Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Ah, the First Day of Spring...

...or should I be more technically correct and say the first evening of Spring as tomorrow will be the first full day of this wonderfully changing, colorful and fragrant season. What to do on a day like today. For starters, I drove my daughter to work. Then, as the previous post showed, I went out to vote; and I wore my brand new Re-Defeat Communism 2008 T-Shirt while voting. Those were good things.

Then I went to get a physical, and to decide if the doctor I was seeing to day would wind up as my new MD. Yes I think she passed muster. She was not as hurried as most, and even though not as ready to take her time discussing things as I would prefer, I decided I will try her at least a few more times. She gave a fairly good physical as compared to others I have had in recent years. She did the blood pressure thing, the visual examination (eyes, ears, nose and throat), the heart and lung check with stethoscope, the hernia check, the gloved hand thing (ouch), asked me when I last had a colonoscopy if ever (which was recent so I do not need another one- thank you very much), checked my weight, told me to lose weight, to cut back on junk food, to exercise, and to cut back on drinking alcohol (although I do not drink much, I guess she felt it best for my BP, which by the way was fairly decent, meaning not high, but not perfect). Of course she also drew blood for the regular slew of tests. I have to wonder though, don't doctors even ask when you last had a chest x-ray? I had one about a little more than a year ago, and it was okay, but that was not a routine check-up. I have not had a chest x-ray in a checkup in many years, are they passe?

After all that I stopped at Dick's Sporting goods. I had a $40 gift card that was burning a hole in my wallet since Christmas (smoldering slowly anyhow). I picked up a pair of Vasque Trail Running Shows, marked down from $89 to only $19.99 plus tax, that are pretty decent looking and fit like a shoe should fit. I checked online for the regular price, and quite a few places had them right at $89.99, none anywhere near $19.99, such a deal! Too bad they only had one pair that fit me, I wanted to buy a pair in another color. They are supposed to be top of the line trail running shows according to the Vasque site at: http://www.vasque.com/products/m-amp.cfm. That is where the pic came from (no copy right notice on that page,a dn it is free advertising for them so I think it is considered fair use), exact same type/color I picked up today. Not a bad deal at all from what I can tell. Now if they last 6 months to a year, or maybe even 2 years, of my heavy weight pounding/running - I will have gotten my money's worth.

As for them being trail running shoes, I don't run on trails right now, but they will probably do on the treadmill in my office gym, or out and about in my neighborhood. Otherwise they will also make fine footwear at the firing range; so they will go along good with the 100 rounds of Remington 12 gauge target ammo I bought to shoot trap. I just showed them all off to Brendan, and he liked both purchases, especially since he was the one who gave me the gift card. I asked Brendan if he remembered how much was the value of the gift card; and he said $40 - just like I had thought. So another bonus today was when the check-out clerk at Dick's told me it was worth $50, and I got change back. About the only way it could have been better at Dick's today would have been if they had told me I was the 10 gazillonth customer, and they had lots of free goodies for me like a nice over and under shotgun, and a nice bass rig, and maybe a nice Goretex rain outfit. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, but I won't hold my breath. What I really look forward to is going to the range with Brendan, later this month hopefully, to shoot some trap or skeet. This first day of Spring, or partial one anyway, was an overall very good day for me, and being that the temps were in the low 50's, with sunny skies made it even nicer. Here is hoping you all had a nice day too.
All the best,
Glenn B

Election Day Today...

Well, it is election day in my village today for the mayoral race. I dropped my daughter off for work, then I drove right to my local polling place to put in my votes for mayor and village trustee. I did not vote along any party lines, heck it is difficult to determine who leans left or right by the names of the parties in my village. One party is the New Line Party, the other is the Hometown Party. I always figured the New Liners were the libs, but was surprisingly told today that our current mayor, whom I voted against, is likely a republican. I am considerate that this may mean the other side was a democrat, I hope not, but in the scheme of things right now on our village level I voted for whom I thought was best; and I find it hard to believe the incumbent is a conservative in any way shape or form. Oh well, that does not matter to me simply because he has been one heck of a tax and spend sort of a guy. In the couple of years he has been mayor taxes have skyrockets in our village as I understand. In addition he placed parking meters on residential blocks that come off of business district streets. To add insult to injury, he tried to push the creation of a local police department and swore all along it would pay for itself, without new or higher taxes!
Right now we pay the county for our police protection, and we get a fair share of it being we have one county police precinct in our village, as well as having County Police Headquarters in the village too. His opponent was against the local PD, and I liked that, among other things about her, enough to vote for her. As a matter of fact, the current mayor tried to push in the creation of the PD and was opposed to a referendum on it. The voters did get their say though, and we voted it out by a wide margin some months ago. In the long run, it would have just increased taxes with no end in sight to those increases. Besides that it was a piss poor plan for a PD, something like 12 to 15 officers to run the whole department, including police patrols, emergency response, traffic violations, and the like; and it apparently did not consider such things as what would happen if a few guys called in sick all at once, or if a couple of them were on vacation, not realistically anyhow. Piss poor planning, that was it. So I voted for the competition. Hopefully she will do a more sensible job.

One last thing, when I arrived at the polling place, my guess is it was about 40 degrees out. Despite the chill in the air, I took off my jacket before entering the polling place. I did so because I wanted to show off my new tee-shirt to anyone who was there. The only comments I got, from 4 folks who worked the polls were essentially: 'what a nice shirt'. Yep not even one negative remark, and I also got a few smiles and nods. I just got the shirt in the mail last night, and I plan to wear it proudly up until the elections in 2008 (no not every minute of every day, but I will wear it a lot), or maybe until just after the Democratic Party's primaries. I feel it is my duty to do so, until communism is re-defeated in 2008. Now while I may not be much of a self portrait taker (I cut off my own head) all you really needed to see was my new shirt anyhow. What do you think of it?

A better design may have been one with several images of certain candidates added on, but this one says it pretty well with just the one for now. I certainly think it lets my political sentiment about Mrs. Clinton be known to all; heck that is my political sentiment about communists in general even if her picture were not on the shirt. Listen to Michael Savage sometime on the radio, or check out his site if you do not know what I mean.

That’s it for now.


All the best,
Glenn B