Still miss you buddy

Don't screw around with taxes. When the issue with my daughter became critical in late March of 2011, I had taxes in the pipe and almost ready to hand in. The issues of her care quickly ballooned into a horrific crisis, so we filed and extension. Same in 2012 when she was transferred to another hospital. Same in 2013 when DSS took over and brought her back in state. Note that we filed extensions each year. I thought I was covered. WRONG!

Income Tax extensions are only good for 6 months from the date of filing.

The end of 2013, I got the business and personal taxes done in one feld swoop.... 3 years of accounting in a little less than 5 weeks. Everything was filed by the middle of January of this year, and we got the return receipts about a week after mailing. In the course of the last 7 days, I got a letter from the IRS for each of the filing years, stating: "We charged a penalty on Your S Corporation Tax Return", and citing Internal Revenue Code Section 6699 (a) (1). The penalty is $195 per share holder per month for up to 12 months. Note that this is regardless of the profitability of the business, whether you filed monthly or quarterly estimated income returns or whether at the end of the year the stockholder or the company was showing any taxable income. A stunning penalty of $4680 per year for 3 years for a grand total of..... $14,040. Graciously, the IRS allows you 4 weeks to get the money to them!

The accountant tells me that you can send the IRS a letter requesting an abatement of the penalties. He says their firm has had a good record of success, especially when the stockholders are on the same joint return and there was no taxable income for any of the years. Supposedly, the IRS isn't trying to bankrupt good, law abiding citizens. The penalty is generally used to "encourage" small corporations to file on time, and is part of the "Pile On" that happens when you late file and owed income tax but didn't pay in estimated income through the year. So I guess it could be worse?

Safe to say that most people don't have that kind of money hanging around. We don't especially given the circumstances of my medical condition and the issues associated with our daughter. I was already prepared to sell off some "stuff" to cover the support and accounting bills of around $13k. I don't know how to get though this one though if the abatement process doesn't work for us. I should have known better, at least known to look into the extension part of it. I inherited some money in the mid 80's and in my depression and loss decided to not put it on the 1040. Two years later they told me to pay not only the tax but interest and penalty that ended up being 2/3 of what I inherited.

Lesson learned? Don't mess around when it comes to filing income taxes.

Swank Diet Update / Fish Heads, fish heads, rolley polley fish heads....:

Back in October, the blog went though a "reboot", and my posting about the Swank Diet for MS patients. I'm at the 6 month mark, so it is appropriate that there are some pretty significant results to report:

In my January well visit, the following was noted:

• The nurse said "Wow" at my weight loss. My honest weight when I started the diet in earnest on October 22nd was about 225 pounds. At the physical I tipped in at 203 and I'm currently at around 195.
• My blood pressure was mid-range normal where before it was either marginal or low range of high.
• The blood work values were "fabulous" to use the words of my PCP. My cholesterol was high before but normal now. By the time we were done with the consultation part, he was more a fan of the diet that I am!
• The weight loss, lower cholesterol and blood pressure was all effortless and result of getting rid of most of the saturated fats in my diet.
• My stamina has improved. Although I'm still having the problem coming "on line" in the morning and having problems with fatigue and slurred speech (sometimes) in the afternoon, the problems are not as severe or long lasting. Last summer I was losing all ability to work in the afternoon 3 or 4 days each week and had 1 day a week that I was debilitated and unable to work at all. In the last month, I've had 3 days I couldn't work but we think there was a problem with the Avonex injection. My afternoon chronic fatigue is down to a couple of days a week and I'm most always able to either recover after a rest or get more work done in the evening
• With my fatigue lessening, I don't know what to do about the recommended "rest" periods that Swank and others recommend. Right now there are a majority of days I feel like I can push through the fatigue and force myself to a reasonable level of productivity. Unfortunately, I'm afraid to do this right now. The fatigue is cumulative (only so many spoons) and I'm afraid I'll end up losing full days of productivity. So at this point I'll either take my hour nap or do light writing work on a light notebook. I don't know if I've been milking the nap thing all along. It's too easy for me to fall down the reading or internet hole during the nap and not getting true rest when I need it. I'll keep struggling to find a balance.
• I still suffer from "fuzzy brain", "balogna back", the feeling of being in a compression chamber, ringing ears and vertigo but I can correlate it to major changes in the weather. As I write this the temperature is in the process of dropping 45 degrees through the afternoon and I can feel the symptoms coming on. The diet doesn't seem to be helping this directly but for the severity of the symptoms and their frequency decreasing. Same symptoms but only a couple of days each week and not 3-4.
• There may be a correlation between pain and white sugar intake. After a couple of weeks on the diet, you become aware that there aren't any constraints put on the amount of sweets you can eat as long as they are fat free. Technically, the diet can even be interpreted as setting patients up to become diabetics. I've been trying to watch my sugar intake but with varied success because I've always bolused sugar for depression / comfort / energy. In December I had i under control but slowly lost control. About a week ago when I was in the middle of a two day debilitation, I remembered that I'd consumed exactly double the amount of sugar I allowed myself. So I'm currently trying to replace the majority of white sugar in my diet with other things like Splenda and Steevia. This will be a battle, but will give you more to read when I have the results.

In general, I'd recommend using the Swank Diet if you have MS. I have a appointment with my neurologist next week and I'm sure he'll give it no credit other than for the benefits of healthier eating. My wife says she thinks its helping. I do too. I'm not fond of eating fish heads all the time but it seems to work. After 6 months, I no longer crave beef, although my wife made a pork loin a couple of weeks ago and I almost broke the diet to have some. I'm looking forward to being able to have beef and pork in small amounts when the year is up but I mostly don't crave or think about it day to day.

I hope this is helpful for someone out there wondering about results or researching the Swank Diet for the first time. It's worth a try. In my case it's helping but hasn't healed me (yet) but I'm happy with the results.

Funny, stress has never been higher, but I'm still able to function. Or at least I can still fool myself that I'm able to function. We had the "final" meeting on the legal matter and found out:

• You can do nothing in court without an attorney
• All the attorneys in this little 'berg sleep in the same bed at the same time in a mutual admiration society
• Thank God for my wife who insisted on being there or we would have been in deep kimshi
• When you pay an attorney and he ignores what you ask him to do, doesn't grasp or regurgitate the key facts back to you when you ask, tells you a court date is a day later than what's on the subpoena and tells you in general that "it doesn't matter".
• Believe him because the opposing attorney will tell the judge attorney that your attorney has done an "exemplary job for his clients in this matter".

There was a time, in my youth when I was convinced of personal duty in regards to people operating in a free society that took advantage of their position, knowledge and luck to rape others that held the ideals stated both in the founding documents of this country but in all the surrounding literature of the founders written in that day.The nation has become so ridiculously absurd that there are no shared values, no sense of justice, no right or wrong.... only the "me". Against that backdrop the duty is survival.

Why I'm restarting the blog and scant details about the Swank Diet and Jelinek's book

The original intent of this blog was to log both the symptoms of MS and my reaction or debilitation by them. As you can see from the postings I haven't made in years, that intent has been pretty much neglected. Recent developments have changed things for me though.

So to make sure that I don't spend an inordinate amount of time making blog posts and revising and rewriting, I'm not going to proof my writing, nor am I going to revise it. In essense, I'm going to use it as a  journal and make believe that it's only written for me.

I'll also limit the entries to 15 minutes to compose or less.

That being said, I'll end this post by intimating that I miss my bulldog. He's been gone for months now, since the beginning of June. I still look for him to make sure I don't roll over his feet with my desk chair. I still hear his snoring here and there from time to time. And when I'm eating I can imagine where he'd sit next to the table, looking up to me in expectation of getting a hand-out.

On to other news, and the reason I've started this up again: I've discovered the Swank Diet. Although as MS patients we're told not to get overly emotional about stuff, the experience of going for 5 years with MS diagnosed and struggling with the disease and the effect its had on both my family and work life are astounding. Thanks to the Amazon Kindle and the electronic reading materials available, I actually did a search of the books available recently and stumbled on "Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis, An Evidence-Based Guide to RECOVERY" by George Jelinek. Note the emphasis on "Evidence based guide to Recovery." What this guy does is put all the research ever done on MS in one place for you to read, see the references and to research. He comes to his own conclusions, and allows you to come to yours as well.

