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Showing posts from 2012
Some chew meat. Some eschew it.

For review on December 31, 2013...and hopefully daily between now and then

Hear me now, believe me later. I already have two New Years Resolutions: 1 - Write in this blog more often...I'll say 2-4 times a week is an innocent, though easily reachable goal. 2 - The more important one: To be more patient with people when they annoy me for reasons they have little to do with. As I get older, I find myself more and more in the category that can be described as one who doesn't suffer fools gladly. In some respects, I admire folks like that - people who aren't willing to put up with idiots, or who are lazy or just aren't thinking clearly. The reason I admire those who don't encourage such people in their lives, is that I think there is good justification for it. But that said, I don't think that represents the highest Me. I want to be better than that, especially when many of the people I am subjecting to this lack of patience are those who I most love and admire, though those two words don't both describe each person I'm spec
Since 1944, we've only raised taxes on the rich twice—in 1992 and 1994. The result? 23 million new jobs.
Some people are easier to love than they are to like.
Why are the hardest battles to win not the ones we have with others, but the ones we have with ourselves?

Check new polls and keep the old, but some are from Nate Silver and others are Jamie's Gold

The heck with Nate Silver. I think my poll was the most accurate of all. 28 of the 36 voters on my blog said they not only wanted President Obama to win, but they predicted he would win. Only one person said they wanted Obama to win, but didn't think he would, and I have a feeling that may have been me after the first debate. :-)

Once again, I am so out of step with majority opinion

Among my many thoughts about the recent election, all of which I wish I had written here as I thought of them, was this: I think that TV political ads have come to be like political yard signs. When there are as many as we've seen in the past 6 months, they all blend together and only have an impact if the other side doesn't keep up. I may be the only one, but I don't mind the political ads because I don't watch ads anyway. In fact,I wish there were more of them. I figure most of the funding for them comes from billionaires and corporations anyway, so it's a redistribution of their wealth to the media, who of course have such a left-wing bias, it helps the good guys promote the correct agenda anyway.

On the other hand, taking the low road, it has been found, will in fact get you to Scotland before me.

One will never truly lose an argument in which one takes the high road.

I mean, not me, but some guys!

It struck me while Cheryl and I spent a few hours cutting up and stacking a very large pile of wood on Saturday: Funny how the older a man gets, the faster some body parts stiffen up compared to other things that take longer than they used to. I'm sure there's another apropos observation relative to the size of one's wood...pile, but I'll think about that another time.

All I want is this one thing, and nothing else! Well, and this paddle game! I need that!

When I was around 12 years old, give or take a bunch of years, but since Trev is 12, I'll go with that, my Mom told me she only had one request for me that she wanted me to keep to, the rest of my life. And that request was that I never ride a motorcycle. And so far, with the exception of one time when my neighbor friend Stuart Quillman took me out for a spin through the fields along Black Horse Road, which may have happened before, or possibly to inspire, Mom's request, I've kept to her request. Over careful consideration and much discerning over the past weeks or maybe even even longer, I think I have one request for both my kids, and Trev in particular, given the predilections of other teens I've seen, and that is to not get high any more than once a week at the very, very most. From what I've seen in other teenage (and older) males I very much care about, it has hurt them in so many ways, almost to the point of keeping them from being productive members of

Would you like a list?!

The criticism that hurts the most is the criticism that has some truth to it, especially if we hadn't previously observed it about ourselves on our own. And, in my experience, it hurts even more when it is said in anger by friends or someone we love. Wonder why I'm such an expert on this? Probably because my friends seem to have no qualms about telling me about my shortcomings! And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Why is this a big deal again? Because a Dem had it passed, that's why

OK, so imagine this scenario: Imagine our current system of health care in this country was Obamacare and had been for many decades, where the government requires everyone to have health care, although 90% of the population is covered through their employer's plan, and if not, the government either picks up the tab, if you are a low wage-earner, or, if you make over a certain amount, you can instead pay a fine and then would have to be responsible for any costs you incur at a hospital or doctor in full. In other words, a plan whereby every is accountable for their own coverage, unless they are among the bottom rung of wage earners. And all preventative care is covered 100% and kids can be covered on their parents plan up to age 26, along with all the other benefits of Obamacare. Now, a Democrat running for President suggests that we should abandon that entirely and says if you have insurance through your work fine, but otherwise, it's going to cost you ten thousand or so a

