This is not my blog.

I saw this on the back of a truck as I was driving to work the other day. I thought it was pretty funny to start with, but do you notice the wire running to the hitch? Well, when the truck put his brakes on the deer raised and lowered its arms. Clever. :-)

Here's something to think about today. No matter how bad that your day is today ... at least you're not this guy. Or maybe you are? But you know what else? We can all be bitter that our gas prices have all gone above $4 per gallon just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Weeee!

Today I had a stressful day at my court. Not that all days don't come with a little to a lot of stress. But Thursdays just stress me out for lots of reasons. I was looking real forward to getting to the gym today where I was hoping to do a full spinning class and then maybe run a little afterwards to simulate a little "brick" workout. A brick workout is a triathlon term for a workout that involves two or all three of the triathlon disciplines back to back (swim, bike, run). They shouldn't be done often because they really make your body feel like it has been hit by a brick ... or ten (maybe that's where the term comes from). So I was a little put off when court went over today and encroached on the 6pm starting time of my spinning class at the YMCA. I booked it up to the Y and by the time that I got into the class it had been going for about 15 minutes or so. By the time that I got my bike adjusted for my size and positionings it had been going on for about 20 minutes. Sigh.

The instructor for this class was Jeremy who is a clydesdale like myself and who also competes in triathlons. I remembered talking to him when I took one of his sessions last year. He had us working hills (simulated) pretty hard with a lot of pressure mashing down on our gears. Mashing is something that triathletes try to avoid because it kills the legs for the run that is to follow. Triathlete discipline is to use the Lance Armstrong high cadence method where you break the workload of the resistance down by doing as many revolutions per minute as you can without killing yourself (usually between 90-120). You could grind a bigger gear at lower rpms but it will take more muscle to do it ... but if you're climbing through the Pyrenees you just do it however you can. Still, with only getting in a 35 minute workout my legs weren't quite jello and Jeremy took us back to some high rpm stuff at the end of the workout to cool down. He and I spoke afterwards as he remembered me and he invited me to join his bike group that meets down around UC on Monday nights at 6:30pm. I found it funny that this was the second bike group that I've been invited to join in the same week. I will probably check it out though, it would be more fun to have the wind on my face in a semi-organized ride.

Now it was on to the treadmill. I changed from my bike shoes to my running shoes and set the treadmill to a 5k with easy to moderate terrain. I made a little deal with myself that I would run either for 30 minutes continuously or I would run the full 3.1 miles. I set the pace for a modest 13 minute mile and got started. By the 8th minute I wanted a little break so I took 60 seconds and came back at a 12.5 minute mile pace for another 7 minutes, then took a longer break and came back at a 12 minute mile pace for 5 minutes, took a 60 second break and toned down the hills a little and went back to a 12 minute mile pace till the last .5 mile or so when I kept cranking the pace by a half minute each minute of running till I ended up running the last 2 minutes at a 10 minute mile pace. I have to say that the longer that I ran tonight the better it felt ... once I got past that initial break-in. It made me wonder why I had ever broken up with running in the first place actually. I mean, I wasn't looking great or anything, but I was doing it and I finished in 40 minutes.

I found it interesting to pay attention to some of the things around me during my run. I didn't have my music with me so I had to find ways to distract myself from what I was doing without falling off of the treadmill. I did a small amount of people watching, trying to figure out what was happening on the 8 tvs around the room, and then I realized that I had forgotten to put on my "body glide" before the run. This, I realized too late, would result in runner's nipple ... best seen here. And as I type this I'm ... feeling the pinch. Still it was an awesome run and I felt real good about it. It's a far cry from the 15 miles of the Charleston Distance Run or the 26.2 mile Akron Marathon ... but it's a good start. It will get me through the 5k run that is at the end of my triathlon that I plan to do this summer.

Lastly, I decided to cool off in the pool after peeling my sweat-soaked clothing off ... for I really do sweat profusely. Much to my dismay my swim watch (i.e. the cheapest water-proof watch I could find) had finally been eaten up by the harsh chlorine of using it for several years in that capacity. So I gave it up and did a leisurely quarter mile swim of breaststroke while watching a group of young lifeguard wannabees being taught by an instructor who was in street clothes and not getting into the pool. I watched some of the similarities and differences between my own training during this time and subsequently while soothing my muscles in the jacuzzi. A few things that I noted were how the peculiar nomenclature of lifeguarding hasn't much changed. They still refer to the person who is in need of assistance as "the victim" which is something that my college roommate always found amusing. When I was training to be an EMT that person was referred to as "the patient" and I usually drew amused laughs when I forgot what class I was in and would say "the victim" in my EMT sessions. Of course, now that same person is "the client" for me and "the respondent" for everyone else. How funny the words that we use.

In any event, I was one of the last classes of students trained with the old "Advanced Lifesaving" school of techniques when I was trained to be a lifeguard. This was one hell of a tough training regime and it focused on aggressively going after a "victim" to pull them out of the water. When I subsequently re-certified the class was called "Lifeguarding" and the philosophy had changed a lot. We were no longer supposed to risk our own safety to pull a conscious and struggling victim to safety. Rather, we were to wait till the victim was passed out or docile before bringing them in. If they got active we were supposed to leave their ass and come back when they stopped fighting. In the old school we actually had to fight the biggest guys in the class (which happened to be a Marine Drill Instructor in my case who was our teacher) and not let them drown us. This made me ready for anything they could throw at me in my Lifeguarding when they taught us how to escape when someone grabs us.

