While You Were Out

So I've spent the past few days catching up. When I was on vacation, I was well and truly vacating - no phone, no lights, no motorcar - OK, I needed the motorcar, but we only used the sound system to play Big Bad Voodoo Daddy while on Route 66 ("The Midlife Crisis Road"). I left the computer behind, I took only books I wanted to read, and the cell phone was out of range in 90% of the places we were at ("Can you hear me now? What?")

So I've been catching up, and I don't think I missed too much. The stock market continues to suck, which surprises me, since I fully expected it to have a elastic rebound just in time to make my entry on it look dirt-stupid. Gas prices are absolutely cranky, but I didn't need the media to tell me that. The war in Iraq has taken a definite hard patch. There was a fourth Presidential press conference in five years, which apparently no one really did well at, so it quickly passed into history without much comment. And all of this was ignored by the media is favor of a Runaway Bride ditching her wedding. Ah, priorities. Oh, yeah, the North Koreans launched another test missile, but we as a country were more interested in a kitten caught in a tree.

But there was one neat piece of news - the Ivory Billed Woodpecker is still alive and well and living in Arkansas. When I was a kid, I found a huge book of Audubon prints in the library, and was impressed by this creature more than any other, and was sad to know it was gone. Now I'm waiting for the return of the Carolina Parakeet.

More later,