Okay, so it's been nine months since I broke my LJ cherry. I finally remembered where I'd created a blog so I wandered back here, dusted off the cobwebs, applied a theme, added a new picture and edited my profile.

I'm a little conflicted about blogging under my real name. It limits me because I do contract work so I tend to be in a perpetual job search. If I write about certain things it might have a negative impact on a hiring manager's perception of me. At the same time, I'm not sure I have the personal bandwidth to maintain a purely anonymous second blog where I can prattle on to my heart's content about adult themes or take what might be perceived as controversial positions on issues of the day. Of course, all things considered, I'm reasonably vanilla in my daily life and I'm not an extremist or racist so maybe I'm just worrying unnecessarily. So, for the moment, this is it.

So, here's a couple comments about the presidential race to try to get into the swing of things:

I'm amazed at the flap over Senator Clinton's comment about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. It seems clear to me that her reference to that event was not intended to suggest or imply that Senator Obama might or should be assassinated.  From my perspective, she was only trying to say that the campaign was still going on when that terrible event happened and that the push to have the campaign wrapped up now is not grounded in historical campaigns.

(I posted this next comment to one of my mailing lists but being in favor of reusing content, I'll add it here as well)

I'm not a Democrat (not a Republican either; leaning Libertarian) but I wanted to comment here. Perhaps David who pays far more attention to these things than I can shed some light on this. I seem to recall reading/hearing that in at least one of these two states (maybe both?) the primary election date was moved forward by a Republican-dominated state legislature and governor so the Democrats in that state were not able to prevent the voting from happening. Thus the Republicans in that state are chortling with glee over the pickle they've put the Democrats in.

If that's the case, it would seem to me that the DNC needs to come up with some sort of really creative solution to see to it that Democrats from that state are properly represented yet also prevents Senator Clinton from getting a free ride as she campaigned there while the others did not.

I wrote this two months ago and decided it might be worth using it to pop my LJ cherry.

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I’d just taken myself out for dinner at one of my local haunts that has an open patio dining area so I could enjoy the beautiful weather, work on the science fiction novel of the day and indulge in my inhalation therapy without annoying anyone. After a sandwich, a tall, frosty drink with a little paper umbrella, a fresh cup of steaming black coffee, six or eight chapters and about a half-dozen Viceroys I left my waiter a not-overly generous tip, paid my bill and fired up the bike to head home.

A beat up old pickup truck pulled up next to me at a light and the driver, a bald-headed, unshaven gorilla who appeared to have no neck, leaned out the open window with a bleary look on his face and shouted, “that got a hemi?” I gave him my best condescending look and hollered back “you bet!” He asked me again… “that got a hemi?” Great, I figured… all I need is some knuckle dragger getting a case of the ass for me because I don’t remember the dialog from some Dodge commercial. I sighed, ratcheted up the condescending look a notch, gave him a grin and a thumbs-up and hollered “sure!” “Hey… you wanna race?” he bawled, goosing the throttle on Old Paint. I gave it some serious consideration for about a half a second, realizing that I could kick the old rust-bucket’s ass with the 750 CCs of throbbing rice-burner between my legs, then discretion spoke up and I told him the truth: “Nah… I’m too old for that shit.” Fortunately, the light turned green right then, curtailing our playful banter. Our hero roared off in a cloud of smoke while I accelerated leisurely to avoid ever ending up next to him again. Fortunately, he went straight so I took the westward turn and headed toward the palatial Starr Estate.

“Oh, shit, that can’t be a good thing” I said to myself as I spied a tall column of thick, black smoke in the distance. The column of smoke rose just south of due west, appearing to originate right about where the cats generously allow me to sleep. I throttled up to 55, wondering to myself if I’d left the iron on, then letting the relief wash over me when I remembered that I don’t even have an iron. Meanwhile, I’m thinking to myself, this could be a real pain in the ass… it’d probably solve a lot of problems but nevertheless, it’d really suck.

About a mile down the road, I realized with mixed emotions that the plume of smoke was further away than Chez Starr. As I turned off the highway onto my county road, I figured I might as well check it out, after all, I’m as much of a nosy neighbor as the next guy. So I took the side street and headed over toward the smoke. As I got a little closer, I figured out that it was probably over on the old town main street… where the village used to be until we got uppity and incorporated as a genuine village with garbage collectors, street lights and our own squad cars.

When I got close to the street, I saw flames rising in the air above the tree line and though, this may be a bad one. Arriving at the intersection, I was shocked that the village’s finest hadn’t established a perimeter and started diverting traffic away from the conflagration. I made the turn and immediately slowed to procession speed as I joined a line of cars heading in the direction of the inferno.

“Wait a minute”, I thought as I spotted a middle-aged couple, ambling leisurely hand-in-hand toward the fire. That doesn’t seem right. Still no roadblock. What the hell? Then I noticed, there must’ve been 30 cars parked along the road. Finally I got close enough to see it… a two-story frame house fully engulfed in flames, right next to where they’d torn down the biker bar the town fathers had thoughtfully driven out of business in spite of my protestations that it had the best burgers and fish fry for miles around.

The townies were gathered across the road and as I neared the house, I could see that the whole fire department was already there battling the blaze but with sandwiches and bottled water in hand. And there, across the vacant lot, another fifty or sixty folks were lined up in lawn chairs, enjoying the spectacle. It came to me then… this was one of those “training fires” where somehow the fire department gets to burn down a house so they can practice putting it out. Apparently the whole village knew about it in advance except for your humble narrator. The only thing missing was the Mr. Softee truck.

So there you have it… the good life in a small town this side of the cheddar curtain.

© Copyright 2007, Mike Starr; all rights reserved