The hell of the holidays

Thanksgiving is the most enjoyable of the holidays. There is no pressure of gift giving. No hours and hours of untangling skeins of lights. Minimal (none in my family) decorating. No laborious shopping and mall traffic. No over comercialization, in fact most retail stores skip right to the Christmas decorations (thank you Nordstrom's for not having decorations until the day after Thanksgiving). And finally, no multiple family Thanksgivings. You pick your favorite portion of the family, and settle in for the long haul

But there are 2 football games to watch. All the food you can eat. And if you are a male, at least in my family, no cooking or preperation of any kind. Best of all, no one bothers you if you fall asleep on the couch. Instead they will just say "oh, that's the tryptophan".

So I say: "thank you Mayflower", and all the settlers therein. Even though you were a plague to the indians (figuretively and literally), you did give us one hell of a holiday.

Looking sideways & backwards

I would have posted this site earlier if I had begun writing before the election. Although I would say this site has a very liberal slant, the statistics and rationale used are pretty sound. What is remarkable is the accuracy of the final prediction.

One caveat, statistics can help tell a story they are not "the story".

Unburnished hope

Many people will say many smarter things than I about this presidential election.  My only comment is how this will change the representative face of the US.  If this will make a difference in foreign affairs remains to be seen, but by all accounts Obama was the preferred candidate in most countries polled.  I have not been an unabashed Obama supporter, in fact I disagree with him on many counts, but I believe there is no mistaking that he represents a movement in this country.  Will his presidency unite a nation like John F. Kennedy, or will he be 1 and done like Jimmy Carter?  I hope the former.

The hell of boiling oil.

I am toiling away in Richmond, Indiana.  Again.  Why not start a blog to kill the time?  Thus here I am.  For Other Mike who may read this later... hopefully this time it will stick.