Companion forum thread to:

Lightweight Testimony: Jim Sweeney's Enlightenment via Lead Weights, Helium Balloons, and Yachting

I just don't know what to say.

...often comes at the princely price of one's sanity.

Bravo!

> I just don't know what to say.

I do ...
but I can't...

[tears of laughter running down my face]

No way I can let my family see this article, they'll want to know where I found someone to write that article for me.

I DID almost end up in the hospital after my first return to backpacking trip eight years ago (subtitled "The Pack Mule at age 50")

This was an excellent article. A new monthly column?

I think this came a bit early - the first of April is still a few months off.

I'm speechless too.

Sigmund Freud

Edited by jshann on 01/14/2009 08:41:10 MST.

WOW!

Another speechless reader.

Let me understand this.

Did the author of this article just write an essay documenting for the world a declaration that he has funded all of his backpacking purchases with counterfeit money from a printing press built by his relative???

Edited by Valshar on 01/14/2009 15:50:16 MST.

That's what it sounds like to me...So, where does your Grasshopper Uncle live again?

Tony and Judith, I can't say I pretend to understand economic theory, but my uncle explains that the Treasury Dept actually (tacitly) encourages what they call the "orderly entrepreneurial enhancement of the monetary supply". What they object to is sudden, dislocating currency infusions. So, for example, when I suggested to him that we might let everyone at BPL use the machine, he explained (with a stiff left hook) "Now that would be getting greedy, wouldn't it?" The orderly, low key use of his machine stimulates the economy and saves the treasury dept the cost of printing and distributing extra currency. After all, my uncle says, where do I think the money for the current economic stimulus packages is going to come from?

Thanks BPL editorial staff for printing the funniest thing I've read all day. Its style reminds me of books authored by Tom Robbins, whose paperbacks have on occasion gone into my pack. In all cases, well done, Mr. Sweeney.

Tony, I'm confused too.

The accountant here is still trying to figure out if we have to report Jim's purchases as ... legal sales ... to the IRS ...!

There is a lot to think about in his article and then agian there is not. SPOOF!! UL is a waste of time-Right!!

Will there be a sequel on April 1st?

ROTFL!

Hard to believe this article wasn't listed as members only. To think I skipped over the Cowboy Coffee article for this.