Time to say good-bye

Short of a miracle, it's looking as if I'll have to say good-bye. I'll provide a brief update, after which these haunts will in all likelihood fall silent.

We're now in Mississippi, far from Virginia and North Carolina, farther still from Italy and Russia. The move was exhausting. My father and youngest brother helped with loading and moving the truck. My wife, mother, and children took an overnight Amtrak, enjoying somewhat the conveniences of a sleeper. I have to say "somewhat" because either the agent had it wrong or I misunderstood him terribly. I understood from him that there would be three beds, and there were only two. So their trip wasn't as comfortable as I'd intended.

My initial understanding of Mississippi's ad valorem property tax terrified me. The phrasing I read put it at 30% of a car's value. If a car costs $20,000, the tax would be $6,000. I knew something had to be wrong there! Reading a little more carefully, I realized that 30% of the car's value is taxed, the actual tax rate is a percentage of that 30%. In fact, the $6,000 would (depending on one's residence) diminish to $660 or so, a far more reasonable amount.

At work, I have settled into an office, begun teaching classes, and (most importantly) restarted my research. I spent all day Thursday doing research, and ended up with a theorem that had eluded me for months.

Last year, I tended to mix personal time and work; I did some weblog writing at the college, and some research I did at home. This year I plan to keep the two much further apart — and when I am at home, I plan to stay involved in family life.

Keeping a regular weblog wasn't a problem when I was single. Last year, however, it generally mean that I went to bed much later than my wife, or that I wrote in my office while procrastinating lesson plans. (I hated preparing for statistics.) I've thought about a number of things I could write on the weblog recently, but I've kept the weblog at a lower priority than (a) sleeping, and (b) working. I know this situation isn't exactly the dichotomy I'm making it out to appear, but I can't resolve the shortage of time without letting go of a few things, and this will be one of them. I'd really like to post an occasional chant translation, but I can't even guarantee that. After all, it's been months (again) since I worked on the translation of The Spiritual Combat.

To all of you who visited and left comments,thank you for making this weblog a much more interesting place. As my wife would say, Идите с богом — go with God!