On of the things that can't be disputed is the evidence that the Swank Diet works with MS patients. I'll go into more detail later, but what I'm miffed about is that the "expert" (and he's one of the top MS neurologists in the nation) didn't tell me about Swank's research results or the Jelinek book. Sigh. Turns out that there's good evidence that you can improve your MS symptoms just by going on a low fat diet and eliminating saturated fats.

The last time I had beef was on September 18th. Yesterday and today, I've felt better and more motivated to get down to business than I have before this.... ever. It could be that I moved the office to a brighter room and eliminated all the clutter of the old office. But I think not. Before the last "beef outing", I was on the diet for a couple of weeks as a trial and felt the same motivation and energy. Another thing that I found out is that MS patients MUST rest for an hour in mid-day so it's not like I can be completely healed. And I still have the reservations about working after dinner but I hope to correct that as I get rolling.

So I'm at the 15 minute limit. Hopefully, I'll feel the need to post more details as time goes on and it won't be 4 months before the next post.

Time to fire up the blog again and bring it up to date. On the first vacation I've had in 4 years, and having the time of my life! And this is a good a time as any to restart my blogging

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

God's Gift of Unalienable Rights & Article VI of the Constitution:
The Sword & Shield to Stop the Islamization of America
By Publius Huldah Monday, September 20, 2010

This is an encouraging paper, because it explains the moral and constitutional justifications to stop the islamization of our country.

We face a grave threat - the Muslims are infiltrating our country and taking over. We seem powerless to resist: Our governments won’t acknowledge the threat; we are told Muslims have “constitutional rights” to come here, proselytize everywhere, build mosques, and implement shariah in their communities and in the public square; and our governments are letting them do it.

The Muslims seek to replace our Constitution with shariah - theirtotalitarian political, economic, military, social & legal system - with the goal of incorporating our Country into a global Islamic caliphate.
They are making progress in islamicizing our Country because we are not resisting.

And the dreadful message we are getting from all sources is that our Constitution renders us powerless to resist islamization.
But read on, and I will show you how our Constitution & Declaration of Independence - properly understood - actually give our federal, State & local governments justification and authority to stop the islamization of our Country. Once we understand two things, it becomes clear what we may - and must - do:

One : Islam is not a “religion” in the sense we understand religion. Islam is about TOTAL POWER. It is a system which controls every aspect of the lives of those who have the misfortune to be subjected to it. It masquerades as a religion, but once we understand that it is just another totalitarian system - like soviet communism, we can deal with it and defeat it.
Once in place, Islam is enforced with stone-age barbarism. It masquerades as a religion to recruit gullible fools who become suicide bombers, and to provide “cover” for officials in the Western countries who, indoctrinated with the Lies of multiculturalism & political correctness, look for an excuse to do nothing.

Two : We must understand Our Founding Principles - these are our Sword & Shield - that (1) Rights come from God alone, (2) Muslims do not have the right to divest us of our Rights, and (3) the purpose of civil government is to secure the Rights God gave us.

Now let us learn more of our Sword and Shield
.
1. Let us first consider Our Rights. What are our rights, and where do they come from? The Constitution? The First Ten Amendments? NO! The Declaration of Independence says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, ...
Those words are golden: Our Rights come from God Who Created the Universe; and the purpose of civil government is to secure the Rights GOD gave us.

God gave us many Rights: Life! Liberty! Pursuit of Happiness!

To work and enjoy the fruits of our own labors. To earn, inherit and keep private property.

To demand that the civil authorities obey the Law - and to hold them accountable when they don’t.

To have a civil government which protects our God given rights, protects us from invasion and criminals, but gives fair trials to accused persons.

Equal treatment under the law: Courts are not to favor the rich, or the poor, or males or females.

God means for us to enjoy life! Healthy food, wine and strong drink (in moderation); attractive dress for women, the marriage relation between man & woman, prosperity, and liberty!

As long as we obey the criminal laws (don’t murder, steal, bear false witness, and the like), we have the right to be left alone.
Liberty is the rule in God’s Model for civil government. That is why our Liberty Bell quotes Leviticus 25:10 - “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.”

2. Do Muslims respect the rights God gave us?

Life? Theirs is a culture of death: murder, honor killings & suicide bombers.
Liberty? Theirs is a culture where women are slaves and prisoners, little girls toys for old men, and conversion to Christianity a capital offense.
Pursuit of Happiness? Theirs is a culture of torture & sadism. Young Muslim girls in America who talked to non-Muslim boys were shot to death by their father in the back seat of his taxicab. Wife-beating is commonplace. Women who don’t cover their hair are lashed. Women are mutilated and maimed on the faces and even in their private places.
Freedom of Speech? Theirs is a culture where criticizing Islam leads to a terrible death.

You can go down the list: For every Right God gave us, the Muslims take it away.
Let’s look at just one God-given right: The Right to a fair trial:
Bearing false witness is condemned. (The Ten Commandments);
The evidence of two or more witnesses is required to prove a case (Deut 19:15 & Matthew 18:16);
Public trials are required (Exodus 18:13); &
Judges are required to be fair, impartial, & without favoritism. (Deut. 1:16-17).


Do Muslims respect this God-given right to a fair trial? NO! In Iran, judges in “morals” cases (adultery) are allowed to make their own subjective determinations that a person is guilty even in the absence of any evidence!

Do Muslims have the “right” to impose in this Country a shariah system which takes away the rights GOD gave us? No! God did not give Muslims the “right” to take away from us, the rights He gave us!

3. We are told Muslims have a “First Amendment right” to build mosques, proselytize, and implement shariah here. But is that what the First Amendment says? No! Let’s read it:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment doesn’t grant any rights to anybody! All it does is prohibit CONGRESS from making laws about religion, speech, the press, or assembly!
So Muslims do not have a “First Amendment right” to build mosques, proselytize, and implement shariah here.

4. Not only do Muslims claim the “right” to impose shariah in the Muslim communities springing up throughout our Country, they also claim the “right” to impose shariah law in the public square: They demand shariah compliant financial institutions, foot baths in public places, that wine, sausages, and the like be banned from their presence, that they be allowed to shut down public streets for “prayers”, etc.
Do Muslims have the “right” to apply their law here? No! Art. VI, clause 2 of Our Constitution says:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
OUR Constitution and laws authorized by OUR Constitution are the supreme law of this land - and anything to the contrary must fall. It violates Our Constitution for Muslims to practice shariah here! Muslims who thus seek to overthrow Our Constitution and replace it with shariah are guilty of criminal sedition. The federal government has the duty to prosecute them for sedition - or deport them.

5. Can the federal or state or local governments properly extend to Muslims a “right” to build mosques & proselytize here? No! Because The Declaration of Independence says the purpose of civil government is to secure the rights GOD gave us. Muslims seek to take away our God-given Rights. Civil government is supposed to protect us from those who seek to divest us of our Rights.
We must insist that our federal, State, and local governments STOP the islamization of Our Country. We must insist that they live up to the one legitimate purpose of civil government: to protect our GOD-given rights

6. WE are a Christian Country based on Judeo - Christian principles. Our Constitution is not a suicide pact. It does not require us to permit Muslims to take Our Country over and destroy Our principles and impose their barbaric totalitarian system on us.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes God as Creator, supreme Judge and Regulator of the World, and as our Divine Protector.
Article VII of Our Constitution, just above the signatures, recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It says,
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven ...

7. So! Let us summarize the above three Principles:

(1) Our Rights come from God - they predate & preexist the constitution. our constitution doesn’t give “rights” to anybody. so muslims don’t have “constitutional rights” to come here, build mosques, proselytize, and impose shariah.
(2) all the Evidence shows that Muslims take away from People the Rights God gave them. Since Our Declaration of Independence acknowledges that the purpose of civil governments is to secure the Rights GOD gave us, it is the duty and responsibility of civil governments at all levels to protect us from islamization.
(3) Article VI, clause 2, U.S. Constitution - the “Supremacy clause” - makes it unconstitutional for Muslims to practice shariah law ANYWHERE in Our Country.




