Quite frankly, not sure how I feel about the news of Airborne reaching a tentative settlement in a class action lawsuit that the company misrepresented its product.

Okay they may have misled some but come on… it’s a dietary supplement for heaven sakes! Does anyone really think any dietary supplement works? They clearly said ‘it was created by a school teacher’. A school teacher? My mom was a school teacher. I can’t see her in some secret lab coming up with a formula that cures the common cold. It’s just advertising like when we saw the sailor go up in lighthouse and say ‘What’s this? Hmm a non-dairy creamer’. Like we didn’t know creamers were supposed to be made from dairy and not plastic.

I just don’t get the whole ‘sue everybody and his brother’ kick America is on. Think how our healthcare costs could be reigned in if we had tort reform. Didn’t anyone read that novel by John Gisham, King of Torts where the main character gets rich of Tort cases?… I think his name was John Edwards.

Then again… maybe old John is thinking right. We forked over hard earned cash on these Airborne things and all it was was gas. (Robin was a firm believer. I scoffed them but took them anyway so that makes me culpable as well.) Perhaps we should apply…. and John Edwards needs to pay off his campaign debts anyway.

Yesterday I flew back to Colorado after a week of meetings in South Carolina. It was a long day to say the least. I drove up to meet Luke at his Uncle Allan’s in Lady Island, SC. (Despite the name, I didn’t hear or see any sirens.) We went out to lunch with Allan, Woody and Carolyn. After spending a little time at a park in nearby Beaufort, Luke and I left them and drove the 135 miles to Columbia airport. We arrived in plenty of time.

After going through security, we just sat in the big rocking chairs at CAE and watched planes land and take off followed by a supper of BBQ and hotdog. I had the BBQ sandwich as Columbia doesn’t have hotdogs like this. Our flight from Columbia was one of those puddle jumpers to Washington DC. You actually walk on the tarmac to board.

As it neared the time to board, Luke and I went downstairs and saw where the flight was delayed from a 7:15 departure to a 7:50 departure. This meant we would have 30 minutes to make our connection in DC.

If you have ever flown into Dulles, you know they have those crazy people movers. I knew we would fly into one terminal and then have to take one of them to another. The timing didn’t look right. But we would try none the less. I asked Luke if he was ready to run.

As we landed our flight to Denver was already boarding. We deplaned first and Luke did a good job of running through terminal A up some stairs to just make a crazy people mover. His little legs were churning like I never seen before. The only problem is that this people mover was going to terminal C and our flight to Denver was D-5. We could have waited for a D terminal people mover but it didn’t leave for another 5 minutes. It was one of those quick decisions and knowing I could run from C to D, we jumped on board as the driver was just closing the door.

At C, we got off the people mover and ran again. Luke started to tire so I carrying him leaving only one set of footprints in the sand… er, carpet. I am not in shape and running while carrying my carry-on, Luke’s and a 45+ lb little boy wore me out. I had to set him down and walk, catch my breath and try it again… 2X. We made it to our gate with 8 minutes to spare.

When we got to Denver, we waited a long time for our bags not knowing if they made it for not. It was taking like forever for the bags to arrive at baggage claim – a long time even for DIA. After 30 minutes, I took Luke to where Robin was waiting in the car and went back down and they still hadn’t arrived. I asked a foursome of baggage handlers standing off to the side if there was a strike that I didn’t know about. They chuckled and said it was just because a number of flights arrived at the same time. I didn’t buy that reasoning and wondered if it was one of those non-strike strikes but waited nonetheless. But they finally came and Robin took us home. (A co-worker spent the night and stayed with Jack and Drew.)

We got to bed at 2 am or 4 am to Luke and my bodies. I need a nap and trip to chiropractor.

Tomorrow Luke and I will get on a plane. Just us. Well and all the other passengers. I have a week-long conference in SC and Luke is going to stay with his parents.

Luke is homeschooling this semester in Pre-school so he, Grammy and Grand Papa will do little field trips and projects.

We need to be at the airport @ 5:15 am for 6:15 flight. We fly to Dulles arriving a little before noon. Then we take a small puddle-jumper to Columbia, rent a car and drive to Grammy’s.
Luke made a poor choice tonight and choice to not take a bath so he will have to get up at 4 am to bathe. Robin will get him up since she is more by the book on Love and Logic and let him choose. Me? I’d just bathe him tonight or let him go w/o one. But then again I don’t think he’s had one in a week so maybe those sitting near us wouldn’t like that.

So this is like the first time we have traveled just Luke and me; though when Robin was carrying Jack and Drew, he and I drove to Moab to meet my parents who were on a bus trip across the West. Of course one day we will make the excursion to PA together.

I came home today to Luke having 105 degree temperature. Robin just took him to Urgent Care. Hope its not that strain of flu going around.

This coming Sunday, he and I have a little trip together. I have some meetings for a week in SC so he is flying with me and staying with his grandparents (Robin’s parents). Sure hope he is back to his self by then. (Well maybe not totally back to his self for his grandparents sake but well enough so he can have fun and be spoiled by them.)

Since Valentine’s Day and President’s Day are so close together shouldn’t we just combine the two and call it ‘Franklin Pierce Weekend’?

He was the President of Love, you know.

Now that the Writer’s Strike is over, I will be back posting again myself. No more reruns of past blo posts or scab writers who have been writing on my blog for the past 3 months.

Almost twenty years ago, I was in Kisumu Kenya. My team premiered the Luo translation of the Jesus film and showed it numerous times in Kisumu and the surrounding area working with local churches. It was a life-changing summer and I fell in love with Kenyans.

Now this is Kisumu as Luo tribal gangs have protested the corrupt election. Kisumu gangs of men have armed themselves with machetes and set up burning barricades. Businesses have shut down and workers have fled from the town center.

Last Night I participated in my first Caucus. I have voted in primaries but never caucused. So at 7 pm, I drive to the local high school and found the table upstairs in the library where my precinct was gathering. There were 12 of us for precinct 35 of the Republicans which I am registered as. Robin is registered without a party affiliation so she couldn’t participate and she needed to put kids to bed anyway. She was gracious to let me go.

I fully expected it to be like the Iowa Caucus where you voted for your candidate and then if they didn’t have enough votes you voted again until you were left with two and the one with the majority wins. But no…. at least not for the Republicans of Colorado.

It was non-binding straw poll. I voted secretly. They counted them out and my guy actually was third by one vote. I would have liked to voted again for the number two guy who was second by one vote but we didn’t do it that way. Then our little precinct/table selected delegates for the county to vote again in March. We were allotted 5 which seems a lot for just 12 people but again it’s based on number of registered voters not the number who showed up.

So one guy elects himself as a delegate and I can tell he is for the guy I am not for. How do I know? Let’s just say he looks like someone in his day that would have driven around my neighborhood on a bike with a coat and tie. So I volunteered myself.

But even the vote on March 8th is non-binding because as a county we will send people to state. Crazy. But maybe by then the guy I certainly hope is not the candidate will have bowed out.

A week ago I lamented about the upcoming Sunday Bowl. Mostly because I didn’t care about either team and especially didn’t like the Pats. I even went as far as being critical of Tom Coughlin, coach of Giants.

It’s officially Super Bowl week and for the first time in I don’t know how long I really don’t care. After last year when we had two classy coaches who happened to be Christian and African-American, this year we have two head coaches who seem to be jerks. (By the way, I highly recommend Quiet Strength. You can finish it before Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers appear.)