Morning all:

“If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age” — George Burns

This morning I am struggling—NO COFFEE!

I have to fast for a couple of more hours till after some lab tests are finished, so—NO COFFEE. I have just switched doctors and upon completing my personal and family histories he scheduled me for a complete battery of tests. This morning’s lab work deals with much mumbo jumbo alphabet soup, PSA, CBC, TSH, and oh so much more. Monday I’ll spend the afternoon like a rat in a cage running the treadmill with a load of nuclear poison raging through my system.

This is part of the buildup to the daddy of these tests, the test du jour, a Colonoscopy.

I pleaded with him to have mercy, even bringing up the fact that we once played indoor soccer together. He wouldn’t budge. It’s off to the tests I go.

Spring is officially here. It only took 5 inches of rain to make little yellow and purple crocuses pop open. Five inches of rain did cause some flooding in the area. Immediately the weather weenies had words such as “worst in decades”. I actually started to believe them on day two of the rains. However, when it was all over a grizzled old timer living upriver from us was quoted saying that during the flood of 1997 the Ohio River ran seven feet higher. Does put into perspective doesn’t it.

Last weekend we went to watch our Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Two hours of bands, politicians, massive amounts of our Sherriff’s fire power, Shriners packed in tiny little cars, Shriners on funky and wobbly bikes, Shriners on motorbikes, Shriner clowns, and a dozen De Lorean cars in formation with their distinctive gull-wing doors popped wide open. It was grand.

I think that Marin was hoping the De Loreans would all of a sudden accelerate and race off into the future. To his disappointment they did not. But, he did better than even Halloween in the candy collection department. He too had a great time.

Our city fathers are busy turning Cincinnati into a mid-west version of Portland. The latest is that we are on the verge of embarking on a streetcar building program. Never mind that in the mid ’50s the whole Cincinnati streetcar system was dismantled. Then the cars went to Toronto and the tracks were either paved over or recycled. What comes around goes around I guess.

The push behind the streetcar program is that we must be ‘green’ and these mass transit vehicles are very clean people movers.

Now our bus transit system – Cincinnati Metro – is not to be outdone on the conservation bit. I know that our friends in Europe dis us for driving our huge SUVs and that soon we’ll be shamed into versions of their tiny ‘Smart’ cars. So, unveiled at the Saint Patrick’s Day parade was Metro’s brand spanking new mass transit bus—as ‘green’ as green gets!

Make it a great week everyone. Happy Easter, and you know what that means! If not, your pastor’s gonna be very disappointed in you.

Cheers,

Dirk