Tonight they were teaching that technique but with no instructor in the water it was sort of willy nilly. Half of the newbie guards were female and a few were wearing very skimpy swimsuit bikinis ... something that was not permitted when I took either of my classes (darnit). One of them almost lost her top during two of the exercises. I'm pretty sure that at least three of the newbie guards I saw would not have passed Advanced Lifesaving ... but they did fine with the Lifeguarding techniques. I was reminded in one instant where a student did particularly well in avoiding a grab how we had to be blindfolded and surrounded by splashing instructors in my Lifesaving class and then lunged at. How different! Then I had to fight the drill instructor by dragging his ass across the deep end in a full chest lock and rolling him underwater whenever he started fighting. He praised me for my unorthodox manner and told me that in the old days the lifeguard rescue tubes were hard plastic so you could bob someone on the head who was freaking out too badly to be grabbed. Watching the class tonight it was very evident that the techniques of Lifeguarding would get fewer lifeguards killed in risky encounters and it was an interesting journey to memory lane at the same time.

I'm not completely seized up yet from my three discipline brick today. I didn't push myself as hard as I could but I made a good dent. Speaking of dents. Earlier this week I went down to a new hole on my belt for my dress pants. That is a great feeling! I hope I can just keep it up! Oh, and after finishing my swim I got called for another ER hearing. Thus, the cycle of life continues...

I was out and about the other day and found myself following Yoda. I really wish that I could think of something witty to say here ... but I can't so I'll leave that to you.

Okay, I'm done with the whole crocs debate ... seriously. I get it now ... crocs = comfortable. I still say the pins are silly but they're no sillier than my custom Scrabble tiles. However, when I saw this picture on icanhascheezburger.com today I had to post it for reasons that I just can't explain ... it was like ... I was just compelled to do it.

Mea culpa.

I'm not as good at keeping up with blogging as I used to be ... other than pouring my own thoughts out here. But I see that glass lady Hillary has given me a major award by naming me for the "You Make My Day Award". I'm so excited and honored! :-)


Here are the “rules” of the award:
1) Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day
2) Acknowledge the post of the award giver
3) Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news!

I am passing this award along to:
1) Infinity Ranch - for his eclectic blend of miscellany
2) The Fishing Guy - because I never know what I'm going to find there
3) On Location With Rick Lee - for some of the best photography I've ever seen
4) The Film Geek - for his wit, humanity, and ... well ... the films
5) Huh? The Blond Goddess Is Confused... - because she finds the best funny graphics around ... that I then steal

All of these blogs are awesome as well as so many others who are on my sidebar, including some new blogs that I've recently added from my Scrabble buds. Check them out when you get time. I also would like to say how cool that it is that Hillary is still around and blogging when she wasn't sure that she wanted to get into it when she first emailed me to ask me about it almost 2 years ago. I hope that she keeps it up because Heart of Glass is an awesome blog!

After work today I went for a good swim. I did a half mile and was pretty wiped out from my heavy day of exercise yesterday so I went home and slept for a couple of hours. When I woke up I went to see the election returns with my dad and we played some Scrabble. We played two games while we watched the election results come in from Kentucky and Oregon. What made this funny for me was that I'm a Clinton supporter who respects Obama while dad is an Obama supporter who hates Hillary and McCain (actually, he likes McCain as a man but not as a President ... and I'm the same way). However, I had much more fun watching the returns and hearing the pundits speculate than did dad who just can't help himself from cursing at the tv. This may have impacted his Scrabble game but I don't think so. He played two very good games that were decided by bingos from me. I'll come back to the political stuff later ... do don't bail on me Inca P.

The first game was slow with dad gradually forming a point gap as he pulled ahead of me after the first several turns. I had crappy letters and kept trying to organize my rack for some good plays but didn't find very many except for KEG (31 pts.) and FEZ (30 pts.) while dad was hitting for plays that stayed in the mid teens and low 20s. Then Dad hit with JOUST (61 pts.) putting him 51 pts. in the lead. I regained some of that with SQuAT for (47 pts.) but then dad got GUILD (25 pts.) and OX (29 pts.) while I struggled with a good rack looking for places to play a couple of near bingos and one actual bingo that I had in my hand but couldn't lay. Then on the last play of the game I hit with the bingo INSIDeRS for 77 pts. jumping me into the lead by 30 pts. and then I got 22 pts. from dad's unplayed letters for a final score of 298 to 340. Dad was ready to fall out of his chair to see the game turn so fast and was about as displeased as seeing Hillary pop up on the tv again. :-)

I didn't make my case for keeping him on my "people who will play me" list when I opened the second game with the bingo DETAIlS for 68 pts. Though dad never got into the lead in this game he gradually caught up to me while I played riskier plays looking for more opportunities to bingo. I felt so much like Brad during this game too (btw, the tribbles pic is for you Brad) knowing that I was in control even though dad closed the gap near the end with a series of high point plays including EVICT (33 pts.), VALET (24 pts.) and SARGE (26 pts.). The game ended up being 346 to 316 with my winning the game only by 30 pts. Again, if it wasn't for the bingo I would have lost. Dad and I had been discussing Scrabble strategy and he had been using the list of the 2 and 3 letter words well during our play. He is starting to learn how to look for bingos so I expect that he will start playing them soon ... and then I'll be in trouble. Already he could play at our club gigs if he wanted to. I will keep working on him to do so and pointing out how well he is playing. I've literally seen his play style change lately and I think that's a great thing.

