Playing a Little Catch Up

So, here's a quick update on what I've been up to since the last post.

Natural Bridges State Park with just a wee bit of saturation.

Yacht Harbor Bubble - I've been able to ride my bike more and toured through my old stomping grounds yesterday after work. It was nice to roll over places I've spent so much time on before.

Fuzzy SC Boardwalk at night.

For a number of reasons, I am unable to provide much detail on what, exactly, I've been up to.

Here are some things I've been thinking about and talking about behind private doors on the internets.

Purity balls, in which girls 'gift their virginity' to their fathers until marriage, sweeping America

How an Under-Appreciated iOS 7 Feature Will Change the World - this is a brilliant idea that I hope gets baked into all devices moving forward to extend networks seamlessly out into the boonies.

Taking homophobia and applying it to religiophobia FTW.

This American Bro: A Portrait of the Worst Guy Ever - to which I would add, friends don't let friends become or behave like bro's. Bro's need to be exiled from society and left to starve in the wilderness, they diminish all of society by their overt and inane douchery. Yes, I know we'd end up losing Las Vegas entirely (the Bro capital of the world save Spring Break when it becomes LAUDERDALE!!!1!).

Fun at the park.

Girl Genius - a highly entertaining webcomic by the Foglio brothers of Dragon magazine fame from waaaaaaaay back in the day. Really entertaining stuff.

Not sure how all the graphics are going to play in the post. May have to make some adjustments. But I've added stuff I've reshared because I strongly believe the sentiment expressed. The bonuses for the do-nothing greedheaded assholes on Wall St. exceed ALL the earnings made by minimum wage employees. And somehow it is the lowest rung that continues to shoulder the heaviest burden while the rich get richer.

Something has to change. We cannot continue to expand the chasm between haves and have nots. The have nots simply will not stand for it beyond a point and there will be a rising up and a culling.

Greed is the problem. Not caring for the poor. GREED.

Things I Don't Get or Teh Stoopid, It Burns!!1!!

He probably borrowed this car from a friend.

Another post of head scratching things that just don't make a whole lot of sense to me. I guess this post should be filed under Old Codger not get offa my lawn!

I do not understand.

- Non-millionaires who vote Republican. The GOP has made it clear that they couldn't care less about anyone who's not a millionaire. In fact, some of them actively hope all non-millionaires just drop dead.

- Real, live people voted for Michelle Bachmann? Not brain dead coma patients, people with pulses and everything elected this nincompoop to national office? And they still support her? Yeah, she's from the same state that elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura as governor but still, she's about five beers short of a six pack. How can you tell when she's lying? Easy, her mouth is moving.

Things I'm Thinking About

As usual, I've got a lot of things on my plate right now and it is all too easy to forget about something for a day or two (or more). I live and die by my tasklists and my ability to add to those lists from anywhere. I've recently figured out how to add tasks via Quicksilver which speeds up the process but still needs a few tweaks to the flow to make it as smooth as can be.

Anyway, here are some of the things that I'm thinking about these days.

Riding my bicycle on the road - I've been pretty clear about why I like to ride a motorcycle on the road and my bicycle off the road. This image, from a horrible incident in 2008 in Mexico, is a strong reminder of why I really prefer to stay off the road as much as possible. In this accident, the driver was drunk and fell asleep at the wheel before plowing into a group of cyclists in the first fifteen minutes of a race. He killed one and sent 10 others to the hospital. Riding on the road scares the crap out of me and I do it as little as possible. Besides, I prefer fresh air rather than exhaust fumes. I do ride my bike to work every so often but most of it is on a path along the slough. I'd ride more often but sometimes have to go quite far in the course of my work day and pedaling there just isn't feasible. Plus, I generally carry a pretty heavy backpack and that makes cycling quite alot less enjoyable.

The Mara-Kvetch Express

Yes, just yes, yes, yes. Gina Carano kicks ass!

There's a bunch of stuff going on in the world, some good, lots bad, some that I just can't be arsed to give a shit about even though many, many other people are quite literally dancing in the streets. Plus, there's a Domo-kun you can print out and make, really, click the More link below, I promise.

Yes, the Lakers won the NBA championship again. Big whoop-de-do. Basketball sucks. Its a game for the freakishly tall, of which I am quite clearly not. Kobe Bryant wins another ring. Yeah for him, I wonder if he's going to celebrate by sodomizing another pretty white girl (against her will or not)?

