"The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." -- Winston Churchill. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for posting this as one of his "Quotes of the Day" yesterday.)

Dear old golden rule days... I have officially gone through my first week of classes. College is not the same as it was when I went to Michigan State.

For one thing, all the students are younger than I.

Anyway... I'm taking two classes this semester: Marketing I, and Speech. They're both required for the certificate program in event planning & meeting management (or EPMM). Yes, I've finally taken the plunge after successfully getting through the EPMM course I took last spring. It helps when (1) you're unemployed, which gives you (2) too much time on your hands, and makes you think (3) maybe it's time for a career change.

At 55. Whoopee.

The Marketing class is being taught by a woman who has had years of experience in marketing, working for Best Foods/Unilever, Kellogg's, and Alpo (though not in that order). It runs until December 13 -- yes, my birthday! -- and meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:50 a.m. Parking during the week is impossible (unless you get there early -- like, say, when the first class starts in the morning), so Bill-the-Honeybear takes me there, then parks and does some work in the library. I meet him after class, we go have lunch, and then home.

The Speech class runs for only seven weeks, so it's a very intense class. It meets Saturdays from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., now through October 13. In that time, I have to give four speeches -- one demonstrative, one informational, one persuasive, and the final which can be any type at all -- each 3 to 5 minutes in length, with the final having to be 8 to 10 minutes. Plus self-critiques of the speeches. And being videotaped in class giving the speeches. Plus handing in outlines and biblographies for the last 3 speeches. And reading the book (although it has mercifully short chapters). I don't think anyone will begrudge me saying I'll be glad when it's over.

The best news of all has to do with the required classes. I told you in a prior post about meeting with the Acting Dean of Admissions, a man named Thomas Valasek, who had been chairman of the Communications department and the man who created the EPMM course. There are ten requirements for the certification -- nine classes and an internship -- and I went to ask him if I could waive any of them. Based on my Michigan State transcript and life experience, he believed five of the courses could be waived (English, business law, business administration, business computing systems, and interpersonal relationships), but that the Records Office had the final say about it. Well, I met with an advisor at the Records Office last Tuesday, and they agreed with Dean Valasek about everything! So that was five courses waived; course six was completed last spring; I'm taking courses seven and eight; and with luck I can complete course nine and the internship next spring.

At which point I go back to square one, starting a new career as the "new kid on the block".

It's gonna be a hell of a ride.

Back to school: Remember that course in event planning & meeting management I took last spring? Well, now that I'm unemployed, I've been thinking about going ahead for the certification course offered by Raritan Valley Community College. Actually, it's been in the back of my mind since before my contract ended; I had contacted Michigan State University and got a copy of my transcript so I could compare RVCC's required courses against ones I had taken at MSU.

Anyway, this past Tuesday I went to inquire about waiving some of RVCC's course requirements. I got sent to the Dean of Admissions, Thomas Valasek, who sat down with me, went through my MSU transcript, and decided that four of the required ten courses were able to be waived. I had already taken one course (last spring). And my decade of being Ombudsman for American Mensa, he decided, could be used to waive another course. Six out of ten, woo-hoo!

Thursday, armed with my list of courses, I went in to see an advisor about registration. She told me I'd have to get another transcript from MSU -- one that I had not opened -- and take it over to the Records Office for formal waiving of the courses. (It doesn't hurt that Dean Valasek had already OK'd it, but officially it has to go through the office, and they have the final say.) And of the three courses I wanted to take, one (Intro to Public Relations) had the only session I could take cancelled for lack of interest, while another (Speech) had both sessions I wanted closed to additional students. So I registered for the third -- Marketing I -- and went home to watch online, hoping one of the two Speech sessions would have an opening come up.

No luck there. But I found another session that met Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. -- for only seven weeks. So I went back to RVCC this morning and added the Saturday Speech course. Now I'm all enrolled -- and I'm waving goodbye to $750 for tuition (and other costs). And I still have to buy books.

The fall semester starts September 5 and runs through December 15. (The Speech course goes only through October 23.) The Marketing course is Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.; I already told you about the Speech course. Once they're done, the only courses left (assuming the Records Office agrees with the Dean about my waiving classes) will be the Intro to PR, and a term-length internship with a real event/meeting company.

I hope this is worth it...