Back to politics. During our second game we talked about some of the nuances that are inherent in the uncounted delegates from Michigan and Florida. Both dad and I think that these two states are going to present some real problems for the DNC. I said that I think that the issue is that no politician or political body is going to want to tell people that their votes aren't going to count. Dad said that he say it as the word of the politicians that they would allow the votes not to be counted and that they should stick to it. I pointed out that it is now in the DNC's hands and that nobody thought it would come to this but that it has. Now we are facing a nasty situation where the DNC is going to have to make a hard choice that is going to make people unhappy no matter what. In fact, litigation could arise out of the decision that the DNC makes. I don't think that a candidate will file suit but if the DNC sticks to their guns, which I think that they should, I can see voters in those states filing suit to be seated at the DNC Convention. If that happens it will be chaotic in a way that makes the naysayers who have claimed that this long-running primary is hurting the party look like kids crying over spilled milk. I thought that Obama gave a great speech tonight and he also acknowledged that this primary has not hurt the party ... and I agree.

This is where I said to dad that the smart thing to do would be to have Hillary finish up the primaries like she said that she would do and then, in exchange for the Vice President candidacy, throw her superdelegate support completely behind Obama thus negating the Florida/Michigan problem. I don't know if this has been something that has been in the works but it makes sense for why she would carry on at this point, beyond the distant hope of still winning. The pundits who keep talking about "the math" are reflecting that it is not likely that the superdelegates who have promised their votes to a candidate will change their minds. This does not prevent them from actually changing their minds though since they don't actually cast their votes till the DNC convention the last weekend of August. This race is no longer about "the math" but is about "the people" and what the DNC will do about these problems through their rules committee and through the superdelegate vote. One important thing that Hillary has proven in these last several weeks is how good she is with the so-called "red democrats" or people who might be inclined to vote for McCain but have loyalty to Hillary because of her message or her rep from her husband's Presidency. So, we shall see what happens with this issue. I would like to see an Obama/Clinton ticket. I think it would be a great way to unify the party. While we might lose some people I think it would keep more than if one or the other got the nomination. In fact, even my dad tonight said he might have to vote for that ticket ... despite his hatred of Hillary Clinton. That spoke volumes to me ... or maybe he was just dizzy from my Scrabble smackdown! :-)

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

The California Supreme Court ... not the U.S. one made the news recently and pissed a lot of people off. JDB had an excellent post the other day on a topic that I've blogged about before. He points out that the California Supreme Court, by deciding that the California constitution does not permit the state to extend marriage to heterosexuals only, has fallen under the conservative misnomer label of "Activist Judges" which, in reality, means that they have issued a ruling that conservatives don't like. As JDB aptly points out, the court did what it was asked to do ... it interpreted the state constitution. What makes this situation more interesting is that the California legislature has twice passed legislation that would allow gay couples to marry and it was vetoed by the Republican governor each time. I suppose the question could be begged if the court was granting the will of the people or not but courts also can't just come up with any old issue willy nilly and make a pronouncement, unlike the Executive and Legislative branches. I'm guessing that this is the first time that the issue of the constitutionality of gay marriage has come before the court ... and they ruled on it ... and now people are unhappy ... go figure.

Now I suppose that it's up to the "I'm going to tell you how to live your lives" right-wingers to try to pass the holy grail of modern Republican politics ... the so-called "Marriage Protection" constitutional amendment. Much like Reefer Madness was the conservative boogieman in the 40's and 50's (along with Communism) it would seem that gay rights is the boogieman to modern Republicans who take their marching orders from their evangelical and fundamentalist base. If the conservatives were smart about this, and they don't seem to be, they would give up the issue of the legal rights between consenting adults who want to form legal binds (for insurance, adoption, property ownership, etc.) and try to protect their religious institution of "marriage" by removing it from the realm of legal status ... thus establishing the legal designation of "civil union" and the religious institution of "marriage" ... but I don't think that they see it that way. It seems that the Right is rabid at wailing on anything that resembles gay rights just like they try to squash minority interests in their monolithic view of the world. Hmmm ... that sounds similar to some Communist ideologies.

BTW, thanks to JDB I've had "Going The Distance" in my head since last week.

Okay ... WTF?



My sister wanted me to check out the above clip called "Old Greg" and I'm not sure that I really get it. Do you?

Note: there is a part one, part two, and I think that the last one was part three.

Tonight I returned to the spinning class at the YMCA. We did about a 75 to 80 minute workout and those with heartrate monitors said we burned between 1000 and 1300 calories. Spinning is pretty intense as a workout but I guess you control the intensity in a way by adjusting the tension nob on the bike as you see fit. Since I'm looking at this as triathlon training I'm going to try to make the most of it. The intensity of the ride varied with some work in the saddle and some out of it grinding the gears. At the end we were trying to keep body motion still by working our rotation which was really tough. I think that I kept up pretty well tonight though. One of the guys in the class suggested that I come out and ride with the Mountain State Wheelers since I have a road bike. He said that there is a good ride Wednesday evenings that starts at UC. That could be a good one for me if I can work it out and keep up with them. This guy said his average pace tends to be about 15mph which is similar to my typical pace so maybe I can keep up. We'll see. It would certainly be a good workout and I haven't been out with that club since college when I was in it for a while ... and there is safety in numbers as I would learn upon leaving the gym tonight.

