Sunday

I'm getting at this a little late today so it won't be a long entry.

Busy day for me. Among other things, I got in my first bike ride of the year. Yea! Did around 18 or 19 miles on the bike path. Its never great out there on a Sunday afternoon because of traffic, but the weather was right and it felt good.

And I got some work done around the house, including some hard raking of what passes for my front yard. With warm weather here by next weekend, I need to get that next treatment of grass seed and the crabgrass preventer applied or I'll have to look at weeds again this summer.

Looks like the UConn and Villanova folks can go home. Congrats to all who picked Florida getting to the Final Four. In the office pool, I actually have LSU winning it all. For anyone keeping score, count all those Number 1 seeds getting to the finals.

There was a very interesting column in the QC paper this morning written by an Augustana English professor comparing the derivation of the terms crusader and jihad. The gist of it was that the colloquial usage of "crusader" generally is in describing a noble effort to defend what is right and good, while "jihad" is a term associated with terrorists and car bombs. This is how we normally process those terms. In the Muslim world, the meanings of those words is almost exactly the opposite. Now don't get me wrong. I think the Muslim zealots are nuts. And they and the Oriental cultures are centuries behind the West with regard to individual freedoms. But we are not going to be able to impose our cultural doctrines on them through a military action.

I find it difficult to reconcile these issues in my own mind. Mostly, I want to say, "If you don't want to save yourselves from self-annihilation, let me take my stuff and go home." The concern then is the resulting safety zone to plan and execute more 9-11 type acts of terrorism. I go back to the problem of these 3rd World countries being unable to reconcile their interests in maintaining the old ways while also sitting at the table of the modern world economy and demanding equal economic rights.

On a lighter side, Susan had her nannying experience this weekend and has re-committed to the single life. We did a little bar-b-que lunch for her and the kids today at Mom's. She was in need of some adult contact.

Also on the lighter side,Mom found some old boxes of mine in the attic and there are some gems in there. Pictures, from our years in Chicago (and before), some of my college papers, and some copies of The Pink Sheet from Korea!! I'll be going through these treasures in the future and there will definitely be some things to share.

Busy week for me ahead. Typical stuff for the last 3 weeks of tax season.

Everyone be careful out there.