Life, As We Know It, Goes On

We arrived in Las Vegas (without incident) and got checked in to the NYNY Hotel/Casino just in time for me to see the last hole played at this year's Masters Tournament. I missed the other 17 played by the leaders, who started the day tied. In simple terms, I missed whatever drama might have played out on the final day.

Instead, I spent that time wending my way along the highways of Arizona. Am I bitter? Possibly. On the other hand, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Bubba Watson would win. I felt so anyway. I would have liked to see Jordan Spieth win the vaunted Green Jacket (which, to me, just looks tacky) but it wasn't to be. Instead, Bubba took a three shot lead to the 18th tee... assured of victory.

Now, Faye wants to go to dinner... somewhere. Possibly a little Mexican restaurant we have visited every time we come here.

Small Victories of No Import

Kathleen Sebelius has resigned. Not when the ACA ("Obamacare") website debacle happened but six months later. Lois Lerner will be charged with contempt of Congress, also a bit late. Let's say that the House votes to charge her with contempt, what then? Why, it will be turned over to the Justice Department to follow up.

What should have happened is that the House appointed a Special Prosecutor way back when and had him or her run the investigation. But I suspect the House wanted the glory for themselves and so they shot themselves in their collective foot. The administration has played the "witch hunt" card successfully in the past months and few care anymore about the IRS targeting conservative groups for special consideration of their 501c status... back in 2011 and 2012... to make sure they could not interfere with Obama's re-election. He probably would have been re-elected anyway but you never know... these groups might have revved up the Republican base enough to change the outcome.

But that's politics.

This Will Be Short

I have two questions, they came to me as I was zipping along I-20 in Texas...


1. Who buys a Lincoln pickup truck?

2. Who buys a Cadillac pickup truck?

I suspect the answer to each question would be the same.

There Are Reasons... Really

I should explain why there was no post on Monday. I blame Faye. I should blame myself, though. After all, I set up her access to online slot machines. But, in my defense, I was only following orders. When Faye desires something, I try to fulfill that desire. She owns two cast iron skillets.

The trip on Sunday was pretty much routine. Annoying drivers clustering and also some riding in my blind spot for miles is just the usual. Many of them (but, unfortunately, not all of them) were out-of-staters on their way back to the recently thawed out northern climes. I expected it. That didn't make it any easier to tolerate, of course. I seethed throughout the trip. I just won't gripe about it here.

When evening came and we settled into a motel room (where I try not to think about what we've learned on the various cop shows) and set up the laptop, Faye grabbed control and never gave it up.

It's a bit like the "the dog ate my homework" excuse... Except it wasn't homework and Faye is not a dog (definitely not).

Time For Another Conspiracy Theory

Yes, even though I usually trash conspiracy theories, I have developed one for that missing airliner. Let's forget that we got a real wake-up call to rouse us out of our complacency about how easily we can track planes. Let's forget that if we had upgraded our systems to not be able to have the transponders shut down;or installed a separate system to generate GPS locations and transmit them through satellite. I am sure it's more easily said than done but I suspect someone out there is working out the conflicts and determining the risk factor as I write.

OK, here's the plot:

The pilot (and, perhaps, the co-pilot) are compromised by some terror group and given a mission to steal an airliner; take it to Perth, Australia and slam it into a building. It's not really plausible because fanatics willing to go on suicide missions exhibit a lot of symptoms ahead of the mission start. But let's say it happened. Perhaps the passengers rebelled and forced a crash at sea.

Alternative theory:

The plan to hijack the plane and land it in some unknown country went off as planned. After watching the wall-to-wall coverage on TV, took the "black boxes", flew them down into the Indian Ocean and dropped them. And these guys are sitting around laughing at the news reports.

Don't knock them, they are more plausible than alien abduction or black holes.