The World Cup is going on and is accompanied by the angry buzzing sound of something called a vuvuzela. Until a week ago I had no idea what those incredibly stupid annoying things were called. They don't bother me though because I'd rather watch the "No signal" text bounce around my television screen than watch 22 grown men play an hour and a half long game of keep away. Seriously, soccer is the most watched sport on the planet? Are we really this lame? No, don't answer that.

Things on my Mind

You'd think working over spring break would be a total bummer and it would be if I pulled a regular paycheck for weeks when I don't work. But, since I don't get paid unless I put in the hours, I'm happy to work in the peace and quiet of a mostly empty office building.

This way I stand a reasonable chance of getting some stuff done. Maybe even some work too!

Yet another sign of the impending end of all reality - KFC Has A Bacon Sandwich That Uses Fried Chicken As "Bread", a mere 1700 calories in this dainty nibble. Sure it tastes good, its bacon and cheese flavored fat wrapped in chicken flavored fat. You'd be better served just eating directly from the tub of lard and cutting out that annoying middle man stuff like chewing or flavor.

Calf cramping - One of the side effects of a lifetime spent spinning my pedals on singletrack and trails is that I have rather large calves. They are a great source of power when I need to motor up hills but they also have a tendency to cramp up when my body gets worked harder or longer than it is used to. Part of this problem is hydration but part of it is just due to having large calves. I'm currently working on a stretching regimen to help keep them loose so that I'll actually be able to transition from swim to bike to run without lock ups. The first bit of advice I'm going to try is to spin the last couple of minutes on the bike before jumping off and starting the run. We'll see how it goes.

Photo sales - I had an email from someone who wants to use one of my photos as part of their office decor. It is for a teaching hospital which is all well and good but I'm not so sure about giving away my products. There is little chance of any further sales beyond this one. I don't think I'm going to be able to just give away the use of the image. If they want to purchase the use of the image then that's another thing altogether but I'm just not down with giving things away just because they ask.

Sarah Failin's Show on Fox News - You're set up for a craptastic failure when two of the people you are purported to have interviewed for your new show know nothing about an interview and the real plan was to use a canned interview. That Sarah Palin's new show suffered crappy ratings tells me that there might just be hope for humanity after all. We're probably still screwed but this is a sign pointing in the right direction.

Jesse James - the poster boy for schmucks everywhere. You cheated on your talented and gorgeous wife with some gutter trash tattoos on their faces skeezers? And then spent a couple of days in rehab as some limp little gesture to your soon-to-be ex-wife. You are seriously one of the most pathetic losers in the public spotlight right now. Astonishing what a douchebag you are.

Health Care Reform - oh my gawd, the world didn't come to an end and, to my knowledge, no death panel has decreed that I must die. All of the hysterical GOP hyperbole has come to pretty much what people with brains expected, that is, nothing at all. Sure we're not finished and there's still many miles to go before health care can be considered fixed but passing the big first step is huge in terms of where we go from here. Congrats to Obama and the Democratic leadership for having the balls to get it done. I dare the GOP to try and repeal it. I double dog dare you.

Baseball - it is amazing to me how much less I give a damn about the hand basket we're all scooting towards hell in now that baseball is back. Now I can wallow in statistics and enjoy the schadenfreude of the Dodgers sucking all season long.

Racing and camping - this month will see two new activities added to our family. One is going to be my first ever mountain bike race on the 18th at the Sea Otter Classic in Laguna Seca. I'm not nervous about the race as I'm planning on just going out and riding as best I can and letting the chips fall where they may. The other side of this coin is that we will be doing some camping over the next few weeks to prepare for our triathlon weekend at the end of the month. Should be fun, should being the operative word!

That's about it for now, much stuff going on these days and most of its pretty good stuff!

Things On My Mind

This will probably be a fairly random ramble through the in-box in my brain. Bear with me or not, its all good.

Burn Notice - I am loving this show. It is smart, sexy, funny and cool. The writing is crisp, the action scenes are very well done, the plots are a bit over the top but that's part of what makes it fun. And I have a massive crush on Gabrielle Anwar. It isn't as hyper-realistic and gritty as The Shield but it is just as good.

Education Funding - There is a severe disconnect between the mentality of cutting education budgets and then simultaneously requiring test scores to keep going up. This is a doing more with less dichotomy and it is chock full o' fail.

