I have searched and searched the Internet for the name of the person who studies traffic and traffic patterns. The one person who is a specialist in how traffic works or doesn't work. Who are these people that design the big picture highways and byways across the world? Here is the title I have found: Nothing.

The trafficologist is fictitious. There isn't anyone that is termed a trafficologist. Well...that explains a lot.

I have had the fortunate and unfortunate luck of travelling in and through 49 States and many Canadian Provinces. In all of my travels, Washington DC still ranks at the top of the most boggling traffic systems.

Washington DC drivers are the most unique. Unlike Chicago drivers who if you cut them off will lay on their horn and yell at you, Washington DC drivers will wave their hand in the air and thank you for not slamming into them because they didn't LOOK before pulling out. Washington DC drivers often use the shoulder to drive... not to get to an exit, just to drive.

To top all of this, the roads and giant circles. The Washington beltway being the most prominent. There are main arteries that feed Washington DC such as Interstates 66, 395, Gerogetown Pike, US 50, and other smaller stop and go through lights roads. So to help make traffic flow smoother, during rush hours, they take some of the lanes on the major roads and ALL of Interstate 66 and turn them into HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes. These lanes are for use with 2 or 3 people in the car and/or and environmentally conscious vehicle such as a hybrid.

Hmm...just so you all are on the same page, they close down lanes so that the environmentally savvy and carpooling bunch can fly into work, while the solo drivers and pollutant producers sit still in traffic because there aren't enough lanes to use thereby creating a higher amount of pollutants. Did I miss something?

The other thing that kills me here is this...traffic stops...for absolutely no reason. Coming back from Illinois last Sunday I had to stop in traffic two miles before the two lane road turned into a three lane road. It was stop and go all the way until the three lanes when it broke loose. After that, smooth sailing. Can a trafficologist explain to me why the flow of traffic is disrupted just before the additional lane?

Washington DC is not the only areas in need of a trafficologist. Let me run down a few others.

Massachusetts. Never mind the "big dig" in Boston, I have never been on a highway system that has no merge lanes. Basically, you come down the ramp and pray someone isn't coming up the road. Once on the road, the smell of feces enters the vehicle as you try to dodge the other cars trying to accomplish the same thing.

New Jersey. The Garden State is full of jughandles. There really isn't any such thing as a left turn. To turn left on nearly every highway, you turn right after the road you want to turn on, loop around to the road you want to be on and wait for the light to turn. I am not saying this is a bad system...but you have to wonder what the tread patterns are on the tires that only turn right.

California (Southern specifically). Driving in California is not half bad as long as you have a jet engine strapped to the back of your rented Hyundai Accent so you don't get run over by the speed-demons and SUVs. San Francisco on the other hand is the land of rolling stops. There was once a saying that if the stop sign has a white line around it, it was optional. They take that to heart. It could be because all of the vehicles have to have brake replacements every 6 months.

Illinois. Illinois has it's own language much like New York. It consists of honks and toots from the imports and domestics alike. Illini honk for good and bad. If the cab wants you to go ahead and walk across (which is rare) he will give you a short toot. If the cab is upset because you aren't moving fast enough, he will provide a modest honk. If you start a conversation in the middle of the cross-walk with you long lost friend Captain Happy, you will receive the not so courteous lay. Either way, you know exactly where you stand in traffic.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). As much as traffic is a part of society, why aren't they providing graduate degrees in trafficology. For that matter, why don't they make trafficology a word?

Did you know...

The Big Dig is the most expensive highway project in America.^[1] Although the project was estimated at $2.5 billion in 1985, over $14.6 billion had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006.

I love all types of music. Music can be inspirational, educational, emotional and confrontational. Music can bring you to tears with songs like Christmas Shoes or make you laugh with White and Nerdy by Weird Al. Yesterday, I heard a new song from Chicago's very own Fall Out Boy that just plain rocks! The title is misleading but the words make all the difference. Honestly, it is just a fun song. I can see this tearing up the club scene with people singing at the top of their lungs much as songs like I Love This Bar or Friends in Low Places.

This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race

I am an arms dealer
Fitting you with weapons in the form of words
And don't really care which side wins
As long as the room keeps singing
That's just the business I'm in.