8. The Center for Security Policy recently issued a scholarly (but readable) report: “Shariah: The Threat to America” . Important suggested policy changes are listed on pages 141-144. Tell your tea party groups! Take delegations to your local, state, and federal representatives and tell them about it. Most of them are weak & ignorant, so you must educate them and demand that they do their job and defend your community from islamization.

9. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders lists ten steps western countries must take to stop the islamization of their countries. All ten steps are mandated by our Declaration of Independence, and consistent with our Constitution:

(1) Stop cultural relativism: We must formalize the Idea that we have one dominant culture that is based on Judaism & Christianity [Wilders adds “humanism”].
(2) Stop pretending that Islam is a religion.
(3) Show the true face of fundamentalist Islam. It is a brutal totalitarian ideology.
(4) Stop all immigration from Muslim countries. For Muslims who are already citizens, tell them that if they adhere to our values and our Constitution, they may stay as equals. But if they deviate, we will expel them.
(5) Outlaw shariah and deport practitioners.
(6) Require Muslims to sign legally binding pledge of integration and allegiance.
(7) Stop building mosques.
(8) Seek reciprocity with Saudi Arabia for western churches & synagogues.
(9) Close all Islamic schools - they are fascist institutions teaching hate.
(10) Remove our current weak leaders.



It is time to boldly stand up for Our God, OUR Declaration of Independence, and Our Constitution, and say, “No!” to those who are taking over Our Country. It is time to use Our God-given unalienable Rights and Our Constitution as the Sword & Shield they are meant to be. We can and must use these to defeat Islamization. PH


Publius Huldah is a retired lawyer who lives in Tennessee USA. She writes on the U.S. Constitution and posts her papers at publiushuldah.wordpress.com Before getting a law degree, she got a degree in philosophy where she specialized in political philosophy and epistemology (theories of knowledge). Using primarily The Federalist Papers, which were written during 1787-1788 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison & John Jay, in order to explain the proposed Constitution to the American People and induce them to ratify it, Publius Huldah explains the true & original meaning of the U.S. Constitution. She also shows how modern day judges on the U.S. federal courts have completely abandoned the U.S. Constitution and have substituted their own personal views and opinions for The Constitution.

Sep. 16 2010 - 11:16 am | 2,064 views | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
The Obamorons Strike Back
By DINESH D'SOUZA

During the 2008 election campaign I coined the phrase “Obamorons” to describe the uncritical cheerleaders of Obama–the people who would leap to his defense even if he drove a truck over his aged grandmother. Love-stricken TV host Chris Matthews comes to mind, complete with thrills running up his leg, as does English major Maureen Dowd, lifestyle columnist for the New York Times. The Times itself is a leading Obamoron outlet.

Well, the Obamorons are now in a mad fury, and this time the culprit is my cover story in the September 27 issue of Forbes. The story is adapted from my new book The Roots of Obama’s Rage. Let me just say that if the Forbes article so upset these guys, wait until the book comes out. It may prove extremely difficult for the Obamorons to digest; perhaps it will have to be administered as a suppository.

Leading the Obamoron charge this time was White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Gibbs was reacting to Newt Gingrich’s comment that my article offered the most “stunningly insightful” analysis of Obama that he had read in six years. Gingrich’s reference to “Kenyan anti-colonialism” raised Gibbs’ ire. Gibbs said he had “no idea” what Gingrich was talking about. He should have stopped there: if you have no idea what someone is talking about, it’s a good idea to shut up. But Gibbs went on to link Gingrich and me with the birther thesis: the charge that Obama was not born in the United States.

This is a complete distortion of my argument. Anyone who read the Forbes article could see that it had nothing to do with the birther allegation. In The Roots of Obama’s Rage I explicitly say that Obama was born in Hawaii, as evidenced by the fact that two local newspapers noted his birth in August 1961. Clearly Gibbs had not read the article he was commenting on. Again, the man should have stayed quiet–unless, of course, he was told to strike back by the subject of the article.

Gibbs fired a second salvo a few days later, asking, “Why didn’t Forbes hire a fact checker…did they simply not care about the facts?” Gibbs offered no facts of his own, however. He merely linked to two web posts–one in the Columbia Journalism Review, one on “The Fourth Branch”–that disputed the article. The Columbia Journalism Review piece was high on invective (“the worst kind of smear journalism–a singularly disgusting work,” blah blah blah) but simply quoted large segments of the article as if they were self-evidently appalling–which of course they are to all confirmed Obamorons, who are only satisfied with hosannas and genuflections before the Anoined One.

“The Fourth Branch” accused me of raising the “prism of race,” in short, of playing the race card. Again, this is totally bogus. I explicitly say in my article that Obama is not motivated by race–that race has nothing to do with this. In the book I develop this much further, showing that a big reason for our confusion about Obama is that we are always trying to to fit him into American history. In the process we ignore Obama’s own history. I realize that anti-colonialism is an unfamiliar notion to many Americans, but it is a very familiar concept in Kenya, where Obama’s father was born, and also in India, where I was born. This is about Third World anti-colonialism; it is not about race.

For me the most unkindest cut of all was when Maureen Dowd in yesterday’s New York Times accused Gingrich and me of low intellectual standards. “This is what passes for intellectualism on the right?” Here is Maureen Dowd’s idea of intellectualism: to dub me “Ann Coulter in pants.” But what do you expect from a Catholic University English major who specializes in little sarcasms devoid of mental content? I feel silly spelling out my credentials, but I did graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth, I did serve as senior domestic policy analyst in the White House, I was the Olin Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, I also was the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and I am currently the president of the King’s College in New York City. (Check it out: www.tkc.edu) So compared to Dowd, I am a veritable Einstein!

My article did contain one minor, inconsequential error: I noted that Obama spent the first 17 years of his life off the American mainland, and that’s true: Obama spent those years in Hawaii and Indonesia. But I said he visited Pakistan during this time, while in fact his Pakistan trip was a couple of years later, when he was a student at Occidental College.

Some critics have noted that my reference to the Obama administration’s subsidy for the Brazilian drilling company Petrobras was unfair, given that the decision to provide loan guarantees was made in part by Bush appointees to the Export-Import Bank. This is an argumentum ad ignorantium–an argument that relies on the ignorance of the audience. If you don’t know how the government works, you are likely to be taken in by it. But those of us who have worked in the federal government know that many agencies have left-over appointees from previous administrations. Still, when a new administration takes over, it is the new administration that is responsible and has the final say over what these agencies do. The Obama administration signed off on the loans to Petrobras, and obviously it bears final responsibility for those loans. This was precisely the point of the Wall Street Journal article I cited: to ask why the Obama administration wants more oil drilling in Brazil but less in the United States. “Environmentalism” doesn’t explain this double-standard, but anti-colonialism does.

Yesterday I did Glenn Beck’s radio show for an hour, and the book–which will be out in a couple of weeks–rocketed to the top 5 on the amazon bestseller list. There is a lot more to come. So why did the article previewing the book so enrage the White House and the Obamorons? Because it provides a belated but desperately-needed explanatory framework for Obama. Finally we have a key that actually opens the lock. No, Obama is not a Muslim. No, Obama is not a socialist. The truth is far worse.

On The Cover/Top Stories - Forbes
How Obama Thinks
Dinesh D'Souza, 09.27.10, 12:00 AM ET

Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back. Obama runs up taxpayer debt not in the billions but in the trillions. He has expanded the federal government's control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy. The Weekly Standard summarizes Obama's approach as omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.

The President's actions are so bizarre that they mystify his critics and supporters alike. Consider this headline from the Aug. 18, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling." Did you read that correctly? You did. The Administration supports offshore drilling--but drilling off the shores of Brazil. With Obama's backing, the U.S. Export-Import Bank offered $2 billion in loans and guarantees to Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance exploration in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro--not so the oil ends up in the U.S. He is funding Brazilian exploration so that the oil can stay in Brazil.