So, upon leaving the gym I decided to stop by Rite Aid on the way to Kay's. In the parking lot I almost got run over by a girl who looked about 20. I was walking from my car toward the store's entrance and she was leaving the parking lot. She was just sort of turning into me and by the time that I realized that she wasn't stopping it was almost too late. I slammed my hands down on the hood to push myself away from her car so she wouldn't run over my feet and ended up bruising my right hand up in the process where it hit the part where the hood meets the windshield. She was mortified and I am still not sure how I avoided it. It was a reflex action that I think is similar to a drill we used to do in my Kung Fu class the more that I think of it. Either way, I was sort of stunned, standing there in the rain. She rolled her window down and apologized for not seeing me. I said it was okay and that we were both lucky I wasn't hurt. My hand still hurts a bit but I'm pretty sure it's okay. It did shake me up a bit and it reminds me of the advice that I give to all runners and bikers that I know and especially those I go out with ... never trust a car ... never trust that it will see you or that it will care that you are in it's path. I've had enough close calls on the road that ranged from inadvertent to blatant that it stays in my head ... just not in the Rite Aid parking lot.

I ran again today. I did about 2.5 miles (I think ... I wasn't using my fancy running watch and gadgets) in about 34 minutes. I was just talking with one of our psychologists last night at the hospital about running and it almost made me run when I got home ... after midnight. It's funny. I've seen a new commercial lately ... it's from New Balance and it's a series of commercials called "LOVE/hate" and this one opens with a guy on a park bench eating fast food and goes "You broke up with running last week ... and now you see running everywhere ... looking really really good." It's so funny because it's so true ... actually the whole series has been so well tuned to a runner's mentality and I've loved them. Thus, lately when I've seen people running I just want to go do it. The trouble is that when I get home I'm tired or I just don't feel like it. That is the thing that I'm working to break out of right now because it's a psychological barrier. I even found myself saying last week "I don't want to run in the rain" which I would have kicked myself for in the past. Of course, when I was thinking that in the past I was a more hard core runner who could run for several hours without it bothering me that it was raining. I'm still a little dainty in my running ... as much as a 230 pound, 5'11" guy can be dainty I suppose. Right now I'm working on training for a triathlon and the Charleston Distance Run and that is my immediate focus ... we'll see how far that I can run by the time September comes up and then I'll figure out if I can pull off a whole marathon with Inca P. Right now the thought of running the whole thing just terrifies me.

I saw my cousin perform in the Light Opera Guild production of A Chorus Line this weekend. The show had been running for the last three weekends and this was the last performance. For a local review and more pictures click here for the Daily Mail article about it. I am always impressed with my cousin and her ability to play so many excellent roles in these plays. She was my role model growing up as she was so multi-talented and did so many things so well. She went on to become a doctor who still keeps her interests varied and I became a lawyer who tries to do the same. Along with her Dad, we are the two attorneys in the family and have a special relationship along those lines and so he was the perfect choice to initially move my admission to the WV Bar a little over a year ago. He was in attendance Saturday night along with my Aunt who also plays in the KVC band with my cousin and me ... in fact, they are the ones who pushed me to join up as soon as I did after moving back here last year.

Back to the play ... it was just amazing. This was the first play that I ever saw on Broadway which was a bit of a shock when I went back and saw shows like The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon which were visual spectacles. A Chorus Line is different though. It is a minimalist piece because the whole thing is about an audition to be dancers in a different show. Thus, the audition happens largely on a bare stage and sometimes is against mirrors that reflect the dancers back at the audience as they go through their moves and spill their souls to the audience as part of their audition. In that way, the audition also becomes a rite of passage as the dancers all reflect on why they got into dancing and what it means to them. It is a very demanding show because the actors are very exposed and they have to do so much intense acting for the two hours of the show (in one act with no breaks). Not only that, but they also have to be good dancers and good enough to show their progression as they go through, getting a little better as the show progresses to the finale which is what we usually see pictures of in contrast to their drab clothing for the bulk of the show. I thought that the actors in this production really pulled it off well and did phenomenal jobs. I know that they worked very hard as my cousin told me as they had been progressing about how many rehearsals they had to have to get up to speed. It was Kay's first time seeing it and she was impressed too. I've probably seen it 4 times now with the first being in 1989 on Broadway just a few months before it closed there as the longest running show in Broadway history (eventually surpassed by Les Mis, Cats, and Phantom). It is a classic and the CLOG nailed it!

Today was a lazy day, meaning I was tired and didn't do much. I did plenty the day before as I went to Huntington and watched my nephews play soccer and brought K-girl along to go to our Scrabble Club meeting in Huntington for the club we're trying to start there. Then we came back and I took Kay to see my cousin in the Light Opera Guild performance of "A Chorus Line" which was excellent! We finished that off with a late meal at Bennigan's. This morning we all met up for breakfast at Shoney's and then went to pick out some flowers for the house at the Capitol Market. K-man wanted to see what that barge was that had been parked out in front of my building so we went and investigated and saw it was for some sort of wedding party that had taken place over the weekend (judging by all the bags of beer bottles and such). We finished up by going onto the South Side Bridge and seeing the whole valley. Then I ended up catching an unexpected nap and was eventually called out for two late night hearings at different ERs (and two very interesting clients). Oh, and somewhere in all of that a little flame war started in my last post's comments. I find it ironic, and perhaps "sad", that a person who seems not to like reading my blog continues to do so. Oh well, I can take some dissent ... unlike the current President who ... like my anonymous dissenter ... is also a douche.

I saw this while checking out at Staples this past weekend. I had just finished Scrabble Club so I still had my camera and somehow managed to snap this picture without being noticed. I have only recently become aware that kids today are getting pins to put into the holes of their Croc shoes (which are still wildly popular for some reason). I suppose that if you can find some fad that has overstayed it's welcome you can make an additional killing by finding a way to glom onto that fad and that decorative pins to fill the holes are the way to go (but doesn't that defeat the purpose of the holes in the first place). Anyway, these Crocs in the picture were being worn by a woman who was in her late 40's to early 50's who was dressed in an overall fashion that was far too young for her and both of her Crocs were way too decked out for anyone over the age of 15. The lady was working very hard to look youthfully chic while buying a $900 laptop computer ... things that really should be mutually exclusive.

