The slide back into the familiar...

Well, I’m back. I hope you’re all still coming by. Turns out the place our family was camped out had cable internet service, but you had to go down to the pool table room and plug in with the wire to use it. I couldn’t be away from the action long enough to bother with it, sorry.

The reunion was a blast. We had a much nicer place to stay than our spot in Lake Tahoe last time around. Biggest upgrade: Air conditioning. It makes a world of difference when sleeping off hangovers, and since EVERYDAY involved consuming copious amounts of alcoholic beverages, sleeping in shade drawn air conditioned rooms is now a steadfast requirement for future get togethers of this nature. The golf course was less than an 1/8 of a mile from our door step. The vista from our place was magnificent. While I’m inclined to say that Lake Tahoe was the better venue by a long shot, the accommodations at this place made up for the locale.

Of course, the best part of the trip was hanging out with our cousins and their families. Within our small family there have been all the archetypical successes, failures, problems, trail, and tribulations, but it still humbles me to no end how much fun we have in each others company. At one point, my father thought that our faux competitiveness was getting out of hand, but he was worrying about nothing. We’ve seemed to have reached an age where we can handle the mutual slagging we give each other and enjoy the laugh. My cheeks are still sore from all the laughing and I’m still giggling over certain points of our merriment. That’s the common bond with all of us: nobody takes themselves too seriously. Outsiders might be shocked at what they’d witness (my 70-year-old aunt flashing her boobs to distract contestants in one of our 4th of July picnic challenges comes to mind. Thank god I was not competing in that particular heat. I have a feeling that I’d be unable to go on living a normal life after being in the crosshairs of that), but it just is what it is with us. One can not walk away from our reunion without the full belief that we all have each others backs no matter what. I can’t wait for the next one on the left coast. Santa Cruz sounds good to me guys.

I’m doing my best to catch up with all of your blogs and will get to them post haste. A few random thoughts before I go read the thousand e-mails I have in my inbox…

- FINALLY something I can appreciate about Barack Obama. His acquiescence to the facts about the situation in Iraq is a POSITIVE attribute and one that I admire. I’ve been wearing out my more liberal friends telling them that any candidate who goes into the fall pledging to pull our forces out of Iraq immediately following inauguration is full of shit and should be called for it. The fact is that things are progressing forward and real hope for stability is building. To ruin a chance at future stability, even after all we’ve done wrong to date, would be a kick in the teeth to a nation of people who now rely on us. We must finish the job and anybody who is going to be our president must understand this. We should be talking about reality, not bullshitting and appealing to emotions, or getting “payback” for Bush doctrine. Pointing out Bush’s mistakes will get you elected, but you will still need to clean up the mess once elected. Fucking that up by leaving Iraq to terrorists and secular division would put any successor in the same boat. I still won’t vote for Barack at this point, but I feel better about the guy who looks to be the shoe in.

- On the issue of flip flopping… I’ve never understood this notion of firm policy stance. Yes, some things require a concrete absolute position at the issues core, but others demand CONSTANT re-evaluation. When gas is $1.50 a gallon we can afford to keep the gulf free of ugly drilling rigs and the useless ANWR track untouched, but when it pings the $4.00 a gallon mark we no longer have that luxury. Both candidates should be able to say this without hurting their electability. Same goes for nuke power. Why haven’t we started turning dirt on 500 new nuke plants? Bury the shit in the desert and be done with it already.

- It’s official: I will not be going to Q school to grab my card and join the PGA tour next year. Out of four rounds of golf played last week, I failed to break below 100 in any of them. Mountain golf is a hard game to play, but the plain truth is I stink. If it wasn’t for the great company in my pairings I’d have picked up at least one of those rounds and headed back to the club house. Not giving up the game by any means, just wallowing in my utter suckiness. God, when does football season begin?

- One thing to look forward to this week will be the Robert Plant/Alison Kraus show at Chastain Park Thursday night with some friends that we’ve not seen in way too long. I’m sure Jackson will groan, but the Plant and Kraus along with T-Bone have made an amazing album.