Really Sorry, but I have to Address This

Of those who read my blog, I know maybe one of you is interested in this subject, but after reading this drivel, I just have to respond.

George Will today provides a platform for an asinine argument of 4th Circuit Justice Wilkinson, who is described as 'conservative'. This is all the more tragic since Will is usually a guy worth reading.

Specifically, Wilkinson is arguing that the Heller case, which finally recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own firearms, is judicial over-reaching equivalent to the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.

Oh, allow me to retort. Let's look at some of the logic here:

"In Roe, the court said the 14th Amendment guarantee of "due process" implies a general right of privacy, within which lurks a hitherto unnoticed abortion right that, although "fundamental," the Framers never mentioned. And this right somehow contains the trimester scheme of abortion regulations.
Since 1973, the court has been entangled in the legislative function of adumbrating an abortion code, the details of which are, Wilkinson says, "not even remotely suggested by the text or history of the 14th Amendment." (snip)
Conservatives are correct: The court, having asserted a right on which the Constitution is silent, has been writing rules that are detailed, debatable, inescapably arbitrary and irreducibly political. But now, Wilkinson says, conservatives are delighted that Heller has put the court on a similar path."

There's a huge, conveniently unmentioned difference here. The 35 years of abortion adjudication by the Court were a mess of its own making: Had it done its job in the first place and punted the issue, the decision never would have been rendered, and abortion would have been properly debated in state legislatures around the country. But since the Court decided abortion was a 'good thing' on policy grounds, it acted like a super legislature and short-circuited that debate. And look how well that's turned out...

With Heller, it's just the opposite. Under the Second Amendment, individuals clearly have the right to own guns (NO- it's not ambiguous! It's not that damn hard to figure out! In surveys, grade school children routinely parse out its meaning!). However, in rich irony, the Court has again stepped into a mess, this time because for the last 70 years it's refused to do its job. Had the Supreme Court simply said in Miller "Sorry, people have the right to have guns- don't like it, you have to amend the Constitution", we wouldn't have all of these laws on the books now that the justices will have to parse through. However, since the Court didn't come right out and say that in 1939, now we do have all these laws that will need to be looked at. But that's no reason to simply deny a fundamental right's existance.

Then we have this gem:

"But whereas in baseball a tie goes to the runner, in controversies about the constitutionality of legislation, a tie between serious arguments should, Wilkinson says, tilt judicial judgment to the democratic side -- the legislature.
When rights are unambiguously enumerated, courts should protect them vigorously. But Wilkinson says that when a right's definition is debatable, generous judicial deference should be accorded to legislative judgments..."

Again, sorry, but the Collective Rights model was never a 'serious argument'. It was an absolute farce with no basis in history, and was only ever proposed because the 2nd's clear wording didn't leave room for the kinds of gun laws being challenged. Just because some fool throws up a transparently self-serving argument doesn't mean the right becomes 'debatable'. If I pushed someone off a cliff, my argument that the ground actually caused his death doesn't make my innocence 'debatable' either, but that's the kind of logic we're dealing with here.

But while we're dealing with 'legislative judgements', I might mention that the Congress has repeatedly, in Republican and Democratic years, issued findings that the 2nd protects an Individual Right. Shame Justice Wilkinson doesn't seem to know that.

Well, Shelly's home and ripping me a new one over my attempted fix of the ceiling, so I've got to go. Talk about an utterly thanksless job. Hope you all had a good weekend, and I'll see most of you this week.

Wednesday Update

You want to see something truly beautiful? Something that will bring child-like joy to your heart and a tear to your eye, as you recall halcyon days of bliss and happiness? Something that really puts the current economic situation into perspective, that something this wonderful, this magnificent, this lovely, could still exist in the world? Something that made my trip to Charlotte this weekend profoundly worth the drive?

Well, here it is:

Yep, that’s right! I got gas for $1.97 Sunday!

Yes, Stefanie, that was a joke at your expense! Aaron was all that times ten! Here he is:

This weekend, as you’ve no doubt surmised by now, Shelly and I traveled to Charlotte. We’d originally planned to go down on Friday night, but we were both very tired and North Carolina was in the midst of a torrential downpour, so neither of us were too keen to make the trip.
Instead, we got a good night’s sleep and drove down on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, this made for a rather busy day- no sooner had we arrived at mother-in-law Mary’s house than we had to jump right back in the car and drive to Cheddar’s to meet the Kuda women.


