Vacation, happy to get away

Well, if I was savvy enough to post up some accompanying music it WOULD'VE been the Go-Go's or Lindsey Buckingham's "Holiday Road." Maybe both.

So it is of course summer and that means leaving the confines of our home to tour our pretty great country. If this were a more interactive medium I'd waste time playing "Where in the Sticks is Bob?" but because it's not I'll refrain from cribbing Matt Lauer's ideas.

At first, we knew that this year's trip was NOT going to be yet another Walt Disney World vacation. We'd done Disney in '09 with all 4 kids for our 15th wedding anniversary and it was - as the Mouse would say - swell. But by the end of the trip Carol and I were actually Disney'd out. No more magic. No more monorails and buses and long lines, mouse-ears, and fastpasses.

So, I'm lucky enough to have access to a beach house, where we've gone for trips every year. This year my son made the travel hockey team and my eldest daughter is in the high school marching band. This means that she must practice for the first 3 weeks of August, and my son's practices should be starting up right after marching band "intensive summer camp" ends in mid-August.

The practical effect? We either take a trip in July or not at all, and the beach house is booked already.

Whoops! What to do?

How about The Great American Road Trip?

I love driving and stopping at whatever interests one of us. Our first idea was a Grand Midwestern Tour which would lead through Ohio and up into Milwaukee and then South through Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, and Point Pleasant, WVa.

Why Point Pleasant? Google it. My daughter Sarah and I were prepared to search high and low for a certain cryptozoological entity that allegedly calls Point Pleasant home.

(yes, I am a dork)

Well, that trip was looking too long and too expensive. Too many $150 per night hotels. Oh, why not camp it? Sounds good, but I'm a bit of a marshmallow when it comes to camping out-of-doors. I like beds with mattresses and rooms with air-conditioning. And no bugs.

I enjoy the outdoors, but on my own terms. My wife claims to enjoy camping, though I've never seen it. Of course, refer to the first declarative sentence of this paragraph and it's pretty obvious that I've not been very open to it. We discuss it once every 6 months and then most likely my "princess and the pea" act reminds her that it's just not worth the headache. (I am a notoriously finicky sleeper)

Well, the Midwestern tour was my idea but (as with many of my ideas) too big for our wallets and her vacation time. Mostly our wallets.

So, she hit upon The Great Smokies. Found a place to stay in tourist-trap Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Good price, lots to do in the mountains that we'd like. Within reasonable driving distance.

Sounded pretty good. Plus the suite has separate rooms, so this might actually be a great trip.

Our last sojourn like this was in the epically awful year of 2007 when we took our family-of-6 to Maine and did a New England tour. It was awful for plenty of reasons, both internal and external to the family. There was the 3-hour trip across New York's GW bridge. The Asian man who peed on my leg in Connecticut. Our poorly-planned first night didn't end until sometime around 11pm in a Days Inn somewhere in south Maine because I'd made no hotel reservations. We started stopping in at hotels about 6pm or so but they were all booked because former Pres. Bush was visiting. Crap. I never voted for that guy, and he indirectly made me miserable again.

Well, then we trekked to Bar Harbor and found it to be another tourist-trap. Blueberries and black bears on every corner. Acadia National Park was gorgeous and our 3 older kids loved it (little Jack was just 1 year old).

After a couple days we borrowed a friend's home in Vinalhaven, Maine - which was amazing. Quiet little place, lots of hiking to do, some swimming. No cell phones. Great lobster. A lot of the internal matters that we were dealing with remained problematic, but every relationship has to navigate rough waters -such is the lot of humans the world over.

From Vinalhaven we made an unexpected jaunt to Boston and walked the entire Freedom Trail and fulfilled my long-standing dream of touring Fenway Park. My kids still remember how tired they were after completing the Freedom Trail.

In fact, this morning we were sifting through the memories of that trip - part disaster and part stroke-of-genius.

And I guess that's what every family vacation is, when you step back and look at the whole experience and reflect upon it. There were great parts, funny parts, breathtaking parts, and breathtakingly awful parts. As we pack up the family wagon for yet another trip into the great wide open I'm hoping for a safe and happy trip. There's even a carefully planned surprise for these kids that I hope will knock their socks off.

Which means, God knows, anything can happen. I'm choosing optimism, even as I hear a calamitous amount of noise from the rooms nearby. Ugh. Peace and quiet are never passengers on these trips...........

Hi, still alive

Boy, the Casey Anthony, how about that huh? Wasn't THAT something?

So...what's new?

I've been away from my page for a while, and I'll tell ya why (not that anyone cares). My computer stopped working correctly, our iPad doesn't allow me to post here through it, my iPhone does not either, and I've been lazy. Or, I should say, partially lazy. I've been rising at 5:30 am some mornings to help clean vines off pine trees.

But, mostly, the computer was busted.

Here's why I will always endorse Mac computers: I've had this particular MacBook since 2006. For us, it was a big purchase - they aint cheap. Most folks like them the PC, which I found AWFUL in it's form (ugly) and function (it was s....l....o......w). The MacBook blew it away on both counts.

Yet, I digress from the here and now......

I took this 5 - year old computer to the Apple store near my home because the track pad and "mouse" weren't working properly. I couldn't type or navigate the Web with it at all because the cursor would get stuck. The nice folks at the Genius Bar took a peek and said they'd have it fixed in a few days, and APOLOGIZED for the length of the repair because they didn't have the parts in-house for a computer as old as mine.

NOT THE BEST PART.

The best part was that they fixed it completely and totally FREE OF CHARGE!

I am not pulling your leg, yanking your crank, or blowing smoke up your skirt. I picked it up a few days later and they'd replaced the keyboard and all its' "faceplates". Pretty damned cool.

