The Primary

-begin political vent-

Voting in the Illinois primary yesterday made me really think about the two major political parties that are currently running our country (into the ground). Why is it that you basically have to be one or the other? What about those of us who (in my mind) think pretty logically and agree with parts, but not all, of each party’s “ideals?” In that regard, I’m definitely a bit of a mutt.


I shouldn’t probably dive into political talk here, but what the hell, why not. Here are a few items in which I agree with each party:

Republican (in theory, but the current repubs seem to be straying from their supposedly conservative way of thinking): Fiscally conservative, lower taxes, smaller government, pro-gun, less “handouts”

Democrat: Gay rights, woman’s right to choose and…. surely there is more that I agree with, but I can’t think of them right now.

So, where the heck does that put me? I would like to propose a “Logical Party” where common sense rules. I know some of you will argue that I'm not thinking logically, but hear me out.  Here is my very, very simplified summary of it:

You can’t spend more than you take in, so why should the government be able to? Joe shouldn’t be punished/hated for being successful and there should be a maximum amount of his income that the government can confiscate each year. At the same time, Bob shouldn’t live off of everyone else if he is at all fit to get job. Sure, we’ll help you get back on your feet if you fall down, but our help is temporary and you need to ultimately be responsible for yourself. If you want to have a gun (or two or twenty), or live an alternative lifestyle or whatever, you can as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of other people and you can support it financially. However, as soon as you do something that clearly breaks the law or infringe on the rights of others, be prepared to pay the consequences. Those consequences could be quite severe, especially if you knowingly take someone’s life. Internationally, we’ll support our allies when they are in need, but we aren’t going to police the world. We need to clean up our house before we start helping to clean up someone else’s mess.

Right now, my voting theory is to prioritize the topics that are most important to me at the time, kind of the lesser of two evils way of thinking. I have to say, I’m pretty disheartened with all of it right now and I can only hope that we don’t become a nanny state full of lazy, needy, whinny citizens. Right now, it sure isn’t looking good.

-end-

Back to normal stuff: 

My tickets for the Indy 500 came in, I can't wait for Memorial Day weekend.


In other news, the PHD's ended the curling season in the first loser spot (second place).  We were in first until last week, when we lost the game when two of our teammates were on spring break vacations.  Since we lost while they were out of town, I'm going to blame them for breaking up the team at a critical moment.  After 20 weeks of curling this winter (seems like a long time!), it is time to to put away the hat and gloves and pull out the new golf clubs.  Time to get outside, get some sun and hopefully have some fun on the links.

Since the weather has been so nice, our yard is starting to come alive again.  The forsythia is blooming, Tulips are popping up and the trees are starting to bud.  I'll post some pictures as the growth progress.  I've already started to battle the weeds that took over the area that I tried to seed with native grasses last year.  I've been working to mark the small native plants so I can avoid them as I try to remove the weeds.  The weeds are 10x bigger than the natives, but hopefully they will gain some size this season.  I hope all of this effort pays off in the long run and the natives are able take control of the area.  I don't really want to fight this battle every year.

My parents are coming in for the weekend, we haven't seen them since early November.  I won tickets (radio giveaway) to the arena football game on Saturday, so we'll be going to that.  The United States Navy Band is performing at ISU on Monday night and I just picked up tickets for the four of us to go to that.  I know, I know, that is an odd mix, arena football and the Navy Band.  It should be a fun weekend.

I can see (better)

After 5 years of wearing the same glasses, I’ve finally upgraded to a new set of frames and lenses.  As you might guess, Karen wanted some input on which frames I picked, so we went out shopping a couple Saturdays ago.  We found some nice looking frames at the eye doctor’s
"boutique" (the first place we went to) and I made the executive decision to stop the shopping right then.  I had a feeling that we would go to 5 other places (she loves to shop) and end up coming back for this pair (it has happened enough that I know I’m right). We were told that they would be ready on Monday.

Monday comes around and I get a call from the optics guy… we can’t cut your lenses here in store, so we will have to send them out to be cut.  Evidently my astigmatism correction is getting worse and now it isn’t a standard cut.  Two weeks later and my lenses and frames finally arrived; I picked them up last night.  Here is a shot of them; I thought they had an interesting “architectural” style to them, especially the hollow space on the sides.  Want to know the most shocking thing? In a boutique full of pricey design brand name frames, Karen ended up liking a reasonably priced, no-name brand.  The odds of that happening are not very good, she typically drawn to the most expensive things. 

The real bad news is that the same astigmatism correction that makes regular glasses difficult to cut makes getting prescription sunglasses an even bigger pain in the ass.  Evidently the wrap around curvature of most sunglasses does not play well with my correction, which needs to be more flat (that is how it was explained to me).  GREAT.  The sales person suggested getting regular frames and put tinted lenses in them, but, in my mind, the whole reason to get sunglasses is so they wrap around and protect your eye from the sun.  If there are big gaps where the sun can get in, what is the point of wearing them?

We started looking around at frames and the pair that Karen liked the most ended up being the exact same Ray Ban sunglasses frame that I’ve been wearing for the last 5 years.  I guess the style has aged well?  We also found a set of Oakleys that I liked, but I was a little skeptical about the ends that go over your ears.  On most glasses they are hooked down to hold them in place behind your ear, but the Oakleys are straight.  I am not sure if those will be as secure as what I’ve been wearing?

I decided to wait on sunglasses to make sure the prescription is OK before ordering them.  I found a nice website that takes your prescription and narrows down the frame choices to the ones that will actually work with your prescription.  Happily, the Oakley frames that I like should work for me, so maybe everything will work out OK after all.  

Tool time

As my tool collection has steadily grown, my need to be organized has grown too.  I just received a nice set of ½” drive metric deep sockets for my birthday and there wasn’t any room for them in the tool box.  Since that outcome is totally unacceptable, I started researching socket storage.   It is officially time to reorganize the tool box. 

 I visited garage journal dot com (a great website for home based gear heads) and saw that most people there were buying prefabricated socket racks.  After comparing the racks to my collection of sockets, it was obvious that none of those holders matched up real well with my collection of sockets.  That would leave me with room wasting empty spaces OR I would have to modify the racks to fit my sockets.  In addition to them not being an ideal match for my collection, the racks cost 15-20 bucks each and I would need at least 6 of them.  I’ll give you a second to do that mental math…

I also saw that a few guys on garage journal had built their own custom racks, so I went out to the garage and compared my set up with theirs.   It looked like I could definitely do it myself for way less money, and we all know that  I’m typically in favor of spending less money... unless it is for something cool like that carbon fiber road bike with electronic shifting that I’ve been eyeing in the cycling magazines.  Yes, they are now making bikes with electronic shifting – possibly the coolest advancement in cycling since they started putting disc brakes on mountain bikes.

Karen was busy this weekend grading midterm projects, so I decided to get started on this project.  I calculated the materials I would need and made a trip to Lowes.  $10 later I had everything that I needed (except for the paint to finish it).  I came home and fired up the power tools.  What can I say; I am a sucker for an opportunity to use power tools!

I’m only about halfway through, but here are some progress pictures,  this should definitely make it easier to find the socket I need, when I need it:

In other news, Illinois State University’s men’s basketball team almost won the conference championship game today.  They lost by 4 points in overtime.  It would have been nice to see them win.  I’ve also been working on updating my personal “career” website, www.davidscottdouglas.com.  Feel free to take a look at it and send me any comments that you have.