Notes for a Wednesday morning

-Diane sent this amazing photographic slide show (update: here) with music; your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get out there and take a picture of the guy taking the pictures. (Good luck.)
-finished Herman Wouk's The Hope last night. Been awhile since I've read this author but he again tells a good story, this one taking us through the birth of Israel in 1948 to the conclusion of the Six Day War in 1967. Now it's on to Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War and then Herman Wouk's The Glory.
-Notre Dame football isn't looking too good but the two basketball teams are making some noise, especially the men who are ranked in the top ten and beat IU and Texas in the last two nights at the Maui Invitational. Fyi, the Hoosiers by 38 points and the Longhorns by 1. The women are ranked #14 which isn't all that shabby.
-IU Men's basketball, on the other hand, is worse than the Irish football team. But, lets remember, it is coming off a stupefying scandal and is now trying to pick up the pieces. Bob Karvitz, as usual, has something to say.
-Colts are winning, doing enough to make sure they have at least one more point than their opponents over the last four games. Go Colts!
-President-elect Obama seems to be doing rather well also during this transition time between presidencies. Guess the Hillary appointment is going to be the last one what with Robert Gates staying at Defense, an appointment being confirmed in recent news notes.
-And then there is the continuing financial meltdown in the US and around the world. The pbs.org Jim Leher News Hour has just about been consumed by financial and economic facts and theories and blather. Is this something we are going to have for the next two, three, ten years? Good time to catch a quick nap after a filling dinner, methinks. Do you wonder, as I do, how come there isn't more rage with the disappearance of substantial amounts of people's net worth with the collapse of the housing market and the stock market? Still numb, maybe. Or maybe too early yet. Or maybe we are hoping that the turnaround will be just as quick as the collapse. You remember that it was just last Spring that we had high gas prices and a concern for the economy. And now we have collapse following collapse and a lot of people absolutely stunned. And even more people hunkering down and hoping the storm will pass, will go somewhere else, will disappear. Oh boy.
-Think I'll go have a bit to eat and spend some time reading about the Vietnam War (now that was a real downer). A little later, my date with the young lady at the dentist's office. And then maybe out to the golf course for a little late November in Indiana golf. Now that is something to look forward to!