Blazin'

Last night I took Grady to see the Portland Trailblazers pull out a much-needed win against the Golden State Warriors. It was fun and Grady was very well behaved. He quickly got the gist of the game, cheering for every Blazer basket and shouting "DEFENSE!" when the Warriors had the ball. He was intensely interested for three full quarters, then at about 9:00 p.m., he asked if we could go home.

We left but saw a big line at the merchandise stand, so we investigated. Everything was 50% off, so Grady and Liam now have authentic Trailblazer jerseys. Both are #3, Damon Stoudamire. Grady insisted on wearing his jersey to bed and also over his school uniform today. The teacher in charge of the breakfast room today gave him a really good time about it.

I was supposed to go to the game with a friend, but he, sadly, rushed home to Montana to be with his mother who was, this Tuesday, unexpectedly given just a couple of days to live. It really shook Colleen and me to hear this as we've enjoyed nice times with our friend's mother and father during a couple of holiday get togethers.

I listened to about 20 minutes Condi Rice's testimony this morning on NPR and thought she did really well. Though, I think the Bush administration has erred in not being more open in saying, "Look, the world changed on 9/11. We didn't, nor did previous administrations, believe there was reason to make homeland security our top priority before 9/11. Clearly we were wrong, and we're in a different environment today. Let us spend our time on present and future actions to prevent further catastrophes." The administration just can't seem to admit any fallibility. It would benefit them here.

I got a new digital camera earlier this week. Olympus Camedia C-50. It's a 5 mega-pixel, 12X zoom camera. That is up from our older Fuji FinePix 1400's 1.3 mega-pixel, 3X zoom. The Olympus is a lot more complex than the Fuji, so I'm trying to master all its different modes. I managed to take some good shots on Tuesday that I will post soon.