October 2003 Archives

Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you if you're young at heart
For it's hard, you will find
To be narrow of mind if you're young at heart

I woke up today with a song stuck in my head. Everyone has had that happen. Some people call them "earworms". My song kept me company all morning long: during my run, in the shower, on my way to work. And for the most part I enjoyed it. The song is Johnny Richard's Young at Heart:

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on the way

What's really weird is that not only is this song stuck in my head but so is the person singing it. It's the version sung by Jimmy Durante! So here I am walking around all morning hearing Jimmy Durante's voice singing to me. Jimmy Durante! And in addition to his deep gravelly voice I've got all these mental images of Durante floating through my consciousness. How lame is that? Are the stuck song gods playing a joke on me? I don't even know when I last heard the song. It certainly hasn't been recently.

Don't you know that it's worth
Every treasure on earth to be young at heart
For as rich as you are
It's much better by far to be young at heart

It's bad enough I can't control which songs get stuck in my head. But can't I at least control who's doing the singing? Why couldn't Faith Hill or Martina McBride or even Melissa Etheridge be singing Young at Heart to me? At least I'd be seeing and hearing one of them.

But Jimmy Durante?

And if you should survive to a hundred and five
Look at all you'll derive out of bein' alive
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart.

K-

The Intercounty Connector is back in Maryland's news. Big time.

If you don't live in the Baltimore-Washington area, you may not realize just how horrible Maryland's traffic can be. Driving the Capitol Beltway, the Washington suburbs, and Northern Virginia at rush hour is as close to hell on earth as you can get. And that's when there are no accidents or bad weather. Why is traffic so bad? Mainly Maryland county land use policies that encourage urban sprawl and the resulting volume of vehicles.

Compounding the issue is that while there are several good north-south routes between Baltimore and Washington (I-95, BW Parkway, I-270, Rt. 29, and Rt. 1), there are few (actually none) good east-west routes. As a result, motorists are forced to travel surface roads with their numerous intersections and tie-ups or else drive the Capitol Beltway to their particular "spoke". Either way there is traffic congestion like almost nowhere else. (Only LA and San Francisco have worse traffic congestion according to the last survey I saw.)

To "solve" the congestion problem, the Maryland Transportation Authority has long pushed for building an Intercounty Connector or ICC. The idea arose in 1950 when an Outer Beltway was first proposed. Stalled by environmental concerns, rejected six years ago by federal environmental agencies, and killed by Maryland's previous Democratic governor, the ICC has arisen from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix.

Maryland's current Republican fuehrer governor, Robert Ehrlich, has made the $1.7 billion highway his administration's top transportation priority and he has gotten a boost from the Republican White House. The ICC is one of six road projects nationally receiving expedited environmental reviews under an executive order that Fuehrer President Bush issued in February. The fast-track review allowed state and federal transportation planners to select two proposed highway corridors in six months rather than the three years it takes using standard procedures. The ICC is greased for federal approval and for environmental lawsuits from highway opponents

Maryland's problem with traffic congestion will not be solved by this road project. Our problem arises because of the abundance of land use policies, subsidies, and prejudices that have worked to the advantage of the automobile and the disadvantage of transit as well as the lack of visionary planning for the sustainable development of our state. The ICC is a very expensive road project that will not solve congestion problems measurably in the D.C. area while enhancing opportunities for additional sprawl. The ICC will be born congested.

How bad will our traffic have to become before we wake up to the reality that we need to seriously invest in other forms of transportation and implement land use policies that promote sustainable development to preserve our environment and strengthen rather than destroy our communities?

The ICC should help us find out.
K-

Dottles from the brainpan this Friday moanin':
1. Running this morning I saw not one, not two, but three different guys walking small, white dogs including one who had the physique and clothing of a jock. Mental note: walking a small, white dog does not enhance masculinity.

2. All generalizations are bad. (Think about it.)

3. Today is Halloween and we have yet to buy our giveaway candy.

4. I have a bowl filled with ketchup, mustard, and mayo packets that I offer the kids that come to the door. I get a lot of good reactions.

5. Wednesday's edition of Great Performances on PBS showcased the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which is the new home of the LA Philharmonic. What an amazing place that looks to be. The inaugural performance was one of my favorites, Stravinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps. Remember the dinosaurs in Fantasia?

6. I also heard Audra McDonald sing. I hadn't heard her before but what a beautiful voice she has.

7. My employer makes free flu shots available for the employees. I just had mine. They gave me a lollipop as a reward.

8. My 17 year-old son tells me he is going trick-or-treating tonight with some of his friends. Does that seem preposterous to you, too?

