1. Grieve. I know it sounds silly, but give yourself some time to deal with the situation free of all others and their opinions. A good cry can be very cleansing. No judgement, no contradicting opinion, no salient advice that seems good at the time. Just grieve, clear the emotional bank, and start the slate clean.

2. Think of your circumstance as a challenge, not a setback. Too many times viewing things as a setback causes a person to become mistrusting and cynical. Cynicism in someone as young as you just doesn't translate. Try to view it as a challenge you will overcome. It may not be easy, but upon reflection, it's about the only thing that keeps the ulcers away.

3. Choose your path, and never waiver. It's so easy to throw your hands in the air and take the path of least resistance. There are obstacles for every plan you make and every goal you set. Don't settle for expediency's sake. The obstacles that you overcome are defining moments in your character.

4. Chase your passion. Before embarking down a road, ask yourself 'What am I passionate about ?' Nine times out of ten the answer will be what you should do. I also know that nine times out of ten this will not be the path chosen by others. Be the rogue explorer who chooses to follow their passion. You will look back with no regret.

I know that things will work out for you. Nothing happens overnight, but if you remain committed to yourself, things will do nothing but improve. I wish you the best.

I must confess, I am neither a confirmed democrat, nor a republican. I believe changing things up from time to time is needed, despite political affiliations. I am not in the state of my life where I am glued to CNN, and looking for every political limp or tremble to help me make up my mind on who to vote for in three weeks. Nor am I to be the type to be swayed by a scary voice and haunting pictures of the doom and gloom the other party portrays as the consequences for not voting for them. I am of the belief that people will believe what they will, and sometimes you need to convince them with what's already been said so far, rather than a pretty face, some 'down home Joe six-pack' talk about fixing what's broken, or flashy speeches.

A friend of mine sent me this, and this is the absolute perfect way for me to sift through the poo the candidates are throwing at one another to tell me who's better for this country, and who is full of shit. Please pass this on to all the people who are caught up in the 'soccer mom for vice-president rhetoric'. If McCain/Palin win, Palin is only one burst aneurysm away from leading this country. That should SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ALL OF YOU WHO READ THIS.

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values
don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

*If you respect science, you're spiritually bankrupt.
*If you believe Adam & Eve and Satan shared acreage with the dinosaurs and the world is about 6,000 years old, you're qualified to appoint Supreme Court justices.

OK, much clearer now.

Let me predicate my remarks with a little insight. I am not the most patient person by nature when it comes to being on the road, and when given the opportunity, I do drive slightly faster than the posted limits. However, the reason I give this trip through hell a name like 'Seven Miles of Stupid' is because these same things would happen to someone who always did 35 in a 35 zone.

The title alone is deceptive. It could mean Congress holding hands, a stretch of highway in some backwoods bayou, but to me seven miles of stupid is the pet name I've given to my commute to work. I have a catharsis that I seem to come to every day when I finally arrive at the office. I realize that nothing at work will stress me out more than what I experienced on the road on the way to work.

Here is (believe it or not) what I experienced just this week on my journeys. I start by going through construction (as I'm sure everyone does at some point). The drivers in front of me show themselves to be very selfless, stopping traffic behind them so they can let someone in who obviously can't wait after getting their Egg McMuffin at the McDonalds to pull back into traffic. This driver shows their gratitude of holding up a long line of cars by accelerating into traffic with all the grace of Jerry Lewis.

Construction over, so it's smooth sailing, right ? Don't think so. Next I come across the multi-tasker. One who is trying to put on makeup, have a conversation on their phone, digging for shit in the middle console, and swerving back and forth between lanes doing 5 under the speed limit. I often thought that most of these 'type A' personalities would be very capable of doing these things at the same time, but I believe I am behind a 'type A' wanna be. And what strikes me funny is that 'wannabe' is doing all this while they're driving, but when up at the red light, they are staring straight forward, hands at 10 and 2, not doing anything. It apparently is the rule of the wannabe that the vehicle must be in motion for all these tasks to be accomplished.

After passing the wannnbe  (doing the speed limit, mind you), I encounter my next driver type, one I affectionately call the Anti-Autobahn. On the Autobahn, it's forbidden to drive in the left lane without the intention to pass. And in my drivers ed class, I learned the simple rule - Left lane fast, right lane slow. Apparently on the Seven Miles of Stupid, those rules do not apply. Anit-Autobahn procedes to drive ten under the posted limits in the fast lane with their turn signal on for a good half-mile. Is that clicking noise they're hearing and that green arrow they're seeing in their dashboard console not setting off an alert ?

Halfway there. I think I've seen the worst of it. But no, I come across my most aggravating type of driver, commonly known by me as 'Knuckles". I call them this because when I get behind them, that's all I see through the back window, their knuckles around the steering wheel. One of the little quirks of Knuckles is that they drive like they're constantly looking for an address, usually in the fast lane. They are very consciencious, but when it comes to following cars, I think they have the 1 car length for every ten miles of speed backwards.

