The presidential political campaigns are on. We are campaigning in earnest. Untold millions will be spent on efforts to get specific people elected. There will be a positive result for only one person. It’s guaranteed that every other one will fail. I wonder if spending all this money helps us elect a better president. Is all this spending productive in any way? We don’t build anything; the money just goes around in circles. People donate to campaigns. Campaigns pay their staff. Staff buy media ads. Media outlets take the money, broadcast some ads, and pay their employees. Employees buy groceries, houses, and cars. Some employees might even make political contributions. What just happened? Where did the money go? Where is the benefit? Maybe in economic terms that’s all that has to happen. Maybe it doesn’t matter what money gets spent on, as long as it gets spent. Whether there is any benefit or not is irrelevant. Is that all that economics is about; money going around in circles? Just for the sake of conversation, what if we spent the same untold millions on say, rebuilding building roads and bridges? When we were all through, at least we could point to the improved roads and bridges as something accomplished. There you have it. I stand before you, my political and economic naiveté totally exposed.
Fantasy football
I don’t know anything about fantasy football; never played it, but I think I can infer something about it. Given the recent flood of advertisements on the sports channels about fantasy football leagues, essentially promising to give away free money, it appears that there is a lot of money to be made at fantasy football. And given how much the sponsors of fantasy football are spending on advertising promising how easy it is to win, I also infer that the primary beneficiaries of this recent phenomenon are not the people playing.
It took four neck surgeries to fix Peyton Manning
…and he only had one disc screwed up. I’ve got three. We’ve got the next surgery scheduled for early November. If they fix me with one more round, I’ll be way ahead of Peyton. There is a downside though. One spinal fusion (like Peyton), and a person can return to pro football. Two fusions, and with a little longer rehab, a person can still play for the pros. Three fusions and you’re out; never again to play pro football. Damn. My pro football career is over before it even began.
Little things
…that stay with you the rest of your life. Moments along the way that didn’t seem important at the time but end up leaving in indelible imprint. We used to take a camping trip every year during spring break. We’d pile everybody into the VW Bus and do a marathon drive to the desert. One year, at a rest stop south of Colorado Springs, we spotted a bumblebee in the grass. That made quite the impression on us; a pretty good sized bumblebee all loaded with yellow pollen. From then on, for our family, that rest stop has been known as the bumblebee park. If any of us are on a trip and report that we just passed the bumblebee park, or stopped for lunch there, everyone knows exactly where we are. Well, digging through old photographs, imagine what I came up with; a photograph of Becky and Matt at the bumblebee park!
…and the bumblebee!
…and the bumblebee! Blood pressure
I don’t like taking blood pressure medicine. It makes me feel sluggish and it messes with my libido. I’ve tried it a few times, but so far have always been able to get back off it by managing weight, diet, exercise, and caffeine. I see the ads on television that say “Don’t take Viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it might cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure.” The combination of Viagra and nitrates causes a drop in blood pressure? I don’t take nitrates for chest pain, but since my heart issues years ago, I have a small bottle of nitroglycerine tablets in my pocket at all times, just in case. If a person had high blood pressure, but didn’t want the side-effects of blood pressure medicine, then why not take a little bit of nitro, and a little bit of Viagra, and only experience a moderate drop in blood pressure? The side effects of that cocktail might be more pleasant than the side effects of the prescription blood pressure treatment.