December 27th, 2006
8:07 pm
Now that 2006 is almost over, many news organizations and web sites are doing top-10 lists and year-in-review compilations. I just looked through a bunch of them, and it was interesting to remember all the news stories of this year.
I think my favorite inspirational news story of 2006 would have to be the story of the funeral of Charles Carl Roberts. Roberts was the disturbed milkman who killed five young Amish girls and wounded five others in a rampage that may never be entirely understood or explained. He said he was haunted by the memory of molesting two girls many years earlier, but neither of them remember any such incident.
Anyway, the story I liked wasn’t the story of the murders (there are lots of those, unfortunately), but rather the story of how the Amish responded to it. Dozens of the Amish people from the community where those girls had lived attended Roberts’s funeral to comfort his widow and share their love and forgiveness. As an author who has written a book about the Amish explained in an article in the Daily Mail, “they don’t mix hurt with hate.”
OK, I’ll get back to lighthearted silliness in the next post, but I just thought I’d share that story in case anyone hadn’t seen it. I think it’s one of the best examples of truly living up to the Golden Rule that I’ve ever seen.
December 27th, 2006
6:02 pm
Megan and I played golf today, an actual round of golf on a course (Foster), while Lynn and Elton were out shopping and sightseeing. The weather was cool and cloudy, although the sun poked through a bit early in our round and a few sprinkles showed up on the back nine.
It feels like the start of the 2007 season. We hadn’t played for over two months, but now I think we’ll be getting out whenever the weather permits. Megan is working on her grip, and it was really working for her after she got warmed up today. She hit some 5-woods off the deck that were dreamy, long and straight. And the divots she was taking with her irons were awesome. She left wicked gashes all over the course.
My best clubs were the short irons, and I also chipped in for birdie on the second hole which was fun. But the new hybrids were a bit lame until late in the round, when I tried swinging them a bit flatter. With hybrids, supposedly you can swing them like irons and get wood-like distance, but I think I was getting a bit too upright. The swing that hits my PW or 8-iron really well doesn’t seem to work as well with the hybrids, but I need more time at the range to be sure of what’s going on. It was just great to get out.
We saw a bald eagle on the first fairway. Very cool, but I didn’t have my camera — I’ve posted so many pictures the last few days, I was giving it a few hours off.
December 27th, 2006
12:52 am
Elton and I took a walk late at night. Long story. We went to the place where they took the photo on the postcard we saw at Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe today.
Then, when we got back, Ike and Fish were warm but we were soaking wet.
December 26th, 2006
8:21 pm
December 26th, 2006
6:13 pm
Well, we got two more people hooked on golf today. Some day when Megan and I are drying out in golf rehab, we’ll have plenty of friends who understand.
Lynn and Elton enjoyed the trip to Interbay driving range so much that we drove down to Puetz Golf in Tukwila afterward and they bought golf clubs. Elton got two brand-new Wilson fat-shaft irons for $3 each! (And Lynn tried to get the salesman to discount them even further. True story.) And Megan had an interesting golf today, but I think she’ll be writing about that on her blog soon so I won’t say a word.
Here are a few shots of our swings. Megan and I both keep our eyes closed through the backswing, it’s one of the ways we’re a perfect match …
December 26th, 2006
8:04 am
I’ll bet you haven’t got around to reading the report of the 9/11 commission. Yeah, me too. Government reports can read like, well, government reports. Dry. Dull. Ponderous. Downright governmental. Or so I’d have to speculate, having never actually read one.
But in the last few days, I finally read all of the findings of the 9/11 Commission. Sure, I know there are those who think it’s BS, those who think it’s brilliant, and a million other perspectives. But, being the one and only report that you and I have paid millions of our tax dollars to have a bi-partisan group put together to try to get to the bottom of what happened on 9/11 and why, I think it’s something we should know about.
I didn’t suddenly get a fit of civic responsibility and soldier through the report itself. Oh no, I don’t have time for that, and neither do you. Instead, I read the comic-book version. Seriously.
Comic veterans Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón (who created Richie Rich and worked on Wonder Woman, Spider-Man and many others over the last 50 years) have put together The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, a comic-book version of the findings of the 9/11 Commission. It’s a deliberate attempt to put this important body of information in a form that will be accessible to more Americans, to help inform the public and raise the debate from speculation to specific discussion of the facts of 9/11. (To the extent those facts are known or knowable, of course — but this report is the best we’ve got to date.)
They were painstakingly accurate in putting this book together, so much so that the members of the 9/11 Commission have praised it for following the tone, spirit, and facts of their findings. So this isn’t some special “version” of the 9/11 Commission’s report, it’s the actual report, delivered in comic-book form.
The armchair pundits will have a field day talking about how something like this is an insult to the intelligence of Americans, or a sign of how stupid Americans really are, or a gazillion other brilliant insights into what it “means.” I’ll leave those analyses to the knowitallogists — me, I just read the book. If you’re curious about the details of what happened on 9/11 and what is known about the events leading up to it, you might want to read it too.
December 25th, 2006
11:00 pm
Dinner at Mom’s tonight was fun. We all ate too much, told some stories, and rocked out.
December 25th, 2006
11:12 am
We opened presents this morning. I’ll bet we’re the only ones, eh?
Mom gave me a hookah from Egypt, with some sticky apple-based tobacco, so Elton and I had to give it a try. And Mom also gave me a stone from Ramses II’s tomb. After all these years, I’ve managed to turn my mother into a criminal! And some day, when those sites are just barren fields, after millions of criminal tourists have picked them clean, I can sell this stone to a museum for a small fortune. Finally, a realistic retirement plan.
Megan gave me a fancy keyboard, which hasn’t arrived yet. What a wife.
Mom, we’ll be over at 6:00 for dinner. Should we bring the hookah?
A few more photos posted later in the afternoon …
