… time sure does fly, apparently that’s true whether you’re having fun or not.
Rhetorical questions time: Hot enough for you? Ready for school to start back? Ready for football season? Is it a bad sign that a thunderstorm just knocked the power out as I was starting this entry?
Tonight is the last relatively peaceful Sunday night before {gulp} school starts back for us, what a depressing thought … The worst day I ever had at the worst job I ever had was still better than the best day I ever had at school. Luckily I figured out pretty quickly that the whole “best years of your life” thing was a myth, otherwise I can’t imagine I’d have stuck around this long … On that same train of thought, which I really wasn’t on until typing the previous sentence, how lucky was I to find the people I found in the years between 17 and 21? Or to find the person I am/was during that same stretch? Unlikely as it might seem, I’m convinced those friends, acquaintances and experiences saved my life … People who knew me prior to those years should not feel dissed by that observation, you simply weren’t privvy to most of what was in my head, I hadn’t figured out a lot of it myself at that point either.
Still reeling from the news of the loss of so many members of our Special Forces this weekend. I wish I had something profound to add to the national conversation about that, I just haven’t found much to say that doesn’t feel so obvious as to be redundant. I truly believe the SF groups across our armed forces are the very best of our very best, not just of our military but of our society at large, words just don’t cover what we lose when they fall …
Meanwhile, on the other end of the societal spectrum perhaps, Congress found a “solution” to the debt ceiling crisis since my last entry. About what I figured we’d end up with, actually a lot better than I figured we’d end up with. Problem is that’s still a long way from anything that resembles an actual solution to anything other than the ability for the gov’t to spend money … Speaking of politics, buh-bye to Herman Cain’s candidacy. Nice little backtrack on your Muslims-in-the-cabinet statement. Either mean what you say & say what you mean, even if it isn’t popular with the masses, or just be quiet. Your apology pretty much kicked any trust you’d built up with me straight to the curb, any interest I might have had in your campaign went right along with it … Gonna be interesting to see what the new Congressional maps look like once redistricting gets underway. The state & local maps will probably be more influential on our daily lives though … For a politically oriented & interested guy like me, it’s kind of interesting to notice how sick thinking about it tends to make me anymore. Y’know that urge to yell at the screen you get when watching one of those horror movies where the characters keep doing stupid stuff that makes life easier for the slasher/killer/zombie/ villian? That’s roughly how I feel after more than a few minutes of thinking about politics beyond detached analysis. Seems like the teenager-in-peril is about as likely to listen to me anyway … I’ll offer one more thing though, about the S&P credit rating reduction: Off the top of my head here, the downgrade itself seems pretty reasonable to me. I mean, if some of the first things we threatened not to pay were our social security recipients & our military, how much trust does our word on debts really deserve? Yeah, I know it’s more complicated than that, that emotional responses don’t dictate lofty things like credit ratings of governments, etc, etc, etc. But taken in that light, the actual response from S&P makes pretty good sense. Hell, I don’t trust us either.
Braves made a great call to get Bourn at the deadline, and then promptly go 3-3 against a pair of sub-.500 teams. One player was not the answer to this team’s issues, no one player was going to be … The Hawks reportedly have a new owner, anything that relieves us of the dysfunctional Atlanta Spirit Group is good news. Bad news is that the new owner promises he won’t move the team elsewhere … If you’re in Georgia then the Georgia High School Football Daily newsletter should be required reading for anyone who follows the action under the Friday night lights. Todd Holcomb & Chip Saye do an amazing job of covering things both on & off the field, the scope of their coverage is incredible, their daily tidbits are consistently good. Follow the link, scroll all the way to the bottom of the archive list & you should find a link to subscribe to something that will make your inbox much more interesting Monday thru Friday … I see where UGA will open the season ranked #22. That says a lot more to me about the diminished quality of “Top 25” college football than it does about the Dawgs. I’ve said the same thing about GT being ranked in recent years so don’t anybody go getting their red & black panties in a wad at me for saying it now.
Squeezed in one more concert before the end of summer, catching Lynch Mob at 37 Main in Buford last week. Under difficult circumstances (lead singer quit two hours before their plane took off to start the tour less than a week earlier) they delivered. I don’t really do “star struck” but I truly cherished the chance to simply look guitar icon George Lynch in the eye & say “Thank you” for nearly 30 years of entertainment. May not have meant a ton to him in the grand scheme of things but it meant a lot to me, and he couldn’t have been more gracious with the fans afterwards … Nice venue, brought back a lot of memories. It’s a bit bigger than my old regular haunt (Danny’s) but the atmosphere was pretty familiar. Older crowd than it used to be, less hair, maybe better behaved, but still familiar … I’m almost amazed by how much I’m enjoying feeling like there’s a music “scene” worth following again. I promise to stop short of cutting out pictures & putting them on the walls of the batcave however, replacing my monitor several times a week would be waaaay too expensive …
That’s enough for now, better to stop a little short than to go far too long. In closing though I’ll say that if there’s some random topic you think you haven’t gotten your money’s worth from me about, the comments section would welcome any questions you might have. I suspect most of you know me from places other than the blogosphere too, feel free to contact me outside of the blog & ask me to throw something in here in a future installment.
Jon's Three Cents 