ID-ing a different angle on the new voter ID law

I think I've noticed something about the new Voter ID law that went through in PA this year, that no one else has noticed. I'm hesitant to post it on facebook or tell any official for purely partisan reasons and that is this: It could turn out to have a bigger effect on Rs than Ds. My reasoning is based on the power it will give the Judges of Election at any given precinct, where the JoEs will hear the voter's name called when they arrive, with either a D or R after their name. Then when they hear that there is a discrepancy with their ID, the JoE can then apparently decide whether to let the person vote or not, after hearing, or in most cases just knowing by sight, what party the voter belongs to. At the risk of being labeled a racial profiler, even though this has nothing to do with that, I'm thinking of the two biggest cities in PA. With one million or so more Ds in the state than Rs, particularly in Philly and Pittsburgh, there may be more of a chance of abuse

Wait, wait...there's a National Center for Fathering?!

One of my goals as a dad is to never hear any of these negatives from Emma: 5 Things Your Daughter Wants from You The National Center for Fathering has done research and found the top five things daughters want from their fathers: 1. Daughters longed to hear their fathers communicate love and encouragement. "The best thing my dad has ever done for me is let me know he loves me." "I wish my father would say, 'I love you.'" "When my dad encourages me, I feel like I can do anything." 2. Daughters wanted their fathers to take time to strengthen their relationship. "I wish my daddy wouldn't work so much and spend more time with me." "If I could add one thing to our relationship, I would add time." 3. Daughters asked their dads to communicate with them more and give them guidance. "If we talked more truthfully, we would have a better relationship." "I wish my dad would talk to me more and give me advice.&

If you like to watch, this site's for you

As often seems to happen in journalism, this article waits until the final line to get to the bigger point, so I'll show it here before you go and read the story, which is about an older woman who started a web page where you can pay $5 to watch people having "normal" sex, which frankly, I have surprisingly little interest in doing, watching sex, that is, not doing it (and for the record, even less interest in watching people having abnormal sex!): “The issue I’m tackling is not porn,” she said. “It’s the complete lack of open, healthy dialogue around porn and sex.” Now here's the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/fashion/cindy-gallops-online-effort-to-promote-real-not-porn-fed-sex.html?_r=2&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120909 I like to say that the answer to the huge majority of the letters to Dear Abby is one of two pieces of advice, only one of which Abby ever gives. The one she frequently correctly gives is to recommend counseling, usu

We need to go on the offense against the defense (budget)

There was a great article in the NY times the other day by a Journalism professor of all things, explaining how the Romney/Ryan budget will impact us: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/edsall-the-ryan-sinkhole/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120910 People complain that Romney hasn't said enough about what his plan actually is, but this article is a big help, showing how he'll cut things like education, food and drug inspection, workplace safety, environmental protection and law enforcement. But my favorite thing from this is a comment at the end of the article: "If the American Friends Service Committee is correct and I trust they are, all the combined military spending amounts to spending of $2.2 million a MINUTE and accounts for 60% of the 2013 discretionary budget. No other discretionary budget category is above 6% of the discretionary budget( Health & Human Services & Education 6% each; State 5%; Other programs 4.5%; Homeland Securit

I'll bet he's heard of Michelle Bachmann though

One minor anecdote from the recent convention: Cheryl and I were sitting at a bar the final night, eating dinner, watching MSNBC which was turned up loud enough on the 20 or so TVs that we could actually hear it over the hundred or so people is this amazing bar (Note to self: Find 10 Blocks South beer locally and drink more of it). Cheryl started up a conversation with a 20-something well-dressed black man at the table next to her, where he was sitting with a friend. They started talking politics and he mentioned how he'd like to get more involved in it when he has time. I joined in the conversation from time to time and at one point when John Lewis came on the screen we were all watching, I asked him if he knew who he is. He did not. I guess I would have been slightly surprised if he had known, but that's such a shame. From Wikipedia: John Robert Lewis (born February 21, 1940) is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district , serving since 1987 and

