LIVING WITH MCL

This morning I discovered I had been de-friended by one of my friends on Facebook. It appears a comment I made on a recent post of his did not go over as intended. I only meant it in jest, but obviously he didn't see it that way. This isn't the first time I've pissed off a friend with something I've said, but it is the first time the action was met with such finality. I even feel bad about it. I just hope I can avoid dwelling on it beyond this post. Still, I can't help but think his actions are related to the polarization that has overcome this country, creating an environment where we are intolerant of anyone who doesn't share our views, while pitting everyone in the country against each other, and creating an environment of divisiveness and distrust. Oh well, as the French say, c'est la vie!

Sometimes I amaze myself at the things I am able to accomplish when I want [need] to, but that pales in comparison to what Cadel Evans was able to do in this years Tour de France. Twice I thought the Tour had slipped out of his reach, but twice Evans managed to crawl his way back. The first time was on stage 18, when Andy Schleck attacked 60 km from the finish, and built up a 4 minute lead over Evans. Undaunted, after exhausting his entire team, and without the help of any of the other teams, Evans still managed to fight his way back, and cut the lead to just 2 minutes and 15 seconds, keeping himself within a reachable 1:12 (57 seconds from Andy Schleck) out of the Yellow Jersey. Then, on Stage 19, Alberto Contador attacked only 16 km into the stage. Evans was able to go with him (along with Andy Schleck and Thomas Voekler) initially, but within a very short time encountered bike problems, and was forced to change bikes, putting him behind Contador and Schleck by over a minute and a ha

You know, if I weren't one of the unluckiest people in the world, I'd probably be one of the luckiest people in the world. The only thing is, I wouldn't be the latter, if I weren't the former. I guess there really is some truth to that old adage "you have to take the bad with the good".

It seems everyone is getting into the wine business nowadays. In Costco the other day, I noticed Jack Nicklaus now has a wine with his name on it. GIMME A BREAK! There are already too many producers on the market, and it's getting harder and harder to find the good ones. Why do we need to flood the market even more? And while [a high] price is certainly no guarantee of quality, you can pretty much rest assured anything under $10 is not going to be very good. Between $10 and $20 dollars, you might get lucky and get the occasional good wine, but the pickin's are slim. In general, if you're not willing to spend at least $30 for a bottle of wine chances are you're not going to be drinking a good wine. Now I don't mean to imply spending $30 or more will guarantee you a good wine, but at least you should have a 50-50 shot at it. And even better odds the higher the price. But in most cases, they'll at least be palatable, which is more then I can say for the cheaper ver

Yeah, that's the ticket! Barely accomplished anything today, which isn't much different from most other days, but at least I had lots of time to do nothing. I couldn't even rely on the Tour d'France to occupy any of my time today, as it was a much deserved rest day for the riders. (If you haven't been watching the Tour this year, I suggest you start. It has been exceptionally exciting.) So what the heck, I decided I can spare 15 minutes to update everyone on what little has been going on since my last post. I did manage to get Edie's car serviced today, and I was delighted to learn that after 16,000+ miles, the brakes were still pretty much like new. (They typically don't last that long.) So I guess you could say the day wasn't a total loss. Plus I got the Lexus smogged on Saturday, which is still going strong after 18 years. I also received the results of my latest blood work the other day, and they weren't very encouraging. My hemoglobin dropped to