I swear the people here are ignorant and careless. They send texts, drinks beer and even read the newspaper from behind the wheel Don’t let these idiots who are not paying attention to their driving wreck your ride and kill your ass.

Drive defensively and protect your head. Wear boots to protect your feet and wear long sleeves, preferably a leather jacket to protect your arms and chest. No shorts – wear long pants. Smart people also wear some kind of face shield or eye protection so you don’t catch a bug in your eye at 60 miles an hour. Protection is important – your life and health depends on how smart and careful you are.

Sometimes I want to be bad. It feels good and adds a sense of excitement to the moment. You get to revel in the experience of being bad, plus you get to relive it later in your mind as often as you want to – especially if it turned out well. So if you can’t beat your demons or you don’t want to – join them!

Noon is not the best time to go to lunch if you can avoid it, but some of us don’t have a choice. The restaurants are the busiest, so service is usually slow. But the food will be fresh and hot, and sometimes the crowd makes for good people watching and adds some buzz to the air.

The Hooters downtown is the best one. The girls are gorgeous and work the hardest of all the Hooters around town. The ones down in Antioch are probably the worst. I don’t see how that place even keeps its doors open any more. No one wants to see all the skinny crack hoes walking around in shorts in a daze. Half the time they don’t even get your order right and they could care less about checking back to see if you want another beer or need ketchup or anything. But downtown rocks and that’s where I’ll be in a few hours.

I suppose I can check out the on demand stuff later if I want. Bah, I hate being sick. The flu sucks. At least I have some of this cold medicine that knocks you out for a little while. I will sleep in about an hour and if I am lucky I will stay that way for a while. I guess I should be thankful that I can at least watch cable. We never had that when we were kids. The only shows during the day were soap operas to watch with mom. Ugh ! Those were the worst. At least until cartoons came on. Hey I have cartoon channels. Maybe I will watch some of those.

We will probably plan our first BBQ for next weekend. My wife has shopping to do as well as check everyone’s schedules to make sure they can attend. I am sure that it wont be a problem though, because everyone is ready for winter to be gone for good and the outdoor fun to begin. It is still just a bit too cool at night to bother with the pool yet. When the weather gets to the right point, we will open up the pool and ready it for summer. We haven’t decided if we want new patio furniture yet or not. I suppose we shall see. I am sure that my wife will come across something she likes soon enough.

The Black Hawks will have a  difficult time in this post season without Marian on the ice. I certainly feel for their club right now as they have been doing very well this year. I can only hope that Raffi will learn his lesson throughout this suspension and quit playing with such brutality. This is not of course the first time for him, as he is a very aggressive player. He needs to realize that head shots are illegal in the game and will not be tolerated at all. I would hate to see him banned from the sport he loves so much.

My garden is already large, but as I want to add a few new veggies to the planting, I am going to have to add more rows as well. I also need to buy some organic garden soil to add to my garden beds. We do not like pesticides either so we use other methods to keep posts off of our plants. My list is growing as I type and realize there were a few things I had forgotten. No matter though, if I forget something I will just go back. I wish everyone luck with their own gardens this year.

We want to be successful in our child rearing efforts, not only for our sake but more for the kids. Child rearing can be difficult and it is possible that we will home school to ensure that our children do not receive unwanted influences in their lives. It is a difficult decision though, for children need contact with other kids and finding the kind of atmosphere we wish them to participate in. We can only do our best, but since we haven’t any children yet it is not a big worry. I suppose we will deal with that as it comes later one.

The Eco system in the gulf is at great risk now and we all know that our government is going to do their best to hush it up. I hope that at least one of the news channels will report the story and let the public know that this is happening. I fear that the online news stories are just not going to help the situation. I suppose though that we shall see what happens over the next few months. Only time will tell. In the mean time, I think I will stock my deep freezer with the regular seafood that we eat here at home. Shrimp and fish can be put up easily.

I am going to plant the usual vegetables this year as well as a bit more squash. I have found that I like a lot of different kinds of squash than I did when I was younger. Spaghetti squash is one of them, as well as acorn squash. They are so very easy to make and taste so good when they are seasoned right.  My wife, the wonderful cook that she is, can make whatever I plant in our garden and it is always very good. The best cooked food is that which is grown at home. Remember that always and plant a garden. It will make you happy.