So our actual 20th Wedding Anniversary is this Wednesday the 22nd. But we took a quick jaunt to Chicago last weekend so I could share this anniversary message with Jennifer a few days early.
And the 1st place Cubs even won the game! Perfect 🙂 Bears eat man at beer festival
CNN.com, 8/20/07
But the cat came back, the very next day, oh the cat came back, you know they thought he was a goner, but the cat came back, he just wouldn’t stay away…..
a song I learned at camp in sixth grade
We got some bad news while on our recent family trip to New York City. Our neighbor called and let us know that a dead cat, fitting the description of our orange cat Spaz, had been found alongside a nearby road in our neighborhood. Spaz is about four years old, he’s the kitten we kept when Kitty gave us that gift, and it wouldn’t be the first time Spaz has been hit by a car. I was just glad it happened while I was with the whole family in New York, giving me a solid alibi (I’m not known as the family cat lover).
My wife and I decided not to tell the kids, no point in ruining out trip. It would wait until the next day, on our way home. So we kept the sad secret. We were all the way back to Virginia when we stopped for a last meal of the trip, knowing our kitchen at home was pretty bare. And when we finished eating, we broke the news to the kids, knowing their would be grieving neighbors waiting at home and we couldn’t keep them in the dark any longer. As you might expect, there were tears and long faces, and it was a pretty quiet drive home, as the song ‘Bad Day’ played on the radio.
So it was with some surprise, as we pulled into our driveway, that my wife said, “Hey, there’s Spaz”, and sure enough, there as Spaz coming off the front porch just as we would have expected had nothing else every come up.
We confirmed it wasn’t Spaz’s ghost, and there’s no nearby Pet Sematary that we’re aware of. We thanked the neighbor who had gone to the trouble of taking ‘someones’ dead cat to the shelter to be cremated, and there was much relief and rejoicing. Welcome back to the family Spaz, we’re glad you’re still with us.
I guess you can call it a summer lull, or I’ve just been very busy with travels of late, and as a result things have been pretty darn quiet here in the Casey blog. Sosumi.
Let me try and offer some quick catching up, and some random thoughts on my mind…
Company Retreat – For the third summer in a row, I’ve spent a weekend at a company retreat in Vermont, and as before, it was a blast. Bonfires, backhoes, and corporate bonding… good times. We suffered a six-hour delay on our return flight, but hey, shit happens.
Fat B-Roll –
There was a news story recently about obesity being contagious (which is of course old news and was reported in The Onion years ago, right here). What struck me about this story and others like it is the b-roll video that is always used, showing fat people from the neck down, minding their own business walking down the street, eating a couple hot dogs, or sitting on a bench. Who are the cameramen who gather this stuff? I’m on the lookout. Beware any camera that won’t look you in the face. And I better start doing some sit-ups, or I’ll be starring in an fat-story sometime soon.
Tech Turmoil – It seems like when my technology fails me, it all happens at once. My iPod has been freezing up periodically freezing up, and now it seems to be completely dead. This is the second iPod photo of mine that has died after little more than a year, and the Apple Care coverage I bought the second time around will do me no good, as it expired in February. And the month-old Phillips Plasma TV I bought for the basement manspace suddenly has nothing more to offer than a little blue light, no picture, sound, or anything else. It’s under warranty, but finding a Philips rep who will make the promised house call is proving challenging.
Chicago – I recently visited Chicago to attend the 2nd Yearly Kos Convention. It was a good time and notably larger than last years first one in Vegas. Once again I came back with an armload of signed books, and a head full of energy for heading into 2008 Election battles. It was very impressive to see almost every Presidential campaign (except Biden) show up to participate. I went to Bill Richardson’s breakout session and he did much to re-inforce my feelings that he ought to be among the top tier candidates. When his staffer tried to cut off his Q&A with the audience, he replied, “I’m at 13%, I can answer a few more questions!”.
I read Mike Royko’s biography of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Boss, while on the trip. It’s an eye-opening education in machine politics of the 50s & 60s. And it wouldn’t be a trip to Chicago without a visit with my Great Aunt Margaret, a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, and some Casey Family grave hunting.
OK, so while that still leaves me far from caught up, it’s a least a little slice of summer offered here in the Casey blog. More to come…
Look for us on ESPN tonight. We’re directly below the scoreboard, first row of the upper section.
Update: Damn, the Cubs lost. So we’re still a game back, and I owe Lou a few lunches. Not to mention the grief I’ll get from Nick. Damn.
We still have a few hours to kill before tonight’s game between the Cubs and the Mets, but time is easy to kill here at The Cubby Bear!
July 13th – Happy Birthday to Me! One unavoidable consequence of having a birthday on the 13th of any month is, from time to time your birthday falls on Friday the 13th. For me, this is my sixth such birthday (1973 – age 8, 1979 – 14, 1984 – 19, 1990 – 25, 2001 – 36, 2007 – 42), but I don’t buy into such superstitious nonsense. Every birthday, every day, they’re all as lucky as you make them. My next Friday the 13th birthday will come in five more years, the year 2012, when I’ll turn 47.
UPDATE: News from a fellow July 13th Birthday, facing Friday the 13th Down Under, and still more about Friday the 13th birthdays.
The Cubs are beating the Nats 7-0 here in the bottom of the 5th. Thanks TJ for the tix!
Update: The Cubs won. The Nats threatened late in the game, scoring two runs and loading them up in the ninth, but it was all for naught. It was impressive to see the number of Cubs fans at RFK, we seemed to at least match, if outnumber the Nats fans.
Scary Evil. He exemplifies reckless disregard for the Constitution, and of any person or law’s ability to exercise any amount of oversight of his activities. Remarkably, he recently claimed that the Vice President’s Office is not an “entity within the Executive Branch”, and so is not subject to Presidential Executive Orders. Wha?? Well, to follow Cheney’s own twisted logic, this week Congress will vote to defund the VP’s office as an executive branch agency, leaving him to fend for himself as the President of the Senate. Personally I think Rep. Kucinich has it right with his plan to impeach Cheney first, because impeaching President Bush only to have Cheney become President would be like trying to put out a fire with gasoline, you’ll only end up in much worse shape.
This week the Washington Post is running an in-depth profile about Cheney and his machinations. It’s scary to read about the lengths this Dick will go to in order to subvert the law and pursue his un-American agenda. It’s something everyone should read. You’ll feel dirty and ashamed afterward, but you need to read it anyway.
George Bush is most certainly the Worst President Ever, but with the Evil Dick as his VP they have combined to be a catastrophe from which America may never completely recover.
Hanging out with cousins at the Round Table Literary Park in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. We’re all in town for Uncle David’s wedding tomorrow, and we’ve given ourselves some time to take in some local sights.
A large mural of Edgar Cayce at the local O’Charley’s restuarant has me curious to learn more about Hopkinsville’s favorite son. I will try and make it to the local museum to learn more, but here’s the Straight Dope’s version.And then of course, we have to get David and Becky married tomorrow as well.