So what's the verdict on the Croc pins? Overkill, age limited, or that I should just avert my eyes and not worry about it? You decide! :-)

Click here for the best ... website ... ever!

This is the 36th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

36. Artificers & Persons of low Degree ought not to use many ceremonies to Lords, or Others of High Degree but Respect and highly Honour them, and those of high Degree ought to treat them with affibility & Courtesie, without Arrogancy.

Affibility? Courtesie? WTF? Is this saying that you should keep your eyes down if you're a lowlife peasant and if you're a Lord not to bust on your servants unless they get uppity?

Well, I got back on track with my running tonight. I went to the Y and did a 5k on the treadmill (that's 3.1 miles) in just under 40 minutes. That's not anywhere near my best pace of just over 30 minutes but it's something. I'm not sure how I did it either. We'll see how I feel in the morning. I even managed a sort of smile after my run ... well ... it's a start. I suppose that my run tonight is an indication of how I've been lagging behind lately with various things. The job keeps me busy lately which makes it harder to do things like keep up with my blog, reading the other blogs that I used to read more often, and various other things like blogging about LOST and my last Scrabble club meeting. My blog tends to be a reflection of what is going on in my life and lately it has been some of this political stuff. Soon it will be Scrabble again as I have a tournament in Pittsburgh coming up the second weekend of June.

Speaking of Scrabble. I've been bad about posting about my club meeting last Saturday. It was a good club but only because I beat our club director, Brad, again. I had it handed to me in my last game but beating Brad was awesome! I'm heading to Huntington for a club meeting this weekend in our startup club. I'll try to blog about both this weekend. As for tonight I went home and played my dad in two games of Scrabble. I'll have to blog about that too. Maybe I'll do it now. The first game wasn't very close despite that dad led through the first 10 turns while I floundered with bad letters. Then I turned it around scoring 78 pts. in two turns and then hitting with a bingo of LEGENDS (66 pts.) and a few other high point plays for a final score of 354 to 278. I've been studying the list of "I" and "U" dumps while waiting around at some of these political things and managed to play several of them tonight like LUAU, IMPI, and IXIA.

Dad swore when I dropped that bingo and some of those big plays like ALOHA on a triple word score for 43 pts. Then the second game got started and dad got immediately flustered when I dropped the bingo SMARTIE on my second play for 82 pts. Dad came back with JEST on a triple for 62 pts. but he was still demoralized and this was made worse when I hit with EQUATOR for 92 pts. in the 8th turn. Now I was over 100 points ahead and dad said he didn't know if it was worth continuing on. I encouraged him not to think like that and reminded him to keep up with his attention on the list of 2s and 3s and the good high point letter plays. Then my play tapered off while dad hit with some good plays finishing with ZA for 48 pts. and BEYOND as his final play for 51 pts. putting him within 2 pts. of me until he got 8 pts. for what was left in my hand meaning that dad won by 6 pts. He was stunned as was I ... but I reminded him that if he had given up he would have lost miserably. It was a great game ... then I went to watch LOST which I had taped earlier. It was awesome!

Check out all of my Scrabble posts here or from my blog's sidebar.

To whoever has been helping me keep my office plant watered ... my plant thanks you (and so do I). This plant, and the lovely pot that it resides in, was a gift from my glass bloggin' friend Hillary that she thoughtfully sent to my grandmother's funeral earlier this year. I am often not in my office on a daily basis so I have been pleased to see that someone has been helping me to water and care for my plant. So thanks ... whoever you are!

I got a call last night to watch Keith Olbermann's "special comment" about an interview that George W. Bush gave where he: 1) implied that electing a Democrat will get us attacked again (that boat sailed last election ... when it was a shitty tactic then); 2) tried to dodge responsibility for misleading us into a war in Iraq; and 3) talked about sacrificing golf to show solidarity with those who have lost family members in Iraq. Well, Olbermann blasted him in a rant that I'm surprised made it on the air without being cut. Part one is below with a link following for part two.



Click here for Part Two of this "special commentary" on May 14, 2008. Apparently Mr. Olbermann goes off on these rants from time to time (if the YouTube archives are any indication) but I thought he was going to stroke out during this one and it seemed more vehement than some of the others that I clicked through. It also seems pretty true FWIW even though it is a level of anger that I'm not used to seeing from the left ... moreso from the right.

In yet another bizarre facet of organized religion, I heard today that the Vatican has told Catholics around the world that it's okay to believe in extraterrestrial life because it will not contradict faith in God. So okay ... my immediate question was what makes them so sure? It turns out that this is news from the Vatican Observatory (oh what Galileo wouldn't have given for such an organization to back him up with that 17th century thingy) that frankly looks like something that you'd see in The Onion with a title like "Angels, Aliens Battle For Imagination of American People" or "Aliens Demand More Positive Portrayal In The Media" oh wait ...

But seriously ... I think ... the Vatican official who came up with this was quoted as saying: "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'". Yes indeed ... yet those bad men still chased after those kids and E.T. with their rifles ... I mean walkie talkies. I suppose that this frees up the idea that there might be an alien Jesus in the cosmos that might have to do battle with human Jesus in a cage match. With this sort of pronouncement I suppose there only has to be one Jesus to serve us all ... every one ... whether they are the ever popular "forehead aliens" from the various Star Trek shows or the type that like to blow up our major world landmarks we can rest easier knowing that we are still only talking about one god ... one god who must have an infinitely twisted sense of humor about us all. Perhaps we're the biggest punchline of all time and eternity ... or not.