9. I don't get to go to Jamaica next February with St. John's Jamaica Medical Mission. They tell me I'm penciled in for a trip planned for next June.

10. Michigan is playing at Michigan State tomorrow. Both teams are doing pretty well this year. I wish I had been in Michigan this past week to be part of the hoop-la.
K-

I'm sitting here at work taking part in a conference call. That's when a bunch of engineers who don't have money to travel phone the AT&T conference call center and listen to each other drone on from our speaker phones as disembodied voices. We flip through the PowerPoint presentations ourselves. The good thing about conference calls is that we have them while sitting in our offices.

My conference call is boring. Very, very, very boring.

I'm blogging.

I'm bad. Very, very, very bad.
K-

I usually don't read fiction and I almost never buy bestsellers. But I've been hearing a lot of buzz recently (no, not that one) about The DaVinci Code. No longer able to resist the book-buying urge, I added it to my library last night. I've read about 60 pages.

It is already way, way cool. I can't wait to go home and read tonight.
K-

PS. I also added the 2004 Rand McNally Road Atlas to my library. It's pretty cool, too.

No, I didn't have a major technological breakthrough or give a well-received presentation (although that did happen last Wednesday at the Defense Modeling and Simulation Organization), I'm having a good day at work because of... soup.

Our cafeteria usually serves two different soups: a traditional soup and some sort of chili. Most of their traditional soups are bland, watery, and not worth the calories. But the chilies are a different story. They served my favorite chili today: West Texas Veggie Chili.

Frankly, I doubt there are any vegetarians in West Texas so the recipe is very likely apocryphal. I think the cafeteria serves West Texas Veggie Chili whenever it has a lot of leftover beans to use up.

And boy does this chili have beans: navy beans, kidney beans, black beans, butter beans, I think there are others. There's almost no broth, it's, like, ALL BEANS! I love beans - all kinds - just about any way you can serve them and beans love me. I splash on some Tabasco, and as Homer Simpson would say:

"Aaarrgghhhh, West Texas Veggie Chili...."
K-

PS. In Maryland, it's traditional to eat black-eye peas on New Year's Day for luck. Anybody else do that?

I thought I had a fairly strong stomach. I've been surfing the web for a lot of years and I've seen a lot of amazing things out in cyberspace. Like all those weird pictures Buzz occasionally posts over at Buzzstuff. But this really takes the cake. An Ann Coulter doll! And it talks! Like the country doesn't get enough of Coulter's vitriolic invective from the original.

Who exactly is the target audience for this item? (You can't call it a toy.) Parents? "Here sweatheart is a new doll for your collection. So instead of growing up to be a bimbo like Barbi you can become just like Ann Coulter: relentlessly self-aggrandizing and humorless." Fox News executives? Maybe it keeps Joe Scarborough company at night.

What boggles the mind is that the manufacturer, Talkingpresidents.com, has sold out. I'm aghast.

Where's Sid Phillips when you need him?
K-

I was helping D- study for an American History test this afternoon. The topic was Social Darwinism, a social theory that had a certain currency among industrialists during the latter part of the 19th century. After noting that Social Darwinism has its roots in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, D- turns to me and asks:

"Is Charles Darwin the guy who invented the Darwin Awards?"

Next up on the study list: science.
K-

OK. On the way home from work I heard Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. Now don't get me wrong, I like this song as much as anybody but the lyrics are a little, shall we say, obscure. My favorite inscrutable line of the song is:

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.

Does anybody know what this means? Am I missing something? Are the lyrics that deep? Or is it just some rocker patter that just sounded cool at the time?
K-

Just after posting that last blog entry, I noticed that the MT entry counter stood at 99. So this blog entry is number 100 in Plugs and Dottles.

Of course, this raises a tricky philosophical question in my mind. Can a blog entry whose only purpose is to state the fact that "This blog entry is no. 100" be a legitimate blog entry? Or will the next one where I really write about something be the 100th one? Maybe this one is kind of a blog meta-entry. You know, a blog entry about a blog entry and thus not really number 100.

What if I wrote one that simply said: "This blog entry is a blog entry." Would that be a real entry or a pretender?

*sigh* Will quitting time never come? I am absolutely losing all semblance of rational thought.
K-

D- has been having a more difficult time than expected in high school. He really had no problem keeping up with his studies or getting As and Bs while in middle school. But high school has been different. American history has been tough for him as has algebra 1 where he is currently flirting with a D.

