We can probably rule out skis though. They aren't great on ice.

In an article in a recent issue of the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/who-arrived-in-the-americas-first.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120520, they asked the question:

WHEN and how did the first people arrive in the Americas?


And the article says that "We now know people were in the Americas earlier than 14,000 years ago. But how much earlier, and how did they get to a continent sealed off by thick sheets of ice?"

I don't know for sure, but I'm going with really cool, fast sleds.

But it only makes the news if one of them crashes

According to this website: http://flightaware.com/live/fleet.rvt?ident= there are 5,640 planes up in the air around the world right this very moment, and according to wikipedia, a Boeing 737-800 has a maximum takeoff weight of 187,700 lbs.

That comes to a little over 1 billion pounds floating up in the air right now, holding what, at an average of 100 people per plane, half a million or so people?

Half a million people up in the air...right now...in a billion pounds of metal.

Just something I was wondered about driving home from work the other day.

Neither Prince Humperdinck nor Princess Buttercup could be reached for comment

News Item:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An Albuquerque hot dog vendor faces a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after police say he rammed his food cart into a competitor.



Police say Eric Kilmer used his hot dog cart to run over the legs and feet of rival Vincent Montoya. Other vendors told KOB-TV that Montoya is seeking a restraining order against Kilmer, further stating "Hello, my name is Vincent Montoya. You ran over my feet. Prepare to die."

But only if it's by my definition

People on both sides of the issues keep telling us we just need to rely on Common Sense, which presumably is according to their definition and is what generally has gotten us into the disagreements we have today.

What I think we need is some uncommon sense.

I mean, well, except for this blog...and my fantasy baseball team...and this paddle game

It struck me over the weekend that not only isn't it all about me, it has absolutely nothing to do with me, and everything to do with every single other person whose life I have a chance to touch.

And if everyone liked us, then it would probably only be because we had just died a few days ago

I wonder why so many of us spend so much of our lives trying to be the first person in the history of the world to be liked by every single person we've ever met.

The same can be said to an even greater extent about our opinions. It seems to confound so many of us that anyone could possibly not see things as clearly as we do on any particular subject, particularly when it comes to politics, but also sports or taste in food or art or music.

And then, having been psychologically scorched by someone not liking either us or our opinion, we go right out and try to start all over, figuring everyone else except maybe that one person on that one issue will surely like us or agree with us on everything, once we've had a chance to prove to them how wonderful we and our treasured opinions are, and then getting upset all over again when it turns out one MORE person doesn't agree with us.

Remember, if everyone agreed with our opinion, it wouldn't be an opinion, it would be a fact.

My fear about their "Huddle Up Question at the end is that sons would say, "Yeah, why? What have you found?!"

As I believe I've written in the past, I get a daily email, weekdays only, from a group called All-Pro Dads and frequently find it helpful. Today's email regarding porn raised more questions for me than it answered. My comments below in red:
Porn: A Much Bigger Problem Than You Think

Did you know?
• 25 percent of all search engine requests are pornography related. I seriously doubt it's that high.

• For every 10 men in church, 5 are struggling with pornography. You'd think the men could at least wait until the services were over!

• Median age for the first use of pornography for children is 12 years old. That means that for every kid who doesn't see it until age 14, there is a 10 year old. That said, I'll still bet the age is actually lower, if only because of older brothers showing it to their younger brothers. But how would "they" even know this?!

• U.S. porn revenue exceeds the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC (6.2 billion). Have they measured the amount of porn on those networks?  Start with any given reality show, but don't stop with the morning soap operas...or the hundreds of people killed each week on TV, which upsets me as much as any of what these sources probably count as internet porn.

Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises. (sources)  Again, probably not including the jiggly sideline cheerleaders. But again, I have a, excuse the expression, hard time believing this.

Comment on Today's Play of the Day.

Today's Huddle Up Question

Huddle up with your teenage son tonight and ask: Have you ever been exposed to pornography? Hmmm...interesting choice of words. My guess is that if they've seen porn, they've probably exposed themselves to it.

