And so Edinburgh it shall be!

A slight change of itinerary and we'll scoot up to Scotland for two days in July. Aye, I plan to get the Prince Charlie, a couple of pints of fine whisky and poke around my favorite map store for half a day.

She Stares at Me

Though she’s looking away
I know she does
Because she told me.

Don’t let her fool you
She is a statue
More real than you

I’ve hidden in the back yard
To avoid her
Because she whispers to me

She follows me to the café
And sits there
With her macchiato untouched

I don’t know what I’ve done
She won’t say
Her sadness has followed me all day

I resolve not to go and see her again
To steady myself
To stay home, regard nothing

But I return to the museum
Tugging at my lip
And she stares at me, already disappointed

Recommended Hot Sauce

I've never been a big hot sauce guy, but Blair's line of "Death" sauces have made me a big enthusiast. And the fever is quickly spreading through my family. Blair's has a whole range of sauces. The kids and I both enjoy Pure Death Sauce. I love just the tinniest dab of Mega Death Sauce and look forward to trying many others.

Social media to help aid recovery

Old dog, new tricks. My client uses twitter to push contracts out the door:

A Righteous Open Letter

I wish I had written this:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php?ref=mp

And I refuse to say there is anything like this from the center left. There just is not.

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly
Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the
one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America.
Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy,
I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Mitt Romney and Individual Mandates

An excellent snippit: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/03/bye_mitt.php?ref=fpblg

Of course, this is a reasonable man who will never be President, unless he runs as a Spector Democrat. He'd actually do quite well in that mold in 2016.

Mitt Romney, April 11th, 2006: "Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian."

Let us all remember that mandates were a very Conservative and Republican idea and a well thought out one. To my dear friends who think this is a way to challenge the bill in court need simply to look at their paychecks- FICA, Medicare. Federally mandated programs you have no choice participating in. If you are ideologically opposed to those, then, fine, you have an argument. If not, sorry, you have almost nothing to stand on.

Anyway, this is just a post about mandates, where they came from and why Mitt will never be President. He should still be entertaining to watch in the primaries.

There is a Flag by the Mailbox

Flapping out to the left
Nearly horizontal and maroon
And the trees bend like dancers
Bestowing a small blessing
On its thin head

It means nothing
It is the news of the day
It is pushed by March wind
It is simply cold, like us
And it will be gone
By the morning

My Child is Baking

Cookies for us all later
and I've lit the fire
and we listen to music
lightly
while gray March has returned
to hold us fast
inside
and we are happy
like Thanksgiving has come
again

Where would you explore?

I'm going to start my list here and expand it as I come up with ideas:

1) 2011 summer is get the kids out west, the slow way like I used to go. Southern MO, the Rockies, ranching
2) 2012 Turkey, the Black sea... hard to say from there- Israel? Armenia? Something in that area, but I don't want to travel around like mad and miss the small things.
3) 2013 Promised backpacking with Aran in Scotland. Will do something similar with Nelson when he is 14, but Aran and I may want to do this when she is 15 and flip the other trip.
4) 2014 China (no clue)
5) 2015 The Nile, Luxor
6) 2016 We can tour the moon then, right?

Ayn Rand did not write the Bible

Stephen Colbert,interviewing Mary Matalin:

Colbert: First question, why are you wearing a cross? You know Jesus preached social justice. Makes you look like a commie.

Matalin: Yes he did. He also preached teach em how to fish. Not give em a fish, right? You don't work you don't eat.

Colbert: He said "I will make you fishers of men." I don't think Jesus said "if you don't work you don't eat." I think that was Cool Hand Luke.

UPDATE: Colbert is a comedian. Please understand that. And if Jesus is a capitalist in any form, then I am the man in the freaking moon. And you are too. And you know it. Dude gave people bread, wine, fish, said give away half of all you own, turn the other cheek, everyone is blessed with grace and it is up to no man to take that away from you.

He was not out there preaching for all of us to work hard for money, but to work hard for forgiveness, to share, to love, etc.

Back from Chicago

I need to write about Amtrak- since we’ve spent almost 32 hours on board. But I’m so tired I’m afraid my thoughts might be very negative. The sleeping car arrangements were ok- tiny, but comfy. About what I expected. But talking to other passengers at breakfast, it turns out the Cardinal is one of the few trains that they put the sleeping car on the back of the train. What results is much more bumping and sways through the night. Like being on the back end of a very long roller coaster with no straps, I woke about 2 am white knuckling my bed like an inner city American finding himself suddenly on a Siberian Tiger.

So, I’ll write more later. We had fun. We did something very different. We’re both very, very tired.

A trip through the near west

The train from Prince, WV was only about 40 minutes late: much better than I’ve encountered in the past. A different experience riding in our own cabin- steward met us to get on board, set us up and escorted us to the dining car. I won’t say much about “dinner” save to comment that it is Amtrak food. Just bring your own.

Our room is a tiny thing about 4 feet deep. Just barely enough for us to sit in. But it is delightful. It’s quiet and we have our own space and window. At night, Aran had her own bunk up top and me below. While some say the rocking of the train (me, and I heard about it) will send you off to wonderful sleep, it really isn’t restful. I’m giving up sleep for the weekend I see. The rocking is fine, but the starts, stops, bumps, slow downs, speed ups, they don’t do anything for sleep.

Aran seems to truly be having a blast. It’s all very different and new to her (me too). Her delight in all of the little things is the best part of this trip.

Chicago today.

We're off to Chicago, finally!

Our long delayed train trip begins this afternoon. 6:30 we catch the Cardinal in Prince West Virginia and ride through the New River Gorge. Then it's over night through Cincy, Indianapolis with little green apples and on to Chicago. We get there at 10am and depart to come back at 5:25pm. Just enough time to catch the bus out for White Castles and a trip up the Sears Tower.

Aran and I are this ( ) excited.