Everybody wants to rule the world: It's how I feel about the news that some states are thinking of holding Presidential primary elections in February 2008, or January 2008 -- or even December 2007. Now I know New Hampshire and Iowa always go first -- in fact, it's state law that they go first, ahead of any other state. (The only reason they're not fighting each other is because NH holds an election while IA holds a caucus. Yet another reason why words matter.) But recently, South Carolina moved their primary date to be ahead of all the other southern states. Florida decided that just wouldn't do, so they moved their primary ahead of SC. Meanwhile, many states have moved their primaries to a date now known as "Tsunami Tuesday", replacing the old "Super Tuesday" (which was a later date).

In a show of, well, whatever, Bill-the-Honeybear and I agree that, on this one, it's time for the federal government to step in. After all, Congress legislated years ago that election day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. As far as federal elections go, Congress can make binding election law. And federal law trumps state law, generally.

What we propose is that Congress pass a law setting the date for national primary elections for federal offices -- the President, Senators, and Representatives. Allow a loophole for NH and IA to hold theirs a week or so earlier, as a nod to tradition.

Me, I think it would be great to force candidates to campaign nationally in preparation for one big primary election. Don't you think it would reduce the pandering to states/regions that is such a huge part of primary electioneering today? Don't you think it's better to have the possibility of there being two or three candidates with equal amounts of support going into the conventions? And wouldn't it be more fun to watch some good old-fashioned horse-trading -- excuse me, compromise -- during the conventions? On the theatrical side, it would be much more exciting -- and generate lots more media attention -- than the coronations we've been subject to for the last 20-odd years.

Sex, religion, and politics. Well, I'm not going to talk about religion, but I am talking about the other two. Specifically, the televised interviews with six of the eight Democratic candidates for President, sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and aired live on Logo, a cable channel geared at gay and lesbian viewers.

Who was there? In alphabetical order, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson. Gravel was initially not invited because HRC based their invitations on "how much money have you raised?". Apparently, large gay groups in New York and Los Angeles complained mightily, and HRC issued a fast invite to Gravel -- who wasn't about to let HRC off the hook and actually related the circumstances behind his belated invitation at the start of his interview.

The format was that each candidate got between 15 minutes to answer questions from a panel of three -- including Melissa Etheridge and Joe Salmonese, head of HRC -- then end up with a one-minute closing statement. At no time did all six candidates share the stage -- this was not a debate by any means, although later speakers got to refer to statements made by their rivals earlier in the night.

For those who are wondering, the first speaker was Obama, and the last was Clinton.

The immediate question is, of course, "Who won?" It's a highly subjective question. My answer would be John Edwards, and you'll see why in my comments on the candidates below...

Barack Obama has the worst off-the-cuff style of the six. He fumbled and bumbled his way around softball questions (which, basically, almost all of the questions to all the candidates were) and never seemed to give a direct answer. Maybe it was nerves, but he's already done live debates with his rivals and come out OK. And he (and all the candidates) were in front of an audience already disposed to be friendly. It's just inexplicable.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, did just fine as a speaker. Her big mistake? Saying that the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" couldn't be achieved until she was President. C'mon, now -- she's on the Armed Services Committee, so she could bring up a repeal bill any time she wants. The Democrats have control of both houses of Congress (amazingly, she seemed to be saying that the Republicans still control Congress), and there's bipartisan support for repeal. So what's she afraid of -- a Presidential veto that can't be overridden? All that means is you bring the bill up again and again until (a) the President doesn't veto, or (b) you get a vote that will assure veto override. She seemed to be the candidate of inaction -- something the GLBT community doesn't need.

Dennis Kucinich went on and on about how he was going to bring love to the White House and to the country. All I could think of was the satirical musical Of Thee I Sing, which told of a candidate running on a platform of love, and featured the song "Love Is Sweeping the Country". He also, when asked, stated that there wasn't one item on the GLBT agenda that he disagreed with. However, he's one of only two candidates who supported marriage equality (aka same-sex marriage). The other one is...

Mike Gravel, former Senator from Alaska who has somewhat of a history with progressive civil rights legislation. He was also the funniest of the candidates interviewed -- when asked why other men of his generation were so opposed to marriage equality and other GLBT rights issues, he said, "Because they're stupid!" Another similarity between Kucinich and Gravel: while the other candidates looked at their questioners, they looked around to the live studio audience when answering. They played the crowd, and the crowd responded.

Bill Richardson managed to shoot himself in the foot. He was more tongue-tied than Obama, and made a disastrous statement near the beginning of his interview saying he thought homosexuality was a choice. (Yes, his campaign put out a clarifying statement, but the damage was done.) He also brought up, several times, his record as a former congressman and as governor of New Mexico in terms of GLBT rights -- a very good record, and probably better than those of the other candidates -- but he never seemed to recover from his opening stumble.