Melting from a day at the beach with Emma even though I'm 500 miles away

I got one of the most meaningful phone calls of my life at lunch this morning. It was from Emma, who is with Trev and Cheryl down at the McKenna's place on the ocean in North Carolina for 5 days, while I am left here at home and at work. When I saw on my phone that it was from Cheryl's phone, I answered the call by saying "I was just thinking about you!"

But instead of the call being from Cheryl, it was from Emma who said in her sweet little 8-year old girl voice, "I was thinking about you too, Dad, and how much I wish you were here with us, because you are the one who carries me out into the water and holds me and we ride up and down on the waves together and I wish you were here with me to do that!"

Oh, melt!

What means the most to me, well, a few of the things that mean so much to me are:
1 - That she remembers that and values it. I remember when we did it last time, at Asbury Park I think, I wondered if it was something she'd remember and associate with me when she grew up. You just never know what experiences you've had with your kids that will make an impact and a lasting memory. But as much as that means to me, maybe even more so it impresses me that...
2 - She recognizes that at such an early age and was able to verbalize it and feel comfortable telling me. I think that is probably a gift, that ability to value something like that that has no price tag and express it so easily, a gift that shouldn't be overlooked or taken for granted.

Though Bush v Gore trumps them all

Personally, even if the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare, I'll be way more upset by the Citizen United decision recognizing corporations as people and the recent one allowing strip searches for people accused of jaywalking.

What the hell is going on in this country?

Make that 5 times

My friend Jim Daly's prediction for this baseball season:

"Phils will have some tough times this year, and the press and public will frequently panic and yell and scream.  But in the last 6 weeks, their pitching will be a huge advantage, and they will win the division again.  Of course the Marlins will go 87-75, get the 2nd wild card, and win their 3rd WS without ever winning a single division.  Some good fan will assassinate Selig, and in his honor, baseball with expand the playoffs to 8 teams in each league, and they will play for the Selig Trophy, a giant penis with a bad haircut, for the rest of our lives."

I've read that 4 times now, and have laughed out loud each time.

At least she didn't call her team The Bronx Zooeys

Yet another reason I have a big-boy crush on Zooey Deschannel:

"The star of the sitcom "New Girl" manages her own fantasy baseball team.. According to her twitter account, her team name is the "Burbank Puppies." She admits not being die-hard, but they did manage to beat at least one other team last season."

Vacation Got a Ghetto Way!

I wonder what people who are used to living in a ghetto way think is the best kind of getaway?

OK, it's not all that funny, I just got a kick out of the two words/phrases sounding so much alike. And I stopped before I tried to work ghetto A or even get a weigh into it somehow, so you can thank me for that. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Not to mention the free $200 JUST for passing Go!

Some people think that "society as we know it" (which is to say, back in the 50's when it was great to be a middle-aged white guy) started to fall apart when Rock and Roll was introduced. Some go back to FDR's New Deal. Some point to welfare and LBJ's Great Society.

Me? I think it started when Monopoly introduced a card that allowed the bearer to keep the $200 from "Bank Error in your Favor" and not require you to do the right thing by going to the bank to report it.

What the heck, I never read my own blog anyway

Yet another in a long list of Huffington Post headlines I wish I'd never read:

WATCH: Pat Robertson Discusses Oral Sex


OK, now tell the truth, did you see that and think to yourself, "Now this I gotta see!" and did you click on the headline thinking it was a link to the story? If so, please promise me you will never read my blog again, and make some excuse as to why our friendship needs to end as soon as possible.
 
Well, either that or find a sex therapist and immediately book weekly appointments.
 
But then, hmm, since my readership is low enough, and one can never have enough friends, spoiler alert: He said it's OK if you're married.

Most politicians promise Change, but this is probably not the kind of Change most Rs are looking for

If you don't like something Mitt Romney says, don't let it get to you. He'll change his mind a few hours later.

But you'll need to remind me when I get to that age because I probably won't remember this or anything else, for that matter, by then

An update to the post I made a few weeks ago involving advice to married men on sex: I got a few good responses, one of them from long-time family friend Nancy A. - one of my mom's best friends, and you can see it attached to the original post somewhere down below. It was very validating. It also reminded me how much my mom would have loved to read it and anything on here...not that I would have wanted to talk with her about some of the posts - ick!

