The Colonel's Forum

In case you were wondering what an ice storm can do to a tree, here's a close up view. The sun came out today after about 4 days of cold and ice. The official weather report says we only got .5 inches of ice, but I think this picture tells a different story, especially when you consider the ice has been melting for almost 24 hours at this point.

The day has finally arrived. I watched today's inauguration in Plainfield, IL which is just outside Chicago. I know that nothing huge has changed in my personal life today, but still I feel a sense of relief. There is no longer an idiot in the Oval office. No more inventing words. No more giving everyone in the executive branch stupid nicknames like "Condi" and "Brownie." I hope this also means an end to bad intelligence (i.e. "Iraq has WMD so we need to invade..."), but that's probably asking too much. I do know for a fact that neither Obama's campaign or his inauguration were funded by unions, corporations, or special interest groups, and I know the same could not be said for "W." To me this means that at least our next President can start his first day in office tomorrow without feeling like he owes anything to anyone except the millions of citizens who voted for him. It's a shame that this is such a radical concept. ...

The holidays are always a challenge for me. This is primarily because I'm a real Grinch about Christmas, but I also recognize that it's important to spend time with friends and family celebrating all that I have to be thankful for. New Years and my birthday just remind me that I'm older, so that can be a drag too. So I guess I really like Thanksgiving the most. This season was more or less like others in the recent past. Travel to Carmel, Asheville, spend time in Lexington with our friends here... This year included a trip to Kansas for my cousin Tim's wedding. We would've preferred that it was in Miami, but what can you do. They're a beautiful couple and it's great to see his life coming together so well. A few more weeks of training and they'll put his name on a Cobra helicopter and ship him to North Carolina. Sadly, that also means he's also that much closer to getting shipped off to "Afghani-Paki-really-really-bad" or wherever ...