More strange behavior: Obama's June 15, 2010 speech in response to the Gulf oil spill focused not on cleanup strategies but rather on the fact that Americans "consume more than 20% of the world's oil but have less than 2% of the world's resources." Obama railed on about "America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels." What does any of this have to do with the oil spill? Would the calamity have been less of a problem if America consumed a mere 10% of the world's resources?

The oddities go on and on. Obama's Administration has declared that even banks that want to repay their bailout money may be refused permission to do so. Only after the Obama team cleared a bank through the Fed's "stress test" was it eligible to give taxpayers their money back. Even then, declared Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the Administration might force banks to keep the money.

The President continues to push for stimulus even though hundreds of billions of dollars in such funds seem to have done little. The unemployment rate when Obama took office in January 2009 was 7.7%; now it is 9.5%. Yet he wants to spend even more and is determined to foist the entire bill on Americans making $250,000 a year or more. The rich, Obama insists, aren't paying their "fair share." This by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes; the bottom 40% pays close to nothing. This does indeed seem unfair--to the rich.

Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that "our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable," seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero.

Recently the London Times reported that the Obama Administration supported the conditional release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber convicted in connection with the deaths of 270 people, mostly Americans. This was an eye-opener because when Scotland released Megrahi from prison and sent him home to Libya in August 2009, the Obama Administration publicly and appropriately complained. The Times, however, obtained a letter the Obama Administration sent to Scotland a week before the event in which it said that releasing Megrahi on "compassionate grounds" was acceptable as long as he was kept in Scotland and would be "far preferable" to sending him back to Libya. Scottish officials interpreted this to mean that U.S. objections to Megrahi's release were "half-hearted." They released him to his home country, where he lives today as a free man.

One more anomaly: A few months ago nasa Chief Charles Bolden announced that from now on the primary mission of America's space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Come again? Bolden said he got the word directly from the President. "He wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Bolden added that the International Space Station was a model for nasa's future, since it was not just a U.S. operation but included the Russians and the Chinese. Obama's redirection of the agency caused consternation among former astronauts like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, and even among the President's supporters: Most people think of nasa's job as one of landing on the moon and Mars and exploring other faraway destinations. Sure, we are for Islamic self-esteem, but what on earth was Obama up to here?

Theories abound to explain the President's goals and actions. Critics in the business community--including some Obama voters who now have buyer's remorse--tend to focus on two main themes. The first is that Obama is clueless about business. The second is that Obama is a socialist--not an out-and-out Marxist, but something of a European-style socialist, with a penchant for leveling and government redistribution.

These theories aren't wrong so much as they are inadequate. Even if they could account for Obama's domestic policy, they cannot explain his foreign policy. The real problem with Obama is worse--much worse. But we have been blinded to his real agenda because, across the political spectrum, we all seek to fit him into some version of American history. In the process, we ignore Obama's own history. Here is a man who spent his formative years--the first 17 years of his life--off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa.

A good way to discern what motivates Obama is to ask a simple question: What is his dream? Is it the American dream? Is it Martin Luther King's dream? Or something else?

It is certainly not the American dream as conceived by the founders. They believed the nation was a "new order for the ages." A half-century later Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of America as creating "a distinct species of mankind." This is known as American exceptionalism. But when asked at a 2009 press conference whether he believed in this ideal, Obama said no. America, he suggested, is no more unique or exceptional than Britain or Greece or any other country.

Perhaps, then, Obama shares Martin Luther King's dream of a color-blind society. The President has benefited from that dream; he campaigned as a nonracial candidate, and many Americans voted for him because he represents the color-blind ideal. Even so, King's dream is not Obama's: The President never champions the idea of color-blindness or race-neutrality. This inaction is not merely tactical; the race issue simply isn't what drives Obama.

What then is Obama's dream? We don't have to speculate because the President tells us himself in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is his father's dream. Notice that his title is not Dreams of My Father but rather Dreams from My Father. Obama isn't writing about his father's dreams; he is writing about the dreams he received from his father.

So who was Barack Obama Sr.? He was a Luo tribesman who grew up in Kenya and studied at Harvard. He was a polygamist who had, over the course of his lifetime, four wives and eight children. One of his sons, Mark Obama, has accused him of abuse and wife-beating. He was also a regular drunk driver who got into numerous accidents, killing a man in one and causing his own legs to be amputated due to injury in another. In 1982 he got drunk at a bar in Nairobi and drove into a tree, killing himself.

An odd choice, certainly, as an inspirational hero. But to his son, the elder Obama represented a great and noble cause, the cause of anticolonialism. Obama Sr. grew up during Africa's struggle to be free of European rule, and he was one of the early generation of Africans chosen to study in America and then to shape his country's future.

I know a great deal about anticolonialism, because I am a native of Mumbai, India. I am part of the first Indian generation to be born after my country's independence from the British. Anticolonialism was the rallying cry of Third World politics for much of the second half of the 20th century. To most Americans, however, anticolonialism is an unfamiliar idea, so let me explain it.

Anticolonialism is the doctrine that rich countries of the West got rich by invading, occupying and looting poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America. As one of Obama's acknowledged intellectual influences, Frantz Fanon, wrote in The Wretched of the Earth, "The well-being and progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians and the yellow races."

Anticolonialists hold that even when countries secure political independence they remain economically dependent on their former captors. This dependence is called neocolonialism, a term defined by the African statesman Kwame Nkrumah (1909--72) in his book Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Nkrumah, Ghana's first president, writes that poor countries may be nominally free, but they continue to be manipulated from abroad by powerful corporate and plutocratic elites. These forces of neocolonialism oppress not only Third World people but also citizens in their own countries. Obviously the solution is to resist and overthrow the oppressors. This was the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. and many in his generation, including many of my own relatives in India.

Obama Sr. was an economist, and in 1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called "Problems Facing Our Socialism." Obama Sr. wasn't a doctrinaire socialist; rather, he saw state appropriation of wealth as a necessary means to achieve the anticolonial objective of taking resources away from the foreign looters and restoring them to the people of Africa. For Obama Sr. this was an issue of national autonomy. "Is it the African who owns this country? If he does, then why should he not control the economic means of growth in this country?"

As he put it, "We need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now." The senior Obama proposed that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. In fact, he insisted that "theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed."

Remarkably, President Obama, who knows his father's history very well, has never mentioned his father's article. Even more remarkably, there has been virtually no reporting on a document that seems directly relevant to what the junior Obama is doing in the White House.

While the senior Obama called for Africa to free itself from the neocolonial influence of Europe and specifically Britain, he knew when he came to America in 1959 that the global balance of power was shifting. Even then, he recognized what has become a new tenet of anticolonialist ideology: Today's neocolonial leader is not Europe but America. As the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said--who was one of Obama's teachers at Columbia University--wrote in Culture and Imperialism, "The United States has replaced the earlier great empires and is the dominant outside force."

From the anticolonial perspective, American imperialism is on a rampage. For a while, U.S. power was checked by the Soviet Union, but since the end of the Cold War, America has been the sole superpower. Moreover, 9/11 provided the occasion for America to invade and occupy two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and also to seek political and economic domination in the same way the French and the British empires once did. So in the anticolonial view, America is now the rogue elephant that subjugates and tramples the people of the world.

It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.

For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for.

Why support oil drilling off the coast of Brazil but not in America? Obama believes that the West uses a disproportionate share of the world's energy resources, so he wants neocolonial America to have less and the former colonized countries to have more. More broadly, his proposal for carbon taxes has little to do with whether the planet is getting warmer or colder; it is simply a way to penalize, and therefore reduce, America's carbon consumption. Both as a U.S. Senator and in his speech, as President, to the United Nations, Obama has proposed that the West massively subsidize energy production in the developing world.

