The Recovery Is Policy Edition

T-minus 27 and counting... I am almost (knock wood) recovered from the evil bronchitis. I have another appointment tomorrow with my doc and then it's back, finally, to the ice cream mines again. In the interim I've been trying to help out around the house, reading some, playing with the puppies etc. We had a nice civic holiday weekend, spent mostly working on the baby's room. Our wallpaper border arrived and Shell and I put it up and the bones of the room started coming together. We also put up some new lighting...a bug track light And a lovely little dragonfly light above what will be the baby's bed after she's outgrown the crib. At the moment the daybed serves as part guest bed, part Shell's crash bed, and will come in wonders for those long nights spent staying up with the baby... Of course here in the Greater Toronto Area we had some excitement that I'm sure caught everyone's eye. We live about 20 kilometers are so from the airport, and since I drive right by that stretch of road everyday it really hit me when I flipped on the news to see the live footage. Since I was still pretty sick last week I wasn't watching TV and I didn't learn about the crash until I fired up CNN.com on the computer, which then sent me scrambling to the TV. How amazing that everyone survived? One of the radio hosts on the local all-sports station mentioned something that sadly is all too often ignored. The flight attendents and crew take a lot of grief on a daily basis from angry passengers, but they are doing an important job, mainly making sure that in the case of an emergency they work to save your life. That can't be made any clearer by the events of last week. I used to fly a lot when I was in Salt Lake, so I've seen that sort of stuff first hand. So the next time you fly, be extra nice to the attendents...even if they forget your peanuts. How sad to learn of the death of Peter Jennings of lung cancer. I was always a Brokaw man myself, but Jennings had a pleasant manner and I remember, oddly, watching more of him in the wake of 9/11 than any other of the anchors. How weird is it that in a little less than a year, all three of the anchors that I grew up with (Rather, Brokaw and Jennings) are all no longer broadcasting. It really marks a turning point in televised news, since there are so many outlets for news, and the changes in journalism are perhaps too far gone to return to REAL news rather than the newsmag, short attention span stuff masquerading as 'news' that occurs today. This weekend we celebrated Gramma Amos' 90th birthday. I don't know how she does it but after about 9 hours yesterday, I was completely exhausted, but Gramma Amos never missed a beat and looked like she could party forever. It was really nice, though bittersweet yesterday, since we went to Shell's Aunt Pat's house for possibly the last time. They are selling and moving soon. Since there will be two new babies in the Amos family by the end of the year, I wanted to snap this photo of pregnant Shelley and Renee with their grandmther. Jeff and I got to commiserate over impending fatherhood. Trying to do out best to help out...though you didn't catch ME washing dishes yesterday...just sayin' Leah and Quinn were very busy hunting critters...I'm not sure exactly what they had found, though a little later Quinn found a little Toad that uh...relieved itself on him...Tim and I are nearly rolling on the ground laughing at poor little traumatized, toad-urine soaked Quinn...he's a bad father and I'm a bad uncle...but at least Tim apologized for laughing, which didn't sound convincing through the guffaws...it really was hysterical (sorry Q) For some reason, and I'm trying not to be hurt, but Bradley seems to be the most popular person to Quinn and Leah...hey I'm not chop liver you know. It was such a long day even Tash was exhausted :) One of the things I'll miss most about going to the Janes' place is the covered bridge. Of course any time we leave for the day, the dogs take over the house... And of course the obligatory Dixie picture for Tara :) Re-read Hammer of the Gods this week, so I'm in a bit of a Led Zeppelin mood lately. Next I'm reading a book about Fed Chair Alan Greenspan called The Maestro by Bob Woodward that Shelley bought me last year and has sat on the shelf for a while. I think when I've finished it I'll have read everything Woodward has written except the new book about Deep Throat, and the book about John Belushi Wired which I never wanted to read. I'm slowly piecing together a few political essays that will hopefully appear in the archived posts soon. I haven't really had the desire (or the energy frankly) of late to write much. But I need to get back in the groove since classes start in a little more than a month. So beyond writing about things that interest me politically and historically, I need to get the exercise of it all underway as well, lest my brain become atrophied. I'm still taking guesses for the baby pool. Just send them along, either in the comments portion below (make sure you put your name in the comment) or email me at ron@stamant.org and I'll include your name and guess on the baby pool page. Until next time. Cheers