It was nice: Ashley repeatedly shunned, unshunned, then reshunned me over my dislike of chicken, then exercised veto power over the use of my camera phone. Candid photos need not apply to my blog- but here’s a nice posed one!

(By the way, I haven’t seen these pictures on the big screen yet- I do hope they aren’t blurry! I don’t wish to suffer the wrath of my readers!)


After lunch, Ashley, Stefanie, Shelly and I went over to the hospital. This was my first chance to see Aaron, as last time I’d been afflicted with an inexplicable bout of vomiting and didn’t risk seeing him. After a lengthy scrub down, I said goodbye to several layers of skin and went with Stefanie to see him.


He’s still very tiny, but apparently much larger than only a few weeks ago. He actually had his eyes open a little while I was there, too, and he’ll grip your finger if you touch his hand. I took this other, really cute picture of him holding Stefanie’s finger, but I closed my phone without saving it, which really irritates me since it’s not the first time I’ve done that.


We could only go in one at a time, so I cycled out and let Shelly go in, then Ashley. I was so tired I fell asleep in the waiting room.

After leaving the hospital, Shelly and I went back to her mom’s house to prepare for the big dinner, which was like a mini Thanksgiving. We just barely had time to finish the cheesecake and put the leaf in the table before guests started to pour in. Here’s a couple of pictures:

And sorry, I’ve gotta do it- Here’s some of the Kuda family group singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Savannah:

Later on, Ashley challenged me to a few games of Boggle, and she won, though under somewhat dubious circumstances (it took her five minutes to find "washes" again when challenged, which she’d supposedly found in seconds during the match!). Following that, Misty, Shelly, Jason, Emily, Ashley, and I all played Simpson’s Clue ("Simpson’s Clue?" Shelly and I exclaimed, in sync and incredulous, when first told about this wondrous game). Jason won the first game (Marge with the necklace in the retirement castle), but Misty came away slightly less glorious in the second game, since there were 2 fewer players, making her task that much easier. Also, everyone resolved to write down exactly who had asked who what on separate pieces of paper, thus turning an entertaining board game into something more likely to provoke murder than simulate solving it.

Later (and it was a good bit later, almost 11 pm) the last of the party-goers slipped off into the night, and we all went to a much-awaited rest.

Sunday, after a sans-husband shopping trip with her mom, Shelly and I came home, along the way getting gas at prices I thought I’d never see again. Once home, I finished Crash Bandicoot: Crash of the Titans, which I’d just finally warmed up to. I need new Wii games… perhaps for Christmas! Hmm, if only there were a way to let people know that I want Wii games for Christmas...

So, moving on from the weekend, as it's now Wednesday, I have big news! I will be off next Wednesday, thus ensuring Shelly and I will make it up to Maryland sometime before the unholy early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day itself! This was dicey: I hadn't asked for the day off, since I didn't think Shelly would be able to take a vacation day herself. But then, lo and behold, in the fullness of time (last week) Shelly announced she'd taken off and that I needed to make my best effort to do so as well. Regrettably, this was right on the heels of my practical joke on Denise, and Denise had already requested off herself. However, just today, I was informed that I could have the day too!

The downside? Carola will be the only fully trained FSO there that day, and she's informed me that if it's too stressful, there will be certain, rather inappropriate... repercussions... for me when I get back. But hey, Shelly did tell me to pull out all the stops...

Well, folks, since I'm now entering hour number 3 since I started working on this (uploading pictures and videos take time, dammit!), so I'm just going to let it go at that! You all enjoy the rest of your week, and I'll see certain of you this time a week from now!

A Seminal Moment

(If you need to look that word up on www.dictionary.com, I'm using the fourth definition.... just FYI)

We as a people are about to have a defining moment in deciding what kind of government we're going to have, and how we're going to be ruled. For those of you that disagree with my politics (and I know you are Legion), this really transcends the Republican/Democrat divisions, and even liberal vs. conservative. It is simply a question of what kind of government we're going to have over us, and what it's limits are going to be.

In this instance, the case in point happens to be in California, but don't think it won't spread if allowed to stand there. If things there turn out the way I anticipate, we'll see the same sort of thing in our own states, maybe even at the national level.

