The Pros and the Cons

My wife and I took my mother-in-law to the Lord of the Rings exhibit at the Indiana State museum on Wednesday. I was impressed by the salesmanship of the clerk at the gift shop. He tried to convince me that Gimli's ax would come in handy at my next pinata party. Why not? I went to a birthday party at my brother's house once, and he had a pinata for his son. I tried to convince my nephew that there was candy in the table lamp. My brother was not amused.

They also had a feature at the exhibit that showed how they do computer animation. My wife got to play the role of an animated Orc. She made him dance around. Who knew the spawn of evil had such moves?

They had posters of some of the characters. My wife was disappointed that they didn't have any for sale. They had a poster of Gollum so big his head was four feet tall. I thought it would be charming to have that big leering goblin staring at whomever is unfortunate enough to visit our guest room.

There are 35 days until Christmas.

I saw that today and I was surprised.

This year has just wizzed by. I finished my first year in nursing school. My wife and I bought our first house. I witnessed a childbirth for the first time. I got my job working in the hospital. I turned 35.

I remember telling Treeboy that this was going to be a good year. Nobody outside central Indiana knows who Treeboy is, and nobody outside Indiana would care. I told him he'd be promoted to TreeMan. He still has about 40 days to make my prophecy come true.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to celebrate that I only have 19 weeks to go until I graduate. One of the nurses tonight told me that after a year in critical care, I could go to the float pool, where they make $45 an hour. She works 2 nights a week and earns over $50,000. That's reason to celebrate.

Here's a list of famous people I've met. By "met" I mean that I, at the very least, spoke to that person and he or she spoke back. In no particular order.

David Byrne, lead singer of the Talking Heads)
Prince William
Vice President Dan Quayle
Ken Langone, billionaire investor
Bob Nardelli, CEO of Home Depot
Tony Dungy, coach of the Indianapolis Colts
Jimmy "Mad Dog" Matis of the Bob and Tom Show
Chick MaGee of the Bob and Tom Show
Neil Armstrong, astronaut
Eddie Cheever, race car driver
Tony Stewart, race car driver

This is probably a very boring list, but nobody interesting lives in Indiana.

Back in September I wrote about the coming flu pandemic.

I love it when the media gets ahold of something alarmist like the sniffles and turns it into an opportunity to cause panic.

Hopefully Scott Adams will be proved right when we learn that all the birds infected were killed by global warming. (He said that in his newsletter, I don't think he said it on his blog. What do I care?)

By the way, let me take this opportunity to encourage all of those who have the means to get their flu shots. Once you get a virus, like the flu, IT CANNOT BE TREATED WITH ANTIBIOTICS!!

I hate violence.

I hate waste, and violence is pure waste. It's a waste of effort. It's a waste of potential. It's a waste of life.

So I read that rioters in Paris have "doused a woman on crutches with flammable liquid and set her on fire". Also, there is rioting in Argentina where President Bush is attending the "Summit of the Americas".

I'm not impressed by any of the scenes of violence I've seen. It reminds me of when there was rioting a few years ago in Seattle and a Starbucks was ransacked. How does demolishing some poor guy's storefront prove a point about free trade or racial equality? For most of these morons it's nothing more than an excuse to participate in vandalism. A free-for-all.

Tacky.

I'll say this about the president, though. He really, really doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. I love that about him. He really didn't care what anyone thought of him before he was a lame duck either.

Meanwhile, I hope the police don't run out of tear-gas. Law and order used to mean something in France. You think the justice system is cruel here in the United States? France used the guillotine right up until 1977.

But I can't approve of that because I hate violence.

I read this terrific post at Doug Tennapel's website about teaching your children about Jesus. I couldn't possibly improve on what he has written, except to encourage you to go there and read it.

My wife of 11 years and I have no children, so I would have no right to teach people how to raise their children. So far I'm baby enough for the both of us. I think she's getting tired of me drooling on her in bed.