Boop boop be doop

Yesterday I sent an email to a guy who writes a column called BoopStats for the Philadephia Daily News and specializes in surprising stats and today I came across this in the paper and on their website: Don't Come Back, Shane Phillies and Dodgers have both fared better without Shane Victorino this season. Posted: Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 2:58 AM Sometimes there are numbers that we simply can't explain (but we're sure there are more than a few BoopStats readers that will be happy to explain it to us), and this is one of them. We've always been a big Shane Victorino fan, but winning baseball just seems to have deserted him this year. Consider that when the Phillies or Dodgers had him on their roster this season, they are a combined 63-78 (.447). Over the time Victorino was on the other team in 2012, those clubs are a combined 82-61 (.573). In addition, loyal reader Jamie McVickar points out that the season-long numbers put up by Phillies current cente

One guarantee - this will become my most viewed post. SO proud.

One of the features of blogger.com is that they can tell you how many people visited your site, what countries they came from and what they wrote in any given search engine to find your site. Here are 4 of the top 5 things people typed into a search engine that resulted in their coming to my site: huddle porn politics sports sex scarlett johansson military ball scarlett johansson's head size I think there is a lesson to be learned here to buff up my pageview count. Tomorrow I'm changing the name of my site to: Scarlett Johansson military huddle head ball porn But seriously, I don't know which confuses me more: what the heck "huddle porn" is or why it would lead to my site. But this is one question I am plenty fine not knowing the answer to.

But then I probably lost most of my audience after the "balcony" post last week.

I found myself wondering this morning whether people feel shortchanged when they visit this site, since there is so much about one of the three topics - politics - that this blog professes to be about and doesn't hit on the one topic that more people might hope to be see more of. So, recognizing that likelihood, I'll send out this quickie: I’m trying to only think good thoughts about yesterday’s Eagles game. A great defensive effort. A great run game. But yeah, terrible QB decisions, terrible mental discipline (penalties). They bring in Foles to start and all problems solved! I hope you're happy now.

Well that, and she has a point, I do need that

As Cheryl and I finished our usual goodbye this morning before I headed out to work, "Usual" meaning a big fat kiss and long hug, she said to me that we need to get serious about a fitness program so we can both be here for each other for a long, long time. (Come to think of it, she may have said she wanted me to be here a long, long time, so we know who she was mostly referring to.) She then specifically referenced a male friend of ours who has gotten himself into great shape over the past year or so, saying how great he looks and if he can do it, so can we, and now we know that by "we" she meant me. Now most husbands might feel threatened by her reference to how buff this male friend of ours has become, and might wonder if she might be thinking of him, and not me, in physical terms and might get a little freaked out and might be overwrought with DOUBT AND ANGUISH AND RAGING PARANOIA. BUT NOT ME, NOOOSIREEBOB, NOT ME! I'm totally secure in our relationsh

Well, that and all the parties. They were good too.

So, yeah, Bill Clinton's speech was my favorite part of the actual convention itself, but in thinking about it today, and sorting through all the facebook posts people had sent, the memory that brought me the biggest smile was of the very first day when we happened on the MSNBC outdoor studio and watched them do a show. It wasn't so much seeing the show or Cheryl and me making fools of ourselves to get on TV behind Chris Matthews (well, I made a fool of MYself, Cheryl not so much), it was more that the excitement building toward the whole week was still so palpable. I'd taken such an I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it approach to the whole week and now, here we actually were, together, enjoying the goofiness and electricity of it all. It seems silly, but of all the experiences I'd want to go back to, that is at the top of the list. Not seeing the various media and political celebrities a few feet away or being there for so many of the amazing speeches. Though keep

Oh, right. It was Bill Clinton's speech.

As we were eating breakfast at a Charlotte Pancake House before starting our 10-hour ride home, Cheryl asked me what my favorite part of the convention was. I had to tell her to wait to ask again when I had finished processing the news delivered moments earlier that a certain person had just incurred a $1900 car repair bill that we had committed to paying on their behalf. She had not stopped and pulled over when her car started to overheat a few weeks earlier and voila - 1900 of our dollars that I would rather have used for 2 round-trip tickets to Ireland later, she's back on the road. Cheryl kept trying to make me feel better by explaining all the reasons it might have happened or why I shouldn't be upset, all of which were legitimate reasons, but I eventually told her that she'd be better off commiserating with me and feeling my pain than to try to defend what happened. I told her that I was most affected by the fact that I had not been apologized to or thanked for cove

No, no, thank YOU!

