You know, lately I've been a bit burned out on this whole internet thing. Constantly having your words picked over, and read between, gets to be a bit much. Todays events have really underscored this situation.

I had good news and bad news today. First, the good news was that my new Vinland from Albion arrived. Second, the bad news was that I had to immediately put it up for sale. This happened right before I left for work. When I got home tonight I had several e-mails and PMs' waiting for me. Some were interested in buying the sword, but too many others just wanted to know what was *really* going on. Was I unhappy with Albion? Was there something wrong with the sword?

Sweet Marry and Joseph people :confused:

As I stated in my "For sale" post, this was due to income tax issues. Last year we Road Dogs finally got a much overdue payraise, a real honest to goodness pay increase. This was great. The only problem was that the state pencil jockies neglected to compensate in my paycheck, in terms of income taxes. The results were that, a couple of days ago, I found out that I am going to have to bend over and get stuck with a nice four figure payment this year. This is also why my customized Migration Type D is up for sale. I certainly don't want to sell that one either, but with some other unanticipated expenses in the last few months I really don't have any choice. Let me stress, *there is absolutely nothing wrong with this sword*. It arrived in good shape and exactly when Mike said it would.

To do Albion credit, Mike Sigman saw my post and immediatley phoned me and offered to give me a refund on the sword. I thought this was pretty considerate of Mike, which isn't unusual if you know him. Fortunately I have a party interested in the sword. So Albion won't have to eat it, I'll be one step closer to satisfying Uncle Sam, and a sword lover will get a very nice, and very new sword at a very nice price.

None of this is anyones business really. However, due to the fact that far too many people seem to want to read between the lines, and make something out of nothing, I felt that it was important to clarify the situation.

Now back to our regular programing.

I hear ya Patrick ....

If this record breaking ( temperature-wise ) winter does not start dropping some more snow on us
I'll be forced to list a thing of two !

Selling is not always the sign of dissatisfaction ..... alot of times just a financial necessity !

Good luck , my friend ! Mac

Sometimes the internet is like a giant quilting party. You know, this giant communistic redistribution of wealth the federal government has going on gets me steamed too. Combine it with the removal of morality and religion and HUGE deficiet spending and we seem to more and more to look like Russia in the 70's adn 80's. As far as the sword goes Patrick, I think that to some degree you are a victim of your own success in that people know and respect your opinion on here. I think that's why Mike called you up so quickly (I ma looking for some flattery in a bad situation here :) ). But you are correct and we have so often stated on here, facial expressions, intonation and sarcasm that we use in normal conversation do not come across in the printed word. Added to that the fact that you have to air your personal affairs to straighten a potential mess out, I can see your frustration. Good luck with Uncle Sam. One cool thing about beign a high school teacher is that you never make enough money to have to pay income taxes at teh end of the year. I can sympathize with you though about the state screwing up. Our intelligent populus in Louisiana voted on a plan to eliminate state taxes for everyone on food and electicity. Thing is, in the plan they reshuffled the income tax brackets so I went from paying 3% income tax to 6% income tax (this is state tax folkes). To compound matters, the plan went into effect in the middle of a tax year!!! So I will porbably have to pay our glorious state this year also. Aint life grand!! Hang in there Patrick. When I win teh powerball tonight ;) I am haveing a huge party fro all the myArmoury fans where I fly you all in, put you up in first class accomdations and we have a huge cutting party with Cajun food and Scottish whisky :D

It happens Patrick...

In order to pay off some overdue bills and begin upgrading my arsenal I've been forced to sell off several of my pieces.

It's natural for people to react that way. We all must make sacrafices, unfortunately yours was very sudden.


Good luck with your financial dilemma....I've been there too :(

Didn't you guys know ?It wasn't your money to begin with . Your far to stupid to spend it responsbly yourselves . Be
Greatfull that you've got such a caring group of pseudolawyer/politician/scumbags to make far more effective use
of it than you ever would . Carl Marx party anyone?

...and that's about as far we should go with political grousing here. And don't be such crybabies! You dont pay more than 50% in taxes! :eek:

As for Patrick's post, I wonder what he really meant with it... ;)

"...and that's about as far we should go with political grousing here."

I couldn't agree more Bjorn. The only reason I posted this was to eliminate the speculation that I was sure would occur. In terms of govermental politics, well, the only thing worse than a politician is a child molester :evil:

This really isn't a major life crisis for me, but it is a real bite in the booty. In fact, I was thinking of calling Mike and cancelling the order when the sword arrived. I actually called him to let him know that the sword had arrived. I thought about it for a couple of hours and decided that I just couldn't keep it. Being responsible has its downside. So Mike was pretty confused when he saw me put it up for sale, sorry Mikey. I still feel bad about the deal since I hold the folks at Albion in pretty high regard. I do consider them friends instead of merely just a business acquaintance.

I did mention the tax situation in my original "for sale" post, in hopes that I could head off any reading between the lines. As Harlan Hastings has said, I'm a pretty "in your face" kind of guy. Jason Dingledine told me "We like you Patrick, you don't cut anyone a break even your friends" *g* I thought that I was up front and very clear on my reasons for the sale, so it's very frustrating for me when these things happen.

Given all of the "Teams" past experiences with this kind of thing elsewhere we were a bit worried about it when we started myArmoury. It was one of the headaches that we wanted to avoid. I have to say that we've been very pleasently suprised thus far. Our members have conducted themselves in a very mature and responsible fashion. It's made moderation almost unneccesary, and we're very gratefull to all of you for your behavior. You've really helped us raise the bar.

Sorry Bjorn , Patrick , ect.... Didn't mean to soap box it . I'm just going throught the tax proccess for my first year being
self employed and it does turn out that you whind up closer to Bjorn's tax rate than what i'm used to . Very frustrating
and aggrivating . It's a bit of a thorn in my side just now .

Interesting that people spent so much time reading between the lines that they didn't read the lines.

Anyway too bad you have to sell. The migration looks especially nice in the photos. Seems like there have been some nice buyer opportunities now that I have every penny to my name allocated. :wtf:

No worries Allan :D

Hey, I was a moderator over at SFI too!