Rejecting the socialist formula, Obama has shown no intention to nationalize the investment banks or the health sector. Rather, he seeks to decolonize these institutions, and this means bringing them under the government's leash. That's why Obama retains the right to refuse bailout paybacks--so that he can maintain his control. For Obama, health insurance companies on their own are oppressive racketeers, but once they submitted to federal oversight he was happy to do business with them. He even promised them expanded business as a result of his law forcing every American to buy health insurance.

If Obama shares his father's anticolonial crusade, that would explain why he wants people who are already paying close to 50% of their income in overall taxes to pay even more. The anticolonialist believes that since the rich have prospered at the expense of others, their wealth doesn't really belong to them; therefore whatever can be extracted from them is automatically just. Recall what Obama Sr. said in his 1965 paper: There is no tax rate too high, and even a 100% rate is justified under certain circumstances.

Obama supports the Ground Zero mosque because to him 9/11 is the event that unleashed the American bogey and pushed us into Iraq and Afghanistan. He views some of the Muslims who are fighting against America abroad as resisters of U.S. imperialism. Certainly that is the way the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi portrayed himself at his trial. Obama's perception of him as an anticolonial resister would explain why he gave tacit approval for this murderer of hundreds of Americans to be released from captivity.

Finally, nasa. No explanation other than anticolonialism makes sense of Obama's curious mandate to convert a space agency into a Muslim and international outreach. We can see how well our theory works by recalling the moon landing of Apollo 11 in 1969. "One small step for man," Neil Armstrong said. "One giant leap for mankind."

But that's not how the rest of the world saw it. I was 8 years old at the time and living in my native India. I remember my grandfather telling me about the great race between America and Russia to put a man on the moon. Clearly America had won, and this was one giant leap not for mankind but for the U.S. If Obama shares this view, it's no wonder he wants to blunt nasa's space program, to divert it from a symbol of American greatness into a more modest public relations program.

Clearly the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. goes a long way to explain the actions and policies of his son in the Oval Office. And we can be doubly sure about his father's influence because those who know Obama well testify to it. His "granny" Sarah Obama (not his real grandmother but one of his grandfather's other wives) told Newsweek, "I look at him and I see all the same things--he has taken everything from his father. The son is realizing everything the father wanted. The dreams of the father are still alive in the son."

In his own writings Obama stresses the centrality of his father not only to his beliefs and values but to his very identity. He calls his memoir "the record of a personal, interior journey--a boy's search for his father and through that search a workable meaning for his life as a black American." And again, "It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." Even though his father was absent for virtually all his life, Obama writes, "My father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!"

The climax of Obama's narrative is when he goes to Kenya and weeps at his father's grave. It is riveting: "When my tears were finally spent," he writes, "I felt a calmness wash over me. I felt the circle finally close. I realized that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words. I saw that my life in America--the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I'd felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I'd witnessed in Chicago--all of it was connected with this small piece of earth an ocean away, connected by more than the accident of a name or the color of my skin. The pain that I felt was my father's pain."

In an eerie conclusion, Obama writes that "I sat at my father's grave and spoke to him through Africa's red soil." In a sense, through the earth itself, he communes with his father and receives his father's spirit. Obama takes on his father's struggle, not by recovering his body but by embracing his cause. He decides that where Obama Sr. failed, he will succeed. Obama Sr.'s hatred of the colonial system becomes Obama Jr.'s hatred; his botched attempt to set the world right defines his son's objective. Through a kind of sacramental rite at the family tomb, the father's struggle becomes the son's birthright.

Colonialism today is a dead issue. No one cares about it except the man in the White House. He is the last anticolonial. Emerging market economies such as China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage and growing much faster than the U.S. If America is going to remain on top, we have to compete in an increasingly tough environment.

But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.

Dinesh D'Souza, the president of the King's College in New York City, is the author of the forthcoming book The Roots of Obama's Rage (Regnery Publishing).

Just burning time until Wifey and Chip get back from Chip's club. Monday, had another episode of the intestinal problems... but I didn't take the Tylenol as a runup to the Avonex. Not as violent though. Also, I might be fighting something as yesterday I was completely blown out by 2 pm... and couldn't do anything. Felt like another exacerbation - shoot, I can never spell that word. Bottom line is that today I feel fine, am back to moving through the action item list, and feeling like its not all hopeless anymore.

In essence, I'm about 6 weeks behind on EVERYTHING. The exclusive product's website is in a shambles (Razor worked it, then did an "Creative Property" thingy on me but that's another story), the distributable program has a web interface that looks like it works, but at the expense of me working the desktop portion. I just now have what I need so I can put the images in promo materials and start selling... and I supposed to sell 10 by the end of April!!! Hoo boy.... things are really looking tight....

But I'm still optimistic. I don't know if it's age, or I'm at the point where I'm more careful and patient and doing things right.... but everything seems to take way longer than it should to accomplish. That, and I get tired sometimes, where I just need to take a breather. Tonight is one of those nights.... even though I just realized that I don't have the video's made for the second client of the distributable.

Tomorrow is another day!!

OK. Very short, unedited entry.

Reason for entry, GI problem log. Last problem was on Monday 1/4/10. Regular Avonex schedule, heavy sweets for holidays.

Zippo going OK. Razor was a dick about working. "Intellectual Property". Behind about 3 weeks in the "first of year" kickoff.

Delayed on the consumer product. 2 exisitng customers going in 5 weeks. Same problems with web developer.

Summary, its gonna be close, but I'm worried that I'm too diluted to do anything really well. God is on the throne!

Gotta run.

Short note here as I'm running out of battery power on the notebook. Although it might be explained by in increase of stress, I'm running out of steam around 5pm every day and am back to sleeping around then in the recliner. Back burning has returned. And I'm having more problems both in getting to sleep, and in being productive in the early hours.

To list the stressers I'm dealing with right now:

1) Really behind on the distributable product, and have realized that I'll need to skip the rest of this season for marketing. That means I won't be able to capture any revenue for the rest of the year, and the cost of the web developer will have to come out of strategic savings.
2) The big client told me on Friday that he has no intention of making a big buy. I don't blame him for where we are economically and I kink of thought this would be the outcome so I didn't count on the money.
3) Bottom line in the business is that there is no revenue, and really no hopes of revenue from current sources until the new year. ARGH! Looks like we're going to cut it short on the savings thing.
4) The whole rationale of making it until the end of 2011 to boot an internet business is out the window as my state is passing a merchant required collection of the state tax or all out of state sales. SHIT!!!!
5) Razor is being a dick. He wanted to move out 2 years ago and be emancipated. Didn't do the paperwork and got caught in District Courthouse 1A for a while. For the last year I've been telling him and he's been telling me that he's moving out right after his birthday in September. Now, he all of a sudden changes his mind, and wants to save money for a car. He's and asshole and treats everyone here abusively - when he's around. All summer he's been running, turning down work (hence money) and not following the 2 simple rules we've given him. There's a storm brewing there, and I'm just tired. I want it to be over already.
6) Wifey is working, finishing a full time orientation stint at the hospital. I've got Chip during the day and I'm not doing my work very well or working with him very well. Then I get frustrated that I'm not making any progress on the distributable, marketing or admin stuff during the week. ARGH.

So I guess I've got a lot of stressers. I'm hoping that's all it is. I'll let you know.

Finally, there haven't been any entries because I've been back in the game. Mentally, I'm at one hundred percent. For stamina, I'm only at eighty, but that's to be expected with my age and MS. In my humble opinion, I can't believe that I'm doing so well.

Talk to you soon.

No entries here for a long time. Basically, things have been going really well - compared to how I've been feeling before. As I posted before, the combination of the Avonex, Vicodin and Adderall have given me the short-term relief and long term confidence so that I can start depending on a consistent level of mental acuity and physical stamina.

That"s not to say that I'm back to normal in terms of what I was capable of prior to my first exasperbation a year ago. The way things are right now, I have to split my performance into 2 parts - mental and physical to accurately describe how things are going right now.

The mental part is the most encouraging. I've found that I can now pretty much get through most days without problems. On a percentage scale I`m working at 80-90% of where I was originally and I can live with that. The issue is that now there`s consistency where before there wasn't any. Consistency means I can plan on getting a minimum done each day so I now have hope of building each day and can predict success at tasks and projects.