I ate at Taste of Asia last week with Kay for the first time. I ordered sushi while she ordered Kung Pao chicken. Both were very good. I have to say that I would certainly recommend this place as a nice dining atmosphere located in downtown South Charleston next to Main Tin which is more of a carryout Chinese restaurant where Taste of Asia really has a pan-Asian cuisine.

Yesterday was a hell of a day. It started early for me (well ... early considering I didn't get home till 3am) with a hearing at a hospital ER. Then I went from there to helping my friend and her final get out the vote drive for her election for the House of Delegates. I met up with Katy and Bree and we worked on transporting kids to places to hold signs ... actually, they worked at doing that while I babysat at the HQ. Then they picked me up and we went driving around in the "voter van" looking for people who needed rides to the polls in Meshea's district. We didn't find too many people but did schedule some later pickups. We grabbed lunch and then they dropped me off at my car where I went back to the office for a little while before heading over to the Civic Center for Hillary's victory party.

I have to say that it was nice to have decent weather yesterday. It was a comfortable temperature and I found myself walking along Capitol Street enjoying that as I visited The Peanut Shop for some goodies before heading over to see Hillary's victory speech. I got to the Civic Center and ended up meeting up with the woman who I saw at the Capitol on Thursday with the Hillary Car (she is from Arizona ... not here as that wanker Matt Drudge was making fun of us West Virginians using that as an example of our hillbilly nature). I chatted with her briefly and then got into the sizable line for the event.

After we got through the metal detectors I got to stand near Hillary's campaign manager while he spoke with the sizable press contingency about their plan for the rest of the Primary Election dates. It was interesting to be so close to the action like that especially for this year being my first exposure to any of that sort of stuff. I got settled in the crowd some 10-12 feet away from Hillary's podium and stayed put doing text messages to friends and studying Scrabble words while I waited for the events. It wasn't long before they pulled up CNN's coverage and showed how they called the election for Hillary within about 10 minutes of the polls closing. Then they were panning across the audience and I caught sight of me a few times.

I didn't try to sit in the section for volunteers behind Hillary. I wanted to get out of there after her speech so that I could head down the street to the Kanawha County Elections Office so that I could sit with Bree and Katy as they watched Meshea's returns come in so I stayed where I was. I saw several of the other hardcore volunteers from my vantage point though ... folks like Sasha and Corey, Devon, happy Asian lady, and guy who was always on the phones when I was at the Clinton HQ. They had all become familiar faces to me from the various events of the last week or so. Hillary's campaign manager spoke and told us how more voters came out for this Primary than in any other in our state's history and then it wasn't long before Hillary herself was standing directly in front of me, so close that I could see the blue of her eyes. She gave a great speech and I took some awesome photos (well, awesome for me ... maybe not for you). The event finished up with a flurry of confetti and then I was off to see the local election returns at about 9:30pm.

When I got over to the Kanawha County Elections Office the festivities were high. The second report had just come out with 40% of the results in and Meshea had just pulled ahead of Carrie Webster while Natalie Tennant was excited to clearly be kicking ass over Joe DeLong. I had gone to local election returns before with my ex when she was supporting various special tax levies that supported programs that were important to her agencies ... but this was different being that it was in the state capital of WV and there were three news crews there doing constant interviews and coverage. It was odd for this small town boy. But I sat and chatted with some of the local magistrate judges as they showed up and helped Katy to keep Bree calm.

Before long the 60% report came out and Meshea and Carrie were literally tied with four precincts remaining to be counted in their district. How nerve wracking! I was going to leave but then that came up and we got the announcement that all returns were in and would be announced as soon as they could finish verifying them. Alas, in the end Meshea lost by 118 votes. It was disappointing to Bree who had given up so much to help Meshea run her campaign. Meshea was across town with her family and Katy and Bree left to be with her to give her the news and I headed to Kay's (who I had kept in contact with via my phone). Still, there were good results. Spike Maynard got drummed off of the court following his dubious relationship with coal baron Don Blankenship. Hopefully the state won't compound the error by putting Beth Walker up in his place with her strong ties to the industry. But we'll see. For now it's time to look forward and focus on some other things for a while.

Note, there are a lot of picture links in this post. Click around if you want to see them. The next question to be determined is what will happen with the superdelegates (since nobody laughed at my superdelegate joke the first time ... here it is again. Oh, and I guess that it could be said that Hillary is going the distance. I, on the other hand, was dragging at work today and had 8 cases ... 3 of which I managed to get dismissed somehow (woo hoo).

Today is the big election day. Everyone says that Hillary will win West Virginia and others say that it doesn't matter if she does. However, her campaign manager says that she will end up winning the popular vote by the time that the primary is over and it's time to head into the DNC Convention in July. We'll see. Fellow local blogger raging red has some insight as to why Hillary hasn't dropped out and she may be right. Still, why should Hillary quit if she thinks that she can leverage support for a position either as President or VP? The superdelegates aren't confirmed until they cast their votes at the DNC Convention and I don't buy this crap that it's hurting the party for her to stay in the race so long as she and Obama stop slugging away at each other. Both candidates have a lot at stake and this is probably both their only shots at the Presidency so they should go till they think that it's over. Hillary knows that she is facing a huge battle ... but it's hers to face and the voters will speak through their actions over the next several weeks and that will cue the superdelegates to respond in kind.