So many things I want to post to the blog today, but feel like I shouldn't until I do a final entry on the convention. But I've made the executive decision to hold off on that entry so I can post a few other things, the first of which is to thank everyone for the enthusiastic and supportive comments on facebook and twitter and this blog about all the photos and comments Cheryl and I posted. I really tried to imagine myself back home reading someone else's posts and wanting to experience it as best I could through their experience. My fear was that the posts were coming across as self-promotional or hey-look-at-me type stuff, but since all the replies were so positive, we kept going. And even just today, I've had a number of additional thanks for all the posts. So, really, thank all of you. It was such an amazing week and I know it sounds funny to put it this way, but it was all the more fun, knowing all of you were enjoying it with us!
President Obama nails it: "Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan. And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years: “Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.” “Deficit too high? Try another.” “Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!' "
Great tweets:   "Ask Osama bin Laden if he's better off than he was four years ago." FACT CHECK: You'll get no response.   "It's like John Kerry's been sitting on a big can of whoop-ass for 8 years."   ‎"John Kerry on a mission to turn Mitt Romney intro the GOP caricature of John Kerry."   Daily Kos: "Mitt Romney actually is what Republicans pretended John Kerry was. " ‎ "Never thought I'd see the foo fighters open for Jim Clyburn." ‎ "Scarlett Johansson was born a poor white incredibly hot child."
Great lines from the convention tonight: "Sure, Mitt Romney loves our lakes and trees. He loves our cars so much, they even have their own elevator. But in Romney's world, the cars get the elevator, and the workers get the shaft. You know what I'm saying!." - Jennifer Grandholm, Michigan Govenor "You know, if private equity Mitt Romney met Governor Mitt Romney he'd do what he says he likes to do: He'd fire him. And outsource his job." - Brian Schweitcer, Montana Governor "Clinton arithmetic" makes an appearance in Schweitzer's speech—his explanation for how be balanced the budget in Montana. John Kerry: "They forget that we are exceptional not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things." "Despite what you heard in Tampa, an exceptional country does care about the rise of the oceans and the health of the planet." "The only thing exceptional about today's Republicans is that almost
Another day of uncertainty, that turned out well. I reported to the volunteer sign-in around 2, again unsure as to whether I'd get in, since word was that many volunteers were turned away the night before, and waited in a succession of lines, moving forward anywhere from 30 to 100 yards until we finally got into the arena. I got a really disappointing assignment where they first put me, in the media room, doing plenty of nuthin. Occasionally someone asked me a question, but there were any number of others who could have answered them. Finally at about 7:30, I was rotated back into the same great room I'd been in the night before, which was great, until I was then rotated back out at about 9:30, just as the best speakers were coming on! So I stayed there for about 20 minutes, making small talk with a secret service guy and a few other security folks and where I had even less to do than I had at the previous two locations. (The most interesting thing I learned from the Secret S
An amazing day yesterday - everything I could have hoped for. The day started early for Cheryl especially. Whose idea was it to schedule delegate breakfasts for 6:45am!? She was there for the start but I waited til 8:30 or so to go over, since I would be in an adjoining room as a guest, watching on closed circuit TV. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the main speaker this particular morning and she was really fired up. After the breakfast, I went to hang at the hotel for a few hours, but Cheryl went in to a Woman's Caucus luncheon. I finally headed in on a shuttle bus around 1, and with the route being blocked and re-routed due to a motorcade, it took almost an hour to get in. My volunteer shift was to start at 3, so I had time to grab a quick lunch of Bojangles chicken, which is a popular fast food around here. It wasn't bad, actually, consiering I never eat fast food. So when I reported for duty about 15 minutes early (my co-workers at North American Land Trust will be shocke
Before I give another update on the convention, just a moment of nostalgia. 30 years ago today, my friends Frank and Rose Neal met me outside the Playboy Casino in Atlantic City to pick me up and take me back home, thus completing my 4871 mile bike trip across the USA, from San Francisco to San Diego to Oklahoma City to Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Vermont and finally down to PA and AC, NJ. Having lost 20 or so pounds over the length of the trip, it took me about 2 months of good eating upon my return to put it back on. Although the weight loss went away, the memories haven't faded a bit. Thank goodness.

