A few observations since I feel like I’ve been in limbo for the past few weeks:

Arizona winter arrived right on schedule, although it’s going to feel like Spring the rest of this week and this weekend as the temps go back into the mid-90s. The pool season is over, though – 74 degrees is chilly no matter how you slice it. It wasn’t much of a pool season this year – lots of dust blowing around, too much late-night work. I just don’t feel as if I got my money’s worth out of the pool this year. It happens…

Experiencing a funeral conducted with full military honors (as it was with my brother Mark) is an impressive, somber, and emotional thing to watch. The two young servicemen who unwrapped the flag and then folded it back up again with such precision while dozens of people watched was an impressive thing to see indeed. There was a real veteran playing “Taps” on the trumpet as well; oftentimes these days that’s a recording. As impressive as it all was, to me it will always be remembered as the cap to a life that was incredibly wasted.

My brother Dave was right, though, in his brief eulogy during Mark’s funeral service. Just as much as my good friend Rock was as much a Hurricane Katrina casualty as much as anyone who died during the actual flooding, so Mark was a casualty of the Gulf War as much as anyone who died in the Iraqi or Kuwaiti deserts. He never could separate the (significant) baggage that came with someone just doing their job from the moral aspects of it. I’m guessing a lot of people come away from war feeling the same way.

Which, BTW, is one of the reasons why I detest politicians so much. They have no problem sending people off to die and to kill others just to achieve their own political agendas. Unless I see a bunch of Al-Qaeda guys storming ashore on the beaches of Massachusetts or New Jersey or North Carolina or Florida or Texas or California or Washington don’t bother me. I’ll be more than happy to die to defend my own country from aggressors but I’ll be damned if I’d die just to save someone else’s.

Watched the Bloomberg debate tonight and I’m officially debated out. Bring on the primaries. The only people who should be running right now are Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry. The others are just wasting their time and other people’s money.

Happy birthday to The Great White Shank, who turns 56 today. Excuse me if I don’t feel like celebrating. Waiter, just send me over a Mai Tai from Trader Vic’s (at the Hotel Valley Ho here in Scottsdale) and that’ll be sufficient.