Sunday

The heat is on. Close to 100 on the thermometer outside my kitchen window.  It wasn't bad on the outward run up to DeWitt this AM, but by the time we got back around 10:15, it was everything that you wanted.  Not sure if optional outdoor activities this afternoon are in order.

Interesting to me that American Century has elected to quietly de-emphasize Lance Armstrong's profile in it's campaign to support The Livestrong Foundation with their sponsorship of the Celebrity Golf Tournament in Lake Tahoe.  They have Livestrong on all of the banners, posters and title shots at commercials, but Lance is noticeably absent (except for at least one non-credited appearance in a cancer spot).  He is under investigation by the government sleuths, and there's been plenty of accusations in the last year or so, but only smoke, not fire, so far.  Hmmm.  Cautiousness at NBC?

Speaking of doping investigations, how bad are the government lawyers in the Roger Clemons case?  I mean, how many hours of discovery, investigation, interrogatories and the like did they do, only to flub the judge's instructions?  The Rocket deserves double-jeopardy protection, even if he is guilty.  I mean, with all this government budget debate, how do they justify those prosecutor salaries?  Not a silly question.

And speaking of the budget debate, I've floated my national sales tax idea to several people this week, and its getting good reviews.  I mean, it gets everybody paying some tax, which is a revenue raiser.  Getting rid of a bunch of the tax deductions hurts the despised rich, and potentially reduces the number of IRS auditors checking on those three-martini-lunch write-offs. (It could also put some CPA's on a new road of some sort as well!)  I wonder what today's quantitative future value would be of a Masters of Science in Taxation degree if we cut 75% of the tax Code out of existence?  Just saying.

While my pal Pete and I rode through LeClaire yesterday, we stopped to look over the new wine bar-coffee shop now being built-out on the main drag.  We actually know the developer.  I'm skeptical.  Do any of those arty little places in LeClaire actually make it?  And don't you need some traffic to make a wine bar work?  And aren't there some dangers of having to drive several miles to drink?  As hard as LeClaire works to make itself a smaller Galena, I'm a non-believer.  Sorry.

Further up the road from LeClaire, I was very nervous, closely following Pete's wheel at 20mph (fast, on a bike, for me not him!) on a road with way too much traffic for a couple of cyclists'  I knew we were passing a little 9-hole golf course on the north/west side of the rode, but I couldn't remember it's name.  Hialeah or something, I thought to myself, too afraid to look up from Pete's rear wheel.

So I finally look over just as we fly by the entrance and see the sign that says "Olathea Golf Course".  Now my point here is, just how is it that the brain has the recollection that has some of the related letters of the name, and some of the phonetics, but not quite the whole thing?  It doesn't happen infrequently with me.  An its not my Sometimers.

I'm guessing that the synapses at work here are the same ones that allow you to read that chart that proves the brain can process the correct words if all the letters are there, even if they aren't in the right order.   http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/cambridge.asp  Actually, they're probably related synapses since we're talking about memory as opposed to word recollection.  An intersting hypothesis, nonetheless.

I'm taking a break for dinner.  Maybe more later.

BCOT