I stopped off at Hillary HQ in Charleston to make some more phone calls for about an hour yesterday. There was some dude doing a report for the BBC when I walked in the door (seen above). It was an interesting experience again as I really hadn't planned to do much volunteering until the general election. Still, I learned that Hillary will be throwing a celebration at the Charleston Civic Center and that she will be in attendance immediately after the polls close at 7:30pm tonight. I plan to make it out there to see for myself depending on the sort of day that I'm having. I've promised to help my friend and co-worker Meshea Poore with her race for the WV House of Delegates and so far I haven't heard from her as to what help she needs with the last minute get out the vote drive. I'm going to be on-call for my court today but I won't have all day hearings so I'll be largely free. I did get stuck in Juvenile Court last night with a gaggle of teenagers who decided to have some run-ins with the law. So hospital till after midnight on Sunday night ... Juvenile Court till after midnight last night. I wonder what tonight will bring?

Anyway, have fun today. I doubt I'll be around a computer much so I'll be pretty quiet till tomorrow I expect. Don't forget to vote or else STFU about the results.

Here is an odd change of pace. CNN.com is reporting a story that many gas stations using older pumps are facing a problem as gas prices are now starting to rise above $4 a gallon because their mechanical pumps are not designed to count above $3.999 per gallon of gas. What an odd problem to run into. The story claims that the owners of these stations are barely profiting off of the high gas prices and can't afford to retrofit or to upgrade their pumps meaning that we may soon see gas stations half-pricing gas ... meaning that the price we see will be for 1/2 gallon rather than a full gallon in order to accommodate the older pumps.

Glass blogger friend Hillary has posted some scoop on Bill Clinton's recent visit to West Virginia's own Blenko Glass. Check it out. She promises more pictures later and apparently this action won her over as a Hillary supporter. :-)

Yesterday I was walking to my car and found a little piece of paper under my windshield wiper. It was a paper titled "West Virginians for Life PAC Endorsed Pro-Life Candidates in Kanawha County" and was filled with bible verses and religious propaganda on one side and a list of who I should vote for on the other. Looking over the list I was pleased to see that I hadn't voted for a single person that was on the "approved" list when I early voted on Friday. In fact, I saw that I had voted for Bob Bastress for Supreme Court (the only Justice I voted for) who was listed as "pro-abortion" and was guilty of serving on the Board of the pro-abortion ACLU (who apparently eats babies for breakfast if you believe the hype). They also vilified Margaret Workman for a decision that she wrote while on the Court that allowed tax-payer funded abortions. Now, I didn't vote for Workman but it was because she has written some opinions that have been prejudicial toward the clients that my office serves (which I suppose is as good a reason as writing opinions prejudicial to the unborn really). Interestingly, the pro-life ... or "anti-choice" ... folks have endorsed Spike Maynard (you know ... the coal toady) and Beth Walker (friend of coal and spouse of the VP of Walker Machinery). So the two choices of the pro-life people are the ones who would put the Supreme Court right back into the pocket of the coal companies. I almost did a picture when I got my WV Law License with a "Friends of Coal" logo superimposed but didn't as one of my rare examples of wanting to remain in good taste. Yet, putting those two on the court would make it as credible as that horrible set of commercials that Walker Machinery runs where the real reporter (paid in 30 pieces of silver) interviews the cartoon bug who tells everyone that the environment doesn't matter to him and that the coal companies are doing a fine job. But I digress...

This discussion of partisan politics reminds me of something that Bill Clinton said in his speech the other day. He was talking about some of the 9/11 firefighters who were denied by their insurance companies after they developed problems related to the 9/11 rescue operation. He said that Hillary went to bat for them in the Senate and they came back to say how they had all considered themselves Republicans before 9/11 because they liked how Republicans talked all macho and tough. But that they are Democrats now after they saw that the Republicans didn't care about their plight. I was thinking about that when I saw John Dean's latest book in the discount audiobook section of Books A Million yesterday. The book is called Conservatives Without Conscience (a review can be found here) and it is a follow-up to his excellent book Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. I've gotten through the first disc and it has been a very interesting psychological look into the inner workings of the Republican party and how it has transformed from the Goldwater era of conscientious conservatism to rampant bullying and meanspiritedness of the modern conservative movement and that much of the problem is wrapped up in social conservatism and pandering to the extreme religious right ... which was a similar topic of the recent book American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips that I've talked about before and even State of Denial: Bush at War by Bob Woodward which I just finished. The infuriating idea is that the right has become ruthless when it comes to stifling dissent and being authoritarian or dictatorial and that is why I don't see myself supporting a Republican for any major office anytime soon.

In any event, I voted on Friday before going to see Bill Clinton. It was a quick and painless process and the first time that I got to see the optical scanning equipment that the County now has to count votes. They didn't use these for the Table Games vote last year. I have been hearing that record numbers of voters have been voting early this year. I figured it would just be easier since I don't know what work will be like tomorrow and since I promised my friend that I would help her with her campaign with Get Out The Vote efforts all day. At least it won't be a downtown court day since the courts are closed tomorrow. Last night I was in the ER till 2am and then I still had 3 cases to do downtown today in regular court. I don't know where they all come from. At least tomorrow will be set hearing times ... still ... I expect that I'll be pretty busy. The week has barely started and I'm already tired ... ugh. I wonder how Obama's speech went in town today? I heard that all of the tickets to the event, which had to be acquired in advance, had been gone long before today.

Yes, the title of this post is true. I got to shake the hand of a U.S. President. It was mucho coolio.