Last week, we (and here I mean both he and I) studied very hard for his end-of-the-quarter history test. This week, we worked really hard for a Thursday algebra test. He didn't finish the algebra test in class yesterday so for some reason his teacher gave him time after school today to finish it. I just got a phone call.

"Daddy, I have some good news! I got a 99 on my history test!"
"Oh, so you finally got it back... how did you do finishing up your math test?"
"OK, I guess, but you could have at least said GOOD JOB!"

And so I should have.
K-

It was cool this morning. Down around 30F when I got up. So not only did A- have to scrape frost off his windshield (heh, heh, heh) but I had to wear my running tights for the first time this fall and the birdbath was frozen when I went to change the water.
K-

An early morning exchange:
"There's a lot of frost on your car this morning, A-"
*groan* "I hate frost. When I'm older, I'm going to invent something that keeps frost off cars."
"There already is something. It's called a garage."
"I didn't mean that."
"Hey, I went a really long time scraping frost off my cars. Sometimes I had to scrape two."
"Just because I haven't been doing it long doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Just because I did it for so long means you're not going to get a lot of sympathy from me."
"I didn't ask for sympathy. It was... future plans."

You heard it here first.
K-

I came out from work this evening just after a front had finished pushing through the area. In the east, a rainbow gradually appeared and became more and more vivid.

What a treat rainbows are.
K-

While out running this morning, my left ankle - and by extension all the rest of me - had a nasty little run-in with a leash. A leash anchored at one end by a big black dog who decided my right foot had some appeal and at the other by the dog's owner. This, together with the appearance of yet another "Invisible Fence" in my neighborhood, generated all sorts of hateful but still blog-worthy rant to occupy my conscious thought during the remainder of my run.

But I've calmed down now. I will forebear. Just be advised, dogs and dog owners, that I've got a rant and I've got a blog.

You know who you are. No more slip-ups. No more mistakes.
K-

When we were kids, my brother and I would spend summers with my grandparents. They lived in Delaware in a big, old house. And like most big, old houses in Delaware, it contained a few scary places.

The basement - dark and dusty - was the least scary scary-place in the house. Illuminated by light bulbs that must have been made by Edison, I had to go down for things often enough that I gradually lost my fear.

The "office" was next in the pecking order of fearsome places; at night I knew monsters looked out at me into my bedroom across the hallway with their baleful, yellow eyes. Nothing could have induced me to go in there at night.

But tops on my list was the bathroom because it contained... the medicine closet.

My grandparents' medicine closet would have terrified the Addams Family. It contained all sorts of weird pokers and hooks and salves and potions. Things with elastic straps. A length of pink hose that smelled like vinegar. Bizarre instruments for your "cuticles" that had to have come straight from the Inquisition. Tinctures of Merthiolate, Mercurichrome, and iodine. Something called Witch Hazel. And, of course, the medicine closet contained their choppers. Two sets sitting on the shelf, each in their own clear, glass cup soaking in water. *shudder* I would dare my brother to open it up just to see what strange new thing would be found in there. I still get shivers thinking about it.

While in Michigan last week we stayed with my mother. At one point, I had to take a shower in her bathroom rather than in the "guest" bathroom. As I brushed my teeth, I noticed her medicine cabinet there before me. An ominous tingle raised the hairs on the back of my neck. What was in there? I had to know. I popped open the cabinet door.

WHEE! WHEE! WHEE! It was just like at my grandparents! All sorts of crazy things were in there. This coal black salve in a small white jar with no label; Absorbine, Jr. for aching muscles and athletes foot (Now who invented that?); carbolated petroleum jelly (What is carbolation and why would I need something so treated?); a small can of something called "Bag Balm" (please, dear Lord, let me go to the grave not knowing why any human would have something called "Bag Balm" in their medicine cabinet); this small oval glass with a concave top that kind of looked like it was designed to fit over one's eye; glycerin suppositories, Metamucil, Exlax, and, of course, CHOPPERS... there they were sitting on the shelf, in a clear, glass cup soaking in water.

My heart is still pounding.
K-

We visited the University of Michigan on Friday. I found this a bittersweet - almost surreal - experience. It really does seem like only yesterday when my parents took me there for the get-acquainted tour. Now here I was taking my own son for a visit. Very strange.

Michigan has changed since I last paid attention to what was there. A lot. Some things that were there when I was are now gone and many things that weren't there have appeared.

