Personal Update: Thank God for a sabbath.

I just finished collating receipts, performing much arithmetic, and running Turbo Tax, so now I can electronically file on Monday (waiting to make sure I didn't bone anything up). I can now relax and enjoy Palm Sunday.

I'll try to be a good sheep.

Hopefully not this kind of sheep:

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away,
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
You better watch out,
There may be dogs about--
I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen.
Things are not what they seem.

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real?
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors, into the valley of Steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.

and in synthesizer speech:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives He releaseth my soul.
HE maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
HE converteth me to lamb cutlets,
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.

etc.--Pink Floyd

But maybe this kind of sheep (see the last verse):

1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror,
where there is no terror!
For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you;
you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
--Psalm 53, ESV

I've got to be careful not hope too much, but at least I can take Pascal's wager.

Concerning the job: of course it could all be over any day, but in the sober light of further contemplation, irrational hope, and some judicious use of Reason, I may have a reasonable expectation of working at least another six months. If the Fascist overlords at the Port get too pissed, it could go really badly, and then my expectation would be in vain. Nothing is really certain, but I can see the future and it's a dark and cloudy place...