For the past couple of days I haven’t had energy or motivation to do much of anything. Fortunately, that is beginning to pass and I’ll probably go into the office tomorrow afternoon after working from home during the morning. The result has been a lot of channel surfing to find anything at all worth the noise.

Saturday and Sunday had the NCAA Basketball games — eight teams being whittled down to four teams. A couple of the games were outstanding to the very last second. It’s about the only time of the year when basketball becomes marginally interesting to me. The women’s World Final Figure Skating was on Saturday night, but right now the American organization is disintegrating and that is overshadowing the grace, beauty, and athleticism of the sport.

There have been a couple of movies — mostly on the western channel — but mostly completely uninteresting. In the end, the TV has stayed tuned primarily to CNN with occasional switches to Fox. Aaron Brown continues to impress me with his style and sensitivity. Tonight he had a short segment from a reporter at the Pentagon. There was some kind of argument amongst some factions about some facet of the war against Iraq and the reporter said that words had been used "which can’t be repeated on family television." It was then time to cut to a commercial and Aaron remarked how bizarre it was that there are words we can’t use on family TV in the midst of broacasting a horrific war into homes across the entire world.

Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize winning liar of a reporter was fired today after being interviewed on Iraqi TV. In that interview he praised the resistance of the Iraqi military, remarked that his reports were strengthening anti-war sentiment in the U.S., and that the U.S. military’s war planning had "utterly failed." This from a man who deliberately falsified reports of chemical warfare being used by American soldiers in Southeast Asia. NBC and National Geographic both terminated their contracts with Mr. Arnett who apparently has been offered a position reporting for a sensational tabloid paper in England.

Reporters are much more involved in this war than any since Vietnam (and perhaps not even then). Unlike the past couple of military actions where the government literally spoonfed the media, this time reporters have been granted complete access. They travel with the troops, eat with them, sleep with them, get briefed with them, and as long as they maintain operational security, they can report whatever they wish. Most of them are carrying videophones and can file incredible reports as the action is happening. CNN can literally stay with a group of planes leaving a carrier, catch photos of their bombing runs, and video of their recovery back on ship. It’s amazing and seems to be having an amazing effect. We know less and less about more and more going on in the war.

I’ve watched dozens of reports from these "embedded" reporters. It’s graphic, vivid, full color pictures in a microcosm with no context. There are so many of these reports that the news channels have hired lots of ex-military experts to attempt to interprete the information. That attempt to provide context and background falls short as well, as there just isn’t much real news — just nice little vignettes. So, the same stuff gets aired over and over and over again. The same reports on psychological operations being undertaken in Basra by the Brits were aired on Saturday, Sunday, and again today, each time as though they were new information. The story about the suicide bombing has aired similarly. You’d think that a dozen or more of these attacks have happened when in fact there has only one so far (but there will definitely be more).

Eventually the news channels will figure it out. Perhaps it’ll be over by then but I’m afraid that won’t be the case. The Iraqi’s have no intention of rolling over and they don’t yet have any sense of their defeat being inevitable. On the other hand, this cold is about finished and will soon be history. I’ll only remember it as I read back over this journal and then can look at what I’ve written today in the context of time.

I’m sure that in the next century or so, mankind will solve the problem of the common cold, contrary to what WebMD says. Today we can only attack some of the symptoms and then only at the peril of prolonging the time it takes for the body’s natural defenses to mount an effective counterattack. According to the medical web sites such as WebMD, there are so many different viruses that cause the cold, a vaccine will never be invented. Perhaps not in the way that’s been done before, but now that we can sequence the genome, why anything can happen!

It’s around midnight as I write this. I can’t sleep. I was quite exhausted last night, fell into bed around 9:30 and didn’t get up until around 11:30 this morning. Now everything except my stuffed up head thinks I’ve had enough sleep and can’t figure out why I’m trying to lay around in bed. That is most unhelpful as I’d really like to go to bed, sleep for many, many hours, and wake up feeling as much better from today as I now feel from yesterday. That’d be a real treat. The reality however will likely be that I’ll drive myself nuts trying to get some sleep, be an absolute bear all day tomorrow, and make no real progress on this dumb cold.

I did stay home today. Nina drove up for choir practice and then for our afternoon shift at the temple. She says we were very short staffed this afternoon on both the male and female sides of the temple. I would really rather have been there myself. For some reason they don’t have electricity into the temple and haven’t had any since Thursday. Everything is being run from generators. Hopefully that’ll be fixed real soon now!

