I’m going to say one brief thing about work and move on from there because nobody wants to be bored by the details of my job. It has been very busy lately, yada, yada, yada, I finally have time to put coherent thoughts together without feeling too guilty about wasting time.
And, we’re off...
Suppose I came to you one day with an invention. This invention was going to keep people safer by punishing the people who do unsafe things that endanger the innocent. The guilty would not know if someone was watching or not so the only way to guarantee oneself not to be punished would be to abstain from behaving recklessly.
Then let’s suppose I talked you into manufacturing and implementing this invention, and just one short year later the devices had already done their job. People were safer. Reckless behavior was down. Wouldn’t you be thrilled?
Wouldn’t it be a silly waste to get mad at this and therefore start cutting back on the amazing invention?
Enter: Red Light Cameras. I hate them. You hate them. But it turns out in the City of Dallas, they work. In fact, they work so well, the city has decided to stop using many of them. Why?
Funny thing. The City of Dallas only believes in preventing reckless behavior if they make a profit off of punishing the stated behavior. Turns out Dallas wasn’t making as much money as it had hoped, so they’re just shutting these things off.
Brilliant. I love big city government. I get a big dose of it here in Chicago, but I wouldn’t know where to start griping so I’ll just leave that alone.
Speaking of Chicago. It snowed here on Good Friday. And then again yesterday. Which was just normal Friday.
All you Global Warming geeks out there, I’ll give you one guess where my carbon footprint is going to be if it snows on me again before December.
Speaking of Green. Chicago goes nutso for St. Patrick’s Day. There’s a lot of Irish folks around here to be sure, but there’s a lot of posers, too. Nevertheless, I took a brief timeout from the International Housewares Show I was working at to experience the Irish-ness.
There are people dressed in the craziest green clothing I’ve ever seen all over the city. They dye the Chicago River green. And I don’t mean green like a river normally is; I mean green like if you swim in it you’re going to grow a unicorn horn (see below.) And everyone goes out. It’s silly, really.
But, I too, along with my bride, threw on a green shirt, strolled down Lincoln Avenue to a public house. Had a green brew and toasted the Irish. And honestly, I may have as just a reason to celebrate as anyone.
I hate snakes.
I hate ’em. St. Patrick supposedly banished ’em. I could hang with that dude.
Speaking of dudes. My friend Craig is one. And a pretty awesome one. He just hired the Tejas Brothers to play at his wedding in June.
That dude’s got awesome in spades. I’m proud to know him.
I’m sure that there is a lot more going on in my life right now, but I don’t want to ramble on forever. I apologize to you both for my absence. Hopefully, I will not let you down like that again.
And if you aren’t listening to them already: Lost Immigrants, Tejas Brothers, Stoney LaRue. You won’t be disappointed. They get me through the work day.