This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
I'm not a shoulder to cry on
But, I digress

I'm a leading man
And the lies I weave are oh-so intricate (oh-so intricate)
I'm a leading man
And the lies I weave are oh-so intricate (oh-so intricate)

I wrote the gospel on giving up
(You look pretty sinking)
But the real bombshells have already sunk
(Pre Madonnas of the gutter)
At night we're painting your trash gold while you sleep
Crashing not like hips or cars,
No, more like parties

This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
Bandwagon's full
Please, catch another

I'm a leading man
And the lies I weave are oh-so intricate (oh-so intricate)
I'm a leading man
And the lies I weave are oh-so intricate (oh-so intricate)

All the boys who the dance floor didn't love
And the girls who's lips couldn't move fast enough
Sing, until your lungs give out

This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
This ain't a scene, it’s a god damn arms race
(Now you)
This ain't a Scene, it’s a god damn arms race
(Wear out the groove)
This ain't a Scene, it’s a god damn arms race
(Sing out loud)
This ain't a Scene, it’s a god damn arms race
(Oh, oh)
This ain't a Scene, it’s a god damn arms race

I'm a leading man
And the lies I weave are oh-so intricate (oh-so intricate)
I'm a leading man
And the lies I weave are oh-so intricate (oh-so intricate)

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Sometimes, a song is just a song.

People don't often actually listen to the words of a song (like the Vapors song Turning Japanese) is a fast song about a subject not often sung about. Read THOSE lyrics carefully. Sometimes, the lyrics don't really need to matter.

Did you know...

Jimi Hendrix song Purple Haze is believed to be the most misunderstood song ever to make the charts.

First thing tomorrow morning, I slide back into my truck and start the long drive back to Virginia. The drive itself is somewhat exhasting, but it is not the worst part. I am leaving the family...again. Another month in solitude and bad traffic.

Shae made a comment that I should stay. That one comment went to the core of my being and I now bleed profusely with regret. These last few days have been much like a bittersweet chocolate (life is like a box of chocolates), I have really enjoyed my time with the family, and I am really dreading my imminent time away.

I want to stay. But as I told Shae, I have to make money. Her response was "I don't need money." Oh, foolish soon-to-be high school graduate.

I have discovered a few things about myself while being here. I have uncovered my own likes and dislikes. The Queen tells me that I often adapt to whomever I am with at that particular moment and that my true self is never really showing. Hmmm...she may be onto something. Since being away, I have discovered the music I like independent from my family. I have enjoyed cooking my dinner, washing my clothes...basically feeling like I accomplished something.

This need to accomplish something seems to be my issue. I have always judged how my life was by how I am doing in my career. I have determined where I am by what I have. I have been fighting and climbing for approval...approval on who I am...approval on where I am...from my friends and my family.

All I really want right now is to be home with my family. I want to know them...and I want my family to finally meet me. The real me. Not the Dad that they expect, or the husband I am suppose to be, but the real me.

Instead, I am driving back to Virginia. I will drive the terrible commute to work, and on the way home stop at my second job and work again. Maybe if I keep very busy, I will not slip into a depressive state. Also, I could use the money for the holiday.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Take inventory of your life. Find out what you are missing or would miss and fill it. Things are not the legacy, how you live is.

Did you know...

9.5 percent of the population suffer from depression.

The holiday has given me one good thing...an opportunity to go home. I left work yesterday afternoon and headed straight for Illinois. I was not willing to wait until the following morning to leave.

After driving for 14 straight hours, I arrived home at 5:30 this morning. There is good and bad in this. I arrived two and a half hours before Avery woke up. Even though I was dead tired, Avery was begging for breakfast and hugging all over me. It doesn't get much better than that.

We ate. We read a couple books. We talked. It was the me and Avery time I missed so much.

Two older kids wandered their way downstairs where we talked and caught up a little.

The Queen needed to take Avery to pick up an item for / from her mother and asked if I wanted to join them. Hmmm... sleep for a short time (an hours or two) or run around a store looking for a snowglobe.

Feeling my eyelids closing as we discussed it, I figured a couple hours was no big deal and I wouldn't miss out on the entire day with only the loss of a couple hours.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). When you hit forty, is there really any such thing as a short nap?

After being awaken at 5:00, and basically sleeping the entire day away, I am really not feeling any more awake than I did this morning. Is it a comfort factor?

I know when I used to stay at Ocean City, Maryland on the weekends, I would always feel as if I needed a nap. Granted, there are plenty of other things to do in Ocean City than to nap, but for some reason, my body had this urge to sit on the sun porch and just close my eyes.