Triathlon Training - There's a huge difference between being in bicycling shape and being in swimming shape. I've been learning that one the hard way over the last week or so. But knowing is half the battle and I'm improving my swimming rapidly. Next up will be adding in running which ought to be another massive shock to the system. Also, note to self, find out what it means that I can exercise for extended periods of time at my supposed 100% heart rate (220 minus my age).

PC Tech Support - I have become a very big fan of a utility program called Advanced System Care. It is a quick download and it cleans out Spyware/Adware, Registry errors, privacy files and temp files. It runs incredibly quickly and can turn a crapped out landfill-bound computer into a usable machine again. Very impressed with it. And, oh yeah, its free. There is a pay-for version but the free version seems to kick all kinds of butt all on its own.

SXSW - I think I want to go to this too-cool-for-school conference next year if there is anyway to swing it. The reports coming from attendees, the conference tracks and the overall awesomeness is like a bug light for geeks and I'm an unabashed geek.

Christian Home Schooling - no curriculum oversight means evangelical Christians can teach their kids pretty much whatever bullshit they want to, like, oh I don't know, that evolution is crap and Intelligent Design is the more widely accepted version how things came to be. Which means, of course, that these are growing up ignorant of reality and are instead being kept stupid intentionally to keep the faith. Or some such crap. Either way, we have kids being taught demonstrably false junk science and calling it home schooling.

John Edwards - liar, cheater, cancer stricken wife beater (truth be told, I can't find a reliable source that he actually did beat his sick wife). Total scumbag shiny face piece of shit. That's about all I have to say. Though his mistress is pretty hot in the photos in GQ.

Tea Party Protests - these Tea Party people are among the loudest and most astonishing and openly hateful people in America today. They are pawns of corporate interests and have the grotesque audacity to openly mock handicapped people and minorities in the name of their totally twisted for of patriotism. They would be laughable but since they are actually serious about their beliefs (as beamed into their walnut sized brains by their GOP overlords, of course) so I just tend to feel a sort of pity for them. Like they are too stupid to know any better. But they should know better, they just choose to join in on the herd mentality and allow themselves to be lead by people who do not have their interests at all on their agenda. They are pawns, stupid, hateful, ugly pawns.

And, with that, I'm going to saddle up and get myself a bike ride in. The training continues and I plan to be in exceptional condition come the start of my race!

Rapidfire Bloggeration

There's alot going on these days and I don't really have the time to devote full posts to each of them so I'm going to mash up blogging and Twittering and will rapidfire some thoughts out.

Jon & Kate - didn't watch their tranwreck but saw this divorce coming a mile away. Why? Well let's see, Kate's a control freak bitch and Jon looked so utterly lost and like a cornered rat with huge eyes, it was inevitable. Who loses? The kids. Sometimes (most times really) "reality" sucks and this show is one of the worst and most egregious offenders of decency.

Mark Sanford - dude disappeared for a week and flew to Argentina to have sex with his mistress. Which normally wouldn't be anything especially notable except he's the governor of South Carolina and, supposedly, a pillar of the GOP's family values. Now he's just another asshat politician who's a slave to his cock.

E! Bans Speidi - Speidi is Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, two vapid attention whores with absolutely nothing to add to the universe except stupidity and self absorption. E! put it to a vote and 96% of votes went to banning any mention of them on the channel. That's, um yeah, that's a strong consensus. And yes, I harbor as strong a dislike for these two jackasses as someone possibly can for people they've never met.

North Korea Sentences Two Female Journalists to 12 Years Hard Labor - Is there anyone that doesn't know this is all political posturing? These two women are being used as pawns so that North Korea can get something from the United States. They are being held hostage on the national stage and getting tons of press for it.

Gay Marriage Remains an Issue - For some ridiculous reason, people stil have their knickers in a bunch over whether two people who love each and only happen to be the same sex can be married. Same sex marriage is a total non-issue to me, same with Don't Ask, Don't Tell. My sexuality, my preference is and should be of no concern to anyone else. How I treat my spouse, who happens to be a woman, is of concern. I look forward to a day when we look back at this time and wonder just what all the fuss was about.

Closed Minds - If your spouse was interested in adding to your family's income in an effort to cut down on the the ridiculous number of hours you worked and improve your health and the health of your kids in the process then wouldn't it behoove you to, at the very least, consider it? It may not end up being your solution but not even bothering to take an honest look is just idiotic.