As I mentioned the other week, California's voters chose to limit the institution of marriage to heterosexual couples. Whether or not you think that is fair or wise is beside the point: That is simply what the voters chose. Their state supreme court had earlier ordered the state to start issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples, but when asked to weigh in on the question, the state's voters chose to change the state constitution to make marriage only between men and women.

Now, the state supreme court is going to decide whether or not the voters can change the constitution to nullify its own decision.

The very fact that the court feels that it has any say in making that decision says a great deal. The people, clearly disagreeing with its earlier decision, have voted to reverse it, and now the court has basically said it is in its power to ignore that vote. To call that arrogance is a gross understatement.

Make no mistake: If this court overturns Proposition 8- and I have every expectation that it will, what with 6 out of the 7 judges voting to take the case- California will have passed from a democracy into... something else. Call it a judicial tyranny, an oligarchy, what have you, but it can no longer be pretended that its judicial system is answerable to any law.

Constitutions can be ambiguous, sure. But in this case, any ambiguity in the state's constitution that the court felt required homosexual marriage was erased when the voters decided 'yes' on Proposition 8. For the court to then refuse to be bound by that breaks faith with people it purports to serve.

Obviously, the justices won't come out and say that. They'll cloak it in legal jargon, perhaps saying that the California legislature needs to propose such an Amendment first. Don't be fooled- such arguments are a farce. Legislatures exist to enact the people's will in their stead, since they can't decide every issue by popular vote. They don't exist to overturn the clear will of the people as expressed by voting to amend their constitution. In addition, California's constitution provides several options for its Amending, one of which is simple popular vote; there's nothing saying certain amendments require different options than others.

We give our leaders power over us with the understanding that they too have laws that restrain them, and that there are boundaries we mean them not to cross. If they've come to the point where they think they no longer have to even pretend to honor those boundaries, then they must be reminded that it is they who serve us, not vice versa.

That, friends, is what it means to be a free people.

Round Two!

Sorry if you all are sick of hearing about my practical jokes, but I’m just so darned pleased with myself about this latest one I could burst!
Wednesday I went into Denise’s office, ostensibly to change my number back to the correct name, but I suddenly had a better idea and decided to double down. Instead of switching my number back to "Chris", I instead switched it to "Alicia", who is Denise’s 19 year-old daughter. She’s currently attending college in Greensboro.
Anyway, she’s good as college students go (for instance, far less trouble than most of you readers probably were), but she does occasionally get herself into little fixes. Her mom endlessly agonizes that one day she’s going to get a really bad phone call. Last night, I provided that.
After work, I called Denise on the way home and, when she picked up, worked up my most hysterical, feminine voice and screeched, "Mom, I’m pregnant!" I’ll treasure the tense, outraged "What?!" I got in reply to the end of my days. Unfortunately, when I repeated my pronouncement, Denise was able to place my voice and the joke ended, but I’ll cherish those two golden seconds as long as I live.
Revenge was vowed, and the phrases "it might be years from now" and "wherever you go, I’ll find you" were actually uttered. It doesn’t matter; as I said to Denise, there’s nothing she can do to me that would not make it worth it.
Ah, good times!
You can all start leaving your accolades on the comment board now!

Monday Morning Aching-back

I have a new game system, as I mentioned a little while ago. It has proved to be just like all previous game systems I’ve ever owned in that it cheats. Sunday, I was playing Wii Sports Boxing, and in every bout I dominate the computer player through the first two rounds. Then, in round three, suddenly it’s like I can’t block anymore, and nothing I throw lands. Nonetheless, I usually manage to beat the computer player on points. But no, that’s not good enough. Rather than advance me on to the next boxer, the stupid system makes me fight the same boxer I just beat over and over again until I finally lose. Life lesson learned this weekend: I really haven’t matured much. I yell at the television the same way as I did when I was 13 years old. So far, though, the Wii hasn’t suffered the same sad fate as the Sega Genesis, so at least that’s something.

Worse, though, is that, unlike previous game systems, sports games on the Wii actually require a bit of physicality on the part of the player. Baseball requires you to swing and pitch, as do tennis and golf. Boxing requires you to duck and weave. I spent a good amount of time Sunday doing just that, and actually worked up quite a good sweat. The downside? Monday I was paying for it in spades; good thing I had a chiropractor appointment scheduled!