John Edwards, on the other hand, not only spoke well but also was able to be articulate and forthright on those positions where he was at odds with GLBT political leaders without being defensive or apologetic. He did meander a little into his wife's on-air scolding of conservative pundit Ann Coulter, but he didn't drag it into his other answers. And he seemed convincing when he said that he would leave his religion outside the door when working as President.

Each of the candidates had good moments and bad ones. But taken on the whole, the clear winner in my estimation was John Edwards; and the clear loser, unfortunately, was Bill Richardson.

The party's over; it's time to call it a day. By the time these words hit your screens, the Oliver family, formerly of Florham Park, NJ, will be on their way to their new home in Portland, OR. It's basically an economic decision: The place where Neal works, Intel, shut down their operations in New Jersey and offered him the choice of staying employed with them either in Massachusetts or in Oregon. After lots of trips and lots of research, he and Kathe chose Portland -- in part because the school system will be the best they can find for Alex.

I can't say I've known Neal and Kathe all of their lives (unlike Alex, whom I've known since he first appeared). Our paths didn't cross until they moved to northern New Jersey from Michigan (via central New Jersey). We met at First Friday, an NNJ Mensa monthly dining event, some 20 years ago. I swept into the dining room wearing a long brown hooded cape, made for me by my then-partner Irwin, making an instant impression. Fortunately, we all got past that and became friends.

Many years later -- almost 13 years ago, now -- Irwin went into the hospital for the last time, suffering from complications of AIDS. Kathe was the first person I contacted, crying and babbling into the telephone, revealing at last the secret about Irwin's health that he asked me to keep.

Early the next morning -- about 1:00 a.m. -- the hospital phoned me to come over immediately. The first thing I did was call Neal and Kathe. All they wanted to know was when I would get to their place so they could come with me to the hospital. They stayed with me all that night and into the morning, right up until Irwin took his last breath and his heart stopped. I remember, right before the end, Kathy telling Irwin that he didn't have to worry, that she and Neal would look out for me. I remember Neal, the expert in so many languages, telling me during an earlier break what Irwin had been trying to say to me just hours before: "I love you." And I remember Neal's hand on my shoulder, feeling him cry after Irwin passed.

They were true to their word. Not a holiday went by, not an event passed, that they weren't there, inviting me to join them, providing an emotional foothold that I so desperately needed even while I was telling everyone I was all right. And as time passed and new loves entered my life, they were there, offering support and encouragement -- and criticism, when it was warranted.

And as time passed, and after many attempts they were delivered of Alexander, I was the one non-family member they allowed to visit the hospital. I quickly became Alex' "Uncle Allen", and I thoroughly spoiled him every chance I got. I got to watch him grow, precocious and loud and rambunctious, and I really don't think anyone loved him more than I, always excepting his proud and sometimes exasperated parents. And I finally fulfilled an early promise last month, taking him to see his first Broadway show, "The Lion King" -- and there's nothing like introducing someone to big-time professional eye-popping jaw-dropping live theatre.

I was the one that moved away first, down to central NJ. Only a short distance in terms of miles, but enough to reduce the times I could spend with them. And now it's their turn, moving themselves once more, 3000 miles away this time. The times we can meet now have dwindled to one: the Mensa Annual Gathering each July.

The old saying goes, "If you love something, let it go." I am letting go of good and close friends, who have been a large part of my life. I will miss them beyond words can tell. To quote one of Neal's favorite joke lines: "I won't say au revoir; I'll just say hors d'oeuvres." Dude.

Less panic than yesterday: I did some research and found that I could, if necessary, pay off the mortgage (with a little left over). Or, using the same amount of money, I can live for a year or so. That's one worry that's been tamped down for now.

I also have work options. Kelly Services asked for an updated copy of my resume, which I'll be sending them this afternoon. Or I could look for an entry job in event planning -- remember that course I just finished taking last month, in which I got an 'A' for my work? Or I can take my skills editing Challenge and see if I can apply them to the real world -- I was, a couple of years ago, in touch with an editor at New Jersey Monthly and she suggested that, if I was interested, I should send a resume, and that they could always use editors and proofreaders.

Or I could work for Disney. Remember that job fair that I went to last Monday morning? Well, seems like I can apply online for positions in Uncle Walt's far-flung empire. Or I could go back to Orlando and set up an appointment at the Casting Center. I can easily see myself behind the wheel of one of those trams that takes people to and from the parking lots!