Iran's "Election" - Look, we all know it was a complete sham. Own up, give up and run an honest election and people will stop protesting, stop calling you great big fatwa liars. And, while you're at, please stop with the affected outrage at being questioned about the validity of the election. You are fooling no one and look like absolute tools while you protest the protests.

That's it for now. Time to put on some pants and go let my dentist drill on my face for a little while.

Link Round Up

Michael Savage Threatening Sites That Connect Him To Rockstar Energy Drinks? - Michael Savage's family profits from every can of Rockstar sold. If you buy Rockstar then you are directly supporting Michael Savage and his ugly hate-based rants.

Voted Most Likely to Get Her Kids Beat Up on the Playground even though her underlying motivations are honorable. She is fighting against the regular distribution of sugar laden foods in public schools but going about it in the most abrasive and hyperbolic way possible (which is odd since she's in public relations and should know that you get far more traction with kindness than screaming).

Bicyclist Harassment Ordinance Passed and, as Levi Leipheimer tweeted, this should be a national law against the random, stupid harassment and harming of people on bicycles on our roads.

PETA wishes Obama hadn't swatted that fly because we don't have quite enough flies for all of their bullshit.

Pimp my ECO Ride: Win a Strida Folding Bike - pretty much what the link says. Jump through their easy hoops and get a shot at winning a very, very cool folding bike.

iPhone 3.0 Update: Hidden Features and includes some rather useful stuff. Got an iPhone then you should give this a read.

And, finally, the Skull Face Motorcycle Helmet. Yes, there is a picture, click the link to see it. I tend to think its stupid rather than cool but part of me does think its kind of neat.

Some Good Stuff

Have come across some good stuff on the internets lately and wanted to share.

Need some more wild in your life? Check out Nick Brandt to see some spectacular images of Africa. He has a fantastic eye and has captured a whole host of animals, panoramas and the feeling of the wildness of Africa. Truly inspiring photos.

The other is referenced in the post below. Texts from Last Night provided me with more laughs in a few hours yesterday than I can remember in a whole week. I could post a dozen that made e laugh out loud but I'll just post a choice couple.
"(416): I just jerked it to the same porn two nights in a row... and she says I have problems with commitment..."
"(512): i just sat at a stop sign for 10 minutes waiting for it to turn green. i need to STOP SMOKING THIS SHIT."

Via Amy's Reader Feed, Looking Into the Past is a Flickr pool of old pictures held up where they were taken. Trust me, it is very cool.

And, lastly, SuperCook lets you enter in food you have and then kicks out a bunch of recipes you can make. It is pretty awesome.

That's all I've got for now. I've got some calls to make, trails to ride and hearts to break (just kidding on the last one).

Cool Stuff from Teh Intarwebs

The best thing about the internet is that it is a juggernaut of awesomeness, of productivity, of hacks, of tips, of tricks and of just plain cool stuff that other people have poured their time and love into.

Here are some things I've found recently that I think are cool enough to pass along.

Closr - want to put a zoomable image on your site? This place has cool widgets to make it easy.

Amazon's 773 Free Mp3s - yes, I realize that Amazon is the devil and a discriminatory evil corporation. But free music is free music, it doesn't help them.

13 Tips for Improving Outdoor Portraits - pretty self explanatory.

Make Ubiquity Your Ultimate Firefox Commander - if you haven't added Ubiquity to your Firefox then you are missing out. Load it up, rock it out and marvel and how freaking awesome your browser can be.

Still Tasty - curious about whether some food in your fridge is more dangerous than edible? Still Tasty breaks down shelf lives for you.

Pricay Choice - helps you opt out of advertising online, tracking cookies and other marketing flimflammery.

A Field of Light Sabers Powered by Ambient Electricity - this is just friggin' cool.

Install a tip out tray in your kitchen - convert that stupid fake drawer in front of your sink into a really useful tip out drawer. Easy and awesome.

Random

I feel inordinately proud that I filled five big trash bags with yanked weeds from the steetside of my fence.

Sully and Grady are wearing matching green and yellow tie-dyes today that we made at a St. Patty's party a couple of weeks ago. Sully told his daycare provider this morning that I made them at a party, the way he enunciates is just too funny and sweet.