Another great response sent directly to my email was from my wife, who also pretty much agreed with what I'd written, but once she was finished writing me 3 paragraphs on it, added as a PS: "And I meant to tell you that I'm seeing a trend in your blog posts:  They all seem to involve (in some way) short skirts, long legs and high heels.  Or is it just me? ;-)"

So I wrote back and asked if I should scale back such references, to which she replied: "Na, don't let up on the short skirts.  But one down side to getting older- you may get the reputation as a d.o.m.  (dirty old man...) "

Wow, what a concept, but yeah, I can see what she means. I'd posted a link to my blog on facebook after I'd written that particular post, something I try not to do too often, not wanting to be seen as an unQuakerly self-promoter. and when I checked this site soon thereafter, I saw the location of one particular reader being in a place where I am 90% sure it was a very attractive young female teen from Meeting, who might have seen my link of Facebook and I wondered what might have gone through her head as she read it...or started to, before she got too revulsed by its directness about old married folks in their 40's and 50's having sex.

And I wondered - exactly what is the cutoff after which one becomes a "d.o.m."? Is there an age where we old dudes are no longer allowed to think about, or worse, talk or write about such things? Or is it age-relative? Are we all only allowed to write about women within a 10 year radius of our current age?

But then there must be a cutoff, so that when we get to a certain advanced age, let's say age 70, when the idea of sex becomes unacceptable in any thought/discussion/essay/post.

Steel Cage Match of Quaker Values: Where does strict adherence to the Peace Testimony rank?

Sometimes I wonder which of my Quaker values is strongest and sometimes I find out that it might be best if I don't know.

Trev informed me the other night that he needed to buy some little plastic soldiers for a diorama he was making for school, something to do with the Revolutionary War, and that he had been told they could be found at CVS.

I proclaimed to all who would listen, which pretty consisted of Trev and Cheryl, that I as The Dad, knew they would be far more likely found at Toys R Us, so I stopped there on the way home from work last night. After looking high and low, and believe me, at that store there are plenty of highs and lows to look at, and not finding any small diorama-worthy soldiers, I asked a cute stockgirl and she pointed me to the one place they had them. Thanking her, I picked them up, a veritable Tub O' Soldiers, priced at $19.99. Twenty bucks for a homework assignment!

As I walked to the checkout counter, tub in hand, I started to think more about just it was I was doing. An outrage, I declared to all who were listening, well, in my head. An outrage that my Quaker child was being forced to buy soldiers, glorifying the military and so much that we Friends oppose. This sort of thing just lends credence to the idea that violence is the solution to all problems and that guns are an acceptable part of our public education. And besides, the soldiers looked to be too big and cost too damn much, dammit.

I decided that when I got home, I'd suggest to Trev, that instead of displaying the soldiers, that he place little crosses instead, showing the ugliness of war, that the mainstream media rarely reports on anymore.

On my way home, I thought I'd just stop in at the CVS, to make sure they didn't have them, and maybe to prove to all who might listen again that The Dad Knows Best, but alas, not only did they have them and not only were they a more appropriate size, but they only cost $3.29!

$3.29 - hmm, not so bad. What's a few soldiers on an innocent historical diorama. That's fine - I'll take 'em.

Or if you do need an explanation check the title of this blog and see if that narrows it down for you

If I had gotten laid as often in college as I heard the words "I'd rather just think of you as a friend", I'd have been a much happier guy, though arguably, the two don't easily co-exist. Those were the unfortunate days well before the current FWB phenomenon.

It only took 30-35 years, no, not to get laid, but to agree with them. There are a number of ex-love interests from my college and even high school days that I had been out of touch with for many, many years with whom, thanks primarily to facebook, I am now friends and I like that a lot. I do find myself caring about them, and wanting to know how they are doing, and what they are up to and how their lives turned out, but have no interest in what I may, in college, have been most interested in. I doubt I need to explain that thought any further.

Kind of like trying to explain my point here. Can you forgive me?

