It's Friday!

Thank goodness!

I went to the gym last night, 4 days after I started taking diuretics at my doctor's direction for my high blood pressure Last Friday I weighed 107.3 kg (multiply by 2.2 to get pounds, all you USans!). Yesterday I weighed myself, and I weighed 103.6 kg! I have lost 3.7 kg, or a bit more than 8 lbs. In six days. I think that's a bit excessive, but I suspect that I was beginning to retain fluid because of my heart attack. I have also been watching what I eat.

I would like to get down to 90 kg (198 lbs) or below. 13.6 kg (around 30 lbs or 2 stone 2 lbs) should be doable, I hope. That might turn my blood pressure back to normal and get my blood sugar much lower.

In other news, my laptop battery has been recalled. A different battery, but the same old fire hazard. I have ordered the new one and have been advised to take the battery out and use AC. If I were as mobile as most people around here, I'd be sunk, as they are always toting their laptops around to meetings. Luckily, I hardly ever do that and have so far been successful in not dropping it on its edge.

Kudos to Lenovo though. I thought their website would be clogged up and useless, but they had a quickly-responding direct webpage from which you could download a program that not only checked your battery to see whether it was one of the ones that were recalled, it then went on to link to a form on which you could enter your details and be assured of a new battery. Only problem: the web page is faster than their service, because the battery will arrive in 4-6 weeks. Oh well; I shall endeavour to ensure that if I drop the laptop on its edge, I won't put the laptop on my lap to use it, in case it sets my lap on fire.

Our former roommate, Brett, is in town for an oenology course so he's staying with us this week through very early Monday morning. It's really nice to see him again and partake of his quirky humour.

Renouncing US Citizenship just got more expensive for some

I've been considering renouncing US citizenship for a while, mainly because I never intend to live there again and I'm tired of filling out tax returns each year even though I make too little money to owe any tax. Well thanks to my representative, Nancy Pelosi, this just got a bit more complicated. According to a small entry in the 300th or so listing on Google after a search, I discovered that now you are required to treat all your property as though you had sold it the day before you renounce your citizenship and then pay capital gains tax on it. There is an exemption of $600,000, which will be linked to the wage-price index, and of course I have no property, real or otherwise.

This burns my behind. The United States has been treating expatriates as second-class citizens for years, making us fill out useless tax returns and considering people who want to live outside the US and become citizens there as somehow less than human. No other country bar the Philippines and Eritrea taxes its expats.

Those silly Democrats tacked this onto the bill raising the minimum wage. Slyly. Over the years this stealth tax on expats has been made more and more complex. However, it looks as though at least those of us who decide to renounce US citizenship won't have to continue to file tax returns for 10 years after renouncing, as many do now, and the $600,000 floor means that few if any expats will be liable for this. But the silly bureaucracy around expatriation will now become worse.

So, the choice is becoming clearer. I'm starting to think this is the year to do it. That way it will be a clean break, and I won't have to file any more tax returns.

Another clerical miscreant bites the dust

George Rosenkranz, who was a curate at Our Lady Star of the Sea in Marblehead when I was a teenager, and who spread a trail of molested boys throughout the Archdiocese of Boston, has finally been laicised by the Vatican. Sean Cardinal O'Malley's statement is here.

I always felt he was kind of slimy, and now it's been confirmed. He's 70 years old now, and the Archdiocese has withdrawn his salary (although it doesn't say anything about his pension).

A very sad end.