So, as to this weekend’s activity report, Friday evening, against all odds, we were treated to a visit by the infamous Matt and Martha. See, everything had to fall into place to make this happen, but Friday morning, Erika found a babysitter (albeit one she’d never met and didn’t know the last name of), and Martha decided her trial preparation could wait until Saturday. Thus unencumbered by babies or annoying clients, the six of us went out to Peppers for dinner. Here’s a picture of us waiting outside:

After a dinner characterized by lots of screaming (not due to anger, but rather the music being turned up so loud), and a stunningly good impression of George McFly by Matt and Jason ("Hey, you, you get your damn hands off…"; just wish I could remember who they were comparing to him), we all went and hung out at He’s Not Here, a club just up Franklin Street. After a few hours there, we all went our separate ways, though a few of us had the midnight munches. Shelly and I satisfied our cravings with two orders of molten-hot cheesy tots from Burger King; how’d you two fare, Mr. and Mrs. Sacrinty? The last we saw of them was at the Farrington Road traffic light, with Martha’s joyous face mouthing the words "They’re not open!" from behind her car window, apparently in reference to Hardees. No word yet on whether a subsequent late-night visit to Time Out took place.

Saturday, I again confronted the reality that I’m just not able to handle these late nights anymore, and had to positively drag myself out of bed at 9 am. Fortunately, one coffee and breakfast later, I’d recovered enough to take a walk to feed the neighborhood waterfowl on the finest fall day I’ve seen yet this season. Here’s a picture of the lake:

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the great joke I played on Denise! On Thursday, whilst she was distracted, I slipped into her office and changed my name in her cell phone to that of Tony, her husband. Then, Saturday, I called her twice while he was hunting, and instead of "Chris" showing up on the incoming call screen, "Tony" did. Adopting my best Tony impression, I proceeded to tell her I hadn’t seen a deer all day; she played along with it, though it was clear she realized there was something amiss. Shelly, nearby, muffled a laugh, recalling, no doubt, how I’d once done the same thing to Erika ("These customers are driving me crazy, baby!"). Late word is that poor Denise still isn’t quite sure how I pulled off this technological duplicity; rather than explain it to her again, I’ll just let her labor under the delusion that I’m some kind of super computer hacker who remotely reconfigured her phone.

Alright, gotta go. Here's a picture of the full Hawkins family for the road:

Geez... too bad they were all apparently moving...

Dear Lord... There's a Long Way Down...

Lest anyone think the current economic downturn is going to end anytime soon, here's some good news: It's going to get a little better before it gets a helluva lot worse.

See, everyone, the dirty little secret is that, like him or not, a President can only effect the margins of economic cycles. That is, there's little they can do about when economies turn downward or upward, but their policies can make those upward climbs plateau a little early, and also make the downward valleys into cliff-walled chasms.

Right now, our economy is on a downward slope, and it will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. It has the potential to turn around in roughly two to three years, but Obama's going to prevent that from happening.

How? Read this, specifically, these excerpts:

"California had sought permission from the Environmental Protection Agency to require that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles be cut by 30 percent between 2009 and 2016, effectively mandating that cars achieve a fuel economy standard of at least 36 miles per gallon within eight years. Seventeen other states had promised to adopt California's rules, representing in total 45 percent of the nation's automobile market (snip)...
Before the election, Obama told others that he favors declaring that carbon dioxide emissions are endangering human welfare, following an EPA task force recommendation last December that Bush and his aides shunned in order to protect the utility and auto industries."

And:

"Some related reforms embraced by Obama's transition advisers would alter procedures for decision-making on climate issues. A book titled "Change for America," being published next week by the Center for American Progress, an influential liberal think tank, will recommend, for example, that Obama rapidly create a National Energy Council to coordinate all policymaking related to global climate change (snip)...
The center's new book will also urge Obama to sign an executive order requiring that greenhouse gas emissions be considered whenever the federal government examines the environmental impact of its actions under the existing National Environmental Policy Act. Several key members of Obama's transition team have already embraced the idea."