Friday saw the further campaigning of the Clinton family across the state as 42nd U.S. President Bill Clinton visited four spots through rural West Virginia. One of those stops was at Saint Albans at McKinley Middle School (of course, we won't talk about the fact that William McKinley was one of those 4 assassinated Presidents relegated to history... that would be sort of creepy ... oh, and it was at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo in 1901). But I digress...

Bill Clinton was coming to town and my girlfriend wanted to attend along with one of her teacher friends. She asked me the best way to see the President and I said that we should all volunteer to work the event. She said that she had read my post about working Hillary's event the previous day and didn't think that she could do that but that she'd be glad to hold a sign and wave at people. However, when we got there the folks from the Charleston Clinton HQ were short staffed so she and her friend ended up working the same line duty that I had worked the previous day. In fact, the Charleston office was responsible for working all 4 of the events that Bill was stopping at in the region so all of the folks who had helped the prior day were spread out leaving only two full-time guys to work this event. Since I had worked on the line the prior day it now became my duty to sort of run, as much as it needed running, and I had fun doing it making sure to keep telling Kay and her friend they were doing a great job as I had been told the previous day when I was being managed in that duty. :-)

I ended up seeing some people who I knew in the line as I went through making sure that everyone had an admission ticket ... that we were handing out ... they required people to write down their name and address for demographic purposes or some such thing. We also had to go through and tell people that the Secret Service had told us that no signs could come into the gymnasium where we were holding the event. Most everyone was very nice about it and struck up conversations with me and with the other people who were working the line as I checked in on them. It felt really good to be helping out as opposed to just being one of the people standing in the line and hoping that it wouldn't rain before they opened the doors.


When the doors did open, Sasha, one of the full-time Clinton campaign workers who had just come in with the President, posted me at the door to collect the admission tickets that I had been handing out for the last hour or so. People filed in as I kept asking them not to push and to come single file through the security point ... which consisted of a cop and a bomb sniffing dog (of which the dog didn't look that interested). The line stretched on forever and I wondered if everyone would fit but we had room to spare when they all got inside. After a while another one of the full time campaign workers had me go collect the other volunteers so that they could come to a little reserved section for the volunteers and be seated. Because Kay was going to hold my seat I worked a while longer until everyone was inside.

Next we waited for an hour or so while Bill, as we would later found out, shopped for some local Blenko glass on the way over from Wayne County (glass lady has the scoop here). Still, he gave a hell of a speech and worked the crowd really well. It seemed like he spoke for nearly an hour which was about twice as long as Hillary had spoken the day before. He had a lot of neat stuff to talk about that I'm not going to repeat here. One of the funniest things that he said was that he has learned a lot of rules of politics and that one of them is that anytime that someone says "nothing personal" they're about to hand it to you. Very true. At one point he took off his suit jacket and the crowd started to cheer to which he said that he was stopping at the jacket.


After the talk he filtered down into an area that was barricaded off from the audience and started talking with people in the crowd and shaking hands. I went down just to get a closer picture of him as he moved along with a group of some stern looking Secret Service agents. As he got closer to me I got the idea that it would be cool to shake his hand and managed to get mine out there and after a few minutes the deed was done. It was a cool moment. It reminded me of a story that my dad told me a lot while growing up about how he missed his chance to see JFK when he visited my sleepy little home town during his campaign for President. Dad missed it because he didn't believe his sister when she came to tell him that he had just pulled into town on a bus. My grandmother got to shake his hand at that visit and dad has kicked himself to this day for missing his chance to meet the man if even briefly. My grandmother idolized him from that point on till her last days.

In any event, I don't mean to suggest that Bill Clinton is John F. Kennedy ... but it was still cool to shake his hand and to see him speak in person. I'm looking forward to the campaign for the general election because, whoever gets the nomination, I plan to support them the Democratic candidate to the fullest. I never thought that I'd be one of those people who would get involved in a campaign but it has been a lot of fun the last couple of times that I've done anything. I understand that Obama will be speaking tomorrow morning in Charleston. I would love to go see it but I'm up late after finishing a couple of late night hearings at the hospital so I don't think that I'll be getting up any earlier than I have to. I'll catch him next time ... maybe. :-)

After my Scrabble club meeting yesterday I decided to go and whack some more golf balls using my golf all year card that I've blogged about previously. Hmm ... I'll have to find some time to blog about my Scrabble games. I managed to beat the club director again ... and I beat him by a nice margin and scored the bingo SEAFOOD (79 pts.) as the second highest of the day. But I lost to Lisa by a narrow margin and totally blew it against David where I lost 50 pts. for being almost 5 minutes over on my time and had a sub 200 pt. game! Then played dad several times this weekend beating him all but the last one where he scored an awesome bingo of JARGONS for 104 pts. on a triple word making another triple word at the same time. It totally kicked ass and I was only able to close the gap to about 25 pts. at the end.

But I digress. I had a great time whacking golf balls Saturday evening and the weather was lovely ... not at all like today where it rained, and rained, and rained some more. Ugh. Today is also the 100th Anniversary of Mother's Day which was started in Grafton, WV by Anna Marie Jarvis in 1908. This Mother's Day was a wet and cold one though as I drove through a monsoon to get to Huntington to meet up with my sister and her family. I was transporting my parents and it took us over an hour to get seated and that ran me into my 4pm hearing slot for my court. On the way back through Charleston I didn't have time to take my parents home so I stopped off with them at Books A Million while we waited to see if I would be needed at the hospital (since there was a case certified). Dad and I played a game of Scrabble while we waited and then I got the call that I would not be needed. We played a second game and that is where dad got his play of JARGONS and was so thrilled about it. And he should be. It was an awesome play. I went home and slept for several hours which could be why I feel wired now ... okay ... time to talk about