“Summer time, and the livin’ is easy…”

So goes the song from the musical Porgy and Bess.  The weather is warm, the swimming pool is comfortable, the evenings on the deck are pleasant.

Yes, summer in Ohio. Life is good!

I need a break.  Time and space to clear my mind, refresh my soul, and lose the stress in my body.

I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes, first found on a t-shirt while on vacation about twenty years ago in Nags Head, North Carolina.  The restaurant was towards the south and named Sam and Omies.  It’s still there and they have a web site now.  I haven’t been there in many a moon, so I’ll make no recommendations.

But I digress.  Here’s the quote found on that long since worn-out t-shirt:

“Everyone ought to believe in something, I believe I will go fishing.”

Sophmom recently posted an article on her blog referring to a story in Salon, entitled How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned. I highly recommend the article, as it delves into the despicable political games played while the people of New Orleans, that happens to be a city in the United States, suffered in one of the worst disasters in our short history.

The Bush government is not only inept, it’s corrupt and just plain wrong. It’s a government that’s more than willing to sacrifice those it serves for its own political expediency.

I usually don’t read they myriad of comments found after stories like this one, but this particular comment by someone known as “tangerine” got my attention:

burn in hell forever
Bush, Rove, all of them. They stole the White House, then eight years of our national life, and actual lives in New Orleans and Iraq. I can’t really express my rage properly.

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
– Nikita Khrushchev

Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.
– Rudyard Kipling

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
– Will Rogers

It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.
– Malcom Forbes

Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose.
– Andy Rooney

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
– Kurt Vonnegut

The graphic shown below displays one of the greatest existential and philosophical paradoxes known to man. Don’t you think so?

Or do you really know what it’s all about?

Randy Pausch, (October 23, 1960) is a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University, where my son Joshua proudly attends. Professor Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2006, and in August, 2007, told he only had a few months left.

Since that time, he has become well known for the insight and inspiration in his “Last Lecture” to his students at Carnegie Mellon. Since that talk in the fall of 2007, he has appeared on several TV shows and written a positive and inspirational book about his path.

Here is the link to his web site, where you will find videos and commentary.

Recently Professor Pausch gave a speech at the Carnegie Mellon commencement that brought tears to my eyes. No words are necessary; take the 6 minutes to watch and hear this amazingly positive man.

I’m a software developer and consultant using FileMaker Pro as my development platform. As a builder of software applications, I find it important that my software not only work well, but is usable as well as easy to use. I pay close attention to what appears on my screens and printed page.

Below is an example of a dialog box that simply does not work.

I’ll give credit where credit is due. I found the dialog in a review of the TomTom GO 720 GPS. The article is posted on TidBits.

Your comments and thoughts would be welcome.

Today, our family received our “Economic Stimulus” check from the US Government. A check, by the way, that our country can ill afford to be sending when they are trillions of dollars in debt.

The theory behind these checks is that the American people will go out and spend that easy money on more consumer goods that they don’t need, thus stimulating the economy. Or at least the bottom lines of the large corporations and their lobbyists who concocted this scheme.

Some will spend more than their check on much more stuff they don’t need, charging purchases to their already overloaded credit cards, thus economically stimulating the bottom line of selected financial institutions.

In this household, we plan to take this blood money (and it is), and use it to provide economic stimulus to our own family. The bulk of those dollars will be used to pay off debt, the remainder being invested for our future. Folks, the consumption orgy is over. Turn out the lights and put a few bucks back for your future.

That’s the best Economic Stimulus I can think of.

As my Economics professor reminded us just about every class, in his pre-lecture monologue, “there is no such thing as free lunch.“

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
– Albert Einstein

“It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”
– General Robert E. Lee

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
– George Orwell

“Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.”
– Billy Crystal

After writing yesterdays’ post, Time, I am reminded of the song, Sunrise Sunset from the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

(Tevye)
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?

(Golde)
I don’t remember growing older
When did they?

(Tevye)
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he get to be so tall?

(Golde)
Wasn’t it yesterday
When they were small?

(Men)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

(Women)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

Where has the time gone? It doesn’t seem so long since that chilly, rainy August day when we left our son, Josh, at Carnegie Mellon University for the first time. Five days from now, I’ll be bringing him home for the summer after a wonderful year.

Where has the time gone? My daughter, Sarah, is completing her Junior year of high school. At the high school academic awards breakfast, when she was on stage as one of the Top Ten students in her class, the speaker reminded us from that group of 10, will be the Valedictorian of the Class of 2009. Sarah will graduate and on to the rest of her life.

Where has the time gone? In 20 days, I’ll have been in business for 21 years, married for 28 in 6 months, and in August, taken 58 trips around the sun.

Where has the time gone?