My wife and I are football fans. More specifically, we’re Seattle Seahawk fans. We used to hold season tickets back when the team played in the old concrete hamburger known as the King Dome, and while they played at Husky Stadium, and for the first season in the new stadium. Then we dropped the tickets because they kept getting more expensive and the quality of the play kept getting worse.

It took a long time for us to lose our disenchantment with the team, but we were outraged at the officiating in February of 2005. The Seahawks have given us a bumpy ride, including one of the worst seasons I can remember last year, but we’re still fans. We just stick to watching them on television or listening to the games on the radio. We don’t even keep track of the schedule anymore until the last minute.

I celebrate two (actually three) very important occasions today. OK, one day (actually two) of importance to only a few, and one that should be important to us all.

Today, I turn 50. That’s right, I’ve been wandering about this planet now for half a century. I’m sure there was a time when my parents wondered if I’d even make it half that far. That’s probably only important to a few people.

Three days ago, my 18th wedding anniversary passed. Due to a family illness we couldn’t actually celebrate it then, because my lovely bride and I were in different states. We hope to rectify that tonight, and then to celebrate. Again, that’s probably important only to a few people.

Much more importantly for the rest of the country, today marks the 222nd anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution. That’s right, nearly two and a quarter centuries ago a group of men hammered out what is arguably the best system of government possible for mankind.

Once again, my dad has forwarded me an interesting piece of email. It’s worth a look I believe…

Cash for clunkers

A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.
A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that’s 224 million gallons / year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day’s US consumption.
And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $375 million dollars at $75/bbl.
So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $375 million.
How good a deal was that ???
But they’ll probably do a really great job with health care though!!

First the good news. The teachers are back to work. I dropped my son off at school at 7:30 this morning. For him at least this should be good news. We put him into one of the best schools in the school district, and expect him to do well there this year.

We had originally taken him out of the school district and “home schooled” him through the Washington Virtual Academy. We did this because of problems in the local school, and it worked very well for the first year. The second year it didn’t work out quite as well, and we decided that he needed to go back to a more regimented program. The school we chose for him is one that one of his best friends has been going to for a while and thriving at. Now that the teachers are back doing what they agreed to do last year it’s good to see him back at school.