DNC Convention Day 2

Another day, another party or two. We slept quite late after the late night Sunday night, and got downstairs to catch one of the DNC buses by 2 or so. But after an hour wait for a bus, we gave up and just called for a taxi, which, luckily, another couple split with us. The ride into town is only about 15 minutes, but the last 10 blocks take longer than the first 5 miles, so we just got out and walked the rest of it. The transportation system has been a complaint from everyone. Very hit or miss. When we made it into town for the street party - CarolinaFest - Cheryl, to my dismay, wanted to go into the Convention Center to buy pins and goodies, so I agreed we could get that out of the way, under the assumption that the good stuff would sell out by week end. So we spent way too long on that, predictably, but it was all for the best, because while we were in line to pay, Charlotte got hit with a huge rainstorm. So we lucked out, both by missing the rain, but also, when we then went out t

Who got the bounce? Not Mitt Romney!

How to look like an idiot...or a pogo stick...on national TV starting at about the 6:15 and 8:45 marks before we left to catch a bus: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/#48888083
One of the many things I've learned over the years that my parents told me that turned out to be true, is that sex is indeed better if Love is involved. One of the many things I've learned over the years that my parents did not tell me that turned out to be true is that sex is also sometimes better if a little danger is involved. I never knew I could have so much fun on a hotel balcony!

Convention - Day 1

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write here, seeing as how we didn't get OUT OF BED UNTIL 12:15! But there isn't much scheduled for today, so that helps. Yesterday was pretty low-key, as there were only two things scheduled and one was a 2-hour training session and one was a party. I could get used to that schedule 5-6 days a week. In the training session, there were probably 200 people in the room, and I kept looking around and thinking, "This is a sight you'll never see at a Republican Convention." It was made up of probably 60% people of color. I was definitely in the minority. There was a lot of enthusiasm but also a not unexpected amount of confusion that was really well handled by the speakers, who answered every question at the end very carefully and directly. I cut out a little early from the training, since they were covering some things that didn't involve me. If you hear on the news that some catastrophe happened involving a poorl

The Republican Convention Disaster in review

Just for folks who aren't on my facebook page who may be wondering my thoughts about the Republican convention that ended last night, I'll re-post some of the things I posted there during the week, but my major (buzzword alert!) takeaway was that it seemed like it was the most low key convention I've ever seen. Most of the speakers talked 90% of the time about themselves and then near the end threw in a "Oh yeah, and vote for Mitt Romney. He's our guy!" The best speakers were Ann Romney, who, as Cheryl said, would make a better president than Mitt and Condi Rice who gave the same speech any Democrat would make. There wasn't a single objectionable thing in her speech from what I heard in the car driving back from my soccer game Wednesday night (in which I scored two awesome goals, thank you very much!). There was an amazing piece in Business Week this morning by someone who infiltrated a Karl Rove event in which he was speaking to his core of billiona

Mr. Romney- tear down that myth!

From the Rolling Stone: "According to the candidate's mythology, Romney took leave of his duties at the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1990 and rode in on a white horse to lead a swift restructuring of Bain & Company, preventing the collapse of the consulting firm where his career began. When The Boston Globe reported on the rescue at the time of his Senate run against Ted Kennedy, campaign aides spun Romney as the wizard behind a "long-shot miracle," bragging that he had "saved bank depositors all over the country $30 million when he saved Bain & Company." Tim DickinsonIn fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster—leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concer

The Big Week approacheth

I've been asked by the Daily Local to give an update or two each day while Cheryl and I are in Charlotte, NC next week for the Democratic National Convention, and I said I'd do what I can. It won't be easy. They have us running around quite a bit, but Cheryl has it tougher I do, since she's a delegate. She has lots of caucus meetings and state delegation breakfasts and such. Oh yeah, and the occasional party. :-) She said she'd try to get me into the parties too. So I got that going for me. In my case, I have signed up for three shifts. I'm in the arena from 3pm to midnight on Tuesday and Wednesday and then have a 3-7 shift at the convention center on the Big Night of Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday and that's a bad thing, since his speech is in the stadium, not the convention center. I'm a little worried I won't be there for his speech, and that's even assuming I'll get the precious credentials to get in for his speech. Anyway,

Hooters, I still don't get, or Winnebagos or ta-tas or...