My general rule that I try to follow with judgment, besides trying to avoid it, is when I am aware of a decision someone has made that seems really stupid to me, I try to remember that I don't know all the facts, feelings, history or anything else that went into their decision. I try to think only of what I would like to think I would have done, based on what I actually do know about the situation, but accepting that I don't know everything.

It struck me in Meeting last week, that I should take the same approach to forgiveness. I can forgive someone more easily if I assume I don't know why they did to me what they did to upset me. And funny how often it seems worse once they try to explain it.

Go Trev and Emma!

So proud of Trev and Emma for participating in the SHARE food program through Junior Interim Meeting in Philadelphia. SHARE accepts donations of school and office supplies from United Way that they sell at vastly reduced prices to families and other Non-Profit organizations. Two weekends ago, the Quaker kids helped to clear the shelves and reorganize thousands of rubber bands, packs of paper, pens, and other items.

Emma is on the far left at the top and Trev is the one in the goofy glasses in the front row.

That's Emma on the right.

And now, I'm going to try to avoid ever hearing that word again the rest of my life

"The Virginia House of Representatives this week passed a bill that required women to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound before having an abortion," joked Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live. "Now don't get me wrong, I love transvaginal. It's my favorite airline."


I've heard most of the "transvaginal" jokes, including the original bill, which really does seem like a joke of the cruelest kind, but to me, it sounds like something a male-to-female transexual would receive in surgery...or something they might enjoy before or afterwards:

Maybe I've been wasting my time all these years thinking about world peace and stuff

OK...so I'm a little slow. In Meeting on Sunday, I thought about what it would be like to have a disease and 2 days later, I realize I have early onset arthritis.

I can't wait to get back to Meeting on Sunday so I can wonder about other stuff, like what it would be like to suddenly be a millionaire.

It's apparently Disease Day in Jamie's large head

I think I may have written once before in here about how so many of my friends, in fact, I think it is unanimous in people I know over the age of about 30, have absolutely no interest in ever being famous. I on the other (arthritic - see previous post) hand, am intrigued by the idea, primarily, or at least I like to say it's my primary motivation, because I'd like to see how well I would handle it. And I don't mean famous, like people know my name, I mean like, Paparazzi hounding me, hiding in the woods, trying to shoot into our back windows famous. At least for 6 months or so. A great test of character.

It struck me recently, sitting in Meeting I think, that I might feel the same way about disease of a life-threatening variety, wondering how I would handle it. In fact, as I write those words, I remember that when I was a kid, I used to imagine what it would be like to be paralyzed from the waist down, only able to use my arms.

Of course, when I was a little kid, I didn't think so much in terms of other things I'd want to retain the use of.

Not to mention fascinating

Let the record show that at age 55, I started getting arthritis in my fingers. Scary.

VD = P & C

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday of the year. It means pitchers and catchers report in a few days.

Skirt optional - what's not to love!

And to think I was never that much of a Hannah Montana fan:

(click on the photo to enlarge it - the photo, ya perv, not your junk)

I have to admit to loving this picture. (Like that's a surprising admission.) Not just for the obvious carnal-type reasons, but I love the look on her face. (Yes, I looked at her face some too. Geez! ) It's sort of a I don't give a farg what you think, I like this outfit, so deal, mother-truckers! That said, I don't care for her eyebrows at all. I see eyebrows like that on a girl and assume she has a low self-image, just the opposite of what the look on her face says.

Click here to see more photos of Miley on her coffee excursion.

And anyway, sometimes you just need to sleep, watch a movie or hit facebook!

A lot of ways I can go with this, found on HuffingtonPost:

The widely-held notion that women lose interest in sex after marriage has officially been debunked, according to a recent survey. The findings, which were released Tuesday by iVillage.com, an online news source for women, suggest that 75 percent of wives said a healthy sex life is important to them.
"This research sets the record straight: married women definitely value good sex in their relationships," said Liz Zack, editorial director of Love and Sex at iVillage.