Despite the appeal of writing off Bush's protection of the auto industry to pure cronyism, the sad truth is that the auto industry in the United States has been hemorrhaging jobs and profits for more than a decade now. The reason President Bush balked at implementing this hideous proposal was because it represented a virtual death warrant for American auto manufacturers. And that was then: Auto companies just approached the federal government asking for a 24 billion dollar loan just to keep operating. Now they'll also have an unfunded mandate to improve fuel efficiencies to unrealistic levels, and the fact that Obama doesn't understand that this will put them out of business altogether doesn't bode well. In the next four years, look for the auto industry to be nationalized, just like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the nations major banks.

So, lots of new layoffs for the auto industry, then. Where else can we look? Ah, to America's energy creators! To combat global warming, they're going to have to severely slash their emissions. And I'm not even talking about toxic chemicals, just innocuous carbon dioxide, whose only sin is that it traps heat. Do I need to tell you that the overhaul these facilities are going to need to meet the Obama guidelines are going to be really expensive. Like... billions of dollars?

Ah, don't worry, they have an advantage over automakers, and might not even lay anyone off. See, unlike auto manufacturers, who depend on people buying their vehicles, energy companies have a captive audience: All they'll have to do is raise your utility bills through the roof. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

See, all this shows is that, while Americans might say they prefer the Democratic agenda in many respects, it's because they don't really understand what it entails. You saw this in the past election season; people for years have said they don't want oil platforms off the coast because of 'pollution', yet when gas hit $4 a gallon, they realized that feel-good policy sometimes has a downside. And for years, people have felt terrible about polar bears having to swim a little further than they used to, because the temperature in the Arctic rose 0.25 degrees in a couple of surveys, so they've told pollsters that they're in favor of 'fighting climate change'. But they've never had to think through the ramifications, or live with the consequences of actually 'fighting' it.

Good news, Republicans: There's a whole host of issues like that where, when people are forced to actually consider them on their merits, they're going to realize you're on the correct side of!

Bad news, everyone: For at least two years, we're going to have to learn that the hard way on every one of them!

The Next Day

I know a lot of you out there are pretty sad today. I know- I'm one of you. Denise, my boss, relentlessly tried to cheer me up today, but it was a long, hard slog.
It gets harder and harder to try to be a voice of optimism these days. The very nature of what America stands for is now in grave jeopardy; we're about to be run by a bunch of people who think the wholly unremarkable European nanny-state societies are actually setting some kind of example worth following. The rugged individualism that has characterized the USA since its inception is in real danger of passing away forever. If we get to the end of the next four years without horrific damage inflicted on America's very soul, I'll be very glad.
Yet, even today, there are things worth being thankful for. Despite being told endlessly how most of America is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, voters in arguably the most liberal state in the country (California) voted against gay marriage. After their Supreme Court, in typical fashion, decided their state constitution suddenly included a right to homosexual marriage, the voters flipped the court the bird and amended the constitution beyond even the court's ability to wring bizarreness from it. Makes me think perhaps voters aren't as eager to lurch left as they might seem.
Also, it's looking like Dems were stymied in getting a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. As of now, it's looking like they'll end things with 56 votes, which is actually just one more vote than Republicans had at the beginning of President Bush's second term. That means that Republicans will have the ability to block legislation, and with the capable Mitch McConnell leading them, I have a little more confidence in their ability to hold the line.
As an addendum to that, I also want to make special mention of how incredibly glad I am that Al Franken didn't oust Norm Coleman in Minnesota, although it does look like there will be a recount. Franken is a truly loathsome human being, and I'm pleased that the voters of Minnesota chose against putting his likes in the Senate.
I'd like to be able to tell you that we'll probably pick some seats back up in two years, but unfortunately, that's not assured. Republicans need to come together as a party and figure out what they stand for, and then show why that's better for the country than the Democrats' vision. If we just coast on through the next two years with no coherence and bank on Obama not being as popular then as he is now, we're not going to be rewarded for it.
One bright spot is that, four years from now, Obama's Electoral College Map has little room to grow- the only swing state he didn't win last night was Missouri (yes, even my beloved North Carolina has apparently fallen to him, though for some reason it hasn't been called yet). If he governs to the left and voters recoil from it, it's likely he'll start 2012 giving some of them back.

