Of Politics, Sports and Stuff

  So, many years ago, I was dating this girl and before long, it was clear to me that she was way more into me than I was into her. She was writing me weird love letters full of references and concepts I just really couldn’t make heads nor tails of and calling too often. And I was way too nice (read cowardly) to tell her that I just wasn’t that into her. So I tried the usual guy approach which was to just not call or write back. So one night, I was walking into a party with a buddy who was fully aware of my situation, and who should be in the doorway as we walked in, putting on her coat to leave but my young lady friend. So she saw me and ran up to me and gave me a big hug and asked if I’d gotten her letters, to which I said I had. And then she asked me what I thought of them and I paused, my mind racing, trying to decide to tell her the truth or to avoid it. Finally I made my decision. I said, "Your writing...your letters are like poetry to me!" So after another eve

Sooooooo much I keep wanting to write on here, and I always run out of time to give it the time it deserves, but I just have to get this off my chest. And to go all Hank Kimball here, as I am so often wont to do, it's probably a good thing I didn't find the time to write this a few days ago, because it would have been a completely different post as I'll explain as long as I can kick my buddy Hank out of here, well, actually out of me, for now. I'm sure he'll be back, well, I'll be back, or maybe...(just watch the clip on the link above.) Anyway, the big topic in the news since the Paris attacks last week has been the issue of whether we should allow or restrict Syrian refugees in coming to America. I was upset to see the Republicans quickly pass a bill seemingly restricting it (though arguably, the bill was pretty pointless from a policy or regulation standpoint). And for a few days since it passed, I was pretty upset about it and feeling like more than e

Considering I attend religious services almost every Sunday, maybe 3 of every 4 weeks anyway, it might seem hypocritical for me to say that I think this is really good news: Pew Research Center study finds  “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious” : “An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the ‘nones’ – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith.” That said, they should give this poll again come next summer, when we’ve narrowed down the Presidential race to Hillary Clinton vs Ben Carson. I’ll bet the number of people praying regularly goes up significantly, and all probably with the same prayer: Give us a Third-party candidate!

Okay, I just need to get this out there because it’s been weighing on my brain since my ride home from work last Thursday. Why-oh-why must we all, when we get fed up with our (non-Apple) PCs, feel the need to control alt-delete?! Why can’t we just let alt-delete be alt-delete?! (Sorry – sometimes I just need a goofy little post like this one to get back on track on this blog.)

The wife of my good friend, Martin, asked his friends to send something in for her to put together to give him for his 60th birthday and she is giving it to him this weekend, don't you dare tell him about the post below (!), which was my love letter to Mar: ------ My memories of Martin Bradfield. Ah to be as eloquent and erudite as is my lifelong friend, Martin. My memories of Martin are many and varied (your dad would have hated my switching tenses throughout – my apologies!): -           Getting sunburned on the beach in New Jersey together -           Martin being dared to try on one of my sisters’ bras as a teenager, and his accepting (it wasn’t a good look for him) -           Going to many Phillies games together, including our first game Campbell Kids Day, where we saw the only Major League game ever started bya pitcher wearing sunglasses – Lowell Palmer. Phils lost badly, but we did get to see Richie Allen hit a “moon shot” completely out of Connie Mack Sta

This is just too good not to post...thanks to the Daily Kos ...although I admit all the snarky  italicized comments  are mine: Things I Learned From Republicans in September: If you work hard, you won’t have time to get hooked on drugs and that will solve all our drug-problem woes. ( Rand Paul )  (Which might suggest that Rand has never worked a day in his life to come up with this kind of crazy.)   Muslims can't be president. ( Ben Carson )  (And neither should people who have neglected to read the constitution.)    Charles Darwin came up with his theory of evolution at the behest of Satan. ( Carson again )   (I'll give him a pass on this one and just assume he was auditioning to replace Dana Carvey as the new Church Lady and this was part of his comedy routine.) America should get back in the torture business. ( Carly Fiorina )  (Watching your campaign would certainly qualify.) Diversity sucks. ( Rick Santorum )    (Which is why he prefers

I keep holding off on posting things for a variety of lame reasons, so instead of lengthy wordy posts, I'll throw a few quick hitters down here:  - Forget that post a few weeks back that I called "Handicapping America".  I keep trying to imagine scenarios where any of the current R candidates can win a race that SOMEone has to. Even though he still has a long way to go in the polls, I think it is High School Debate Captain Marco Rubio's race to lose.  Stay tuned next week when I change my mind again completely. - And I still hope it's Kasich, or if not him, Jeb!? Bush. and you can call me all sorts of anti-women names for saying this, but Carly Fiorina annoys me more than all the other candidates combined. I sure hopes she is the R nominee!  - I somehow became subscribed to Louise Hay's emails a number of months back, probably because I ordered one of Cheryl's annual Cmas presents from there, and the only reason I haven't unsubscribed is that