I could be worried about everything from where the next job was coming from, or how we are dwindling the world supply of toilet paper to how mapping the genome project will help and hurt the world as a whole. But as soon as I arrived at the beach, it was hearing the ocean waves hitting the shoreline and smelling the salt air.

I felt so at peace there. I feel at peace here with my family.

Did you know...

The Moon's gravity pulls on Earth's oceans. High tide aligns with the Moon as Earth spins underneath. Another high tide occurs on the opposite side of the planet because gravity pulls Earth toward the Moon more than it pulls the water.

I asked for my old job back today.

I called my old boss back in Chicago to find out if I can get my old job back today. It not that I liked my old job...more that I need to move back home. The plans to move to the DC metropolitan area have changed.

What does this mean? Simply, it means I will get to see my family that I miss terribly.

My boss said he will check on it. Good. At least he didn't just say no and it was done.

I have applied at a few other companies in the area, but I really don't expect too much from them. My network is not very big in Chicago. Honestly, if I had a choice and could make the money, I would do something else. Driving river boats would be nice.

This brings me to my point already (as I almost always have one). Don't be stupid. Try not to be spontaneous when it comes to life altering decisions.

Hopefully, my old company can bring me back.

Did you know...

Forty-seven percent of workers are currently looking for another job or plan to look within the next 12 months, according to the online poll of about 2,600 workers conducted by Yahoo!

For the second time since I started this new job, I have had to use muscles I haven't had to use in quite some time. The first time was cleaning out a data center that basically looked like my teenager's room. The term storage room I believe was associated to the same location as the heartbeat of the company's business.

So, the first Sunday on the job, I went in with a dolly, some large cable cutters, and some small hand tools and gutted the data center of everything that wasn't suppose to be there. Add to this moving the boxes of crap and the miles of cable, and I had a better workout than Chuck Norris does in his infomercial. I moved everything to the new conference room storage room.

After leaving, I had a nice clean data center. I was so proud and tired.

The following day was when I actually realized that the servers were a tad bit heavy. My legs were like Popeye's arms. I felt like I had been riding bareback on a horse for a 1000 miles and my legs were stuck...apart.

Today, it happened again. One of my antique servers failed and important spam email telling me how to increase my metabolism was backing up by the minute. After minutes of troubleshooting, I grabbed the other antique server and headed to the other data center. Of course it wasn't the data center I had cleaned, it had to be the other teenager's room.

Arriving at the data center, we figured it was simply pulling out bad memory and replacing it with good. So after lifting the 150 pound server up and down from the rack about eight times replacing parts and pieces, I ended up swapping the entire box out for another.

As I sit here in my new office with my comfy chair, I am realizing that walking may be an issue. The thought of going out to my truck is actually not even appealing to me. I am sure the pizza delivery guy would be glad to bring me pizza...the bathroom may be an issue. No toilet paper here. Mental note: bring toilet paper to the office.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). If you want to get your strength training in, clean your teenager's room. You may want to put on full radiation suit first though.

Did you know...

A compact fluorescent bulb has electromagnetic field strength within one inch of the bulb is 100mW/cm². The safe exposure limit for ELF AC from high tension power lines has been set at 100mW/cm² by IEEE for thermally induced cell damage. Exposure to AC fields much below this limit may cause non-thermal cell damage or immune disfunction.

Today...I saw another man's penis. This was by no means by choice. He just didn't realize his fly was down.

Now, I have to ask all of the male readers of this blog...How don't you know your fly is down and your Willie is peeking out when it is 45 degrees outside and windy? I admit. I have left my fly down once or twice as a young man. But as I age, the thought of my Jimmie flowing in the cool winter air make me shiver just thinking about it.

There is another thing. How do you tell another grown man that his fly is down and his Thomas is outside it's shell?

"Hi, I don't know you, but I just wanted you to know I was noticing you Peter hanging outside your clothing...oh, have a nice day."

If someone told me that...the first thing I would think is "holy crap! how long has this been this way?" Next thought would be "why was that guy looking at my Winkie?"

This brings my to my point (as I almost always have one). Velcro. Zippers work their way down and you never know when you end up having that one bad zipper. Buttons are good...but they tend to be terrible when you have just-washed jeans.

Velcro is the way to go. Just slap that flap shut and you have nothing to worry about. If it can work for NASA, it can work for me. I know that Velcro can be somewhat noisy but if it will make sure that other men can keep Johnsons hidden, I say BRING IT ON!