I still have problems with stress - when I'm stressed my mental capacity goes down, and I start to degrade physically. Physical degradation means back pain or chronic fatigue. I'm working on compsatory skills where I can handle stress better (a definite challenge). I've yet to push myself with programming / marketing / installation of the distubutable, but that's coming in the next couple of weeks. I've tested myself in prospect visits and networking events and they tire me because of the stress, but they don't exhaust me for the rest of the day, or drain me for the next day.

Physical stamina associated with physical activoty is another matter. I'm trying to be physically active but I find that I'm capable of only abouy 1/2 of what I could do prior to the first exasperbation. Its frustrating to me to say the least because I've had to give up the any idea of completeing large projects, which causes stress in and of itself. We need the kitchen cabinets replaced, some floors refinished, painting completed and numerous other things done in the house. I keep myself from starting them because I know I won't have the endurance to finish them and couldn't stand the thoughtof having to endlessly stare at my impotence when I'd look at something 1/2 done. Since we're not cash positive in the business, we can't afford to pay someone to do it. Any way I look at it, I see myself as a failure - and I get stressed out about it.

I've tried to "push through" this part of the disease, to no avail. the beer analagy definitely applies. I've worked hard at yard work as a test multiple times and I end up paying the next day for it in exhaustion and uncomfortable symptoms. I've had to put aside any thoughts of hobbies - haven't made a pen in over a year and Wifey's Valentine's Day box sits unfinished in the shed. Normal house maintenance and cutting the grass is enough to challenge my stamina. Since Razor has no interest, Chip is too small and Wifey can't be expected to pull the load I used to in the "routine maintainence" area, there's no hope of focusing what endurance I have on the big stuff. I'm trying to recalibrate my expectations for what I'll be able to accomplish but I'm still frustrated I have to say here though, that Chip is showing himself to be a tremendous blessing. He cheerfully helps by uncomplainingly doing what he can to help. If he can't help, he keeps me company in most cases so I can more easily cope with my need for frequent breaks and to work at a slower pace. And with me feeling better, I'm thinking about testing myself by remodeling the downstairs bathroom.

But again, for perspective, things are much better than before and the Adderall and Vicodin together are the reason. Before that medication regimin I was seriously thinking of having to file foe disability.

I was taking the Vicodin when I saw Dr. Freeman in late March, and he prescribed the Adderall on a whim - to help improve my ability to focus (although it takes away my tinitus and full head feeling too!) . Over the last month I've been noticing that the 20mg Adderall and the 10mg Vicodin have become less effective. On some days, I'd have "bleed through" back burning, fatigue, and / or lack of concentration. I was having to take 5mg extra of the Vicodin to deal with periodic excess pain. I was worring that the Vicodin resistance would build, and I would be dependent or more likely that it wouldn' be effective regardless of dose. I like being able to think and work, and I naturally want this med regimin to work for 8 to 10 years.

I had an appointment with Nora@ Freedman's P.A. last Wednesday, and we discussed my concerns. She recommended that I start on Neurotin, starting with 300 mg per day and working up to 1200. Its supposed to bridge the breakthrough pain in the near term so I don't have to take the extra 5 mg of Vicodin on bad days. So far it seems to be working. I've a bit pf back burning today but that's expected as I've only had 9 hours of sleep in the last 2 days. I'm taking at night as its supposed to make me drowsy. It doesn't, in typical ADD fashion. The common side effective of all these meds is constipation - yea!

So that's where I stand medically. On the business side there's good news and bad news too. From the good side, my big prospect is evaluating an electronic device and placed a provisional order for 10 more. If this all goes well and he replaces his existing devices, it should mean around 20k per year for 1.5 years or so. the bad news is that there's np guarantee I'll get it, the state sales tax may keep me from keeping it. If they move foreward, and if everything goes perfectly I dont't know how I'm going to arrange financing.

I've been working at a low level to build business locally, with modest success. The problem is that on hardware sales I don't have any purchasing power with minimal discounts. That and the sales tax make it virtually impossible to compete with the internet guys. I'll keep plugging though in the hopes of generating at least something locally.

The sales of the publishing product continue to lag vs. prior years, and with the economy and the nature of the product, I've reconciled myself to stagnant to declining sales. I continue to add content to the site, and traffic is up 20% over 6 months ago. I hired a developer to do the web portion of the distributable, but I haven't gotten far enough to actively market it yet and only have 1 more customer since I commited to this. From reading forums about the competition I know I have to invest around 10k to have a competitive product. AND hosting is going to be 50 per month. Ugh!

So I'm optomistic about my abilities and prospects, but intensely worried about money. I never planned on paying someone to write the web application, so that's an unplanned outlay. Wifey is just getting back to work after a month lag, but outlays are still moe than I'd like. Other than the single client, prospects are slim because I'll be lucky to break even between distributable sales and the travel and development costs. Botom line is that the financial model (thanks to tax refunds) still has us with enough savings for 32 months. I just need to do my best every day and trust God to handle the rest.

And I'm encouraged with my predictable, 85% percent capacity. I'm able to do things I haven't in a year. I was particualrly happy with my performance in a meeting with the client and manufacturer 2 weeks ago. I ran the meeting and had no trouble keeping my thoughts organized or the meeting moving. Huge Difference.


Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - Hot, clear and humid
Shaking - 3
Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 2
Fatigue - 3
Foggy Head - 3
Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 3
Spatial Orientation - 2
Gastro - 9D
Insomnia - 8
Eye Focus - s
Benedryl - 0

I haven't posted over the last 3 weeks, not because there haven't been any changes, but because things have been changing a lot here, and I'm concentrating on gauging what I'm capable of, and trying to push forward on things that will give me revenue so I can make the 33 months I have left. (wow, that was a run-on sentence if I ever read one!) I had an appointment with the neurolgist on the 31st of March, and we both decided to give this 8 weeks to see if I could effectively work or I needed to move toward applying for SSI. As a function of that appointment, he prescribed Aderall for my ADHD and told me to stay on the Vicadin, and take them consistently, once a day.

The first week or April was amazing. I felt like I was at 95% of what I used to be. You can't imagine the change....suddenly being able to think, to plan, to work, to lay out near, mid and long term business strategy. I felt like a totally different person, a person I hadn't known for almost a year. Physical stamina for being active and doing work around the house wasn't there, but I think that was more of a problem of not being able to do anything for almost a year. So it was a great week, came to a lot of conclusions, and got a fair amount of ancillary work done. I was confused about how the Adderall took away the physical manifestations of the MS. The back pain and full head was gone. I could concentrate. To the point where when I would quit at the end of the day, I felt pulled to go back to work..... I kept thinking that I felt good enough that I should be pushing forward. Maybe I wasted the time, but I resisted the temptation - I opted to spend time with the family and enjoy actually being "me" again.