So, for the first time in OPSaS history, I have made substantial edits to a post - yesterday's. Cheryl didn't like it one bit - the section about Race...or maybe both parts - she didn't say anything about my perky breasts reference. Wait, maybe I could have worded that better... she didn't say anything about my reference to perky breasts. And even though I stand by my original thought, to just make it a one sentence post doesn't do enough to explain my thinking, and it is an issue that deserves a lot more thought and depth than one sentence can contain. So, thank you, Cheryl, love of my life, for bringing that to my attention for further consideration. At lunch today, I read this article, which I believe represents both some proof of my deleted point yesterday, as well as Cheryl's which is just the opposite: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sixers/20150918_NBA_player_Wayne_Ellington_speaking_at_Peace_Day_Philly_event.html It's a very sad article,

I wonder what age I was when I became less interested in turkey breast and more interested in perky breasts. Sorry – I could have sworn they were saying that there was a sale at Acme all next week on perky breast, but turns out they might have said something else. I’m sure the radio announcer dude just has bad diction because certainly my mind would never work in a manner that would have come up with that on its own.

I'm a little disappointed in that I "only" lost 1.6 pounds this week to get to exactly 200.0, but I had really hoped I'd go under 200. Musta been the damn potato chips I had at a company lunch...or two. Didn't have anything to do with the willpower of the guy eating them...no! Oh well, all the more fun to look forward to next week when I go under 200.

Seems like as good as any to do some fun handicapping of the Presidential race, despite the fact that, as John Oliver pointed out a few weeks back, there will be babies born on Election Day, 2016, to parents who haven’t even met each other yet, so why should we even start discussing it yet. But since there will be babies born 9 months from now to parents who will meet at a bar somewhere around 1am tonight, I won’t wait to be interested in the election…or to needlessly blog about it. Just pontificating (if you live near Philly, you cringe any time you see the word “pontif” in a sentence, or even as part of a word, so I apologize to local readers). So, as of yesterday’s CNN poll, here is the breakdown for the current Republican Presidential Nomination: Trump 27 Carson 19 Bush 9 Cruz 7 Walker 5, Huckabee 5 Rubio 3, Fiorina 3, Paul 3 Kasich 2, Christie 2 Santorum 1, Jindal 1, Graham 1, Perry 0 First, the easy ones to eliminate: Cruz, Huckabee, Christie, Sa

A bad week, weight-loss-wise. I gained a pound, probably due in part to the funeral of a classy, by-all-accounts-lovable, Irishman, whose awesome family threw a helluva lunch afterwards. Other than that, I probably ate a little too many chicken tenders, french fries and hash browns at the various baseball games and lunches and breakfasts I went to with friends during the week, but if I believed that, I’d have to somehow blame myself, and we can’t have that. I’m back on track this week because I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me!

I wonder which is the most complex – our brains or the earth? Both are way over my head in trying to understand them…or in it…or under it…unless I’m in a cave. And of course, there's always the possibility that both are all in our head. But that makes my head hurt.

Oh right…my update from the Monday weigh-in. Another good week – 2 more pounds, so 8 in 4 weeks and am now at 200 even. I won’t feel like I’ve made real progress until I’m in the mid 190’s but 8 lbs in one month is certainly commendable. I think what I like best about it though is the discipline I’ve had in keeping to it. I really have been good about sticking to the No Sweets/No Snacks approach. It allows me to eat pretty normal meals, though Cheryl’s generally healthy cooking may be as important as the NS/NS aspect.

I watched the VMA’s last night, with the occasionally-attired Miley Cyrus as host…as pictured here for the purposes of increasing web traffic only:   It was one of the best VMAs in memory, I thought, though it was nice to have the fast forward option from my DVR recording for some performances (apologies to you Beleibers out there.) But the reason for my post is the rambling and odd but entertaining speech by Kanye West…the most entertaining he’s been in many years, from my perspective. At the very end of it, he announced he’d be running for President in 2020, did a mic-drop and walked off the stage. Why is that blog-worthy? Because I woke up at 3:05am, inspired and determined to contact a patent/copyright lawyer first thing in the morning, to secure the copyrights in advance of the next Presidential election after the one already in full swing. The phrase to grab before any candidate, quasi- or otherwise? Vote for _____: The only candidate with 2020 vision .

I'd feel self-conscious that my only post today is an update on my weight-loss process except that when I look at the list on the middle right-hand side of this blog that shows the locations of people who visit this blog, it shows that 8 of the last 9 people to visit are from Kennett Square, which is to say...the visits are from me. Maybe proving what some people have already surmised – that I may be my biggest fan. So, I’m at 202, having lost 6 lbs in 3 weeks. Yay me. Told ya.  

We, your parents, are neither as terrible as you think we are when you a teenager, nor as wonderful as you’ll think we were when we are gone.

