Two good friends left for a new life in Chicago today, and I feel like my dog–who has long since passed–died all over. Although it’s been a mere few hours, and I joined them for breakfast before they piled into the Penskie truck, bound for Route 80, I miss them fiercely.

Back in college, a professor once made an offhand statement that at last made sense to me today. As people age. their friendships are less superficial, and more relationships of consequence. For no matter how close someone was with their fraternity brothers or sorority sisters, or high school buddies, odds are the friends they make and keep after graduation–the ones who matter–have far more influence on their life. Even if years pass between meetings.

So to Jamee and Mario: You both deserve all the success in the world, and best of luck with your move, your new jobs, your new life.

We will meet again.

Much like Krav Maga, the first rule of this site is that there are no rules; if a topic intrigues me, I hope that it might interest someone else and I’ll jot an entry. Or I’ll try one out, anyway. Quite a few entries are stuck in draft limbo right now, awaiting revisions. Regardless, if an entry goes over well once in the wild, I might consider another one about the same subject. That being said, there is an unwritten–and unspoken, until now–rule: To avoid discussing politics.

I have a few reasons. For starters, political issues have a frightfully short shelf life. One year’s million persons march is next year’s thousand person tailgate party. As interest in the topic fades, so does the relevance of entries about that issue. Not that I’m going for immortality with a blog, but among the hundreds of entries on the site, it is nice to have at least a few are worth reviewing at a later date.

Another rationale for the blackout is a reflection of my interest level in the subject. Which varies between low to non-existent. I consider myself a particularly apolitical critter. When it comes to matters largely out of my control, I lose interest quickly. True, in high school, I attended a peace rally and signed a petition, but that had a lot more to do with the fact my girlfriend at the time was passionate about the issue. Certainly I was just as passionate about her joining me in the back seat of a Crown Victoria.

More importantly, for the past twenty years, presidential races have been extremely close matches. When the final votes are counted, the split of votes between the challengers can number in the mere thousands. Razor thin margins at the voting booth could mean a lot of things. Perhaps the candidates appear so similar voters have trouble separating them. Maybe the platforms fail to inspire the fiery sentiments that drive hordes of people to the ballots. In light of these uber-tight races, it seems there are better explorations than temporary diversions that might incite 1/2 of the population.

Mostly I’ve stuck with the above principles. Over the past four years on the site, only one entry contains a political reference–and that was pretty vague. Something about a ketchup bottle, I recall.

In the end, no matter how much television coverage the buildup to an election nets, long before the keys to the kingdom actually change hands, journalists move on to the next big thing. Which is what I’m about to do.

And so my comment about politics–the second ever on this site–is that I have . . . no comment.

Let’s say you had pancreatic cancer and less than six months to live. Forecasting what I might do in such a situation is unthinkable–at least on a Monday morning–but if I displayed 1/10 the courage and class of Randy Pausch, I would be proud.

Rand wrote the Last Lecture. And it’s a good thing he did.

Watch it on youtube.com.

Read a pdf transcript of the lecture.

There’s some very powerful ideas in his oration, including:

” . . . experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

” . . . brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

Forbes released a list of the ten most lustful cities in the United States. Of San Antonio’s number two ranking, I must resolutely disagree.

The city is a museum, a town where everything looks appealing, but people are discouraged from touching anything. Hardly the right backdrop for making sexy time, if you ask me. Austin on the other hand is a hip town. You may not get lucky, but you sure as hell will have some fun.

Anyway, here’s a link to the list.

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Phone calls and kind wishes about my grandfather’s passing are still coming in; I’m really impressed with the amount of time people took out of their schedules to contact me.
An old buddy called me last night, in fact. He was unfamiliar with the story in the eulogy, but he had met my grandfather about six years ago and could see the events unfolding as I described.

Which, to quote Roger Waters, that kind of prop is: “Good enough.”

Now back to writing…

Just realized I completely forgot the Sin City wrap-up. Scanning through the pictures today, and a proper post will follow on Monday.

For the past seventy-two hours, I have known the plight of the zombie. A mild case of the bird flu ripped through the school recently, and damned me to the couch. The trickiest part was staying upright for as long as possible; it was the only method that contained the runaway coughing. Effective as the cough management technique was, it caused a huge problem when sleeping.

Which is where the zombie life comes on. When I did nod off, five minutes later I woke up again. So after the first day, I just quit trying to sleep. If I passed out watching Montel, that’s just how it was.

I’m feeling a little better today, and hope to be back at work on Thursday.