rlfj: Blog

There have been a lot of comments over the last few chapters. Carl needs to watch for his brother. Carl needs to watch for his mother or his father. Carl needs to hire security (preferably ex-Mossad/Secret Service/Spetznatz types, only meaner). Carl is naïve and stupid.

Carl is neither naïve nor stupid. However, Carl has consistently shown that he doesn’t think like a zillionaire. He still thinks he can live like a normal suburban dad. Chapter 80 shows that is no longer the case. More on this in the near future.

One interesting, and probably accurate, complaint was about cops responding to a suspicious vehicle complaint. The response, by a cop, was that it would be unusual to respond with the lights flashing, and unusual to leave them flashing while talking to people. That sounds realistic, but I think I am going to claim artistic license on this one. It would screw up the cliffhanger, wouldn’t it?

While researching this chapter I learned just how difficult it is to get a carry permit in Maryland. Maryland is one of a handful of ‘may issue’ states, where the state may issue you a permit if they decide you have a reason to carry. This is opposed to the ‘shall issue’ states, where they automatically issue the permit unless they can find a reason not to (you’re a felon, you’re crazy, etc.) This isn’t just about the law in 1983. This is current Maryland law as well. Maryland carry permits expire after 2 years and then must be renewed. If they feel you are no longer in danger, they will yank your permit. Also, Maryland does not recognize other states’ permits.

I learned the following from my email responses: “A swamp is a place where the plants that make up the area covered in water are primarily woody plants or trees. Woody plants would be mangroves or cypress trees. A marsh, on the other hand, is defined as having no woody plants. The non-woody plants would be saltmarsh grasses, reeds or sedges. Also, marshes are typically not as deep as swamps.”

Very interesting. Not sure whether Washington was woody or non-woody in the late 18th century. Thanks.

Huge amounts of email responding to the reappearance of Carl Buckman’s family. Hamilton and Mom really are fan favorites. Just a reminder, my own family is nowhere near as fucked up as Carl’s! I took some people I know, took their personality traits, and pushed them up a notch or two. In real life, my mom and brother and sister all still live in the Baltimore area, and my eldest daughter spent two weeks with them at the time I posted this on SOL. The only complaint I get is that I don’t call home enough.

Chapter 75 introduces us to a new member of the family, Dum-Dum! Many years ago we had to put down our dog, a beagle-pointer mix, due to kidney failure. After a few months, we decided to get another dog. When my wife and daughter asked my opinion I said that as a good ole boy from the South, I wanted either a small hound like a beagle, basset, or black-and-tan, or a hound mix, and she had to be free. They promptly found a family with puppies in the neighborhood and went to visit. They came back very excited.

When I asked what it looked like, I was told, “Just like a beagle!” Two weeks later they went back and I asked again. “A lot like a beagle.” Two weeks later it was, “Pretty much like a beagle.”

You can see where this is going. When they brought her home, I said, “That’s a beagle?”

Boxer-beagle mixes are known as bogles. The name is appropriate, in that it truly boggles my mind that ours generated enough brainpower to move around the room at warp speed. Most of the time I thought she was incredibly dumb, but my wife thought she was too smart for her own good. She was one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever owned. When you read about Dum-Dum’s idiocies, you are reading about the real-life Daisy Mae.

In other news, everybody writes that they want Carl to reconcile with his family. Well, that didn’t work out, did it? Everyone’s favorite character, Hamilton, crawls out from under his rock, cementing his place in all our hearts. I haven’t mentioned him since Chapter 69, and people still love to hate him.

There was an interesting correction I got. “Washington, D.C. shouldn’t be called a swamp. It is actually a marsh.” I must be getting old, because I don’t have a fucking clue what the difference is. I can state that part of the reason for the long summer Congressional recess was the desire by everybody to get the hell away from the malarial marsh at the height of mosquito season.

Only one reader had an issue with the investment size. He managed to find an investment history of the period that indicated my $5 million for 5% valuation was too high. All during the writing, and going back to my MBA finance days, I had been worried I was too low! We’ll do a quick renegotiation later. Very interesting, though!

Remember how a couple of chapters ago I mentioned the Buckmans were taking a vacation in Hawaii and visiting their friends at Schofield Barracks. Well, I’ve said it before, but it remains amazing to me. I can’t believe who all reads these stories! I got an email saying the reader had worked at Schofield Barracks and still lived in Hawaii. Did I want a fact checker?

Wow! Definitely! So, I bundled up a couple of chapters and emailed them for a quick edit. It’s a good thing, too, since Chapter 74 needed a complete and utter rewrite! We went back and forth through a couple of edits. Infinite thanks to Slider for his info and edits.

Some interesting feedback to the last chapter:

Will Carl’s knowledge, and what he does with it, change the future enough that his knowledge becomes useless? Or will he still be able to use that knowledge to make things better? Who knows?! Read and find out! Here’s something to think about, though. Carl is worth about $50 million at this point. Let’s say he does a Warren Buffet and grows his net worth to $50 billion. Many of the problems facing the country still can’t be fixed at that level. The U.S. economy is in the $10-$15 trillion dollar level (as of 2018). That’s another few orders of magnitude.

Neither Microsoft nor Bill Gates actually wrote DOS. Very true! Gates purchased it from another programmer, tweaked it as needed for IBM, and retained the marketing rights. (Yes, I know it’s more complicated than that, but you get the gist.) Is this critical to the story? NO! In fact it just adds a layer of confusion for his friends.

What was the name of the investment company Carl mentions? He couldn’t have forgotten E.F. Hutton, could he? You bet he could! Thanks for the reminder. I remembered the ad, but not the company!

Somehow I don't think Moore’s Law refers to beer “...In ten years' time, the size of the components will be a fraction of their current size, the price will be lower than now, even after inflation, and the power will be immensely lager." - Oh, if only Moore’s law applied to beer! The price of a six pack would halve every two years!

What is the name of the next book? The names of your books give hints about what is going to happen. “Lunar Orbit” Oh, wait that’s Book Nine, or is it Book Ten…

Could Carl have bought into Microsoft? Why not? In the real world, somebody did. I read the prospectus from 1986, and an outfit called Technology Venture Investors, a venture capital outfit from Silicon Valley, owned just over 6% at the time of the IPO. Why couldn’t Carl have done it? Maybe he managed to swoop in and get there first.