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The last week of June was fun, I took some of my kids to our beach place to spend a week with my Mom and my nephew. My youngest and my nephew are all of one year apart (the nephew is older), but according to the older child my kid's a "little baby still." Which is funny, that's how I remember kids are at that age. In fact, after spending a week with the fellas, I think my nephew's more like me than I'd like to admit. The boy knows what he wants and he's relentless in his pursuit of money and Slurpees. That's the long way of writing that he's a bit of a nag. I was too, I seem to recall.

And, like little boys do, they split up an hour by being best pals for 20 minutes, then worst enemies for 20 minutes and finally ending up with 20 minutes of complete apathy towards each other.....then being pals again.

Still, in the final analysis we all had fun in the sun and sand for a week.

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Before I actually practiced law I was a Judge's clerk in a courthouse near where I live. I saw several felony trials, but nothing as circus-like as the Casey Anthony disaster (in 1999 I DID see the Linda Tripp wiretapping case, and had a chance to meet Monica Lewinsky before her testimony. Dan Abrams of Court TV was standing out in front of my parking spot necessitating me to choose a different one.....bastard).

Ach, there I go again, making this all about me.......

As we've seen, juries do weird things. Some seem to over-analyze the evidence. Others over-analyze the law as it applies to the evidence (ie -standards of proof, weight, etc). And others seem to just be in a hurry. If I was a betting man, in the Anthony case the jury was over-analyzing the applicable standard of proof while placing insufficient weight on the volume of circumstantial evidence that strongly suggested the Defendant's criminal liability. Some would argue instead that they were actually applying the appropriate standard ("beyond a reasonable doubt"). We're stuck with their findings, however repellant we might find the result.

My take, based on what I heard? A baby-killer walked free. Only in America. In stark contrast to our incredibly inequitable healthcare system, our judicial system, warts and all, is one of the things that makes this country great. At times the result is unsatisfying and seems wrong but I'd argue that most of the time juries get it right.

Just...not recently in central Florida. That gal either killed that child intentionally or by accident, which should've been enough for a hefty stay in prison at the least.

OK, I'm not Nancy Grace so I'll quit here.

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"Hey, wait a minute..."

Y'know there's still an NFL lockout? And there's also one in the NBA? Oh, snap! Yeah, they might not play. Yawn. Team of Destiny is my Detroit Lions, who will (if they play) make the playoffs this year. If they play. If not, well, there are books to read.....other stuff to do. A big, heaping bowl of "Idontgiveadamn." Gas is too expensive. Groceries are too expensive. They're raising the price on my Netflix. Seems like everyone's trying to bleed us dry, but as my checkbook can tell you there's only so much blood.

So, the reasonable reader says....sell your iPad, quit using your iPhone.

Dammit, knew I shouldn't have mentioned all my gadgets.

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I really hate political talking points. Apparently, these days, Republicans are calling rich people "job creators," a blatant assertion of the old "trickle-down" economic theory that's never really left the party since Pres. George H.W. Bush in 1992. The Democratic party counters with...well, nothing. In between this stands Messrs. Boehner and Obama, who had crafted (GASP!) and actual COM-PRO-MISE that would (if media reports are accurate) cut $4 trillion in spending and shave some of that fat from "sacred cow" entitlements AND close some of the tax loopholes enjoyed by those who pay at the corporate tax rate (which is already lower than the tax rates paid by you and I). In other words, there's something in a compromise like that that everyone could hate. The Democrats grumble, like they usually do. The Republicans go apoplectic, and refuse to "raise" taxes on "job creators." Once again, make up your own minds based on the facts.

In a country that seems increasingly hostile to the operation of reasonableness and compromise as a means of governance, we get what we deserve.

How much of this - I ask- is our own fault? I think a great deal of it. We've been inundated with talk of how "great" we are since birth. We're told we can do anything. We're told we live in the greatest nation, go to the greatest school, and play for the greatest baseball team. Everything's a superlative, everyone's an exceptional piece of work. And...when you believe that and start inhaling all of the smoke that's being blown.....why would you HAVE to compromise when you can have it all your way?

Welcome to the tyranny of the dull and stupid.

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Somewhat related to all of that boring political talk, we saw our last space shuttle take off last week. Does that effectively end the era of space exploration? We're (apparently) now going to entrust exploration and innovation to private enterprise. Not sure what happens to the big brains over at NASA now, but I'm guessing it's nothing good. The bean-counters won, I guess, and those fellas will be saying "welcome to Wal-Mart" instead of "the Eagle has landed."

Look at the kids, that's the proper barometer, did you notice any of them caring? I have 4, I sure didn't.

I recall sitting on the elementary school bus excitedly talking with my pal Edwin about the Apollo landings, and new planets. He had some patches that his father had given him from some mission (I can't recall which). Of course, there was "Star Wars" and its' ilk, which helped us dream of spaceships and alien planets full of life and other evil empires to fight that weren't Russian. We talked of being astronauts, explorers, scientists. Well, I probably wanted a real lightsaber, but I was always the dumb one.

And now ? I hear kids talk of wanting to get famous. Actor. Singer. YouTube sensation. Athlete. Why? "Because that's how you can live the good life. Money. Big house...."

And in a world, a country, where only 1/2 a percent of kids ever reach that good life, dreams are snuffed out on a ratio that I can't even fathom. A failure rate of 99.5%. Kiddies? Stay in school, learn your math and science. Enjoy your movies and music and junk-food culture for what it is. Know that some poor kid in another part of the world wants YOUR life and is willing to work hard for it.

Above all? Don't waste time in college saying you want to be a writer. Look how that turned out for one idealistic little nitwit!

Buh-bye