What's New?

Not much, What's new with you?

About the same.

Actually, there's a lot going on, but I stayed up way late Sunday night preparing for a meeting on Monday, and I've been tired all week. Mark, Steff, Mally and Owen were here when I got home Tuesday night. That was nice. Janett had made chicken salad and potato salad on Monday and there was plenty to go around, and lots of iced tea. After dinner she gave Malachy her big button jar and he poured them out on the floor and started searching for oddities, like those little barrel things Austrians close their loden coats with.

I had to edit the last paragraph, I called Janett Mom on one line and Mommo a couple lines later. I changed it to Janett and she. Sorry if I left an unclear antecedent.

Mark got to watch some Cubbies. Too bad the Orioles won. That reminds me of a guy named Ed I used to see at the bar who had a cool Orioles baseball cap, just that little bird on the front of the crown. Anyway, it was a nice evening.

Work's a drag and we didn't get to see Noah on his birthday.

The market's kind of interesting. We like it when the markets going down and it's gone down a lot in the last week. Being a bear has it's disadvantages, however. When the market's going up the bulls just assume it's going to go up forever. When the market's going down, we bears are always apprehensive about a bounce back up, and are continually stressed about whether to take profits or let it ride another day.

My techical guru (Tim Knight - his link is there somewhere over on the right) is really buzzed. He logged in with five posts today. Poor guy. Relax, Tim. OK, Love you, everybody.

A couple of pictures

Cataract Falls


Our new apartment - Where's Angel?

Who said it? - multiple choice

"One cannot help but think . . . this decision is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants," he wrote.
He lamented that military and intelligence officials would have a lesser role in shaping policy toward enemy combatants than lawyers and "unelected, politically unaccountable judges."

a) President Bush
b) Vice President Cheney
c) Robert Novak
d) Chief justice Roberts

Sad, but true. It was Roberts.

Antonin Scalia chimed in:
Scalia called the judiciary "the branch that knows least about . . . national security concerns" and penned the darkest line of the court's 126 pages of back-and-forth: "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Clearly, these right wing justices, Bush appointees, are more eager to defer to the president than they are concerned with upholding the Constitution. Who joined Roberts and Scalia in the minority? Alito and Clarence (remember him?) Thomas. Scary that these fascista are one vote away from a majority.

Compare their "Sieg Heil's" to Justice Kennedy's poignant observation that a primary purpose of the constitution and the court is to protect people fom illegal imprisonment by the government. That Kennedy even had to point that out is an indication of the threat to our democracy that the Bush appointees represent.

Regretably, Bush was elected by good Christian folks so he could appoint pro-life justices. How you doing with that abortion thing John, Antonin?

Columbus, IN

When Janett and I drove to Columbus IN to see her sisters over the Memorial day weekend, we got a headstart by driving to Lafayette Thursday night, where we ate a late dinner off the senior's menu at Ihop. I liked that a lot better than standing in line for half an hour on a Sunday morning to get an omelette.

The next morning, instead of getting back on 65 we drove south on 231 to enjoy the countryside. We went a little out of our way following the signs to Cataract Falls.
Janett got to try out her new camera getting nice shots of the "largest waterfalls in Indiana". I'll get a couple photos from her and post them.

South of Greencastle, maybe around Spencer the topography changed from Illinois flat to Kentucky hilly, and since it hard to farm on the side of a hill, it was woodsy with several state parks along the route. Driving through Bloomington was a nuisance, but coming out the other side was really nice. Heading east toward Columbus we drove through towns like Little Nashville and Gnaw Bone, which reinforced the feeling that we could have been further south than we actually were.

It was raining that day and we noticed streams and lakes were over their banks. Also a lot of fields hadn't been planted. Even for soy beans it was getting late. We figured the fields must be too wet for the tractors.

I guess they've gotten a lot of rain since then, including 10" in a single day this past weekend. I don't know where they'll put all the water. Maybe we should buy some soy beans.



.

News Update

It was Cinderella, not Sleeping Beauty in the picture with Noah. They look very happy together. I'm still hoping to find a postable version. Noah's wife Lauren protects her photos on her blog so they cant be copied, probably a good idea. Maybe I should do that.


Thanks Lauren

Wisdom from Kung Fu Panda

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. That's why they call it 'the present.'"

Yawn (Me, not you)

Well, we're moved in. And we're exhausted. No pictures of our new apartment yet. Not til we dig our way out from behind the stacks of Office Max boxes that surround us on every side.

I have three puts I bought last week, They tried to scare me out of my positions Thursday with a 180 point rally on the Dow, but I came home looked at the charts of the three stocks I'm shorting and none of them had shown scary strength, not even my old nemesis Gymboree - strange for a day when good retail numbers were supposedly behind the rally. I stood courageously on the burning deck and was rewarded by a 400point down day on Friday.

I think Noah should send me a copy, for posting here, of the photo he had snapped at Disney World this week, and I hope it will conclusively demonstrate for once and for all, despite the malicious rumors to the contrary, that Noan can be trusted around a Sleeping Beauty.

Baby Owen and me are tight. Check it out: