I'm Still Here

I titled this blog appropriately.  I don't have much to say on most days, but it seems there aren't many - or any? - people who are interested in listening, anyway.

I get it. Millions of blogs out there. And it's hard to find anything to say that hasn't been said more eloquently, or at least more loudly, by someone else.

But I'm still here. Awaiting that first comment.

In Virtually Perfect Order

As a rule, I avoid right-wing websites. I always feel like I've walked into a redneck bar with a blaring jukebox and a bunch of menacing characters with scowls on their faces, all staring at me. However, every once in a while, some insightful fellow leftie will point me to something worth looking at, so I take a deep breath and step inside.

A Tweet I read yesterday took me here. If you don't want to look for yourself (and I can hardly blame you), it's an article weighing the pros and cons of Mitt Romney releasing his tax returns.The article concludes that yes, he should (and yes, he should), but for reasons that sane people would find rather bizarre. When I read this one, though, I didn't know whether to fall out of my chair laughing or throw up in my wastebasket:

3) Bad optics -- for them:  Romney is a boy scout who has lived a life of great personal rectitude.  He strikes me as a dot-every-I-and-cross-every-T sort of fellow.  He's also a man of guiding and grounding faith.  I am confident that his affairs are all in virtually perfect order, and that they do not contain the knock-out blow Team Obama is hoping for.  When the records become public and there isn't much there, Democrats will look silly, petty and desperate for harping on the issue for weeks on end.

I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

The beginning of this story is incredibly sad.

James C. Hobbs, 74, of the 400 block of East Bailey Road, was found on the sidewalk and pronounced dead Friday morning. Police say no foul play was involved.

I never met Mr. Hobbs, but evidently many of his neighbors did. I met some of them on Friday. I was returning  from what would be a 23-mile bike ride in the heat of the day, when the temperature topped out at over 100 degrees. On approaching the corner of  Bailey Road and Coach Drive in Naperville, I saw a group of men handing out bottles of ice cold water from a cooler. They were giving it to anyone who stopped.

Sixty-Three

Today is my birthday. I am 63.

When I turned 60, I was a little spooked about it. 50, 40, and 30 were nothing, really, but entering my 60s was, I admit, a little scary. When you get into your 60s, people start thinking of you as old, not simply middle-aged. It's just an arbitrary point along a continuum, to be sure, but we measure our ages in integers, and 60 is a lot of integers.

That was 3 years ago. A lot has happened in 3 years. My little girl, who was just coming up on 4 then, is now coming up on 7. She is learning to play the piano and has gotten quite good at riding a two-wheeler. These are the things that make the passage of time enjoyable. Less enjoyable: the shock of finding out I have heart disease.

Yes, I Drank the Kool-Aid

I am not sure where the term "drink the Kool-Aid" came from. My guess is that it refers to the Jonestown Massacre, the mass suicide of a notorious religious cult, wherein cyanide was purportedly mixed with Kool-Aid before being administered to the victims. Of late, the term has come to mean that one has swallowed the propaganda, usually the propaganda of the Left, in expressing one's opinion of current events. It is most commonly an insult hurled by conservatives as a means of preempting a rational discourse they have no hope of winning. Conservatives are like that.

The Boondocks Have Vanished

During the mid-90's, I established a series of rides I called the "Vanishing Boondocks" series. The intent was to leave from what was then the outskirts of town for the corn and soybean fields of the triangle defined by the cities of Naperville, Oswego, and Plainfield; to ride on the low-traffic farm-to-market roads we had all come to love, and to witness the destruction of our habitat at the hands of real estate developers.

Any Change is for the Better and Other Disasters

Only 6 more days until I turn 63. My, my, where does the time go?

When I look back on my life, I see a series of choices I've made, both good and bad. Those are the things that have gotten me where I am now. Of course, I make decisions every day. And I make mistakes every day, but not all of my mistakes have been the result of bad decision making. I don't worry about those. I worry about the things I did when I should have known better.