So, taken all in all, life is just a bit less gloomy than it was yesterday afternoon.

And if all else fails, I hear Kinko's is hiring...

On the hunt again: I mentioned to Bill-the-Honeybear recently that it seemed to me my boss didn't want to communicate with me. He cancelled our usual Tuesday morning status meetings -- not all at once, but every week on Tuesday morning, about an hour prior to the meeting -- and wasn't looking to give me things to do. Still, as a consultant, you go with the flow; sometimes there's work, and sometimes there isn't.

About an hour ago, I got a call from my contact at Kelly Services. My current contract expires on June 29, and she told me that Ethicon, when asked, said they weren't renewing it.

It's not the first time I've been let go from a job. And God knows I'll have been here for 7 1/2 years of a six-month contract, with two different contracting firms. But the initial shock is still the initial shock.

I now have to start looking, at age 55, for a new job. Bill-the-Honeybear hasn't held in job in over 7 years himself, and he's never been inclined to actively look. Right now, I'm numb, I'm scared, I feel sick to my stomach. My boss -- how convenient is this? -- is in class all this week, and on vacation all next week. At least Kelly Services has asked me for an updated resume so they can start looking for another position for me.

But how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to pay the mortgage on my house? How are we going to eat? What resources am I going to have to tap for money?

I just don't know.

How I spent my summer vacation, part 1: If you count Memorial Day as the "official" start of summer vacation, I spent it the first part of the evening at GAAMC, my local gay group here in New Jersey. GAAMC always holds a cookout on Memorial Day, and this year they had a pretty good turnout. As usual, I was working the front desk, but later in the evening I did Challenge stuffing -- that task where the newsletter is put in envelopes, and the envelopes are then labeled, stamped, and sealed. (Mailing occurs the next morning.)

Then Bill-the-Honeybear and I went home, and I was going to do a little packing for my trip to Disney World for Gay Day...until I ran my foot into a protruding corner in the bedroom, and my 4th and 5th toes, which used to look like this ll turned into this l/. We rushed to the local emergency room, where after about an hour a doctor came in, looked at it, took some X-rays, and pronounced my right little toe fractured. Now, they don't put it in a cast, and they don't have teeny tiny splints for toes, so the 4th and 5th toes were taped together -- the 4th toe acting as the splint -- gave me a pair of crutches and a prescription for percoset, and sent me home.

The next day I saw my regular doctor, who said I could use my lovely sturdy walking stick instead of the crutches, but otherwise confirmed all the emergency room doctor said to me.

Next stop, Orlando: I had my plane ticket, I had my room reservation, and since I was in no pain (this even without the percosets) I was off to Disney World. My doctor said I should rent a wheelchair, and WDW has these lovely little electric carts for rent, so I flew down on Thursday and by Friday was toodling around the parks like a pro. It doesn't hurt that the entrance lines for handicapped people -- and I qualified, being in one of those scooters -- are much shorter than those for the non-handicapped.

But then came Sunday, and a minor disaster. I was exiting the new boat ride in the Mexico pavilion at Epcot (and let me tell you, the new boat ride is only marginally better than the old boat ride, which was arguably the most boring ride in all of Disney World), riding my scooter through the handicapped exit gate. The scooter pushed the gate open, but as I was going through I didn't catch the gate in time, and its metal endpost rammed into my left knee -- leaving a bruise and an ache that even percoset couldn't completely get rid of. Still, I could move around (slower, yes, but still moving), so I finished up my day, went back to my room, and rested.

Monday, the plan took off an hour late, arrived about 20 minutes late; Bill-the-Honeybear picked me up, we had dinner, and went home. And that's my beginning-of-summer story...

Whatever happened to class? Part 3: Short and sweet: My team presented. It went well. We all got an 'A' for the class. Woo-Hoo!

Now what am I gonna do? Several possibilities:

1. Put out feelers among friends about my new status as an 'A' student in event planning. Get some practical experience by working for them. Refuse to do weddings. (That latter was Abbie Salny's advice, and I do believe she knows what she's talking about.)

2. Contact HR at Ethicon (where I'm a computer consultant now). Ask if their events are done in-house or if they use an outside firm. If in-house, ask about signing on as an event planner. (Let's face it, they're never gonna hire me in the IM department.)

