News Flash! This Blog Is Not Dead . . .

Well, it has been a long time since I've managed to post something. And a lot has happened over the eight months since my last post - The most dramatic thing being that I was laid off in April.

I'll surely be able to get a few posts out of that, but a lot of other things have happened that are blog worthy too: Our beloved dog died. We managed to get a small vacation in. Both of our children have started a new phase in their education. A favorite Aunt passed away. I even managed to sign up for Facebook!

Look for my musings on these and other topics in the near future.

Happy Holidays!

Well, I know it's late, but I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and have started this new year on a happy note. . .

As for me, it has been a very good holiday season, and I'm hopeful that 2009 will prove to be a good year for everyone. . .

Guess we'll find out!

First Tuesday in November

Well, it's finally here! The most highly anticipated day of the season will be here tomorrow! I can't wait!

Finally no more campaign adds!

Oh, and we get to vote too. . . . :)

Seriously - please exercise your constitutional right - VOTE!

A Day to Remember

Tomorrow is September the eleventh. Another ordinary Thursday in the waning days of Summer.

Yet, no American can just think of it like that. Not now. Thanks to a tragically un-ordinary Tuesday morning, never again will the eleventh day of September be anything other than "nine-eleven": That fateful day seven years ago when our country lost it's youthful innocence, when the world suddenly seemed to become a much more hostile place, and when America's shores no longer seemed a safe refuge.

None of us will ever again be the same.

Nonetheless we must never forget the events of that horrific Tuesday. We must never forget the senseless loss of life. We must never forget the heroism of selfless firefighters and policemen. We must never forget ordinary citizens who rose to face an extraordinary occasion. We must never forget those who put themselves in harm's way to try to help others. We must never forget "Let's Roll".

Strangers helping strangers. Americans helping Americans.

I remember where I was that Tuesday years ago when I first heard the news and saw the images of smoking buildings. I remember looking to the sky and seeing no planes . . .

I remember and my soul aches with the memories. . .

We must never forget.

Being True To My School

This past Monday, my wife, our son, and I were visiting a college campus in a neighboring state. While on the campus tour, our exuberant tour guide decided to teach his school's fight song to us.

It just so happens that this particular university is the arch rival of the one from which I graduated, so I quite naturally did not participate. I couldn't lest I would feel like a traitor.

The guide of course noticed my non-participation and called me out. I rather bluntly explained that I was an alum from Rival School and damn proud of it! This of course was cause for much guffawing and laughter . . . But I didn't care. I'm loyal to my Alma Matter and proved it that day.

Unfortunately this was the cause of some embarrassment to my son, and near mortification on my wife's part. (Both of them participated in the lesson to varying degrees.)

So I ask you, dear readers: What would you have done?

Of Time and Change. . .

I've been thinking a lot lately about college.

Our son is a Senior in High School so picking an institution of higher learning is paramount in all our thoughts these days. The selection process is daunting considering all the variables to worry about with curriculum, location, tuition, majors, demographics, and grades being constant topics of discussion.

The last couple days have been a bit different for me though.

This weekend the boy, no, young man, has been participating in a three day swim meet being held at my alma matter. Being there made me think back to my years in college. While there were two more of those years than I probably should have had (heh, that's another story) they were arguably the best years of my life - while at the same time being pivotal in my becoming the man I am today. The consequences of my college years have had an awesome affect on me.

I hope and pray that our son experiences the same kind of growth, the same kind of enlightenment that I experienced. That is to say, to learn what he needs to learn about himself, about life, and about the world that we all share. The lessons that I learned shaped me, and the lessons that he will learn will shape him.

Suddenly picking a college seems ginormously more daunting. . .

The good news is we are making progress. Well, they are making progress. . . My wife has approached the subject with her formidable analytical and organizational skills and has worked endlessly to gather information on any and every college that has any possibility of appealing to our young man. By thoughtful categorization and classification, a few hundred institutions of higher learning have been paired down into a very manageable group. We've even been on an official visit, with more scheduled in the next few weeks. . .

