work on my essay on education, the bell curve, and the need for integration of the left side of the bell curve into civic life. I would like to integrate into that Bill Cosby's points about black male responsibility, but that's difficult to do, and if one is not careful one sounds arrogant in discussing the subject. We'll see.

So the taxes have delayed things but we continue here. Thanks to those who have subscribed and renewed for making all this possible.

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0730: Sable came up to get me; I am not sure why. It's a bit early. But here I am.

Turbo tax

Good morning Dr. Pournelle, I've been using turbo tax on my mac the last few years, the disks have been hybrids, with mac and windows both. And April 13th would be a bit late to try a new version. Good health to you and yours, Tim Harness.

I suspected as much. Thanks. As you say, it's a bit late to try anything new this year.

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The Mask On The Wall

Working title of a book on getting through radiation therapy.

Several of you have mentioned this when you sent in subscriptions or renewals. As it happens, Bob Gleason, my long time editor (from as far back as Mote in God's Eye!) is enthusiastic about this, and we will discuss it in about 6 weeks when he comes out here for two weeks or so. It looks as if it will be a book, if I can come up with some organization and structure. It will include many of your letters, but none identifying you unless you ask to be identified.

That does not mean I intend to neglect fiction.The Platinum Patron Club grows and that allows me to allocate my resources as I think best. It isn't as if I am slacking off!

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For those interested, it is pollen season. The Health Solutions nose pump remains the best remedy I know of. Click here, then on their banner, and you can order one. They pay me something to have this link, but in fact I was recommending it well before they set that up, and the income amounts to a decent dinner each quarter. I continue to recommend the pump.

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1700: Recording symptoms: as I wean off the steroids, I get clicks and crunches in my neck and hip joints, proof that the steroids were taking care of all that. Now they are going away, and it's time to phase in NSAIDS only I don't quite know the dosages and mixtures that are safe. This may be an interesting experiment.

Taxes flow on, nothing seems difficult, but I am not the sharpest pencil in the box. Stuff that was simple and easy last year seems complicated and difficult to comprehend this year. I'll stumble through. I suspect I will end up overpaying, but that's better than not getting it done. So far, TurboTax seems to be on top of the situation. Now to enter a whole bunch of deductions and stuff. Also all the interest income. They fine you for saving money. I guess they don't want you to save. Indeed, that's clear. They want you to spend yourself broke.

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2125: After dinner. I get my one steroid a day at dinner time. The relief from join pain is almost instant. I am going to miss those steroids.

At 1710 Bud Webster called. We have been doing a series of dialogues for the SFWA Bulletin. I am not quite sure how I got involved in this, since it's a fairly low paying market. On the other hand, it comes under the heading of "paying forward." Old SFWA hands like Gordon Dixon befriended me in the early days, and articles by Damon Knight in the SFWA publications taught me a lot about contracts and making a living in this racket, so I can't complain if I am asked to make my contributions.

In any event, I managed about 800 words and sent that along to him, and about dinner time he called to say it was my turn again. I worked on it a bit ago and sent him 4,00o words, so we will have met the deadline by dawn. It also shows I can still churn out words by the yard; whether they are any good is another story. Fortunately they have to make sense to Webster before they go to the editor, and so there will be two brains filtering my babbles. Me, I hope they make sense, but I am past thinking my judgment is unimpaired. On the gripping hand, I am feeling better, the old symptoms that certainly came from the tumor are abating, and I can hope that most of the symptoms I have now are generated from radiation and from having dead stuff inside my skull. With luck my four or five white corpuscles will work overtime and clear out a lot of that junk...

And in the morning I am sure my ledgers, and the tax forms, will make sense. Now it's time to roll over View and Mail for tomorrow.

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