Twelve and Two

Today after Mass, I walked into the Badging office and Dixon had blues just blasting. It was then that I realized how much I miss listening to live blues. So, Kim, add that to our list. We might not hit it all this month, but at least it's on there.

This morning, responding to a couple of folks on Facebook, I realized how polarized opinion becomes around an election. Now, anyone who reads this knows that I'm just as bad as everyone else, which I freely admit. I have my own way of looking at life and freely allow others to know it. It's all good, it's the process that works for us here in the US. I'll be honest, I was amazed at the media response to Palin's family issues. That was plain silly. I mean really, who cares if her daughter is pregnant or not? Does her daughter's choice make Palin a quality stateswoman? Help me out on this one, because the whole affair smacks of a media circus, as opposed to focusing on the issues. We have had folks with similar qualifications running on both the Rep and Dem ticket in the past. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, both former state governors, come to mind. But no, we jump up and down about her family. This, ladies and gents, is why I don't have a TV here, and why Kim and I refuse to watch a whole lot of TV at home. I honestly can say I hate the media circus in general, and especially around elections. I wonder what the founding fathers would say about the media circus. Likely they'd comisserate, as I'm certain they had some of that as well.

This week, I've been finishing up with ILE phase 3. In fact, once I get back from lunch today, I turn off email and focus just on pushing through the End Of Course Completion Exercise. The intent is to get all of it finished today. Then, I can focus back on some of the smaller projects 'round here I've been neglecting. Once those are done, I should be pretty close to going on leave. My intent is to have enough of the "detail" stuff done before leave, so afterwards I can focus on assembling the continuity binder, brain dumping everything I know somehow (a page or two, nothing more, I assure you) and otherwise avoiding confrontations with 3ACR. I promised our CSM I'd be nice, so to do that, I have to avoid those guys, since they annoy me greatly.

I ordered the Sangiovese juice this week! Five gallons of pure, Italian, unadulterated Sangiovese juice. AND I ordered a Cabernet kit and a Merlot kit. The good news story is I stayed under my budget for these projects. So, I'll have 6 gallons of Sangiovese, 6 of Cab-Merlot, and 6 of Merlot-Cab in secondaries before I leave Evansville for Mosul.

Enjoy!

UPDATE at 1713 Mosul time: I am done with the *impressive echo voice* End Of Course Completion Exercise!! It was a whopping 16 slides. Before I panic, I'm going to go talk to another Major here, who finished this up a couple months ago, but I think his EOCCE was like 17 slides. As many of you know, I've been largely disappointed with the academic rigor needed to get through ILE by distance learning. On one hand, I'm complaining, on the other, I'm not. It will all work out, I'm sure.