Since my brother wants to go for round 15 on how this disaster was McCain's fault (see comment on "Polls, Polls, Polls!"), let's talk about what he had going against him:

1. Very charismatic opponent
2. Very unpopular incumbent in his own party
3. Economy in the tank, an issue that almost always benefits Democrats
4. Media that did everything in its power to elect his opponent

McCain lost by about 5% last night. Given the above, I defy anyone to show me one of the Republican primary candidates that could have done better. Byron York today quoted one of the McCain aides that really summed up the situation:

"A few weeks before the election, a top McCain aide gave me the campaign’s inside view of the situation. "You could think of this as trying to summit a mountain," he said. "Both campaigns have to summit the mountain. In most elections, one campaign has some kind of advantage over the other — maybe they get a ten-minute or a half-hour head start — but both sides have to climb the same face of the mountain. In this election, we’re not climbing the same face of the mountain. They’re climbing the side of the mountain with boardwalks and latte stands and playgrounds for the kids, and we’re climbing the side of the mountain with axes and ice picks and one slip and you’re dead."

Given all that, the only thing that could have turned this around was a international nuclear exchange or a domestic terrorist attack. Personally, I'm just as glad neither one of those things happened.
So... 52% of the country is rapturous now. It got the Change it wanted! Personally, it reminds me of nothing so much as the penultimate scene from Lord of the Rings, when Gollum, having at long last won the Ring, lovingly clutches his prize to his chest, oblivious to the fact that he's plunging down into a boiling river of lava.
Here's hoping our landing goes a little better than his.

Halloween...Uggg.

I'm too darn old to be out late like this anymore. Even with the time change today, I fell asleep at random intervals all afternoon.

Anyway, during a trip to the Southpoint Mall Halloween store yesterday morning, Shelly and I were nearly deceived by the sign on the door advertising all props and decorations at half off. See, we thought, since Halloween was Friday, they might actually be wanting to move some of the ridiculously overpriced costumes. But no- all costumes were still full price, and I told Shell I'd rather not dress up at all than spend $49.99 on some cut-rate Iron Man get-up.

Fortunately, Party City had some halfway decent stuff at a much more reasonable rate, and I think next year we'll just go there in the first place. We decided to go together as a theme- how appropriate, given how much Shell has corrupted me these last four years!

In case you can't tell, she's the devil and I'm a monk. Sorry it's so blurry- whaddya want, it's a camera phone!

That isn't to say, of course, that I didn't bring along the heavy-duty photography equipment, just that I didn't deploy it so early in the night. Besides, given Matt's antics, lower-grade photographic quality is probably for the best anyway.

Here are Erika and Jason, as John and Cindy McCain:

(How the good Senator won Lucifer's endorsement is beyond me.)

And here's Martha and Matt as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf:

And this group came as the Desperate Housewives...err... wait, no. These are the fine women formerly of UNC Intervarsity!

Alright... hmm, how to best describe the rest of this very illuminating evening? Let's see... I have to take into account that my parents read this blog... young children might happen upon it as their parents peruse my writings... Shelly's coworkers could conceivably find their way here... hmm, nope, sorry, can't tell you much of anything!

But you know what they say- "a picture's worth a thousand words". Just to keep some of those words from being "You idiot! I can't believe you let Chris get that on film! Just... get... out!", or "Chris! You have to change your blog RIGHT NOW! Martha just called, and she's hysterical! One of the partners saw it!", I'll just post this one:

Annnnnnnnd....... these two:

In a way, I feel like, last night, I was finally initiated into all those college parties I've heard so much about from Shelly and her friends, although I didn't get to see Matt do "The Professor", which really would have sealed the deal for me. I guess there's always next time...sigh.

The one downside was that I had to drive all the way back from Greensboro at 12:30 am last night. We finally got in and got to bed at about 2, and, like I said, I just can't roll like that anymore. I did take one of Shelly's muscle relaxers before bed last night to sooth my aching back, and that might have had something to do with it too. At any rate, waking up at 9:30 am this morning (after the time change), I got sent on a Mickey D's breakfast run. Of course, the drive-through was backed up half a mile, so, despite the fact I didn't drink last night, I probably looked for all the world like some hung-over frat boy as I rolled up in there in an undershirt, shorts, and sandals on a morning that called for much warmer attire. Oh well, at least I didn't see anyone I knew.

So, anyone out there with any other good Halloween stories? I'm sure my buddies from Maryland didn't disappoint with a weekend Halloween to work with!

Oh, and Jason? I'll send you that pic you wanted...hehehe.