Christmas coming

Ah, the material madness descends.  But at least this Christmas I'll get to see some family.  One cousin died, whom I had not seen in many years.  That felt pretty bad.  I'll have to make more efforts in future to keep in touch.  So much going on, though. 

I'm getting more and more ideas for my next book, provisionally called "Plenum".  It's about Time, it's about Space, it's about Love and the Human Race!  That sounds familiar, somehow.  It's fun to create the future.  Sometimes I wake up sweating thinking that if I do a good job, it will all come true. 

And I'll be responsible!

I do wonder what the eventual effect of Duck Dynasty will be on the shape of the future.  The descendants of those guys will need at least a whole planet to themselves, full of swamps and ducks and shotguns.  They can book holidays in.

Retirement

Been reading about all these people who want to leave their cubiclejobs to start free-lance writing as a career.  They seem to be concerned about how to leave their jobs and survive.

I don't have that problem.  I am retiring in April of 2015.  I will have a pension - if the financial system survives Obamacare and QE and all the other governmental idiocies abounding.  

I want to stop working in a cubicle, but I have no desire to stop doing things and be a pasha surrounded by flunkies.  

My idol is Lord Acton, who spent most of a long life in his superb library.  He tried being a Member of Parliament, but found it bothersome and humiliating.  He even became a Lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria.  That job was undemanding and had many social benefits, which he did not need.  He preferred to stay in his library.  I can understand that.

I cannot wait to get free of my cubicle.  I will not suffer from that uneasiness most of the would-be writers I've been reading about have.  Retirement, even with a pension and a working wife, though, may pose other challenges.

I'm sure many men look forward to retirement as a time to do exactly nothing.  But how many do that?  And is that what most men want to do?  Sit around and do nothing? Even pashas have flunkies so they can be free to indulge their fondest occupations.

Since finishing the first draft of my historical book, 1870, I have realized that I would like to research and write when I retire, full time.  It struck me that my road to full-time writing was a bit different from that laid out in the usual blogs and books you see on Amazon and the Web.  

"I'm too old.  I could have been a writer when I was 30, but not now at 65."

That thought does run through one's mind.  I've put in a career which I heartily disliked.  Why not putter about the garden and pat the dog until Death comes calling?  These days, though, a man of 65 can live twenty, even thirty more years without being one in a million.  Plenty of time to build a business.  Colonel Sanders is the idol for us old guys who want to start a business.  He didn't even start Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was 65.

I'm lucky to have this opportunity.  Maybe I'll write an article about the challenges facing retirees who want to find their muse and go into writing full time when most of their friends are playing games on Facebook and watching for the Scythe-bearer out of the corner of their eye.

Cold again

Forgot what it was like to be cold.  Taking Jack the dog out, I could actually see my breath.  For the first time this fall.  Reading about the Rougon-Macquart makes me a bit contemptuous of Zola.  I  do much prefer Balzac and Stendhal.  They are so much more connected to reality.  Zola comes off as an hysteric.

Oh, sure, his tale of the people of the family rolls right along.  But what does it teach?  What insights into human character?  That man can be foolish?  Who did not know that.  I wish to know how and when and why man can be astute and courageous.  That teaching takes an eye for reality, the hard facts, as in Cousine Bette.  Might as well read Samuel Butler.

W H Mallock

Reading Mallock's Socialism criticism, I am marvelously impressed.  All the modern arguments answered.  Nay, not just answered, demolished!

Also absorbing the Rougon-Macquart saga par Zola.  Bit hyperbolic, compared to Balzac and Cousine Bette.  What real drama, personally characterized with spirit and insight and humour as well!

Interplanetary frivolity

So busy at work.  Did my 3000 yesterday, though, on the interplanetary colonization
 idea.  And I do have the tax deed article going.  And the germ of a Paris apartment idea.  Maybe if I sell enough e-books, we can buy an apartment over there!

I want to explore space through theology.

Clock nonsense

Woke up at 3:45 when I meant to wake up at 4:45.  Tricked myself again.  And then I get mad at whoever dreamed up this "Daylight Savings" nonsense, which is inconsistent and inexplicable.  I realize it's like getting mad at the sky or elections or other inexplicable annoyances.  At least the sky is beautiful while there's nothing uglier than an election, even one you win.  You just KNOW there's no logic, no legitimacy, just crazy peer pressure there.  Protest and the liberal screechers kick in.

Dark early

Ah, the good old time change.  Actually, time doesn't change.  How can it?  The government, for no clear reason, just tells everyone to change their clocks.  And they all do it, because everyone else is.  What nonsense!

Preface

Doing an Introduction or a Preface or a Foreword - subtle distinctions - is much harder than a continuing historical or fictional narrative.  It has to set up the story and "pre-qualify" the reader.  I don't want anyone even trying to read my book who isn't a good fit for it - that is, who isn't historically literate and highly skeptical, especially of sacred cows such as the Enlightenment.  And I want to give an  accurate idea of what's contained and what great ideas may be contained.  Tantalize and excite but don't give everything away - that's the idea!