Did you know...

Georges de Mestral developed the hook and loop fastener and submitted his idea for patent in 1951. De Mestral named his invention "VELCRO" after the French words velours, meaning 'velvet', and crochet, meaning 'hook'.

I am hung up on the idea of finding lard (as mentioned in a previous post). I know that people render their own lard, but I really don't have any of the necessary equipment nor inclination to do such a thing. So, I am out to find a manufacturer or try to convince a manufacturer to make it once again. In doing so, I stumbled across a VERY interesting article in the New York Times.

August 12, 2005
High on the Hog
By CORBY KUMMER

Boston

WHEN the New York City health department asked restaurants to stop serving food containing trans fats this week, it aroused anxiety in some diners but joyful anticipation in me. The stage might be set at last for the comeback of the great misunderstood fat: lard.

Every baker knows that despite lard's heavy reputation (it is pig fat, after all), nothing makes a flakier or better-tasting pie crust. Lard also makes the lightest and tastiest fried chicken: buttermilk, secret spices and ancient cast-iron skillets are all well and good, but the key to fried chicken greatness is lard.

Dainty eaters who pay dearly for prosciutto but leave the ivory-colored ribbon of fat on the plate infuriate Italians, who know that's where the flavor and succulence are. Italian food lovers now live for the recently revived lardo - salt-and-pepper-cured fatback, heaven on bread.

In the United States though, lard has long been demonized. Whenever I enter a bakery (and I enter every one I find), I ask if anything is made with lard. Even in Mexican and Latin American bakeries with Spanish-spoken-only signs, where the bakers surely know that in their native countries the most savory empanadas and the airiest tamales rely on lard, my hopes are usually dashed.

I recently got lucky at the wonderfully antiquated LeJeune's Bakery in Jeanerette, La. LeJeune's is famous for its French bread, which in Louisiana means a puffy white loaf particularly suited to muffalettas - the Louisiana version of the hero sandwich whose bread is soaked with olive salad and layered with provolone and meats like salami and ham. I wasn't surprised to hear the secret of LeJeune's exceptional flavor and soft but pliant crumb, but I was delighted: lard. The baker proudly led me to a tub of golden lard he had bought from the farm down the road. I was looking at a tub of joy.

But when I went deeper into Cajun country, to bakeries down the highway from LeJeune's, or asked at restaurants where cooks once swore by lard for the lightest biscuits and fried catfish, I was met with the same misbegotten pride: "We only use vegetable fat, it's so much healthier."
Vegetable shortening, of course, tastes like greasy nothing. And there is ample evidence, as the city health department knows, that it is anything but good for you. Vegetable shortening (vegetable oil that is partially hydrogenated to make it solid - the "trans" in "trans fat") did seem like a miracle in the early days of industrialized food. Indeed, early in my mother's marriage when she spent a month making a pie a day to perfect her crust-making skills, she used the fat she grew up on: Crisco, developed by industry to mimic the virtues of lard but relieve housewives of the burden of rendering their own fat. It was useful not just to kosher-keeping cooks like my mother but to city dwellers, who lived far from a reliable source of lard (any Italian cook will still tell you that the only trustworthy lard comes from a pig you know). Crisco could be used solid for baking, or melted for frying. It didn't need refrigeration, and it was inexpensive.

Then came the damning conclusions of the first long-range studies of the national postwar epidemic of heart disease, and the countrywide fear of saturated fats. Butter, cream and egg yolks were the first to go, to the heartbreak of cooks just learning the glories of French cuisine, and lard soon followed. Besides, lard seemed old-fashioned - redolent of poverty and its companion cuisines.

Now trans fats are considered the devil, and vegetable shortening is worse than butter could ever dream of being. After prodding by nutrition advocates, the Food and Drug Administration has taken the stand that there is no healthy level of trans fat in the diet, and as of January will require manufacturers to state the presence of trans fats on every food label. Now comes the call from Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York's health commissioner, for restaurants to "voluntarily make an oil change and remove artificial trans fat from their kitchens." What are beleaguered manufacturers and cooks to do? The loss of trans fats makes things tough. It makes pastry tough too.