3. Get my transcripts from Michigan State University. See if any of those credits can be transferred to the certificate-granting program in event planning at Raritan Valley Community College, so I don't have to take all 30 hours of courses. See if my life experience at planning RG's for Northern NJ Mensa counts for anything, too.

And of course these are not mutually exclusive. But I took the course because the description in the catalog looked interesting, not because I had some master plan for career change or development. Now that the first class is over, I have to decide if there will be more -- and just where this is all going to lead.

It's a Challenge: The good news this week is that, while the Post Office has raised the rates for first class postage (from 39 to 41 cents), the rate for 2-ounce postage has dropped -- from 63 to 58 cents. So that means GAAMC saves 5 cents on every copy of Challenge we mail out over last year (or, for that matter, last month).

The bad news is -- well, partly my fault, I guess. Along with being Challenge editor, I also run the front desk on Monday nights at GAAMC. I wasn't there on May 7th, because I was meeting with my teammates to do our final review of our class presentation (which was in lieu of a final exam), which we were doing the next day. In my place, I was told, three people took over and did the stuff I usually do: take door donations; make name tags; put up the white board and the cork board; and generally be a friendly, welcoming face for all those who walk through the door.

What I didn't mention was that I never, never, never put out a stack of Challenge copies on the front desk. I do hand them out to non-members and first timers, after asking if they had gotten a copy. But in the past, members would take an extra copy or three on top of the one they had been mailed at home. The result would be no copies to impress the first timers, and no copies to entice the non-members to join (or rejoin, as the case may be).

On April 30th, I left some 40 copies of Challenge in the front desk storage box. When I returned on May 14th, only 6 were left. Because the people at the front desk put out a stack of Challenges. Now I have to do an additional print run of 35 copies, because a snafu over creating labels meant that our corporate subscribers did not get their copies mailed out by the beginning of May -- and their copies were a huge chunk of the ones sitting in the front desk storage box on May 7th.

I must educate more of the "regulars" in how the front desk operates. I think I shall request a chunk of time at the upcoming Board meeting for a little instruction. And maybe an operations sheet as well.

"You should only speak good about the dead," Bette Davis once said when told that Joan Crawford, her hated rival for many years, has passed away. "Joan Crawford's dead. Good!"

The Reverend Jerry Falwell died today. In regards to him, I can only echo Ms. Davis' comment.

I think I spend my life waiting. I'm waiting for my final grade (event planning class, Raritan Valley Community College) to be posted online. I'm waiting until May 31st when I'm taking a long weekend at Disney World (the annual Gay Day event). After that, I'm waiting until July 3rd for the Mensa AG in Birmingham, AL. I'm waiting to get motivated so that, this year, the new outside doors go on the house, and the new front stoop railings get installed, and the sun room windows (all 10 of them) get replaced, and the grandfather clock gets repaired (it hasn't chimed in close to a year now), and the mattress gets replaced (o TempurPedic, how I long for thee), and the TV gets replaced (which means replacing the furniture wherein the old TV resides).

I wait for Bill-the-Honeybear 99% of the time because, even when we agree on a time to leave for something, he's never ready by that time. I wait for him to become my partner and not my dependent. I wait for him to stop acting as though he were still a 20-year-old and start acting a little more like the 48-year-old he is...just a little.

I wait for the news that I no longer have a job.

I wait for the day when there will be that one clear, clarifying realization that yes, I am an adult. I wait for recognition of that fact by others.

I wait for usefulness.

I wait for the day when the support I get is not moral or emotional, but physical and/or monetary.

I wait until I am tired of waiting. Then I wait some more, thinking these feelings will pass.

My life is spent waiting. I'm tired of the expense.

Last night, when I came home from bowling, Bill-the-Honeybear was watching "Real Time with Bill Maher", which he enjoys watching. (I do, too, sometimes, depending on who the guests are.) I came in in time for the start of the "New Rules" segment. The first few were funny -- one was about the overacting of host chefs on the Food Channel, another about news photos of recently-deceased famous people lying in their coffins. But then he started talking about paranoid schizophrenia -- prefacing it with "I am not a doctor, but I am on television." And then proceeding to diagnose the President with paranoid schzophrenia, listing 'symptoms' and giving examples.

I am not a doctor, nor am I on television. But I'm smart enough to know that paranoid schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, one that is fairly difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to treat. And it is a disease that affects not only the sufferer but his or her entire family. There's not, to my knowledge, even a way to detect it early enough to prevent. But for the sake of a joke, Maher gets to play fast and loose with mental illness and its symptoms, from the relative safety of subscription cable.

