Anaheim Anecdote: Why, yes, I am an engineer.

Saturday morning, after we had rallied at the chaperon spot (where at least one chaperon would sit, in rotating shifts, to be available if a kid got separated from her buddy, or if someone needed extra sunscreen, or a band-aid), I muttered something about finding more coffee. (Why, yes, I am a caffeine-based life form. Why do you ask?) One of the other chaperons asked me if I could get her one. "An Americano, leave room. And could you put some cream into it?" I told her I'd do my best, and whipped out my beloved Moleskin to note it down.

"You have to write it down?"

"I'll remember you wanted coffee when I get there, but I want to make sure I get the details right."

"Why are some of the pages cut like that?"

"Those have notes for things I've already taken care of. That way I can just put my thumb here," I showed her, "and the book opens to the first page of unresolved notes. These on top," I pointed to two glistening copper book darts, "indicate to-do lists. This one on the side is my master project list. These two on the bottom are my exercise and food logs."

"Oh, God, you're an engineer, aren't you?"

"Well, yeah."

"I thought you were a musician or something, with the beard and the kilt and the way you talk to the kids. You're just like my husband, all organized. You guys have your own language and your own jokes nobody else understands. My younger son is that way too."

I only wish I was "all organized."

Another cost of being on the road...

Ugh. Just did the measurements and the math. There's been a 3% shift in body composition away from muscle and toward fat. Suck. And, I'm not sure why, but my left trapezius muscle, the one over the left shoulderblade along the spine, has gotten so tight and painful that it's hard for me to lift my left hand over my head. I suspect being cooped up in buses and airplanes for a whole day, eating poorly, and not working out as I should have.

Maybe with a hot shower and a workout this evening, I'll feel a lot better.

Talk Radio: Fountain of Stupid

I discovered today that you only need to turn the radio on for less than a minute to have Teh Stupid fall into your lap like white rain from a flock of overhead pigeons.

Within ten seconds of turning on the radio, I heard Hugh Hewitt proclaim, "Yeah, okay, the president wasn't saying anything new. The 1967 borders have been the policy of every administration since Carter. But you don't say that out loud. Saying it out loud will only embolden the terrorists, the Palestinian extremists, to push for more than the status quo!"

Annoyed, I flipped channels, only to land on Sean Hannity. "What people don't realize," Hannity said, "Is that Netanyahu is the Churchill of our times."

Sean Hannity is a bloody idiot who seems to have never read anything more complicated than an Archie Comic or Ranger Rick in his entire life, but this time he's absolutely correct. When speaking to the Palestine Royal Commission on whether or not European Jews should be allowed to displace the Palestians, Churchill infamously said:

I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race, has come in and taken their place.

So, yeah, in that sense, Netanyahu is a lot like Winston Churchill.