Beyond being supportive and managing some of the logistics, I'm not much help in the process though because I have no personal experience to draw on: I had no choice really in where I would go to college. At least not that I was aware of. I went to "Alma Matter University" because I could commute to school while keeping my job and living at home to minimize expenses and prevent putting additional financial burdens on my family. In fact my big decision was not what college I would go to, but IF I would go. I was seriously considering going to the Fire Academy to become a firefighter, and also high up on the list was becoming a mechanic like my dad.

But school was my choice - and thank God It was! For without it, I would be a very different person today and would likely not now be thinking about colleges for my son. If I even had a son . . . For it was my last few years in college that helped turn a long friendship between me and my high school sweetheart into what has become a long marriage!

To this day we marvel at the circumstances that brought the two of us together. I had no understanding then of the gravity of my decision to go to college, but I do now. And I'm in awe.

I guess for our son, all I can hope for is that we do the best we can and pick the right school based on those criteria we deem most important.

I hope we do an awesome good job.

The Good Old Days All Over Again

Today is not one of them, and neither were the last several. Just a couple weeks ago though there were several. It was like the 70s all over again for me. And the 80s for that matter.

The Good Old Days.

If you are wondering what I could possibly mean, what with gas prices breaking all kinds of records, the economy in the toilet and - put your favorite horror here - What could possibly remind me of the good old days? I've lost my mind? I hope not. (And you may be too young to remember the gas shortages and economic woes of the 80s. But I digress.)

In a very direct cause and effect way, those very high gas prices led me to rediscover some simple pleasures that I had long forgotten about.

Leisurely drives. With the windows down.

Yup, much of my memories center around the automobile. My dad was a mechanic for 40 years, and so father son time often involved cars. And in the warmer months, family time meant going for a drive - to cool off.

In the days before air conditioning was common place in cars and homes, one way to cool off was to go for a drive in the country in the evening. We did this often. I remember the sounds of the crickets and bull frogs along with the rush of the wind as we passed along fields, ponds, and farmsteads.

Later, when I was old enough to drive and have my own car, I remember hearing what was on other peoples radios at stop lights and sometimes their conversations. There were birds singing in the trees overhead and dogs barking at you from the curb. Occasionally a friend would shout you a greeting from the next lane or the sidewalk.

Traffic noises often dominated my commutes to school but it meant hearing the sweet unfiltered sounds of all manner of powerful engines. In those days you were cool if you could identify a car by it's revving engine. I still remember the sweet sound of the 12 cylinders of the Lamborghini Countach that once pulled up next to me at a stoplight. . .

Then there were the close calls. Where today you get a muffled horn blast, back then you could shake your fist, flip "the bird" an cuss out the driver who just made a boneheaded maneuver. All out your open window right into the other drivers equally open windows. It was expected.

I miss that.

Oh, and did I mention the smells? I think the smells are what really made the strongest memories for me. Of course there's the not so nice odors, like burning oil, hot exhaust, and the occasional skunk that didn't quite make it across the road last night. Oh, and Pig farms! But what I really enjoyed were the scents of Spring: Freshly mowed grass, trees bursting in flower, the coming rain.

So this spring, when it was pleasantly cool and dry on the way to work and back, I had the windows open most of the time.* Unexpectedly I found myself recalling all kinds of things I had forgotten I'd forgotten. If you know what I mean.

As kind of a side effect, I also started to drive without haste; coasting down hills and toward stopped traffic rather than barreling full tilt only to stop hard at the back end of a line of traffic. It was quieter. It was relaxing. It relieved some stress. It allowed me to more fully enjoy the simple pleasures that once were so common, but now were as if never before experienced.

Oh! It also gave me something to share with you!

*(Never on the freeway, the increased drag at those speeds hurts mileage more than running the AC's compressor. Besides, it's just too damn noisy . . . And I got 405+ miles out of a tank of gas - about 26MPG from a normal six cylinder car! Sweet!)