Well, it's only a joke. Lighten up. Funny, but that defense didn't save Don Imus' ass -- or his job -- earlier this month. I guess we can add a new category to those groups about which it is still OK to make jokes: the mentally ill. (Fat's still there; gay is lingering, but on its way out; and I'm sure there are one or two more.)

Whatever happened to class? Part 2: Last time I posted about the event planning class I was taking, I had just taken the midterm exam. For all my worrying, I got 96 (out of 101). Now comes the final project, working on a three-person team to create a weekend drivers' training event for a Porsche dealership. We present this coming Tuesday. Am I nervous? Of course I am. (You thought I'd have changed over a few weeks?)

The separation of powers: Well, we've just been treated to the spectacle of Congress passing a war funding appropriation with a timetable for withdrawing the troops, the President vetoing the appropriation (as he said he would), and the House failing to override the veto. Everyone's blaming everyone else, as usual; politicians are trying to score points, as usual; commentators and protesters are broadcasting their views, as usual. Am I the only one who remembers something called the Constitution, or that quaint notion of the separation of powers?

Congress' mistake was in tacking on that timetable. According to the Constitution, the President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Along with that power comes the ultimate authority on deciding strategy and tactics -- including when to withdraw troops. Congress overreached, possibly spurred by the unexpected shift of both houses to Democratic control last November. (Yes, it was unexpected -- at least as far as the Senate was concerned; everyone expected the House to shift party control.) And when Congress overreaches, the President gets to use another one of his nifty Constitutional powers -- the veto -- which he did.

The President's mistake was in not trying to negotiate something better with Congress before the bill came to him for his signature. Yes, as commander-in-chief he gets to lead the armed forces. But the Constitution gives the power of the purse -- the ability to decide how much money is going to be spent for which projects -- to Congress. The shift in control of both houses should have been a clue that he could no longer play with the troops like tin toys in a sandbox and expect to have money for those troops given to him at his whim and pleasure, in the amounts he wanted. Congress was willing to give him money for the troops -- but correctly read the 2006 election as a mandate from the people to end a mismanaged and unpopular exercise in military might. (No, it's not a war -- only Congress can declare war, another one of their nifty Constitutional powers -- just like Korea and Vietnam were not wars.)

So what's the answer? Publicly, Congress needs to pass another appropriation bill (they've promised to do so by Memorial Day -- how fitting) to give the President just enough money to fund the troops until some specified time -- say, the end of 2007. (Let the GAO figure out what that amount is.) Privately, Congressional leaders need to tell the President that when that time runs out, so does the additional money. If he wants to keep playing in the sandbox, he'll have to shift the money from other areas.

Why will this not leak all over Washington? On the Congressional side, if they let the time limit news leak out, the President can publicly declare the Democrats in control as not being supportive of our forces. On the Presidential side, if they let the time limit news leak out -- well, they won't, because it makes them look like they caved to Congress.

Now, what are the chances this will actually happen? Snowball. Hell. You do the math.

Whatever happened to class? For me, the answer is, nothing -- because I'm taking one. The local community college (Raritan Valley CC in Branchburg) sent out a semester catalog late last year, and in it was a class on "event planning and meeting management". It sounded interesting enough, so I enrolled on a chilly December afternoon. One hour and $460 later, I was a college student again. The class started February 20th. This past Tuesday I took my midterm exam. I think I did well, but up until the moment we got the test I was somewhat of a nervous wreck, despite the best efforts of Bill-the-Honeybear and several friends to reassure me.

But once the test started, the nerves vanished. It seems to be a characteristic of mine that the minute an emotion becomes useless -- well, maybe counterproductive would be better -- I can drop it faster than (insert example here). We had 90 minutes to complete the test. I finished in 42 (and was the second one to hand in their test). Most of the class was finished in 45 to 60.

Perspective: I was a wreck about my first homework assignment -- designing a family reunion for 40 guests on a $2,000 budget -- and ended up getting a 97 (out of 100) for it, with a note from the instructor saying "I would hire you!"

Now I only have the final presentation to worry about...

It's been a long, long time... I got an e-mail from a friend last month, congratulating me on the one-year anniversary of my last post here. Well, what can I say? I'm not an "average" blogger, one who posts every day or two. I get bursts of blogging mania, followed by long periods of blogging disinterest. Just like other parts of my real life...

I can't promise that I'll get myself on a regular posting schedule. I can promise that if there's something I think is so important that I have to share it with the world, I'll post it here. Maybe.