In a staff meeting here at work yesterday, we were going down the project list when my boss mentioned that we were preparing for a new project down south called Gibraltar, and asked if any of our biologists had been there yet. I casually, but boldly, mentioned that I had. “I’ve been to Gibraltar,” I said. “Went there on my (first) honeymoon. Got bitten by an ape.” My boss, quickly recognizing that I was referring to a completely different Gibraltar than he was, laughed and said, “yeah, that’s not the Gibraltar I’m talking about!” and the conversation continued from there for a few minutes when suddenly, Matt, sitting next to me, said “Wait. You got bitten by an ape?!” I laughed, thanked him and said, “Since the reality of my story is far less interesting that whatever you’re picturing, I think I’ll just leave the story right there.” Everyone laughed and we got back to talking about the new project. But for future reference, here is the story of the apes on the island of

Kind of a boring, totally self-serving post here, but I am going to resort to self-body-shaming as added incentive to lose weight. After 2-3 months of vacation and lots of really, I mean REALLY good eating, I topped out at 208 lbs as of August 7th, I think it was, when I weighed myself for the first time in months. I don't have to look at the dumb government definitions of Obese to know that I'm there. (OK, I peeked, and well, yup: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/defining.html ) So as of that day, I started cutting back on snacks between meals or desserts of any kind and have, with the exception of this past weekend, done a really good job of it. (except when my loving and thoughtful, and normally far-more-supportive wife brings me a home treat like this  from the Reading Terminal Market.) As of Monday morning, August 17th, after the aforementioned bad (read: yummy) weekend, I was at 204, so I'm at least headed in the right direction, with a looooong way to go.

I wonder why we thank people after they tell us how much they like our haircut, as if we had stood in front of a mirror and cut it ourselves. When we're at a museum with someone and they say how much they like a painting, do we say "Oh, thank you! Me too, though I wish he had made the coloring a little lighter."

I'm a Quaker. The phrase "Guilty Pleasure" is redundant to me. If something gives me pleasure and isn't making the world a better place, then it makes me feel guilty.

The way I figure it, one of the reasons Donald Trump is doing so well in the polls is racism. The haters figure that if even Obama can be this incredibly successful, how bad could Trump be?

A Facebook page I am on posted this story, listing 40 great quotes from famous folks about happiness: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/06/40-life-changing-quotes-on-happiness/ ...and asked us to pick our favorite, and this is what I wrote: I reached overload with about the 3rd one. I stayed with it for awhile though, long enough to realize there are as many in that list that I disagree with as I agree with. I received great perspective on happiness in one of my first jobs out of Earl ham, working with what we were then allowed to call mentally retarded adults. I lived in a home - a Community Living Arrangement - with 3 adult men of varing low levels of intelligence, who had been moved out of an institution called Pennhurst that was closed down by a judge. And all 3 of them taught me far more, I'm certain, than vice versa, even though I was paid for it to be the other way around. This one fellow, Mark, built like a fire hydrant, was about 23 years old, had Downs Syndrom

OK...I've left this blog alone for far too long now, and every time I think of something to write, I think, Well, that's not worth starting it back up again, so here is a mini-entry that I think is perfect to get things re-greased and flowing again: "Dreams don’t work unless you do.” – John C. Maxwell I love that.

These are all so good and so spot-on, I'm just going to combine these all into one post since there is so much good stuff here: From George Will (!): Proponents of capital punishment are losing the debate. "Nebraska is not a nest of liberals. Yet on Wednesday its 49-member unicameral legislature passed a bill abolishing the death penalty 32 to 15. ... First, the power to inflict death cloaks government with a majesty and pretense of infallibility discordant with conservatism. Second, when capital punishment is inflicted, it cannot later be corrected because of new evidence, so a capital punishment regime must be administered with extraordinary competence. It is, however, a government program. Since 1973, more than 140 people sentenced to death have been acquitted of their crimes (sometimes by DNA evidence), had the charges against them dismissed by prosecutors or have been pardoned based on evidence of innocence." The Washington Post . From The Atlantic : Policymak

Eighteen years ago, when I was between jobs, I read in the newspaper, probably the Phila. Daily News, about an upcoming Volunteerism Summit to be held in a dicey part of North Philly, where volunteers would be asked to clean up pre-designated parts of the city for an afternoon. I’d like to say that I just signed up to be helpful since I had a lot of free time on my hands, and I’m pretty sure that was an element of my decision to get involved, but included in the story was the news that President Clinton would be there as well, so I decided that this might be a good chance for me to spend some quality time with one of the greatest Presidents in this Nation’s history. As it turned out, President Clinton wasn’t the only dignitary to attend. Arriving early, I was about 10-15 yards from the outdoor stage, where President Bill Clinton and wife, Hillary; President Jimmy Carter and wife, Rosalyn; President George H.W. Bush and (I think) his wife Barbara Bush; General Colin Powell; Nancy Re

This coming weekend, I am going camping with a bunch of Quakers – a couple hundred of them/us. Some fun, eh? It’s something I’ve been doing off, but mostly on, for close to 50 years, since it was held at Camp Hilltop in Downingtown, a camp than no longer exists except in our dulled, but fond, memories. When I was a teenager and had to go to these camps, my friends Martin, Eric, Dennis, Chris and Brad, among others, made a fine art out of skipping the workshops and “fun” activities the parents had worked hard to organize to help teach us big issues about the world, probably involving lots of Peace, Love and Understanding. Our favorite trick was to walk in one side of the meeting hall, sign in, and then, while they were still signing kids in and getting organized, we would walk out the other side, at which point we would head for the ball fields or basketball court or just up to the woods for a while to lay low and talk about sports or girls, honing the fine art of exaggeration in bo