Global Cooling

Why is it, other than comic relief, that whenever Al Gore arrives on the scene to make another glum speech about global warming, the temperature drops thirty degrees? Al Gore is scheduled before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning to once again testify on the 'urgent need' to combat global warming, and the weather calls for “significant snow... sleet... or ice accumulations.”
This has happened so often that his Chicken Little cry is no longer “global warming,” but “climate change.”
And the climate is changing. In fact, it's been changing for the last 60 billion years or so. It always changes. Otherwise, we would know that December 11th is always a bad day to drive through Flagstaff, but every year, December 13 is clear and sunny across northern Arizona.
So the news that the climate is changing is hardly news, but Al Gore continues to make money saying it.

A Sweet Vacation

I’m getting ready to set my annual Groundhog’s Day resolutions, and I think I’ll go off sugar for a month. I did this once before, and it was interesting.
It’s easy to get into the habit of having a candy bar at 10:00 a.m. and a root beer with lunch, then wolfing down a generous share of some gooey dessert that someone brings into work and leaves on the counter. Before you know it you’re up to twenty tablespoons of sugar a day.
Once you go off sugar for a month, it’s fun to then drink a root beer. It’s like drinking a bottle of maple syrup. And Hershey bars are awful.
So, misery loves company. I’m looking for volunteers to have a sugar-free February with me.
Those who survive the month sugar free are entitled to eat whatever they want on March 1.

Allowed: fresh fruit, sugar-free gum, one diet drink a day maximum, one glass of fruit juice a day, water, milk, prime rib
Not allowed: Candy, sodas, desserts

Seaing the World

After Christmas we went to Sea World in San Diego, home of Shameau . . . Shamoo . . . Shamu . . . trained killer whales. One of the first attractions you encounter there is at an attraction called “Humans Standing in Line for Tickets.” We were standing in a line, and I sensed that the line next to us was moving. It was glacial speed, but there was movement. Then, after many minutes I realized that we were standing in one of two lines going to one ticket booth. And our line had people with infants in strollers, and these adults were paying attention to their infants (infants who couldn’t care less about trained killer whales), so naturally these adults were 1) oblivious to the fact that the other line was the only one moving and 2) blocking our view of the ticket booth situation. We eventually got tickets and went in.
We had a good time. We paid lots of money for Italian food for lunch, but after a week of places like McDonalds, it was worth every penny. I recommend the place.
We saw the killer whales, and I have two questions: 1) How do you stand on a killer whale’s nose without slipping off? 2) Why would you stand on a killer whale’s nose and not jump off . . . immediately? Sea World made me appreciate my own job.