My district has seen fit to close down one of the means I was using to get access to my home computer and no firewall. My annoyance is powerful.

The seemingly capricious nature of the filtering is just stupid. Garbage sites like Millsberry, Cartoon Network and Family Guy (note, garbage in the sense that they have zero educational content) are allowed but sites like TinyURL are blocked. Stupid and annoying. Made more because I used to be able to bypass the blockages by entering my tech account information but they aren't allowing that anymore. What I need is a 3G card for my laptop so I can connect without concern for firewalls and blockages.

I'm looking forward to checking in with some of my teachers I've gotten Kyani samples to. One has been having some pretty serious stomach issues that should be starting to improve. Another has a son who's wrestling and will totally dig the extra energy. And yet another had surgery recently and will make a quicker recovery with his free radicals being actively chased down and flushed out.

It will be interesting to see if the after school jerky says anything. Last week, I got rid of his yard sticks because he used them to hit the backs of the kid's chairs when they weren't working hard enough. Not cool and bordering on abusive. I also made it so that he couldn't use the admin sign-in on my lab computer. No reason why he should be logged in as an admin, ever. He's not a tech and he had his email account removed for abuse. I doubt he'll say anything since he's got no grounds to complain.

I think I processed six or seven loads of laundry yesterday.

There are nine full days of work before Spring Break. Spring Break activities include: a day trip down to the Sea Otter Classic for photos and biking fun, a camping trip, several good long ripper mountain bike rides, a yard sale/garage excavation.

Looking forward to a UFC event tomorrow night, Ultimate Fight Night Condit vs. Kampman (predictions coming soon) followed by the first episode of the new season of The Ultimate Fighter US vs. UK. The coaches are Dan Henderson for the US and Michael Bisping for the UK. Two fighters I have alot of respect for and it should be a good season.

Finally, after two weeks of Survivor on virtual hiatus, there's a new episode this week. March Madness killed one show one week and they aired an annoying behind-the-scenes show the next. I wonder how many people just stopped watching altogether?

I'm still thinking about that outstanding sushi we had the other night. The two new rolls we tried were really superb, the Roll Forest (mango, avo, macadamia nuts and topped with a tiger prawn) was good but the Grinch Roll (deep fried soft shell crab, spicy tuna topped with avo, tuna, wasabi tobiko and spicy mayo) was really top notch especially with the wasabi tobiko on top.

That's about it for now.

Random Thoughts

William H. Macy looks like a cross between a human and a frog.

Dick Cheney is as hateful, vile and wrong in "retirement" as he was as vice president. Only now nobody really gives a shit what he has to say.

The Daily Show does a pretty fantastic job of demonstrating the ridiculous hypocrisy of the Republican attempts to derail the stimulus package. Quote of the night "C-Span doesn't delete the tapes when a new administration takes power."

We are finally starting to work our way through this last season of The Shield. It is superb in a dark and twisted kind of way.

I get to see my Mommy tomorrow and I'm pretty excited about it. And not just because there will be excellent sushi involved.

I tend to share alot of articles I read on TechDirt, they do a good job of highlighting ridiculous lawsuits, and general dumbasserery.

Thursday Head Scratchers

Because my thoughts are so disjointed, I thought I'd just regurgitate things that are bouncing around inside my head.

- Whatever happened to Fiona Apple? Did she get taken back to her planet of hot little crazy waifs or what?

- Is there going to be an October Surprise from the McCain camp?

- I'm not sure which way to bet on whether Sarah Palin goes back to Alaska or whether she takes a position as a talking head/GOP parrot for Fox News.

- The turn signal replacement switch out on my motorcycle took longer than I'd hoped but it came out pretty darned well, they look good and I'm legal again, which is the important part!

- I'm pretty sick and tired of trying to parse out the stupid serial number for Apple Remote Desktop to complete the migration to my new workstation computer. Its been an incredibly annoying process and its not even close to being resolved.

- Like a teabag left in the water too long, I've become stained by all the politics lately. I'm looking forward to scrubbing it all off soon.

- Its too damned hot in my computer lab right now. I'm going home.

Randomness in Drafts

Over the course of writing Intellectual Poison, I create alot of draft posts. As of last check there are more than 900 drafts sitting and waiting (edit, after much one at a time deleting, that number is under 800) for their moment in the sun, as it were. So here are a few.