The "perfect" feeling lasted about a week. Now, I'm drifting down again. Its most likely my system getting used to the Adderall, so there's some hope of adjusting it if it isn't effective any more. The first week I had insomnia, but now its gone. I continue to have some physical pain and stiffness, but for the most part the intellectual stuff is livable. Good thing, 'cause this week coming is the push week. I've concluded that stress is really a killer for me. There was a day this week where I was upset about something, and it killed my energy completely. So its one of my conclusions for moving on - minimze stress. Along those lines and reducing the overall stress was getting taxes done. Refund will be about 3x what I projected. The financial model now says that I'll make it to the end of the 3rd year, so the urgent need to generate near term revenue is reduced. Good thing too, as the SERPs for the publishing product site have fallen off a cliff for the terms that sell the product. No sales in the first 10 days of this month. Needs action, but that action one my conclusions. Here they are:

1) Instead of splitting my time in thirds between the distributable, local business, and web sites, I need to look at investing about $3k in contracting to program the distributable web site. That will free me to concentrate on local business and adding content to the main site (which I've been able to do over the last 10 days). I'll still need to spend some time on design, but the contractor I've identified can do this more efficiently than I can. The only issue is that she make the coding according to my conventions so I can maintain it. This is a big change.
2) Get the distributable done, and sell it. SELL IT! That is the best chance I have at near term revenue. The next cycle for sales is in the fall, and I have to be ready by June in order to be able to catch that business. Not sure of the pricing scale, or how much money I'll be able to make at it, but if I don't get it up and running all that time will be wasted. Got a lot of leads at this point, but can't work them as there's nothing I can show them from the seller standpoint - and that's the most important thing.
3) Get content on the main site. The content I put up in the second half of last year is driving more visitors, and the visitor stats are better than ever. Product sales are down, and I need revenue to cover the cell phone, memberships and other expenses. I'm torn right now about whether to link build for the product to get more sales, or just expand the content to drive more visitors - beacuse the increased visitors has given me 3 clients I should close in the next 30 days. Right now I'm concentrating on just getting the new product up, and putting up videos. That should enable me to drive more links. BUT, I really need to put up more reviews, get the store straightened out, and get more general links. I need a Yahoo Directory listing, but I don't have the money. And I still have the industry blog to start and work on.
4) Start cold calling and visiting local businesses. I started this a week ago, but didn't get too far. I need to design a program and stick with it. I waved off doing it this week because of the Easter holiday. I have to get into it big time on Tuesday and Thursday of next week. Got a client I may be able to close that will give us a year's revenue, but the odds of it happening are about 40%. Meeting with them Wednesday.

So that's it. Having some problems physically today, but about to go outside and do some work. We'll see how that goes, and what it does to my thinking processes and how I feel physically. I'm still pretty optomistic. Here's the tally for today:



Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and sunny

Shaking - 3

Neck Pain - 3
Upper Back Pain - 2

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 2

Tinitus - 0
Ears Full - 0
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 0

Gastro - 6 (hard)

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 2

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

Import things first.... at the race last night, we didn't win anything, but finished in the top 1/3 of the competitors. Unfortunately, there was another Mach 5 in the competition, and it was much more detailed that ours was. Had a driver, mirrors and a whole lot of other stuff. That one captured 2nd place in the design category, and he deserved it. He must have been working on it for a month. Speed wise, it was slightly faster than ours as well, and given the wheel base they must have put in a lot of work on the wheels and axles.

I'm happy with the showing, given that I haven't done this in such a long while. Chip was disappointed. At the end of the night, he got wild with the car and broke off the fins of the thing, whipping it along the floor. I tried not to be upset with him.

Appointment this morning with Theresa, the Physician's Assistant at the neurologist's. I was massively impressed with her. She did a full neuro assessment, and picked up tremors in my left arm. So it appears that the problem I experienced after spreading the grass seed was real, and not just a function of my arm being tired. We talked about the depression, and she told me that depression wasn't uncommon, but generally didn't show up until later in the Avonex treatment. When we discussed the dosage, she told me that I should have done a "ramp up". The conclusion was that because I did the full dosage from the start, I got the depression early. She told me to take a break this week, then start with 1/4 dose next week, increasing it by 1/4 each week until I get back to the full dose.

I'm really optomistic about this treatment. I've been feeling better, although today isn't very good for me. Problems with my eyes and fatigue. Really being lazy too with the business. But, I've set Monday, the 23rd as the kick-off date for the new work regimin, and been marking time this week because of the car. Making some progress with the distributable. Today should've been productive, but had the appointment with Theresa this morning, and now we're going to lunch with Bobby, the Fresh Air kid. I'll write more about that later as we're just about ready to walk out the door.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and sunny

Shaking - 5

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 5

Fatigue - 5
Foggy Head - 4

Tinitus - 5
Ears Full - 5
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 4

Gastro - 2

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

This is what I've been working on for the last week, and its finally done. Its a rendition of the SpeedRacer Mark 5 for a Pinewood Derby race tonight. It took about a week total to make, and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't think we'll win, but I wanted to give something to Chip that he'd be proud of when with his peers. To tell the truth, I was sick of it at the end, there was too much work for the time I allowed, and it got to be all consuming at the end. There is good news though. Look at the canopy. I tried a dozen times to make one, with no success. Used a couple of water bottles and plastic sheeting, and couldn't get it. I prayed for an hour, and promptly found a bottle (Fornsby Lemon Oil) that had the exact curvature that was required. God is good.

The last time I did this was with Razor, and that was 8 or so years ago. At the time, the internet wasn't as well developed as it is today with forums and information. In researching making a car, I found that the guys that are "into" it, are into it from the engineering side. CG, CM, Camber, Toe-In, Rail-Running are all topics I've been exposed to in this exercise. What ever happened to the kid's experience? Ah, and I'm guilty too, I did most of the fabrication on this one, pulling in Chip for the paint sanding and the wheel/axle prep. But I can't imagine that the kids associated with the posts I've been reading have a lot to do with the construction or tuning, its over my head as a software engineer. We'll take a break from this for a couple of months, then Chip and I will make a Mark 6, and he'll do most of it with me. I'll have the luxury of doing it as there will be no deadline. From what I read, this car won't win.. the wheelbase is too short, the distribution of weight isn't right between front and back and it pulls too much to one side. But its ours, and its done, and it looks really good.

Starting to feel pretty good physically, relatively speaking. I'm tired right now (2:30pm) and will rest for an hour after this post, but only because of the event tonight. Been getting through the days all this week with little problem. I've come up with a priority of work for the business - one third each of web site, distributable and local business. Target is Monday to start. Wifey is off work right now, so she's handling the homeschool stuff for me. I should be able to make progress over the next 30 days on the distributable. In the schedule, I'm going to take 1 day a week to drive around trying to get label business.

Why is Wifey off? Basically it comes down to the degradation of nursing care. She started on a new case and ended up doing all the work for them. When she pointed out problems, management told her that she was "controlling" and that she wasn't right for the agency! This after she said she wouldn't work the case any more because of the liability. She knew more than anyone working it, did more work than anyone (20% unpaid) and found things that were life threatening and overlooked by management and the folks that should have caught it. She's in a difficult place now, with only 1 major agency left in the area. Basically, her experiences have taught her to treat her job as a way to make money only....not as a vocation. We've both observed that something has changed in society....people aren't concientious anymore. They don't care.

Appointment tomorrow with the neuroligist, to see about depression meds. As I mentioned before, the Avonex is giving me an exquisite depression. The Doc offered anxiety meds before, so I thought I'd nip this problem in the bud and try something to see if it made me feel better. I'll let you know.


Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 60 and sunny

Shaking - 4

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 3

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 3

Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 4
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 2

Gastro - 2

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

Been working with Chip on Pinewood Derby stuff. Two weeks ago, we made a SuperBird. The body was OK, but just OK. Then we decided to make a replica of the SpeedRacer Mach 5. Yikes. We've got the body done, but its been a tremendous amount of work. I'm tired of it already. The race is on Wednesday night, and we still have the wheels and axles to prep, the detail to paint on the car, and the windshield to fashion and attach. It looks great, but I don't know if I'm going to sign up to do anything like this again. Looking on the web for information, it appears that some folks are really into it. They have a bunch of variables identified: center-of-gravity, center-of-mass, rail-riding, camber and the like. I can't imagine how you could get so technical with your son and have him understand it all. At this point, I'm going to be happy enough to get this car finished, wheeled and weighted and in the race. To make it, I'm going to have to spend some significant time on it over the next couple of days. Sigh. Chip is worth it though. Since we've started home schooling him, and I'm spending time with him, I'm starting to recognise just what a blessing he is. Now the key is going to be using our relationship to teach him. So that he can do some of the "handyman" stuff himself.

Since Friday, I've been experiencing some wierdness of symptoms. Friday, I felt reasonably well, but got deathly tired at the end of the day. Saturday, I got the Avonex dosage (and approached it with dread), but did OK through the day. Sunday, I worked all through the day on the Pinewood Car, again getting deathly tired at around 4:30. Around mid-day, I spread some grass seed. Shortly after, I had tremors in my left arm, the one where I held the 15lb bag. Ugh. Getting old is not very fun.