I have a suggestion for those Old World cooks who are wrestling with New World advice: take another look at the fat profile of lard. It has half the level of saturated fat of palm kernel oil (about 80 percent saturated fat) or coconut oil (about 85 percent) and its approximately 40 percent saturated fat is lower than butter's nearly 60 percent. Today's miracle, olive oil, is much lower in saturated fat, as everyone knows, but it does have some: about 13 percent. As for monounsaturated fat, the current savior, olive oil contains a saintly 74 percent, yes. But scorned lard contains a very respectable 45 percent monounsaturated fat - double butter's paltry 23 or so percent.

As with all dietary advice, the fat of the day will change. But eternal truths will remain: food is always best with little or no processing and eaten as close as possible to where it is grown. This goes for lard, too. The artisan pig farmers whose fortunes have been revived by a new market for pork with real flavor should look into selling lard because the supermarket kind is processed and dismal. And Dr. Frieden's request may produce a burgeoning metropolitan market.

The health department is suggesting alternative oils including olive oil and neutral oils like peanut, sunflower and cottonseed. Olive oil is a true gift of nature, of course, and good for anything on a grill or from the garden. But when it comes to cherry pie or fried chicken or French fries, excessive reliance on these oils has the potential to clear both arteries and restaurants. Chefs and short-order cooks can do everyone a favor - even the guardians of the public health - by reaching for the fat that everyone knows tastes the best: lard.

Corby Kummer is a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Write your local butcher or Kraft or whomever to get them to start making lard. We will all be happier from it.

Did you know...

I found lard for sale! Where? Amazon.com

I have been in Virginia for 3 weeks now. Several things have happened that put me here. But when I first came out here the belief was that my family would join me in January.

That isn't going to happen now. Knowing this makes this new job cause a sour taste in my mouth. I like the work because it is a huge challenge and I have a significant amount of support to pull it off. But it is all futile if I don't have my family with me.

I miss the Queen.

I miss the kids.

They are more important than my job or how much I "prosper." It only took 40 years and some broken hearts for me to realize this. Man...am I hard-headed!

Going back is not going to be as easy as leaving. Getting a job in Virginia required one phone call and one day. I have a very good network built up in the DC metropolitan area. My network is considerably smaller in the Chicagoland area. Add to that my standard and requirements for living, and it minimizes the opportunities.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). If anyone is looking for a IT operations director with 22 years of IT experience, please comment on this blog. I need to go home.

Did you know...

THIS is the worst job. Rated (PG-13)

Bowling for Soup has a song out on the radio right now named "High School Never Ends." When I first heard this song, I took it with a large block of salt.

Yesterday was election day for most of the United States...a turning point in the power from Republican to Democrat. The day has as much significance to public policy as the day we invaded Iraq to discover the weapons of mass destruction buried all over the Iraq landscape. During this extremely important day, the breaking news was Britney Spears filing for divorce from Kevin Federline.

At what point did ANYONE care about Britney Spears' marriage? Did I just not get the memo? Are we so nosey that we need to be in the middle of EVERY "famous" persons life every minute of the day? Has everyone forgotten what type of people actually acquire this news?

They are called paparazzi. Paparazzi is a plural term (paparazzo being the singular form[1][2]) for photographers who take candid photographs of celebrities, usually by relentlessly shadowing them in their public and private activities. Celebrities claiming to have been hounded by such photographers often use "paparazzi" as a pejorative term[3] while news agencies commonly use the word in a broader sense to describe all photographers who take pictures of people of note.[4] (cite Wikipedia).

Have we as a society forgotten the circumstances behind the death of Princess Diana? Do we not care about another person's privacy so much that we need to PAY someone to photograph and hound them?

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). As my Mother said, mind your own business. Don't get me wrong, if people need help, by all means step forward and do your best to help. But when the world has a fit about the divorce or Jennifer and Brad or the marriage of Tom and Katie, we as a public have overstepped our boundaries.

Ask yourself if you really want to have ten people following you all over the place taking pictures of you and your family going into the doctors office or school. Do you want them to talk to your friends and neighbors or combing through your trash for that one photo of you with your now passed grandmother? I know I wouldn't put up with it. Those celebrities that DO lash out are persecuted as being violent for protecting their family from the harassment.

Of course, having some paparazzi follow me into the bathroom could be fun...especially if I had a bag of corn and baked beans.

Did you know...

