The Lee Word Side

Even the best of plans can go afoul. What was to be a three thousand mile road trip has become a much shorter nine hundred mile road trip. When I arrived in Tulsa to pick up my mother, sister, and nephew, I found out that my mother was not feeling well. She claimed that she was well enough for the trip, but my sisters thought differently. After a lot of discussion we decided to plan a much shorter trip. One that would require far less driving, and one where we could spend more time in one place. So…we are driving from Tulsa, OK to Denver, CO where we will spend a couple of days visiting friends and relatives. This should give mom time to rest before the next leg of the trip. From Denver we will drive up to Grand Lake, high in the Colorado Rockies where we have rented a lakeside cabin for a week. Hopefully this will not be too taxing of a trip. As I write this we are in Denver at my sister’s house and later this morning we will leave for the lake. It should be a nice drive through the mountains.

More to come.

Ciao

Maybe not the smartest thing that I’ve done in a while, but tomorrow morning I take off on a 3,000 mile road trip. Yeah, I know I’m crazy. There never was a doubt about that, but even I have to question the logic of voluntarily driving 3,000 miles with the price of gasoline being what it is. Be it as it may. When I was planning this trip the price of gas was hovering around $3.25 a gallon. Even that price is high, but not totally restrictive. Today in Baltimore the price of a gallon of regular gas is on average $4.10. That’s considerably more than I budgeted for, but I’m still going with the plan. Just because I had to take a second out on the house in order to pay for the gas, that’s not a good enough reason to call off the trip. Right?
Some of the highlights of the trip will be Crazy Horse Monument in the Black-Hills of South Dakota, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Teton National Park, both in Wyoming. Last stop of the trip is Denver, Colorado, arriving just in time to catch my sister’s 40th birthday.
I’m not too sure how much I’ll be able to update the blog, but I’m hopeful that I can find internet access somewhere along the road.
Road Trips Rock!

Ciao

The title of this post isn’t as provocative as it appears. It’s actually in reference to Andy Roddick loosing his semifinal match at the Queen’s Club Tournament in London. I know, a lot of you wish that Andy would come out, but I don’t see that happening. But it’s not going to stop us from dreaming. Anyway, Andy lost the semifinals to Rafa Nadal, the number 2 player in the world. As some of you might remember Rafa just won the French Open, a clay court tournament, at Roland Garros in Paris, and just to prove that he is an “all surface” kind of player Rafa will now play Novak Djokovic for the mens’ finals at the Queen’s Club, a grass court tournament. If he wins this match it should make him the number one player in the world, ousting Roger Federer of Switzerland. It will also give him the momentum he’ll need to win Wimbledon in two weeks.
Because my loyalty lies with Andy Roddick, I will be pulling for him at Wimbledon, but if Rafa takes the title you may detect a small smile on my face. After all, the man does know his way around a tennis court.

Ciao

With the cost of gasoline exceeding $4.50 in some parts of the United States, I wonder how soon we will see gas rationing. The last time I remember gas being rationed was around 1978, or 1979. I was living in Sunnyvale, CA at the time and it was always a question of when you needed gas, would there would be any? In the beginning the gas stations would ration out the gas, no one got more than 5 gallons. Which meant that you really couldn’t go very far. Luckily I had an old VW bug that, back then, got good gas mileage so I didn’t suffer like those who had the big “Muscle Cars.” Some states tried “Odd/Even” days based on your license plates. I remember several times parking my car in line at the gas station over night just to make sure that I got gas before they ran out. Sometimes people’s cars would get vandalized during the night, or what little gas they still had left in their tank would get siphoned out, leaving them having to push their car to the pump. Some gas stations made a little extra money on the side by charging people to leave their car in line over night with the promise that nothing would happen to their car. Surprisingly very little changed after that gas drought. Detroit continued to make the big gas guzzling cars and people acted like what happened was just a fluke, nothing they needed to concern themselves with.
Well here we are in 2008 facing the same situation. Gasoline costs have risen over 40% in the last 5 years yet the big oil companies say it isn’t their fault, the oil-rich producing countries say that it isn’t their fault, and as could be expected, the Federal Government says it isn’t their fault. How odd. So, what’s next? Gas rationing. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Wish I still had my old VW!

Ciao

Rafael Nadal once again proved that he knows how to play tennis. In straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, 6-0, he won the men’s title at the French Open Tennis Tournament. Throughout the entire tournament his level of play was outstanding. And he has the numbers to prove it. This was his fourth consecutive title at Roland Garros, he has a 28-0 lifetime record for this Grand Slam Event, an 83-7 record in sets won, and only losing 41 games. His win against Roger Federer today was very one sided. While Rafa did play outstanding tennis, clearly, Roger was not playing his best. But what impressed me most about Rafa was his humility in his win. He knew that Roger was having an off day so he was very reserved in his celebration. That showed a lot of respect for Federer.
Up next; The grass court tournaments. First there’s The Queens’ Club and then Wimbledon. Rafa is on fire and he should do well in both tournaments. Of course there are some very good players he’ll have to get through in order to win (Go Andy!).

Ciao

Is this the man who will become the next U.S. President? Barack Obama got one step closer to being the next President by becoming the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. All that’s left is for him to win the general election in November. And that may be no small feat. He will first have to unite the two camps, Clinton supporters and Obama supporters, into one unified party. It will take a lot of hard work, and there isn’t a lot of time to do it in. Can it be done? It has to be done because if we go into the general election still fractured and pulling in different directions then John McCain will walk away with the Presidency. The possibility of that happening scares me to death.
Obama now must decide upon a running mate. Who will make a good Vice President? There are many good possibilities, but Hillary Clinton isn’t one of them. I think that a lot of her policies run counter to those of Obama’s and I doubt that she can accept playing second fiddle to him. She does have a sizable ego. During the next few weeks I hope that the Democratic Party can get thing on course and rally the American people behind the best choice we have for our next President; Barack Obama.

Ciao

You know the old adage that says “the older I get, the less I know?” Well, welcome to my world. When I was younger, in my twenties, I thought that I knew it all, and that I could do it all. But today I know that that isn’t true. I know nothing. And the interesting thing about that is that it doesn’t bother me. I don’t need to know the secrets of the world. The world’s too big and anything that I might know has limited value anyway. Hell, I barely understand the things that happen within my life let alone all of the things that happen in the world. Now this might sound a bit apathetic, and in some ways it is, but I just don’t have the time, energy, or desire to rule the world. Besides, Dick Cheney already has that job, at least for a few more months.

Ciao