Our tour of Michigan's Central Campus was led by Chris. What a delightful ambassador he was. By his own admission, Chris is a sophomore with "a soc-psych thing going on but I haven't declared my major yet." Listening to him you could almost imagine that his prized possession at school is his Tommy Chong Autograph Model bong.

But despite being ditzy in a charming sort of way, he was very candid and forthright. I know I learned a lot including some things I should have known for all the time I spent there. He reveled in giving our tour group "the truth" and not just the party line from the school. For instance, he claims that nefarious tailgaters can enter dorms very easily and they're not the secure fortresses Michigan would have you believe. He also informed us that "some of the protesters that ring the Diag are OK but most are pretty lame." I was particularly amused as he tried to tell us what "substance free dorm" really meant. I have no doubt (well, not much doubt) that both the sociology world and the psychology world will be all the better once Chris declares and graduates.

Michigan is huge (although it never seemed that big when I was there) so our morning tour could only cover a portion of the whole campus. The College of Engineering - of which the Computer Science Department is a part - is on Michigan's North Campus. Very little of Engineering was on North Campus when I attended. I liked it. A- thought it was OK. I told him that it's easier to make a big school small than it is to make a small school big. He thinks he'll "probably" apply to Michigan.

It's nice to know college campuses still contain those nutty, incongruous, wonderful things you would hope to find in an environment where kids are trying out their intellectual wings. I'm sure the art world could live without the "Make art, not war" message left by a vandal on a bus stop right outside the U of M Museum of Art, but here it seems apropos. Other reassuring Michigan campus niceties include the Safe Sex Store where a jeweler used to be on South University Street, the Lucky Monkey Tattoo Parlor on South State Street for those times when you've had just a little too much to drink, and Sushi.com on North University Street, a sushi restaurant with free delivery. I used to send out for pizza and barbecue.

Saturday marked homecoming weekend. We attended the College of Engineering Alumni Tailgate Party so you can imagine the rowdy partying that goes on when a bunch of aging engineering alumni get together. The three of us sat at the electrical engineering table. As I was sitting enjoying my lunch, a middle-aged looking alumnus sat down next to me. Lots of gray hair, crow's feet around the eyes, a good-sized paunch, matronly wife. "Now here's someone who can remember the real moon walk," I thought. Class of '90 read his nametag. (Man, how old must I be?)

The day concluded at the Michigan-Illinois football game. The kids were awed by the size of Michigan Stadium, which now seats about 6,000 more than the 107,000 it did when I was there. We sat right beneath this monster scoreboard in the north end that dwarfs the puny thing our high school booster club is trying to replace. Our section was right next to the students. Try as I might, I could not find a single bottle of Ripple being chugged.

The Michigan Marching Band was awesome. We had a good time comparing the Michigan Band to the kids' high school marching band. Those guys were constantly playing, moving, and cheering; much more animated than I remember them. We were particularly amazed that all the brass instruments had the same metallic silver finish including the 18 tubas.

A- is seventeen. When I was seventeen, I went to the University of Michigan. And with the exception of a few brief summers during college, that's also when I left home. How did my parents feel about that? They never really said. Me? I'm feeling pride in what my son has accomplished, excitement about the adventures before him, and not a little sadness. In less time than the start of this year, he too, will be leaving.
K-

On Sunday, the boys and I returned from our visits to Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan. We had an enjoyable trip although the BIG question ("A-, where would you like to go to college?") remains unanswered.

The School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon is definitely top tier. We were told that this year incoming freshman had a median math SAT score of 780 and a median verbal score of 730, which only compounded A-'s fear that you can kiss your life goodbye for 4 years if you study computer science at CMU. Despite the assurances of several admissions counselors that Carnegie Mellon students did, in fact, have lives, he left there having a lot of mixed feelings about whether this was the school for him. As for me, the $38K a year price tag makes me gag regardless of A-'s passion for attending.
K-

Today is trash day in my neighborhood. So all of us middle class minions put our Rubbermaid Roughneck trash barrels out on the curb in eager anticipation of the trash man taking our unwanted stuff "away".

It is also exceptionally windy today. I'm not sure why but there's a constant 30 MPH wind going on with gusts up to 50 MPH. So there are Rubbermaid Roughneck trash barrels and Rubbermaid Roughneck trash barrel lids all over creation. It's quite the sport dodging all of them driving down the street.

I guess all those soccer mom SUVs are getting a workout today.
K-

I had tires put on the car today before departing for the Great White North. I went to Sears because they are having a sale on tires. I had to wait about 2 hours for the job to be finished. The only Sears in Howard County can be found at The Mall in Columbia.

