Hanging with Rich

Livin' in America & Memorial Day..... Last evening the wife and I went to a local food and entertainment festival called A Taste of Summer. It is held on the Flats East Bank in my town. That is a riverfront area that has been developed with new restaurants, clubs, apartments, and a beautiful boardwalk by the river. (Someday there will even be a Margaritaville opened.) There were food trucks, live music, and lots of people. Just chillin' in the Flats. People of all types. Rich people had their boats tied up along the boardwalk. Actually that might have been easier than finding a place to park a car. But everybody was having a great time. Good weather, good food, good drink. A great way to celebrate Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day means different things to different people. It's the unofficial start to summer. This is also the weekend for the Indianapolis 500. That spectacle draws hundreds of thousands of people to watch state-of-the-art race cars travel 5...

Living At The Zoo.... If I could talk to the animals, just imagine it Chattin' with a Chimp in Chimpanzee Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting with a cheetah What a neat achievement it would be.  That's an old Bobby Darin song, but I thought about it this weekend. I visited our local zoo and, as always, was amazed by the animals. Zoos are such a valuable resource to have in your community. They do much more than provide thrills to kids. They educate, and even provide adults with a sense of wonder. You can watch Animal Planet and the National Geographic Channel until you're blue in the face, but until you stand next to an elephant, or look a tiger in the eye, you can't really appreciate these magnificent creatures. Richard Parker, is that you? I'm not a zoo expert, but I think my zoo does a pretty good job of giving the animals a place where they can be somewhat comfortable. The zoo recently built the Tiger Passage where visitors can get very close to...

Politics vs. The FBI..... Headlines are becoming blurred. News headlines are coming daily. Sometimes twice a day. It's easy to forget the significance of yesterday's headlines. Maybe we should use the perspective of history to see what's unusual about these headlines. Let's go back to the basics. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was formed in 1908. It is part of the Department of Justice, which is led by the Attorney General of the United States. The FBI is our Federal Police Force. Their main job is to  protect and defend us by upholding and enforcing our criminal laws. The top 5 priorities of the FBI presently are (per their website): Protect our country from terrorist attacks. Protect our country from foreign intelligence and espionage. Protect our country from cyber-attacks. Combat public corruption. Protect civil rights. Does any of that sound political? It sounds like a law enforcement job for federal crimes. Probably the most famous FBI ...

Paying for Winter..... I'm glad winter is finally over. It's my least favorite season. Once the Christmas holidays are over, I'm ready for spring. Truthfully, this winter wasn't too bad. There were not many heavy snows. So you could pretend to enjoy looking at all the brown grass this year. The gray skies didn't help my mood either. You don't think much happens over the winter. Things are sort of frozen in a time capsule. But you'd be wrong. Changes happen, both in nature and personally. My back yard is a muddy mess. Now that it's May, it's time for some yardwork. When I last saw my yard it was in good condition. Yes, there were some leaves that didn't get collected. But that's because my leaves like to hang on the trees until the snow flies. Plus we got sick of bagging them. The spring thaw has brought branches, twigs, and plenty of mud to my yard, There were branches all over. Maybe the deer like to break them off. There were en...