Why is something called a private matter and something else can be a open for general discussion? A private in the military is, to be blunt, everybody's bitch and a general is about the most inaccessible guy in the military. How can their ranks be so inverted to their realities?

A good rule of thumb for selecting a movie to watch. If it has any of the Carradine's in it then it is pretty well assured to suck.

Wisdom from an animated milkshake.
"Gee willikers, it must be Obvious Day at Camp Stupid" - Master Shake of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force

And how about a porn called Beaverly Hills 90269?

And finally, CatapultKits.com Have you hurled today?

A Couple of Thoughts

Calling the targets of viagra and other boner pill spam emails "low hanging fruit" is ironic and kind of funny.
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I'd really like to understand the process by which I go to sleep wearing boxers and wake up buck naked (but not in a truckstop just over the Mexican border with a fresh set of stitches where one of my kidneys used to be).
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Why do people "jackrabbit" from stoplights, cut other cars off and basically floor it to get up to speed and then go under the speed limit once they get on the highway?
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How can anyone look at Sarah Jessica Parker and think "Oh yeah, I want some of that?" unless they have a thing for horses?
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Why is wrestling still popular and why is it so hateful towards women and, further, why is that hate tolerated?
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I have an overpowering hatred of the word "zany" and I'm not sure why.
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I think I'd have imploded long ago if I didn't have access to my music at any time of the day or night.
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There is no funnier opening scene in any movie than the start to Super Troopers. "How do you boys feel about Mexicooooooo? Yeeeeha!" In fact, the entire movie is pretty goddamned hilarious. Shame their other movie was such a horrible (and really unfunny) turd (with the exception of casting Brittany Daniel).

Hey Now, Don't Delete Me Yet

I got a note from my mom this morning alerting me to the fact that my site is not reachable at present. Which is great, its about the last thing you want to hear just before you have to leave for work. When I won't be able to do anything about the site for a whole bunch of hours.

But the upside is that today is this week's Friday! I get a little mini-Spring Break action, nothing too crazy but a four day weekend shouldn't hurt too much.

And today I'm back to the schools I've been hitting the last two days. Today we're mounting the new Xserves which'll be fun because we'll have powertools!

I have been having a more and more difficult time writing and publishing posts lately, not sure whether its just the time of the year, the combination of work duties ramping up or other things impinging on my blogging but I'm just nowhere near as interested in it as I have been for the last six years. Maybe it'll pass, maybe it won't, I can't say, I'm just noting the feeling.

Other good stuff, baseball has started up again although the Japan start with the Red Sox and A's is stupid and unnecessary as the Japanese are loony for baseball already. And who watched the first game live anyway? Not me. But that's alright, I'm going up to Opening Day Monday after next and expect to have a pretty darned good time even if I end up rolling up on my own due to pal-complications.

Some Current and Likely Random Thoughts

Instead of trying to put together a single issue blog post, I thought I'd just dump the current contents of my brain out into a post.

There are lots of things I'm working on or working through or thinking about.

A big one is the Governator's current plan to close 48 state parks to save $13 million over two years. Which is, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together, completely and utterly asinine. Scuttlebutt online says that he's shutting them down to eventually sell to his rich GOP pals to turn into summer vacation homes. And yeah, I am just cynical enough to believe it.

One of the other legs of his three sided proposal is to cut school budget's by 10% across the entire state. What does this mean on the ground level? Teachers won't have enough materials to effectively educate our kids and the downstream effects of shorting education will take decades to repair. Underfunding education is like shooting yourself in the foot right before a marathon.

I had a thought about Amy Winehouse being the English version of Courtney Love from a couple of years ago when she was in the headlines all the time for increasingly bizarre and shout-for-help behaviours.

Teh Brit needs to go on a long vacation away from people with cameras. Her trainwreck is not entertaining, its just sad. Her pregnant 16 year old sister, her mother and her entire life are a cautionary tale.

I am bummed that spring training will be out of reach again this year. I'd hoped to be able to figure out some way to get here but it just isn't going to happen. I think that I am going to try and figure out a way to go up for Opening Day and a few more games this season since I missed all of last season.

And, because I've got a bunch of work to take care of, I'm going to leave this post with a quote from Gandhi that my mom sent out to me last week.

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Its that last one that we, as a nation, have been lacking. No wait, that's not quite accurate, Bush has principles, just really messed up and wrong principles.