Lo ahd behold - it's the end of April!

How fast it's gone....first four months of 2014.....pffffft.....here and gone....tomorrow is May Day, a holiday at home....but no dual meaning - no disaster alert from me as I am relatively up-to-date and semi-invigorated at this time of year.  I started in February.  It is now 3 months done.....I'm working through the end of July - for 'tax season' but this last half will be easier (I think) than the first half of this my 48th season.

And on the big screen, ancient Mac to the next of me, Milwaukee and St Louis are tied, 3-3 in the bottom of the 6th......with two live baseball games on the horizon (Eagles-Buffaloes on the 15th of May and Giants-Carp on the 18th, in Tokyo).  Time to complete my packing and to depart for GZ!

Monday morning blues......

It's a sunny Monday morning -  I got a tax work day

It's a sunny Monday morning - I'm in Hong Kong not to play

The work will be there, not to disappear - no way!

The seasonal tax load taking charge of life has its say.

Enough of poor blues poetry.   I started today with a tax meeting.  Fortunately, the meeting went well and I simply added another return to be done to the calendar.   I have two full days left in Hong Kong plus a heavy morning breakfast on Wednesday, prior to returning home.  I am a very boring person, now, because there is simply nothing on my mind other than tax work......focused to the proverbial 'T'.......dammit!!!

The drizzle continues.....

Is this what Seattle is like on good days?  We're in day two of low temperatures (nice!) but constant drizzle (not so nice...), not enough to warrant using the umbrella part of my cain but eye glass cleaning when arriving at a destination is necessary......

Nonetheless, this morning was something to cheer about - yours truly, the insomniac, slept through nearly 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.....nice, indeed!!

I perform, tonight, at the American Club in Hong Kong........last scheduled show of the year for me.....and in between?  More tax work!!

A drizzly, miserable Hong Kong day......

It takes me longer to get started in the daily work load.  I finally got my act together, today, around noon.  Here it is, 4:05pm, and I'm finishing lunch at the FCC.   From here, it's off to the fruit stand for my two fruit cups.   Then on to one more tax return for the day.....and then rehearsal time for tomorrow's show......

I started watching the Oliver Stone álternative'  history of the U.S., last night......it's long.....going to take several trips to Hong Kong to get through but it looks good, thus far, 93 minutes into it.

So much for today.....time to bet back to work!   Dammit!!!!!

You should be hungry for 'The Lunchbox'!

I'm not quite sure when 'The Lunchbox' was released in India.  I saw it, last night, in Hong Kong.  It was an Indian film without song and dance.  It was humorous, it had had pathos.  It had the sad but realistic commentary about aging:  no one really wants to buy yesterday's lottery ticket.  We view ourselves as far more eye appealing, far younger than we are.......May-December relationships that develop through unusual circumstances (i.e. tiffin lunches being delivered from Bandra to Narimen Point continually going to the wrong person - that just doesn't happen).  Nonetheless, this was a good film, one that I will go out of my way to purchase a pirate DVD from Chung King Mansions, to watch again with my wife and daughter.

If you are into 'art house' cinema, this is worthwhile to go out of your way to see!

Easter Monday - a day like all days.....

Hong Kong has a four day holiday.  Good Friday is an off day, as is the weekend.  But Hong Kong has adopted the British Easter Monday holiday, too.

It is time to soberly face a week of meetings, work and a final performance on Thursday night.  I'll start rehearsing, again, tomorrow.  I know the material well.....I'll just add the HK-US TIEA to the program.

The weather is getting humid - disturbing enough to warrant turning on the air conditioner this afternoon, for the first time, this year.  It has not gotten too hot.....yet.....that will soon come.

Ah well, a semi-weekend off is over...time to get back to work!

Something didn't Happen.....

Something Happened, by Joseph Heller.  I never really read anything much other than Catch 22 and decided, recently, to try some Heller.  I got about 150 pages into it before realizing that there were other things I'd rather read......

Keith Richards autobiography is another book I recently started......I will get back to this one but I know not when.

The two books I will read to completion without interruption - or at least that is what I am thinking at this time.....this too can change - are:  Dave Eggers A Hologram for the King, which was one of Michael Lewis' bookstand books and Michael Lewis' The Flash Boys.   What  particularly interested me about the Eggers book was that Lewis recommended it in an FT interview....what also interested me, as a writer of non-fiction, was that Lewis seemed to have only fiction on his night stand........I feel that way as well - I am a better writer of non-fiction because of the fiction I read.  I am told that I should stop reading fiction if I want to write it.  This is my problem - I like reading fiction too damned much!!!

Great ideas.....now where the hell's the time?

I'm a writer who simply works at taxes to support the writing habbit.  I'm a trainer (more than a craftsman), hopefully mentoring my partner to take over most of the tax work I desire to extricate myself from in the future.

I've got three writing projects in need of research:  A novel;  a memoirs centered around the Rolling Stones, the times we were in and where I was at during each of the six concerts I attended over a span of six decades.

And now there's the Leicester City Football Club, elevated, next year to the Premier League.  They are owned by a Thai oligarch.  Is he 'clean'?  Is he corrupt?   What are his politics?  When did he take over the club and what has he put into it?  Where are then going, next year......and the year after.....Once again, another non-fiction piece.

Do I have the time to be the writer I want to be?   Can I do the research necessary for one of those projects - for more than one?

.....and can I still become a better musician?????

I hate Google, I hate Facebook, I hate We Chat.......and Twitter is for twits!

This is the third time, today, that I start a blog.  I will not be bold, venturesome and inquisitive to try something new for the blog, as I've simply erased the two prior starts in the process.

