Enough already

My bag is, indeed packed, and has been since Wednesday, since last night we took the Aged P to dinner, and tonight is poker, so when else could I do it? Liz says my bag is too big, and Kate claims she'll bring maybe two tee shirts and just be smelly for a couple of weeks. I believe in never having to launder anything, aided by bringing clothes beyond their prime and simply leaving a trail of them behind in the various motels of the Western world. I am not a fashion plate while on vacation (but unlike Kate, the air around me is breathable). But who needs to be a fashion plate in Utah?

Of all the stoppers I have run into in my debate career, the NFL PF topic takes the cake. "When a choice is required for public high schools in the United States, government funding should prioritize vocational education over college preparatory education." In other words, fed money should deliberately be spent in such a way as to keep the proles in their place. Oy. This simply is not an issue I have ever bothered my pretty little head about. I've worried often about education, but never in terms of this false dilemma.

The vacation will include Las Vegas, Zion, Bryce, various John Ford movie backgrounds, Santa Fe, Taos, that left turn in Albuquerque, the Grand Canyon and Penn and Teller, in that order. A nice mix of outdoors and indoors. We're even riding a horse one afternoon (actually, three horses, if you want the whole truth). Liz rides a couple of times a week, but me and horses, I can take 'em or leave 'em. I don't mind betting on them, though (and maybe this year, for once, I'll actually get to see the Derby rather than sitting in the LD Advisory Committee during the Run for the Roses).

So, I'm packing up the tent, turning off the email and heading into the hinterlands. The fact that I suggested that LD will weather the storm of Ks and pomo and DOD was met with great disdain, but I hope I'm right because the alternative is a slow and painful death. I've always been an optimist. I'm a cheerful fellow, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. I'm like one of those people that other people say, he never had anything bad to say about anyone, except of course I usually do. Somewhere inside of me there's a nice guy trying to get out, and losing miserably.

We'll meet again / Don't know where / Don't know when...