Our Hotel

We drove straight through the night and morning to South Dakota so we just enjoyed our hotel and waited until the next day to see the mountain.

This deer was my only company at 1am

Wall Drug

Overrated tourist crud. Skip it. 

South Dakota

The morning we arrived in South Dakota @ South Dakota

We're Back!

We just arrived home from a marathon trip to Mount Rushmore. 25 plus hours of driving in 53 hours, with our four kids and the exchange student. One big fight,  one puke,  one hour long wrong turn into Iowa, one tearfilled hour, one fender bender,  one national monument,  and one budget largely adhered to despite ourselves.

My younger kids will have missed the 1st day of school due to the late arrival from the trip. Having myself attended 20 plus years of school to date, they learned more on the road then they ever would in a single day in a classroom.

Justin Beiber

We just saw Justin Bieber on SNL, and called the girls down to watch him perform. LuLu is well and truly in love w/ the guy, and Junie says his name so cute . . . Anywho, while the Haters Hate, the kid produces enjoyable music with a radio friendly hook. Also of note: he did a fine job replicating Luda's rap from "Baby".

This was Jaw Dropping

35 Years. And 30.

Today marks 35 years since Little Grandpa died. Oh, and I guess it's Elliot Z's 30th birthday too ;)

An Explanation

Of course the McCain's hate the President.  Most Democrats do.

Wow. Ten Years Already.

10 years ago today my folks moved out of  Arthur Avenue and into their current place.  #TheDaysAreLongButTheYearsAreShort

PERSHING not Persian

They're PERSHING donuts, not "Persian," you barbarian.  Stop pis*ing on Black Jack's memory.

I Speak Up

It is inherently dangerous for a conservative to speak their mind on campus. That was true back in my first-go-round, and it's doubly true now, even in the entitled air of law school. But today, for the first time ever, I had to speak up. I was in a seminar, 20 people around a single conference table, discussing of all things Ben Franklin's autobiography. To my shock the professor and the class all berated the man. His success? No doubt due to exploitation. His lifelong study of character and its application to the self? A façade to hide his sins from view. His lifelong aversion to alcohol? A lie to cover addictions.  His voracious appetite for consensual sex? Misogynistic, sexist, and, there's that word again, exploitive. He was even blamed for delaying the onset of the American novel.

 Said the professor: "I would say we were all in a agreement, but from some of the facial contortions in the room I'd say there is opposition. Dan?" And boy, out it came. "This is the new Americanism, this cynicism. We aren't allowed to have heroes anymore. We worship failure and disparage success. We bat around labels that I doubt anyone here can actually define and slap them on everyone, even 300 year old dead men. I'm supposed to believe that anyone at this table can sleep with whoever they want, in what quantity and position they want, and it's ok - and I'm not saying it's not - but I'm supposed to judge a man for having sex 250 years ago?  We all absorb and repeat 90% of what society says is ok in 2018 but somehow magically think someone in 1740 should feel the same, or that we'd be any different? It's bunk. It's wrong, and it's unfair to a great man. And for the record, he writes 10x better than Melville."  Yeah, I said it. A few ums, a few stammers, a few commas in the wrong place, but I said it.  Cue silence. Then a guy across the table, who had nodded as I ranted, finally spoke up and agreed with me, and the guy next to him nodded his own affirmation. But let me tell you, the ride on the elevator with some of the other classmates was AWKWARD.

The Neighbor's Suicide

When I was in class the kids texted me about a shooting across the street. When I got home I asked the officer still on the scene what happened. Kevin, a neighbor we like a lot - the owner of the dog we've house sat, and the father of the kids LuLu babysits - attempted suicide, and may not make it. I ask that you keep him and his family in your prayers tonight.

update: he didn't make it 

Mayweather - McGregor

Where are you watching the fight?  I'm at Romaines, and the place has reached capacity and the doors are locked. 

My fellow boxing fans are aghast at the hoopla over Mayweather-McGregor, calling it a farce, an exhibition, and a circus. It is, but they are missing the point. The world is watching. They are watching BOXING. Floyd is once again bringing the sport to the masses. The correct thing to say is "Thank you sir. 

And yes, I think Mayweather will win. With luck, I hope he wins big enough to humiliate MMA and prove it a junk "sport." Maybe then MMA fans will realize that if they want to watch sweaty men in underwear roll around on top of each other, they should do it quietly on the web like the rest of us.

"Mayweather by TKO! 50-0 baby!

Floyd's camp said he planned to stop him in the ninth. They were off a round, but the plan was perfect: let him wear himself out early, then go hunting after the fifth.

I  think he played with him and gave the crowd a show until he got down to business. He didn't spar the last month, allegedly due to injury, but that's unheard of in boxing. It shows a lack of concern to say the least.

It was a fun fight to watch, all in all. 

Neill Simon

RIP Neill Simon.

RIP

My friend Mike's mother passed away today. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

John McCain

I do not mourn the loss of John McCain to the Senate or the party, but when the Good Lord puts his hands on a man I take mine off. Condolences to his family, and may he rest in peace.

My Thoughts

This is my honest opinion,  not a regurgitated tweet or meme: if you argue for an open border so as not to raise food prices because "no American wants those jobs," STOP  You sound like a slave owner in the old South.  "Free the slaves and cotton prices will soar,  no white man wants that job." The addition of a few cents to your precious organic squash is no rationale to keep someone working a field for two dollars an hour.  What a horrific debating point.

For the life of me, I can't remember how to pronounce the exchange student's name, earning me lots of anger from the wife. Madita, mah-dee-ta. Why can't I remember that?

It's some sort of block...he's even written it on his hand and gotten it wrong..lol. - Lisa

Why Poll Data Leans Left

Conservative don't trust polling numbers because of a) 2016, which I hold as an outlier and b) conservative reluctance to participate in what they see (correctly) as a biased media. Most conservatives I know go out of their way to avoid a political survey,  even hanging up on pollsters. 

Oh Boy

Normally,  Marquette Law slams you with reading and assignments that are due the very first day of class.  So as I start my final year tomorrow,  I was excited that two classes, per their class page,  had neither assignments nor textbooks to purchase (some classes rely on handouts or the web). And . . . then came the emails today from two profs saying the school was in error.  $400 of textbooks later,  I now have chapters of law text to wade through by tomorrow afternoon. Yay Marquette!

The Taurus is on the road!

Many thanks to Roy for coming to my house and giving me an honest (and super cheap) fix to a problem that had disabled the Taurus.

Facts

He was wanted for murder, it was a scheduled C section (on the taxpayer's dime) and she was more than capable of driving herself. The media seeks to divide. The media IS the enemy.

Me

Sounds accurate.

The exchange student and I were talking about how often her family travels to different countries.  She asked about my own travels. 

Me: We've all been to different countries. But traditionally,  the only way my family went overseas was when someone put them in a uniform and let other people shoot at them.

On Pearl Jam going too far

I'm aware of Pearl Jam's violent themed poster showing the White House in flames and the President dead on the ground (created at their own request).  It cost them my attendance in Chicago later this month, tho I am well aware that hurts me more than it does them. It is an unacceptable, juvenile and unpatriotic act that would draw my ire no matter what party was in office.

Let me be clear on another point: I've loved PJ since '91, and as with all celebrities, right and left, I've long ignored their political opinions. The ability to entertain doth not make you intellectually gifted. As much as I love Eddie Vedder, he's a high school dropout whose last "real" job was as a grocery bagger. Even as a senior in high school myself, I knew that wasn't the resume that screamed "all knowing sage."