Pictures - maybe some maps and graphs - would seem to be vital.  My gosh, but a book is a lot of work.  Lots less with the Internet, though.

Football's coming on TV today, but I'll still get some stuff done. 

Jury duty

Boy, the contact with the unwashed masses makes me deadly tired.  Why is it so large a proportion of the population is fat?  And I do mean fat?  Not just the 198 I am living with now, but, not, I hope, for long, but an extra century rolling about.  How do they get around corners without falling over?

Anyway, I didn't get picked for jury duty.  I guess that means I'm good for a while.  Maybe Airplane Repo helped.  And I got a part of a day off.  That's extra good.  Back at work now trying to have fun.  Getting my calls up to date, reading a bit.  I have really been keeping up lately.  Becoming effortless.  Can't wait for my last year - I think it might be good.  And then that big tank of water comes off my head and I get a nice long drink.

Talking to a legislator today was fun.  Would I like to be a consultant?  Sure, to a publishing firm for megabucks.

Money

I feel like a man dying of thirst, who is forced to carry a huge tank of water on his head and who is forbidden to drink any of the water. 

Enjoying David Warren, (Essays in Idleness) as always, and Bruce Charlton, a "usually enjoy".

Lots of intelligent people out there on the web.  Maybe it's my choice of reading, but it does seem that the men who strike me as intelligent are invariably religious.  They have interesting, quirky things to say about religion.  It is too bad that religious discourse is dying out in everyday life, but it certainly seems to be alive on certain parts of the Web.

Just happened to think what an apt analogy the "Web" is.  We are all either spiders, laying in wait for prey, putting out feeler threads and hoping someone will come along and pull them, or prey caught and sparkling with spider filaments, hanging geometrically, wrapped up and waiting to be eaten.

Cooler and cooler

A front came through today to usher us into November, almost.  41 tomorrow at S-ville!  David got a deer!  It truly is  fall.  I love it.  One more summer going into a cubicle every day.

Nothing on tv tonight but Duck Dynasty.  Bit of a oe-trick pony.

Rain brings cool

70 degrees this morning going to work at 6:30 and at 5PM coming home.  Sticking with the low carb diet this week, anyway.

Trying some abuela añejo.  From Panama.

Do I dare to smoke a pipe?  Will I ever become ripe?

I do love old movies, like The Lady Vanishes.

Gout day

I  do not like being out sick on Mondays.  Monday always passes by as in a dream.  So it's easily endured.  Thursday is the day I would prefer to take off, if I had a choice.  Already having Friday taken care of, am I getting greedy?  Perhaps.  But these ten-hour days are not that much longer, to me, than the eight-hour days I used to start at 6:30 anyway, so I could get a good parking place.  That will be the best thing about being retired.  I can avoid the crowds.

Football and writing

Found a much better way of watching football.  It's so annoying to root for one team and find them falling behind for stupid reasons.  So I'm now on the side of the offense, only.  I root for the side with the ball.  After all, I only like to see offensive plays, good runs, long passes, loong field goals.  No more agida at the score.

Slaw Dogs

I know.  That sounds like a violent Western movie by Somebody PickenPacker.

Drining brandy and watching the Clemson FSU game  Flambé!

Relaxing with Youtube

Watching Edith Piaf videos on Youtube.  Frustrated because Netflix is not working.  We will make it work, sooner or later.  Splendid chef's salad for lunch.

Got a tire for the wife's golf cart.  Now to put it on!

Could be the last warm day.  Or at least the last hot one.

Allocating resources

No TV last night either. Saw "A Fistful of Dollars" last night. Can't beat Eastwood. Didn't know, though, that he had 8 children by 6 different women all the while he was having a long-time affair with Sandra Locke.  Only married twice.

So he's not the hero I thought.  Not mine, anyway.  No more than Van Gogh or Picasso.

My resources are my attention and my energy.  Same thing, really.  Haven't got unlimited supplies of either.  That's why it's so ennuyant to be forced to pay attention to things that don't matter, couldn't possibly matter.

Now chess is something I need to pay more attention to.  And those little logic puzzles.

Back to work

Overslept almost exactly one hour today.  Meant I discovered a new way to cook sausage - in the oven with the bacon.  What?  You don't cook bacon in the oven?  Oh, yes, much the easiest way, if you get the timing and the temperature right.

Contacts

Chatting at lunch with some serious powers in property tax.  How could it be different if I was scmoozing with writers and historians instead?  Of course, I would probably have some serious disagreements with whatever historian might show up.  Even Nassim Taleb, who sees himself as economist, trader, philosopher, statistician, historian, linguist and whatever else you've got going.

Horseshoes

Haven't played horseshoes for, probably, thirty years.  Chris and David were into it, so I tried it, too, out in the back forty.

It's tricky.  You have to able to replicate the same movement easily.  The stakes are forty feet apart.  That's farther than I thought.  I can barely see that far!  But I did hit the stake couple of times.  Dilemma:  spin or flip?  Learned a lot.