I will be staying home from Church tomorrow as well. There’s no reason to be hacking and coughing up the chapel spreading this wealth to all who’ll come near. I think I’ve infected more than enough people last week while I was in California. I suspect the person who sleeps next in that bed might be in for real treat. Those germs weren’t very worn out when I left that hotel room.

So, I really want to get to the good drugs — the kind that actually treat the disease, not mask the symptoms — and dramatically reduce the length and severity of a cold. There’s an over-the-counter nasal spray Zicam that seemed to be effective if taken within 24-hours of the onset of the symptoms. Maybe I’ll go buy some for the next time!! A shorter cold cycle would definitely be a blessing. Before I die, I’m hoping we started to get to the good stuff!

For about 2 1/2 months out of the year, the area around San Francisco Bay can be considered verdant. The rest of the time, it’s called the "Golden State" as that’s the color of the hillsides once the June Grass dies in early May. But, right now the hillsides are a very lush green, which is the definition of the word "verdant". The flowering trees are just coming into bloom and the month of April will be the most pleasant time to be in California.

Which is all well and good, except I feel absolutely crappy. I went into the office for a few minutes this morning and finally hung it all up and came back to the hotel room to crash for the rest of the day. I got up around 5:30 p.m. and watched the news. I’ve not been very hungary, but I did go out and pick up a hamburger and fries from McDonalds. It did taste good. I certainly haven’t been very hungry and perhaps that’ll bode well next week when I weigh in. Actually right now, I don’t really care very much.

So here I am in California at the prettiest time of the year and I don’t feel particularly "verdant."

I’ve come down with a wicked cold. Sunday late afternoon it was clear that I was catching cold. However, I was also set for a trip to Milpitas, CA on Monday morning. In hindsight, I should have cancelled the trip and stayed home. I slept the entire flight over here, went into the office for a few hours, and then went to the hotel room. I slept from about 4:30 p.m. through to 6:30 a.m. the next day (today). I came back to the hotel room and noon between meetings and slept for another couple of hours. I left the office at about 4:30 and slept again until 8:30 p.m. I’ve been up since then reading e-mail and now writing this short blog. This’ll get posted in a few minutes and I’m off to bed once again.

The cold is accompanied by a horrid cough that seems to just tear me up inside. I’ve been living on cough syrup which only helps marginally. I hate being sick!

As I was growing up there was a popular song by Merle Travis titled "Another Day Older … And Deeper In Debt." Tennessee Ernie Ford had the most popular recording of the song which he called "Sixteen Tons." I suspect that most people would associate the song with him.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.

I turned another year older yesterday. Best part about it is, we’re not deeper in debt! In fact we’ve been able to reduce a significant amount of debt over the past year and other than some smaller balances on a couple of credit cards and a mortgage, we’re pretty close to debt free. Since war started with Iraq last night, that could turn out to be important! Yup — we’re liberating/disarming Iraq and I sure hope it goes quickly and smoothly.

Birthdays are pretty much non-events for me. I’ve had enough of them that I’m not particularly interested in counting any more. What ever happened to the days when people had to stop and think about how old they were? My wife Nina has her birthday one day before mine. We’re a day short of being a year apart in age. So, one day out of the year, we’re the same age. Then we go to sleep and I wake up a year older and she wakes up a day older. Doesn’t seem to be much justice in that!

The storm did come. Lots of wind and some pretty miserable weather arrived with it. Points north of Colorado Springs took the brunt of the storm on this side of the mountains. Around the house we picked up between four and six inches of snow, most of which got distributed quite unequally by the strong wind. On the west side of Pikes Peak, however, snowfalls were three to four feet in depth. Jared got about three feet at his apartment in Denver. The weight of the snow at the Denver International Airport caused one of the canvas peaks making up the roof to tear and dump a lot of snow into the terminal. Nina would like to know why the worst of the storm is always somewhere else? Personally, I’m quite happy to just be a year older with not much snow to shovel.

According to the National Weather Service, we’re in for a real storm:

… Late Winter Storm Affecting Southeast Colorado…

Starting To Take Shape This Evening Over Southeast Colorado. The Storm Will Bring Heavy Snow To The Southeast Mountains… And Parts Of The Southeast Plains Over The Next Few Days. Tonight And Tuesday… The Airmass Associated With This Storm Will Probably Keep Snow Levels At Or Above 6000 Feet. By Tuesday Night And Wednesday… Snow Levels Will Likely Drop Closer To 5000 Feet Or Possibly Even Lower. At This Time… Snowfall Should Become Much More Widespread Across The Lower Elevations… With Significant Accumulations Becoming More Widespread. The Low Pressure System That Is Bringing The Winter Storm To Colorado… Is Very Large… Very Moist… And Very Slow Moving. Due To The Prolonged Nature Of The Storm… Significant Storm Total Accumulations Will Be Likely.

