10/21/2004

It’s so much fun getting the mail these days. As we enter the final few weeks of the election campaigns, it seems like every day the pile of idiotic political flyers increases. Most of them don’t even have any real content; they just have pictures of cute smiling kids and say things like “Vote for Stan Yarby… because his opponent is a loser who wants to put these kids on an express train to Siberia.” No mention of issues, no sir! It’s just a contest to see who can fling the most last-minute mud.

With that in mind, I decided to make a couple of political postcards myself. I figure they’re even more to the point, and would probably influence the voters who actually read these things.

10/12/2004

Today I received my copy of “You Never Know”, a CD released by my friend Annelise LeCheminant. She’s been working on her music for years, and finally went out, hired a producer and some studio time, and recorded an album. She started her own record label to distribute it and manage concert bookings, and suddenly she’s in showtime!

The album is fabulous, and perhaps it’s even cooler because she’s a friend and she’s on her way to the “big time”. When she hits platinum (perish the thought!) I’ll be able to brag to my friends that I knew her before her name was a household word.

Go ahead and buy a copy from her web site. It’s all fruity goodness.

10/11/2004

I just caught a link to costofwar.com, which is a site that “tracks” the cost of the conflict in Iraq and offers various tidbits of wisdom and information. It also has a comparison function that lets you see what could have happened if the money for the war ($140 billion at the time of this writing) had instead been used for, say, public education. Nearly three million teachers could have been hired; seven million four-year college scholarships could have been offered. Since the school Alex and Kyra attend just had its science program slashed (again), I’m particularly sensitive to the waste of government money on programs that don’t truly serve the public good.

A thought-provoking quote that sums up the mission of the site:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

— President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

10/11/2004

For the first time in almost seven years, the UMR football team has won a game against another team in its conference. We beat Central Missouri State University 42-38 to snap the 58-game skid and secure the first win since 1997.

And people wonder why I don’t get into college football much…

10/10/2004

Last night we went to a play. Yes, an actual live, onstage performance. I can’t even say when the last time I saw a play was– it’s been that long. This particular one was called “The Creature Creeps” and it was directed by my buddy Myles. In addition to the support-a-friend motivation, Laralee and I had an urge to just go out and do something different. There are only so many variations on the “let’s order a pizza and rent a DVD” date theme.

After a failed attempt to get a babysitter for the kids, we decided to just bring them along and see what happened. It turns out they loved it. Zack busted a gut at one of the characters, and Alex and Kyra caught some of the tongue-in-cheek puns that littered the dialogue. The whole thing was, to use Myles’ term for it, “campy”. But it was all around fun, and a great way to spend an evening without ordering a pizza and renting a DVD.

Three cheers for the North Stage Players!

10/07/2004

It’s a presidential debate!
No, it’s an election!
Wrong again, it’s the CNN “Presidential Showdown Game”!

Whee. How awesome that the electoral process has now officially been reduced to a game.