You may have noticed me putting more and more personal comments at the beginning of columns. I think this resulted from getting more and more comfortable with my role as a columnist (even as I was losing interest—I didn't say I was straightforward).

I beat on the “inheritance, feh” horse a bit more in this column, but as before, I try to explain what to do about it, rather than just bash.

The other thing I noticed while rereading this column is the extra pattern thrown in at the end. I didn't do it to pad. I did it because I was honestly embarrassed to have missed it at the client and I didn't want other people to make the same mistake. This violates the “what one thing do you want to say” rule, but it doesn't bother me here. I'm very clear that there are two things to talk about, from the title on down. The power of any rule is when you understand it well enough to break it.