Bottom line is that I'm feeling marginally better, but still have the fatigue, ringing in the ears and head fullness. Its sort of like being "woozy" all the time. Yesterday, I substituded motrin for Vicodin, and it seemed to give me some relief. I'm going to try it each day this week and see if I can do without the pain meds.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 50 and rainy, the past 3 days

Shaking - 5

Neck Pain - 2
Upper Back Pain - 6

Fatigue - 6
Foggy Head - 5

Tinitus - 6
Ears Full - 6
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 4

Gastro - 5

Insomnia = 1

Eye Focus - 6

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - No

Benedryl last night - 2

Felt much better yesterday, but had already decided to get taxes and a client call done and that would be it for the week. Had the "gripping intestinal bug" that we've been passing around here for around 6 weeks. Wifey just finished it, and it was my turn. I got tired at the end of the day, but I made it through. Still working through a plan of action associated with what I should do. Honestly, I'm contented to finish the thought process and home school Chip as Wifey works. Financially, that doesn't work over the long term, but her working extends us at the current spending levels for 30-36 months.

The client call went OK, but I'm still only about 75-85% effective. Part of it is practice, but the other part of it is the MS. Having to watch my verbal presentation. Hearing wavering in my voice. Slipping into monologuing every once in a while. UGH. Given the performance yesterday I still doubt I have the energy or the capacity to build a local business. Probably, the only way to figure it out is to work 3 days a week at it and see what happens.

Still having problems with cognitive stuff. Head full, ears full. No problems with balance, but still not feeling sharp. I'm still getting over the shock that I might be disabled, that I might not be able to work and that is keeping me from commiting mentally and physically to any business prospects. Yesterday I started to come out of it a bit. Today, I'm back in the same place. The weather is turning to rain, and I'm seeing an increase in the symptoms. Overall, still better than before the IV, but not what I expected. And part of it is motivation. Another part is schedule, with me having major responsibilities with Chip the next couple of days.

So it is. I wish it were better news. Good news is that I have time. The bad news is that I don't have a lot of it.


Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 50 and overcase, rain tomorrow

Shaking - 4

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 5

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 6

Tinitus - 5
Ears Full - 6
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 3

Gastro - 7

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes (none yesterday)

Benedryl last night - 0

To bring things up to date.....

I had IV steroid treatments last week for 3 days - March 2nd, 3rd and 4th. I didn't feel that badly, but now that I'm 3 weeks in on the Avonex, I wanted to get to a base line and move from there. My thought was that if I could get to base line with the Avonex, using the steroids to push down the inflammation, I could guage the "best" that it could be, and I could predict whether in the long run I had a chance of being able to do things to make revenue come in.

Before the IV treatments, I was doing OK with work, but still had the fatigue toward the end of the day. BUT, there wasn't a lot of problems with full ears and full head and problems with comprehension. Because I didn't feel that badly, the steroid treatments really made me feel bad.... for the first time. And I still have the intense back pain, full ears and head.

And the Avonex gives you the ability to enjoy a near exquisite depression. The last couple of days have been really bad for me, making me come to grips with the reality of the situation. In fact, I may not be able to get a revenue stream up and running in the time I have left. If my work performance is going to be sustained at the level I've experienced over the last week, its time to give up and look at trying to get disability. Basically, I'm grappling with the fact that there may not be any thing that I can do. That I'm going to fail and that I'm just fooling myself thinking that I can build a business.

Granted, there are a lot of things wrong right now, but they're never as bad as they seem. Here's the thought process I've been going through the last 3 days or so....

1) Problems with the publishing product site - Its being delisted from Google for the primary keywords. I have no idea what's happening, other than the site is going off line every once in a while. I put a pinger on it this morning to try to figure it out. The bottom line is that google rankings are all over the place, and sales are consistently in the toilet. The product has a lot of potential, but the site itself needs work to get it ranked, and the product needs to be better described.

2) The Sales distributable requires more work, has less income potential and more competition than I originally thought. It really needs to be put on the internet, and the skill base required is a stretch for me. I have potential clients, but don't feel good enough to contact them, and don't know if I can handle the pressure to make milestones that new clients are going to require. I think that I over-stated the income potential. I know I under stated the competition - there's at least 1 guy out there that has everything that I'd put in the thing, and his price base is much less than I would like to charge.

3) I have no local business and doubt whether I'll have the level of energy required to build one. This is self-explainatory.

4) The web retailing portion of the business is a long way off, and I can't see how I'm going to be able to compete in that business again. I know the publishing product site has good bones, but I need to be adding content all the time. With how I've been feeling, I have doubts that I'll be able to get on a program where I add content every week. But I need to work on it continually over the next 3 years to be able to "make it" with revenue from that business when my waiting time is up.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. I haven't figured out finances lately because its too depressing to think about. Wifey is starting to kick in revenue, and that should give me 30 months from today, if I can "break even" on business expenses every month. Now, here's where the depression thing and not feeling good kick in.......

The nature of Multiple Sclerosis is unpredictability. For the last week, I've felt like I can't start, complete or work on anything. I know that's not true. I know I can accomplish SOMETHING. Today, I'm not as depressed, so I'm thinking its not as bad as I envisioned it yesterday. So today, I'm in the mode of hanging in there for another week to see how I feel. I've thought about an alternative plan though.....

1) File for disability (takes up to 2 years)
2) Shut down all aspects of the business (but I lose the health insurance)
3) Sell the car and maybe the house to get extension and complete the disability petition
4) Give up and act like an invalid for the rest of my life!

I don't like the alternative plan too much, but I have to start getting myself used to the idea. The major problem I'm having is that its been 9 months, and I'm not on a baseline that I can predict how I'll feel or what I can accomplish every day. Tomorrow, I'm going to start keeping a time clock again, and whittling at the work load to see if I can get something accomplished. In the near term it will be better than giving up.

I won't leave go of the alternate plan, but try to guage if its viable over the next 3 months, with a deadline of the end of June.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and Sunny

Shaking - 6

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 8

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 7

Tinitus - 7
Ears Full - 7
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation -

Gastro - 9

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 5

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

A long lag, but with good reasoning. The week of the 9th, I was at the beta site of the distributable for a stress test. Took all week, but the long and short of it is that the program is going to work, I believe there's a market, and the implementation was successful. Basically, after the event, we took two days off. On the third day the system did everything that would normally take 3 weeks to do manually. I think that selling point says it all. Being there was a stretch though, and I was very tired every day. The clients were very gracious, allowing me to rest a couple of hours in the middle of each day. And I made the 13 hour trip back with no problems, although before the Multiple Sclerosis, I would have been able to drive straight through.

 

Coming back, I needed a day of rest on Monday, I worked with the clients on Tuesday to get the reports and checks run on Tuesday, and did some little admin stuff the rest of the week. Wifey has been working and trying to find her feet in a job that meets her skills. And then, on Thursday, we decided to pull Chip from private school. The teacher there is immature, prideful and wasn't interested in Chip being a success. So we're home schooling - which means I'm holding down the fort for the next week or so while Wifey finishes her orientation for a review program at a local work place. Heh-heh. Taxes due, new clients to prospect, programming to do, business show on Wednesday......this is going to be a challenge again. And about mid-week I recognized I was having another MS attack. Avonex was on the way, but Dr. Freedman ordered me a Methylprednisolone step-down pack, which I started Friday. No improvement, but the Avonex came in Saturday, so now I'm on both.  The side-effects of the Avonex weren't as bad as I anticipated, and I guess I'll have to wait a few days to see if it makes me improve. Should be interesting.

 

Today, I'm making it OK, but not doing anything mentally challenging. I've been able to keep going all day though, and getting some stuff around the house accomplished. Still have the shakes and back pain, but the chronic fatigue is lessening. I figure I'll be able to tell by mid week whether I'm getting better, just maintaining, or getting worse.

 

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 40 and Sunny

Shaking - 6

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 6

Fatigue - 3
Foggy Head - 4

Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 4
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 4

Gastro - 2

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 2

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - No

Benedryl last night - 0