Some things I am too embarrassed even to put on Facebook, well, lots of things, but many of those I, sadly, wouldn't even include in this blog. But this I will: I swear to God, that today, at age 55, after looking at a picture of someone on facebook who shall not be identified here, though it wouldn't be hard to figure out given the context, I just today figured out why them call them jugs. Really.

Sadly for him, that's about all he has to run on.

Interesting to me that Romney's greatest success as a politician (Romneycare) and as a businessman (destroying Ameican companies and outsourcing jobs to India, so he could make hundreds of millions of dollars for Bain) are the two things he's trying hardest to run away from. Take some pride in yourself, man!

A funny joke wrapped in a nice package

My sister Judy sent me this email yesterday with a subject line of : "Do you get this joke? I don't! Please explain..." "Q: Who hates bad grammar? A: Your testicles." To which I replied: Weird – this email went to my junk folder, so I just now saw it. Wait, I get it – a TESTICLES joke went to my JUNK folder. Now THAT’S funny! Unlike the joke, which I still don’t get.

Blogged down in deep thought

In some ways, it's disappointing that more people aren't hanging on my every blog post, eager to check in every day...or week, to see what I have or haven't found worthy of a post, but even more so, it's a little daunting that a handful of you get these as daily emails. I imagine they are somewhat like the daily, or worse, Facebook status updates you get from some people you consistently wonder why you agreed to be their friend, since their updates and Farmville requests consistently annoy you...but about very 37th post, they say or write something that makes you think, "Oh, right, OK, that was vaguely cute. I'll keep you on a little bit longer." The other thing I was thinking in terms of this blog, is that I really should post something besides my things like my ruminations on the many uses, or lack thereof, of the word "disabuse", and instead tell stories from my past, like the baseball "discussion" I had with Richard Nixon or even

But whatever you do, make sure not to stand pat.

And of equal importance to the post below, which probably reflects how much time I have to think about things besides the things I probably should be thinking about... If something upsets you so much, that you say "I am NOT going to take this lying down", are you more or less upset if you "just won't stand for it!"? And if there is a continuum, so that if you're not quite as upset as the most upset you can be, but not as upset as the other example above, I believe you must, for the sake of clarity, be required to exclaim that you will neither take it lying down nor will you stand for it, but perhaps it would be okay if you sat for it, dammit!

Disabuse has got to stop!

Have you ever been disabused of a notion? Has anyone ever been disabused of anything besides a notion? If I abused drugs in my teens, but stopped, am I now disabusing them? That's all I got.

I'll bet the same woman is wondering why her free laptop she was to get for clicking on the ads hasn't arrived

This is just too bizarre a story to ignore just on its own, and as usual, for better or worse, I have another take on it. This is from a story in today's NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/science/big-datas-parallel-universe-brings-fears-and-a-thrill.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120605  : Mystery of Big Data’s Parallel Universe Brings Fear, and a Thrill By DENNIS OVERBYE Not long ago, a woman in Tacoma, Wash., received a suggestion from Facebook that she “friend” another woman. She didn’t know the other woman, but she followed through, innocently laying our cookie-crumb trails through cyberspace, only to get a surprise. On the other woman’s profile page was a wedding picture — of her and the first woman’s husband, now exposed for all the cyberworld to see as a bigamist. OK, now go back and read that again...though I know you already did read it a few times to see if it said exactly what you thought is said...which it, incredibly, did. Here's my t

And if that doesn't work, revert back to getting even...or holding them in the light, I guess.

Mike Rellahan on what Fran Brown taught him about how to deal with frustration: "Don't get mad, get going!'

Now if the one involving the Eagles and the Super Bowl could go too, that would be cool

I guess I've been lucky enough to have more constants in my life than a lot of people in the world, but I've lost two of them in the last 6 months. I guess after this long, I asumed Fran Brown would be sitting on the facing benches at Meeting and Joe Paterno would be coaching Penn State football pretty much forever. And in one sense, Fran always will be.

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 f

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 t

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 asso

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!

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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

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

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!

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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

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"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