h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can free up a lot of space just by getting rid of my tax returns for 1989-2001 inclusive. Might do that later today, actually...

Ahh but I find that when I do things like that I need to find them sharpish the next day.

Trust me, I'll *never* need these things again. Ever.

And even if there was some risk of it, I think I'll live dangerously.

Oh you big brave man


I love it when you go all macho and decisive.

Just wanted to say hello to Fizzymouse. Meanwhile, I'm finding a mere 7 months accumulation (mostly documents, none of which I dare dispose of for at least two years) daunting. And it all has to be properly filed and packed up before I return to California, probably sometime after August.

Good luck with that IT .... I hope it goes smoothly.

Macho and/or decisive? Moi?

Too analytical to be existential, too cerebral be compulsive or intellectual, fast and decisive only in an emergency, slow and decisive otherwise.

Ivan, we have to keep our tax returns for at least seven years after the filing date. With two of us here, that's half the filing cabinet gone before I even put any of the billing statements, etc, in there.

My dad got the Purple Heart in Vietnam. He doesn't like to talk about it at all, so I know very few details, but he was there with the Navy doing search and rescue during the late '60s. I don't remember (if he ever told me) what craft he was on or the exact date he left, but it was in time for him to get married in 1970 and for me to spring forth in '72.

My dad's cousin's husband is Scottish and was apparently stationed on the Suez Canal during the mid '50s.

While my grandfather and a few of my great-uncles served in WWII and Korea, I wouldn't know who or when or with what branch. And most of them are dead now, so they're not telling. I'm going to have to get my uncle to show me his genealogy reports one day.

I think I only have to keep five years' worth of tax stuff, but I'm keeping seven just in case. (In case of what? I really don't know. )

I don't have a filing cabinet. I have a chest of drawers that is sadly abused by being filled with paperw*rk and other odd things that belong nowhere-in-particular. I'm going to cull it drastically, honest I am.

Military matters generally pass me by. The relatives I've known personally have usually played for the other team, as it were, and sometimes that's best not gone into in detail.