Words cannot express the hatred and loathing I have for The Mall in Columbia. The slightly upscale veneer that coats the place; the smarmy feel of the stores; the pretentious decor for what is in reality a totally bourgeois shopping experience. Even its name - The Mall in Columbia - irritates me. Blech! I detest that place.

Maybe it's the proximity of The Mall In Columbia. It's the biggest shopping center around so I'm forced to go there for many of the things I need. Maybe it is simply case of familiarity breeds comptempt. But do I really need a store that sells only expensive fountain pens? Or just Bose stereo equipment? Or just candles? I regard the few minutes after leaving that place as exquisite and sweet because it is during those few moments that I experience the longest possible time before I have to go back there.

I feel better.
K-

I was away all weekend, at work today, am on travel tomorrow, back tomorrow night, and on vacation Wednesday through Sunday. Since I'll be in and out of the house for the next week, blogging will be scant.

Later this week, we'll be wrapping up the last of the long distance college visits. A- visits Carnegie Mellon University on Thursday and the University of Michigan on Friday. D- gets to come along for the ride. It's just us three guys on the road burping and farting up a storm.

Michigan is my idea. Even though it has a great computer science program making it a perfect fit for him, I doubt A- will consider Michigan seriously. It is very far away. It's also larger than the other schools in the running. But the most serious strike against it is that it's where HIS FATHER went. Why would anyone consider a school that his parents went to? I know when I was looking at colleges I never once gave serious thought to either one of my parents' alma maters. What a ludicrous idea that was! I'm sure Michigan will suffer the same fate. (Although I did score tickets to the Michigan-Illinois game this Saturday. Maybe a Saturday afternoon in Michigan Stadium will entice him.)

We'll stay with my mother while we're out there. That way she can dote on "all her men."
K-

Rite 13 is a youth program we use in our church for middle schoolers. Nearly all the kids in the program are only 12 or 13 years old. I was away this past weekend with all the Rite 13ers and leaders on a retreat. We did some small amount of faith-based stuff but mostly we just had fun: games, hiking, eating, ropes course, basketball, and so on. It was a time for community-building among the kids and the leaders (of which I am one). I had a great time.

At one point the leaders were sitting around with a bunch of the kids after we had just celebrated the 49th birthday of one of the other leaders. While we were sitting there, I announced quite loudly but to no one in particular "It's nice that Stan just celebrated his 49th birthday. I'll reach that same milestone in another couple of months."

I paused. "It sure is nice to work with someone who can remember the moon walk."

Mary, one of the kids sitting next to me, then asked "Do you mean the Michael Jackson dance?"

Yes, Mary, the Michael Jackson dance. That's exactly what I mean. And while you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice in it?
K-

Long week.
Blogging over.
I want a book. I want a beer.

Moose. Indian.
K-

Rush hour with a rolling backup.
Paunchy, 48-year-old man driving his 4-door Toyota Camry.
Windows down.
Stereo cranked.
AC/DC's Highway to Hell blaring.

Got it? Are you laughing yet?

Me coming home tonight.
K-

Newspaper landed squarely in the middle of my driveway this morning. Whew.
K-

The paperboy - actually a 250 lb bearded behemoth in an Outback - delivered my newspaper to my neighbor this morning. There it is - plop - smack in the middle of HIS DRIVEWAY! And I've got bupkis in mine.

At least I think it's my newspaper. Now I know he gets the Sunday paper and I don't think he gets the daily newspaper. But I'm not totally sure. Maybe he just started daily delivery.

So what do I do?
Go over and take it without asking? What if it's his? Then I'm stealing.
Ask him if it belongs to him? Then I embarrass him and I appear kind of stupid. ("Uh, excuse me, Fred. Does that newspaper lying right in the middle of your driveway belong to you?")
Hope he realizes it's mine and throws it into my yard? Well, that's a wussy way of handling the situation.
What if he keeps it for himself? What if it happens again tomorrow?

I really miss my newspaper.
K-

Buzz over at Buzzstuff has declared today to be "Blog It Forward Day". The idea is to pick someone off your blogroll and tell people why you think that person is link-worthy. I think this is a great idea.

