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don't let your relatives die
Feb. 23rd, 2007 12:56 pmTo be more specific, not if they traded undeveloped land in the desert for a membership in a gun club run by a scientologist.
While sifting through and preparing to discard much material from my dad's residence both my brother and I saw a document regarding the transfer of ownership of some land our grandmother bought long ago. My brother took the new high-powered rifle home with him. A few weeks later I found the 1320 rounds of ammunition, and I took it to the local gun shop rather than sell it at the estate/garage sale. I discarded the several crates full of promotional VHS tapes telling why your family could not survive without becoming members of the gun club, and how this place offered better gun and self-defense training than the US military does at boot camp, and what a deal it was if you bought a family membership and took your whole clan there to let the toddlers learn how to say no and then body-throw the opponent while mom, dad, and big sibs were over on the range firing semi-automatic weapons. All those tapes went into the 40 cubic yard dumpster. My brother and I both considered the property in the desert to be a write off.
But my stepmother remained bothered by the land deal, and as my uncle administers the estate she kept mentioning it. She doesn't know the full story behind the transfer, but I have my dad's disk drives. I'm already on record in comments inside modules of free software as being the kind of geek who won't accept some vendor's statement that a file format has ``no user-serviceable parts''. On those Microsoft file systems, inside of mail folders that are in AOL-proprietary formats, attached in documents that are in file formats that no word processor writes any more, I found the story. I may regret having done so.
My stepmother suggested that my uncle threaten to sue, just to make the guy sweat. I replied twice, once saying that in order to sue we would have to line up behind all the other people suing the gun club, and again saying that as a scientologist the guy had been conditioned not to sweat.
It was that first reply that showed what a naive geek I am, for my uncle was obligated to investigate. It turns out that in three days the court is scheduled to approve a settlement against the gun club owner. It is a class action, and simply by having joined the gun club my father's estate is a member of the class.
I shudder to think of the solution that might have been attempted by my great great grandfather.
While sifting through and preparing to discard much material from my dad's residence both my brother and I saw a document regarding the transfer of ownership of some land our grandmother bought long ago. My brother took the new high-powered rifle home with him. A few weeks later I found the 1320 rounds of ammunition, and I took it to the local gun shop rather than sell it at the estate/garage sale. I discarded the several crates full of promotional VHS tapes telling why your family could not survive without becoming members of the gun club, and how this place offered better gun and self-defense training than the US military does at boot camp, and what a deal it was if you bought a family membership and took your whole clan there to let the toddlers learn how to say no and then body-throw the opponent while mom, dad, and big sibs were over on the range firing semi-automatic weapons. All those tapes went into the 40 cubic yard dumpster. My brother and I both considered the property in the desert to be a write off.
But my stepmother remained bothered by the land deal, and as my uncle administers the estate she kept mentioning it. She doesn't know the full story behind the transfer, but I have my dad's disk drives. I'm already on record in comments inside modules of free software as being the kind of geek who won't accept some vendor's statement that a file format has ``no user-serviceable parts''. On those Microsoft file systems, inside of mail folders that are in AOL-proprietary formats, attached in documents that are in file formats that no word processor writes any more, I found the story. I may regret having done so.
My stepmother suggested that my uncle threaten to sue, just to make the guy sweat. I replied twice, once saying that in order to sue we would have to line up behind all the other people suing the gun club, and again saying that as a scientologist the guy had been conditioned not to sweat.
It was that first reply that showed what a naive geek I am, for my uncle was obligated to investigate. It turns out that in three days the court is scheduled to approve a settlement against the gun club owner. It is a class action, and simply by having joined the gun club my father's estate is a member of the class.
I shudder to think of the solution that might have been attempted by my great great grandfather.
