An Excellent Reminder of the Human Side of the Iraq Conflict
Finally we have web connections in the office again and, as soon as my Netscape launched it checks for pages that have changed since my last connect. Stiletto Philosophy is one of those pages that I track and with good reason. Carlene's got some excellent insights, links and a cool design to boot (I wish I could get my page to look half as cool as hers).
Anyway, the post she wrote that caught my attention was in regards to the effects of the Dear John letters that some people write to their significant others who are in a battle zone area. Basically, anybody who breaks up with someone who's going to war is dirt really. This is someone who's risking his or her life to safeguard the rest of our lives and now they've got to deal with the emotional effects of a break up while trying to keep themselves alive and still accomplish their mission?
Go and have a read, Stiletto Philosophy: When All's Not Fair in Love and War.

And, if any of you are contemplating breaking things off with your soldier SO (significant other) then reconsider. Heck, you just might save their life.

My New Window on the World or How Do Some People Get Driver's Licenses
I have a window on the world now, a change from my last office space which was spacious but without an exterior wall and thus no natural light. My window looks out onto the wall of the parking garage and a parking lot below. My other window gives a slightly better view of part of downtown. But it's all good because it�s the light I needed and no so much the distraction of pretty stuff outside (though I'd be thoroughly pleased if they knocked down the parking garage and put in a few beach volleyball courts instead).

Anyway, so what I am able to watch from my window are the comings and goings of people from the parking lot, deliveries and the people who take short cuts through the lots. Oh yeah, there's also a black and white cat that lives in the eight foot wide strip between the parking garage and the parking lot, there's lots of plants and fun stuff for a cat there so don't feel bad for it.

So, with my deluxe view that doesn't distract me overly, I am able to observe, National Geographic style in my office so the critters have no idea I'm watching, I had a chance to observe the natural parking technique of a middle aged African American gentleman who, I think, was really unsure of what the steering wheel actually did.

I watched him pull into the lot. Drive past the space he wanted, back up, make his approach, back up again to get a better approach, back up again for an even better (though extremely similar to the first two) approach. Finally he was ready to start pulling into the space. He would pull all the way forward while furiously spinning the wheel one way and then the other until the car ended up in the exact same place it had the time before. He did this no less than eight times, pull in, back it out and try again. Another 20 minutes later and he'd secured the power roof of the convertible and headed off to his day's activities.

My question is this, how could this guy have ever passed a driving test with his skillset?

And the follow up question. Doesn't it make sense to test older folks more than once every 8 years or whatever the standard is? This isn't geriatric racism, its basic safety sensibility. I know I'll hate it when I have to give up my driver's license but I would rather relinquish it than kill someone because I no longer possessed the skills to safely navigate my vehicle. And no, I'm not saying that the bad parker guy was a bad driver, I've never observed his behavior on the road though he seemed very calm and relaxed while parking.

But it would seem to make good sense to test those with either increasing skills or diminishing skills more frequently than the majority of the population. That means teenagers and older folks, maybe set the bar at 55 for bi-yearly testing. And I won't even broach the subject of restricting driving from teenagers altogether (check the stats, how huge a percentage of accidents are caused by or involve a teenager?).