Today I pick Marie's blog at Disarranging Mine. Her posts are wry and low-key but with a definite energy lurking right beneath the surface. She occasionally posts some nifty photos. She once inadvertently altered the course of history of the United States and the world in a major way but has yet to divulge the details. And she always brought the toast to the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

So check out Disarranging Mine. It's a daily stop for me.
K-

A- and I spent yesterday visiting James Madison University as part of his ongoing tour of potential colleges. JMU is about 2-and-a-half hours from our house. We did it down-and-back in one day so there were times when we could have some nice father-son conversations. (Like for 45-minutes straight on the way home once the 1-liter bottle of Code Red Mountain Dew he drank leaving Harrisonburg kicked in.)

Turns out his dinner party prior to the Saturday night homecoming dance consisted of 5 couples. All of the guys are on the cross country team. None of the dates are.

I asked him "You guys didn't talk about running the whole night, did you?"

"Well, not the whole night."

Those poor girls.
K-

Walking from my car to my spot along the homecoming parade route on Saturday, I found a $20 bill. I had never found that much before. In fact, I doubt I had ever found paper money before. I found it sopping wet in a pile of tree debris; the bill had been there for some time.
K-

OK, so I'm not a gazelle. But I'm 48 years old and I managed to haul my butt out of bed at 4:50 AM to run 10 miles lickety-split in Washington. That should count for something, right?

A- joined me for the Army 10-Miler (after having been out till 1 AM for his homecoming dance) and although he beat my time by more than 22 minutes, I really enjoyed his company. Some fathers and sons have baseball or football to talk about; we have running.


A summary of the race:

I thought A- died in the end of his little marching band half time show. My mistake. I guess he's a murderer. A- is the phantom performing the 3-minute Cliff Notes version of Phantom of the Opera in front of probably 1000 people at his high school's homecoming football game. Who'd have thought? A jack-in-the-box used to send him into paroxysms of fear. But there he was, the eponymous star of the show. The final scene had him diving into the base of a big wooden chair. His getaway was supposed to masked by a black sheet hanging over the trap door. A stray gust of wind blew the sheet exposing his getaway. Mother nature marred an otherwise outstanding performance.
K-

Dottles from the brainpan this Friday moanin':
1. First real frost of the season this AM. Down around 33F when I got up. A little early to be that cool but I'll take it. An exceptionally gorgeous morning.

2. Woke up this morning to discover The Baltimore Sun is rerunning two months of The Far Side cartoons. Outstanding.

3. Had my final run before the Army 10-Miler this morning. Felt good and nothing on my body hurts more than it ought to. I'm ready to go. Race is Sunday starting by the Pentagon, then around the Mall, and back across the Potomac to the Pentagon.

4. One year ago last night, Muhammad and Malvo started a 3-week reign of terror and murder in the DC area. The legal wrangling for the snipers will probably continue forever. If they walked the two into the middle FedEx Field, doused them with gasoline, and then set them on fire, I wouldn't lift a finger to stop them. This saddens me but at this point I'm unapologetic about it.

5. I'm giving a seminar at work next Thursday. My employer put large signs in the foyers of the main entrances at work announcing it. They spelled my name wrong.

6. I passed a long caravan (10?) of Corvettes on the way to work today. Don't know where they were going. One of the 'Vettes had a license tag that read "YES OFCR".

7. Tropical Storm Larry churns away erratically in the Gulf of Mexico. Who can take seriously any storm named Larry?

8. I have a dentist appointment today at 2:30. (Get it? 2:30?? Tooth-hurty?? One of my favorite jokes.) I seem not to dread the dentist as much as most people.

9. A- has his "acting" debut during tomorrow's half-time show. The marching band is doing a number based on Phantom of the Opera. He plays the Phantom. I think he dies in the end.

10. I'm thinking Schwarzenegger is on the ropes. He's having to make a lot of apologies. Neophyte.
K-

Homecoming Week

Movie Day.

Rocky Balboa.

'Nuff said.
K-

Driving to work today I saw not one, not two, but three cars with various styles of whitewall tires. Talk about anachronism. I can't remember the last time I saw one car with whitewalls, let alone 3 of them.

When I was a kid whitewall tires were suburban de rigueur. No self-respecting middle-ager would consider anything but whitewall tires for his Ford Falcon or Buick 225. Tire ads promised you'd be the envy of all your neighbors with those gleaming white stripes. The funny thing is in hindsight they look pretty stupid. I guess they're just a throwback to a time when certain automotive aesthetic peculiarites - vinyl roofs are another - had their day in the sun. Thank God nowadays we've managed to distill all that automotive bad taste into a single vehicle: the Hummer.
K-

Homecoming Week.

Wacky Wednesday.

'Nuff Said
K-