Past experience is that a storm as heavily forecasted as this one is never lives up to the hype. It’s the weather that kind of sneaks up that leaves the longest impression. However, we need the snow and the rain and as much as nature wants to serve up.

I’ve turned on the ability to add comments. The process is quite simple — just click on the "Comments" at the end of the post and it should work. There’s some funky programming that translates your IP address into a domain name that may not work as planned. If so, then let me know and I’ll take that code out. It’ll be quite obvious if it doesn’t work!

It looks like we’ll be at war with Iraq in two day’s time. President Bush was on TV tonight to address the nation and gave Saddam Hussein two days to go into exile or we would make war. It doesn’t seem possible that Saddam has enough brains to leave the country. I certainly hope it’ll be quick. I don’t think our economy can withstand much more.

I’ve got the upload function working with this setup, so now for the picture! Somewhere around here is the picture of Nina and Dawnmarie at the airport. Nina had just surprised Dawnmarie and I managed to get this picture just before the batteries in the digital camera went dead.

Several weeks ago our daughter Dawnmarie called me to arrange a surprise visit to Colorado Springs this week. My wife and I both have birthdays next week so this was to be our birthday present. Surprise visits are almost a hallmark in our family. Some examples include:

• Before we moved to Germany in 1972 we paid a surprise visit to Idaho to spend Christmas with my folks.
• Our oldest daughter announced over the phone from college that she was getting married, we drove from Ohio to Utah (straight through the night) to help get some wedding arrangements made. The daughter was astounded to wake up and find us in her apartment!

• While we were living in Japan, I arranged for our son and daughter to make a surprise visit to Japan for a week or so (the surprise on Nina’s face when these kids came up the stairs was priceless).
• There are numerous "local" surprise visits, just to make life interesting, such as last Thanksgiving when one of our sons showed up on the doorstep looking for a bite to eat.

So arranging for our daughter to come out for the week as a surprise visit is kind of a normal thing. The unusual part was that her husband, who is a real gem, was quite happy to spend the week at home watching the kids while our daughter came out. He teaches at a college and this week is Spring Break, so he didn’t have to take any extra vacation. However, with four very active kids under the age of seven, he definitely had his hands full. What a guy!

Dawnmarie and I made the arrangements. Rather than have her spend money on an airplane ticket, I used my frequent flier miles to get her here. That would allow her a little more financial freedom in the matter. We had a few other phone conversations getting things arranged and were quite happy with the impending surprise visit.

But, I forgot one important thing. Because I used my frequent flier miles, Northwest mailed a confirmation to my home address. Nina saw this strange thing from Northwest, stripped off the perforations, opened up the envelope, and saw the travel schedule. She tried to figure out how to glue the perforations back on the notice, had no luck at all, and finally gave up. She then told me that she knew Dawnmarie was coming out.

After some discussion, we decided to turn the tables. I wouldn’t say anything to Dawnmarie letting her continue to think that she was the "Surpriser" and that Nina was the "Surprisee." Rather than have Dawnmarie take a taxi from the airport and just walk into the house unexpectedly, I would pick her up at the airport. Nina would come with me, and while we were waiting at baggage claim, spring the reverse surprise.

It worked. Dawnmarie’s flight was to arrive on Sunday evening a little after 10 p.m. We got to the airport about 9:30 to find her flight was delayed by about 25 minutes. We waited until the airplane arrived and the passengers started coming off the plane. Nina went down by baggage claim and became inconspicuous. I met Dawnmarie at the security checkpoint and we went downstairs to baggage claim. She was so excited to be here and was looking forward to a very relaxing week. As the bags were coming out on the conveyor belt, Nina walked up behind Dawnmarie and tapped her on the shoulder. Her shriek of surprise was just delightful. They hugged and danced around the baggage claim area. The tables had been well turned.

Dawnmarie flies back home this afternoon. We’ve had a very nice week with her here. She got a lot of sewing done, some shopping completed, spent a day in Denver with Nina and Jared, took a couple of naps, and is ready to get back home with the husband and kids. It was indeed a very welcome visit.