Songkran takes place today.  It is the Thai New Year.  No more traditional celebrations but water fights, all day long, for those fools venturing out.  In this case, young and foolish are those who partake.....after all, I am completely a curmudgeon!!

I love Thailand.  I wish I could be more legitimate here.....I want to do banking but FATCA has become so limiting for Americans.

FATCA is the most deleterious, stupid enactment I can recall the U.S. ever starting.   And it is not just here in Thailand where I am forced to be on a cash basis.   I cannot open up a corporate bank account in Hong Kong either, because US regulations make it easier to decline American accounts.

Let us face it - without an audit trail (and you really do not have one being on a cash basis), reporting back to the U.S. is questionable, at best.

To be frank, FATCA makes me ashamed to be an American!

The frustrations of using software that is supposedly intuitive.....

I wrote a long blog, this morning.  I tried to attach a picture.  I wiped out that which I wrote.  SHIT!

Today is Songkran, the start of the Thai new year.   Tomorrow we return home to Guangzhou.  This afternoon?   I guess that we'll avoid the water fights that go with the holiday and spend the day at our hotel, reading, resting, relaxing......and, of course, doing tax work.

The agonies of a bad back.....

If only I knew how or why I get a lower back pain then I would take measures to prevent getting the pain.  Yeah, while not truly a pain in my ass (not that lower!), it is still a pain in the ass!

Yesterday, still battling some symptoms of a cold and chills, I had the back pain, too.  The back pain is still there but not that overbearing that I cannot function.....such is life.....

This morning, Songkran, the Thai new year, is 'water fight' day in Thailand.  Thonglor, where we are at, is not part of these activities.  Nana, where we used to stay, is definitely part of the water fight day.  I was out prior to the young, far more energetic (than me) water fighters.  I walked while listening to Elton John on my iPhone.  But for the music, I really do not care for a smart phone.  The calendar does not work correctly on the phone - never has, probably never will....so I do not use it.   The phone numbers do not automatically transfer to computer or iPad....but that isn't a priority for me as I so rarely use the phone.   Next phone for me will be a dumbphone - I do not need all those bells and whistles.

The aches and pains that start the day

It really does hurt.  I get up more slowly in the mornings because of the various and sundry aches and pains (particularly, the lower back) when I get out of bed.

Somehow, I do it mechanically during the middle of the night as, two to four times a night, I have to get up to pee.  Yet starting the day, waking up and being perhaps a bit more cognizant of what my surroundings and feelings are like, I get up, straighten up and start moving, albeit far more slowly than I once started out the day.

This morning I walked urban Bangkok, again.  I love my noise reduction earplugs.  I hate a smart phone but for my music collection on the phone.  That makes the mechanical marvel which I truly do not take advantage of (but for the music) an essential part of my life.   Fortunately, the humidity of Bangkok in the mornings is not overbearing as it will soon be in Guangzhou where, if I can set a new routine for myself, will get up and walk, then shower and proceed with my day, once we get home........I've got to keep the body parts in motion - not fast, necessarily.....nor slow, either.....just in motion!

4 more today and that's it!!

Wonder of wonders, miracles do happen:  we kept up-to-schedule for two weeks in Bangok and we actually have 4 completed tax returns that are ready to be sent out, today, from the Bangkok Post Office.

This has been a tiring trip - mixing the social aspects of doing work with the 'mechanical' tasks requiring 'thoughtless concentration' is rougher as one gets older.  Add to that the purely social aspects of being here, as well.....now I need a vacation!!!

Actually, I need a pressure-free, stressless time to seriously diet, as I dampen the frustrations of this, the 48th year of doing taxes with food......feeding my face gains weight I do not need but alleviates the frustrations of doing tax work.....such is life.......

Bangkok days.....

What a wonderful way to start the day!   No, not that 7am iPhone alarm going off in the other room.  Somehow, Katherine simply wants that masochistic awakening far earlier than necessary to get up.....

What was wonderful was actually awakening at 8:40am and slowly starting to function.....not going for breakfast until 9:30am!!!!!

Our Bangkok routines have thus far called for too active a day and we were simply tired after a rather full day, yesterday.  Today?  Well there's a business lunch for me and work this afternoon.  Tonight?  No going out!!!!!  We'll watch a movie, read and relax.

Pan Pacific Serviced Suites is wonderful.  True, the daily rate we are paying is 'stratospheric' compared to what we've spent in the past but there is sufficient space for us to be productive......and thus far, we've been very, very efficient, staying up-to-date, completely on schedule.

It is very hot at the proverbial height of day.  Noel Coward was right - mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun......joined, perhaps, by foolish old and overweight expatriate Americans who live the Pearl River Delta but travel south and north on the Asian side of the Pacific.

To switch or not to switch.......

For almost ever and ever and ever, at least since my discovery that it was impossible to keep up with American football in the early 1990s, I've been an Arsenal Gunners fan.

Leicester City will be back in the Premier League, next year.   I can 'relate' to Leicester, as our daughter spent four years in school only a bus ride away.  True, I've been to Emirates Stadium and television coverage for Arsenal will be superior to what I'd expect for Leicester City but the Apple Store did replace a crashed hard disk drive in Leicester and that place has a great rugby team with widespread support.

Can Leicester stay longer than a year?  Will the Thai ownership (which now answers my questions as to why LCFC kits were available at the airport in BKK) pour the necessary funds into making it a competitive team?    Should I switch allegiance?

Only time will tell.....but I can relate to Thai ownership.......and I can relate to Leicester.....unlike not being able to relate to either Thaksin's ownership of Man City.......

Life in BKK is wonderful....now to find a 3 month place for 'seeing' what life here would be like on an éxtended' basis........LL  7 April    Bangkok