With Knuckles in my rear view mirror, I take a calm relaxing breath. I'm almost there. I can see the final turn in my sights when I meet the last driver type, known by me as Oblivious. Oblivious has seen me at the lights in the right lane for the last two intersections, but thinks that I've magically vaporized in a ghostly fashion, and that my lane is clear. The warning sign is when Oblivious starts driving like they are also looking for an address (a.k.a. the Oblivious tourist). This is followed by a swerve, a horn honk, Oblivious throwing their hands in the air with the 'you shouldn't have been where I needed to go' shrug and my heart leaping into my throat for a minute or two.

I finally arrive and pull into work with my hair disheveled, face flushed, slightly sweaty. And to think in eight or nine hours, I get to take this adventure again. 

That's it. I'm quitting.

To the under 40 crowd,

When I was a kid, my parents used to bore me to tears with their tedious about how hard things were when they were growing up, and I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But... I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. Let's cite some examples on how things were back when I was a kid...

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up in the card catalog. A google to us was a number. There was no email. We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there. There were no iPods or MP3 players. If you wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself. Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and screwed it all up. There were no cell phones. You couldn't contact your BFF Jill, unless you passed her a note in class, or called her on the phone. You know, the phone with the six foot cord that couldn't stretch to your bedroom. 

We didn't have any fancy Sony PS3, XBox360 or Nintendo Wii video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had the Atari 2600 or Colecovision. With games like Space Invaders and Asteroids and the graphics were horrible.Your guy was a little square. You actually had to use your imagination. And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever. And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! . Just like LIFE!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only 15 channels and there was no on-screen menu and no remote control. You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on, and actually had to get up out of the chair, walk over to the TV, and change the channel. There was no Cartoon Network either. You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying ? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, and they ended at noon on Saturday. You actually had to leave the house after 12 noon on Saturday in order to avoid doing chores.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 40 Crowd

Libracorn (Fiscal week 1 through Fiscal week 8 (using the 4-5-4 Accounting Calendar)) -  Avoid fast food at all costs today. With Jupiter in its apex, and Mercury rising, this spells bouts of spastic colon on the horizon. Be sure to keep a bathroom in close proximity, as you will need it. Repeatedly. 

Scorpius (Fiscal week 9 through Fiscal week 17 (using the 4-5-4 Accounting Calendar)) - Parents are treasures, and today is the day the Scorpius will attest to that fact and rewards shall be heaped on parents today. Whether it be purely altruistic, a thank you for the gift of life, or trying to relieve that deep-seeded guilt or resentment for the fight 10 years ago when you dropped your first f-bomb in front of your mother. Nothing like a nice salad to make the pain go away.

Aquareo (Fiscal week 18 through Fiscal week 26 (using the 4-5-4 Accounting Calendar)) - Dangerous curves await you on the roads today. Try to avoid those cars with more bumper stickers on the back than miles on the odometer. This should scream to your subconscious, "they have gone everywhere in the world and are now looking for a place to die". Pull over...let them get a good piece ahead of you, and while you are waiting, be sure to fill out the organ donor section of your license.

Virgitarrius (Fiscal week 27 through Fiscal week 35 (using the 4-5-4 Accounting Calendar)) - For the Virgitarians, hope springs eternal, as an old beau/belle makes their triumphant return from a mediocre, drunken and/or abusive relationship that they got into on the rebound from you. They will more than likely be older, larger, and more hideous, and the temptation is there for a major slam. Do them and yourself a favor. If you cannot be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

Piscini (Fiscal week 36 through Fiscal week 44 (using the 4-5-4 Accounting Calendar)) - Expanding your social circle is the key today. Try out the mass transit system, the public library, or even those internet chat rooms. But beware, appearances can be deceiving. A supermodel can easily become "Skeeter", a balding 45-year-old trucker from Muncie, who has nothing better to do than raise hopes, and then leave you dejected like anyone who paid to see that "Bennifer" classic "Gigli". 

Cancaries (Fiscal week 45 through Fiscal week 52 (using the 4-5-4 Accounting Calendar)) - Good fortune finds you today....whether it be something like a whirlwind romance or even the little things, like finding twenty dollars in wadded up ones in your winter coat that you haven't worn since your St. Valentines "episode" in which you proclaimed your love of winter, snow, cheetos, kittens, TV Guide and gravel at the top of your lungs at three in the morning in the middle of the street. So go have fun....no one remembers those little things.

Man in thong visits beach

Hard to believe this headline made a newspaper these days....here is the link -

http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/news/2008/aug/05/man-thong-visits-beach/

CRAYON FIVE (kray`-on fiv) n. 1. A new version of the five dollar bill, where the five on the right bottom of the back side is in purple with an immense font size. 2. A new bill that does not work in current bill readers to give change. e.g. "I wanted to get myself a Coke from the break room, but I have no change because all I have in my pocket is a crayon five."