Darth, Dubya, and Dippity-do

Three items in this week’s news caught my eye:

* Vice President Cheney’s heart hasn’t been working properly. We knew that. Can it really be fixed with just a little electric shock?

* President Bush wants to do something constructive in the Middle East. That would be a nice change

A family’s journey through breast cancer

This is a lengthy post. It consists of 19 entries during the course of my wife’s diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer in 2004. It contains funny and frank stories, things that helped us get through a difficult time, and a look at how a life-threatening condition played out in our family.

April 27, 2004 (update #1)

To the many members of Susan’s Fan Club:

Here we are again, “standin’ in the need of prayer.” We learned this week that Susan has “early abnormal cells of ductal carcinoma in situ” (early stage breast cancer). A cluster of tiny spots showed up on a mammogram last summer, and a second cluster appeared on a follow-up mammogram in March.

Happy birthday, Zatchmo

I love days like today. Our niece and her husband of four months came over for a leisurely brunch, and I baked scones and Swedish toast. This promising young couple lives in Pasadena, so it took a little imagination to combine “sunny and clear” with “high of 46 degrees” and come up with “beautiful day.”

Middle school sophistication

Zack (12) rolled his chair into the hall when he heard Lauren (14) come home from school with her friend Colleen. He’s pretty good at keeping a poker face, but he can’t hide the twinkle in his eyes,

What?! You’re unemployed? Again??

I was laid off in September. It’s a relief not to be a square peg in a round hole any longer, but a layoff is not my preferred exit – especially with less than one day’s notice.

Try the humble pie, Mr. President

Just in time for Thanksgiving, it looks like President Bush has an uncomfortably large piece of Turkey on his plate.

As if the war in Iraq isn’t a big enough mess, Turkey’s prime minister is ready to send his own troops across the border to stop Kurdish rebels (PKK) from staging raids into Turkey from northern Iraq. The problem is complicated and made worse by another shortsighted marriage of convenience coming back to bite us in the butt.   

Changing my vote on Sound Transit Prop 1

NOTE: The comments below are from the 2007 version of Proposition 1.  Haven’t yet learned much about the 2008 proposal, but hope to put my two cents’ worth in soon.  In the meantime, I’m interested in hearing what others are thinking.  Thanks!

November 3

One of our thoughtful neighbors insists that we have to start thinking and acting differently about transportation, and that Sound Transit Proposition 1’s plan to build more of the same – especially roads – doesn’t help us to do that. After reading and thinking and talking about it, I agree. If we believe that voting for an $18 billion package will take us off the transportation hook,