Wahooooo! All is again right with the world! (Disclaimer: Not that I/we have ever had even an occasional doubt about that in our marriage.) Oh, but wait:

But despite the fact that most married women value sex, the survey found that two thirds would rather do something other than get it on, such as go to the spa, watch a movie, use Facebook or chat with friends. The 2010 iVillage sex survey found similar results, with more than 63 percent of women reporting that they would rather sleep, watch a movie or read than have sex.

Damn it!

So what gets wives in the mood? This year's survey revealed that having a spouse express loving feelings is more likely to rev up a woman's libido than receiving a gift or seeing her partner in sexy clothes.

Ah, forget it, too much work. I'd rather watch SportsCenter.

--------------------------

OK, jokes aside...go back to that first paragraph and see if you can find the single most important word in the whole thing. Go ahead, I'll wait. And while you're looking, I'll say this. I remember talking with an ex-girlfriend about 20 years ago about this subject. She, a single woman in her late 20's, early 30's (I think) worked in an insurance agency in West Chester where almost all of her co-workers were married men, most of them fairly young - in their 20's and 30's and from what she could tell, the sex life for them was almost non-existent in their marriages. This seemed to shock them, since they were under the widely held notion among young males that one of the main reasons to get married is that you can then have sex anytime you want.

The more she talked with them about it, and the more amazed they were that she loved sex, since their wives obviously hated it and had only done it with them when they were single in order to trap them into marriage, the more she realized that the reason their wives hated it wasn't because of the wives, but because of the husbands.

The guys never came to realize that although men and women love sex, they, for the most part, like it for different reasons. For women, it's much more about the emotional than the physical than it is for men. Just to pick percentages out of mid-air, I'd say it's 65/35 emotional/physical for women and more like 15/85 for men. I know the physical is crucial for women too, and this is another area where men are at a disadvantage. Men are so damn simple, physically and emotionally. There is no such thing as bad sex to a guy. Some is better than others, but there is no bad. Though women like an occasional quickie too, from what I've heard, read and experienced, there needs to a lot more that is long and slow and is not just sex, but sexy. And the physical stimulation for a guy to give a woman is far more mysterious and slow than it needs to be for a woman to give a guy.

There is way more at play here than this, and I think I'm pretty safe in saying this is not PC at all, actually probably none of this post is, but I really believe that a main need for women is to feel desired. Not that men don't too - I know I sure do, but I think it's stronger for women, and whether that is biological or society-driven, I have no idea or theory on it.

Oh, so the one most important word in that first paragraph? "Good".

Maybe we should contribute to buying Romney more air time so more people get to see him and dislike him?

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll is reporting a clear Obama lead in the fall election:
Fifty percent of Americans in this new ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of Obama’s job performance, the most since spring. Fifty percent say he deserves re-election, better than Bill Clinton at the start of his re-election year and as good as George W. Bush a month before he won a second term. And Obama now leads Romney among registered voters by a slight 51-45 percent, the first time either has cracked 50 percent in a series of matchups since spring

ABC News cites economic recovery as a reason for Obama's improved job performance, but there's this:
...questions focused on Romney’s wealth, his low tax burden and, relatedly, his ability to connect with average Americans. Notably, 52 percent in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, say the more they hear about Romney the less they like him – double the number who like him more.

Things you won't see reported in the Mainstream Media

I decided over the weekend that I'm going to ramp up my political posts leading up through the election in November. I hope none of my legion of readers minds. Here's the first one:

The first, with thanks to Dailykos:

Romney won 50.1 percent of 32,894 votes cast in the Nevada caucuses on Satuday. There are 471,292 registered Republicans in Nevada. That means that Romney garnered the support of 3.5 percent of them. Not exactly lighting it up, is he?

But then cheap thrills are better than none at all.

I wonder if a paper cut is God's way of punishing us for cheap thrills.

And when I refer to a cheap thrill, I think in terms of something sexual in nature if that wasn't already obvious. From a covert glance at a woman's decolletage to a brief glimpse of her panties...

...to a welcoming kiss on the lips from a woman you're not related to or in love with. Damn, I made like 5 spelling errors in that sentence when I first wote it.

Maybe those thrills aren't as cheap as I'd thought.