A recorded version, "Candle in the Wind 1997", then became the fastest selling single of all time, eventually going on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide, with the proceeds of approximately £55 million going to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund

Driving in metropolitan Washington DC sucks. Chicago traffic is bad. This is mostly due to construction ALWAYS taking place. I am still unsure as to WHY traffic is bad in DC. What I HAVE noticed though is this:

• People aren't actually FROM Washington DC area.
• Drivers in the DC area don't CARE about anything or anyone but themselves.
• The people that represent you and your country drive very pretentious foreign automobiles.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Why is it in the city considered to be the most patriotic in the nation, has the most BMW, Mercedes, Aston Martins and Bentleys? I understand that comfort is "needed" for the Senators and Representatives, but why can't they use an American made car?

Yes, I understand that importing cars spurs the economic stability and world relations, but I voted that person into the seat they fight so hard to hold.

The Democratic and Republican committees are all spending millions of dollars to bash each other on education and war viewpoints. But with the federal deficit at roughly $8,576,437,607,332.70, you would think that any spending our own representatives would have would be on Toyotas, Hyundais, Fords, GMs... basically ANYTHING made in the United States. For some reason that does not appear to be the case.

Of course, they also don't have children in the military serving in Iraq or Afghanistan...

This brings me to another point (which today I have TWO). I know better than to make political blog entries and here I am in Washington DC. How did this turn into a political entry? I am in Washington DC...that's how.

Did you know...

As reported by the Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette on September 23, 1793, George Washington laid the cornerstone on September 18th, 1793, in the 13th year of American independence, after a Masonic ceremony^[1]; the exact whereabouts of that stone are now unknown.

I was in the car the other day and my new cell phone type thingy decided to call my home all on it's own. It was in my pocket so that may have something to do with it. I was driving on my 2 hour commute back to the house from my office and I heard my phone ring. My daughter called to inform me that I have been calling home and that she and friends could all hear my music playing.

I like newer music. Not all of it , but a good portion. Sirius hits 1 was playing Chris Brown or Snow Patrol and my daughter's friends asked repeatedly if my daughter was sure it was me. Her Dad. They responded with certainty that it was in fact me. "That is so cool!" the friend states, "Your Dad listens to GOOD music."

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). At what age does it turn from cool to wierd old guy? I like groups like Evanescence, Hinder, Snow Patrol, Chris Brown, John Mayer. But if I wanted to go to actually SEE one of these artist in concert, I would be the wierd old guy that as a teenager I always looked at and thought "why is he here?"

I would go though. I would be standing right up front singing at the top of my lungs right along with the artist I just paid $200 to go see. Yes, there would surely be some young punk looking at me.

I realize that most of my generation is hanging on to Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, ELO, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Rick Springfield, but it just isn't enough for me. There are so many artists out there waiting to be heard and I am just chomping at the bit to hear them. Are we as a society afraid of our image? Wouldn't it make more sense to let the youth know that we are as much alive as they?

For all of you 30 and 40 somethings, buy up the tickets. After all, WE have the money for tickets. Show our youth and the ARTIST that the market is much broader than just the little teenager downloading the song for free off the Internet. Maybe if the music industry sees that the people that are actually BUYING the CDs and MP3s are actually adults, they may do limited "senior citizen" shows.

Did you know...

The Devil Glitch, a 69 minute song containing over 500 verses, is the longest pop song ever recorded. It entered the record books July, 1997.

I haven't posted in quite a while. There are a couple reasons for this but the primary reason is that I do not have a computer or Internet connection where I am staying right now. So, this posting is taking place at work after hours.

I have basically severed off all of my technology requirements to include all but my primary email and all but my primary (this) blog. My instant messengers have disappeared as have other technological tag-a-longs. What have I been doing? Thinking. Just thinking.

I am not saying I don't want to talk to everyone I left behind in Illinois, I just need to figure out a few things. I talk with the Queen and the kids daily so I am not completely cut off. I just do that from either my work cell phone or the home phone.

This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Why do we really need 4 different email accounts, 3 instant messenger IDs, 3 blog sites, 2 personal websites and 2 cell phones? Is everything so necessary that we need to be tied in multiple ways? What happened before the cell phone, the Internet, the PDA? Do you think people were more social in those days?

In my home town, people would gather at the gas station or the local restaurant joint and talk about things. They would coordinate parties and community events. Now, most everyone use the Internet or the airwaves to communicate thereby making manners and community extinct (especially here in the Washington DC area...more to come on that).

The train ride back in Chicago was my social club. I miss it.

Did you know...

Glass is a liquid.