Quick Thoughts (Sorry!)

So I was talking to a friend in New York today who said:  “I can tell you’re really busy because you haven’t updated your blog in forever!”

Ugh, she’s right, I’ve been awful about updating it… and that I’m really busy.  So a quick glimpse into my world and my brain on all sorts of topics.

*After a tough patch to begin with, Zalen seems to be settling into kindergarten fairly well.  It’s tough for a 5-year-old to go to an all-new school where everyone else knows each other… but he’s being a champ.

*Sidra was the “Star Student of the Week” at school and got to bring home the class mascot, “Wrigley the Bear”, for a week to take pictures with.  I resisted the urge to take Wrigley to U.S. Cellular   Our first soccer game is this Saturday… the “Jonas Sisters” seems to be the leading candidate for team name.

*Sky is busy as always with auditions and the kids… although both of us are also sick with worry over her Aunt Joni.  Joni’s been fighting cancer for about 5 years now and is going through a particularily rough patch this past two weeks in the hospital… so our thoughts are never far from her.

*Okay, other stuff.  My Cubs friends are panicking big time.  This Carlos Zambrano thing sounds oh-so-familiar (see:  Wood, Kerry; Prior, Mark; Miller, Wade; etc…) and now with Rich Harden missing a couple of starts this thing could unravel in a hurry.  The Cubs (admittedly the best team in the NL) are facing a daunting first round playoff opponent in the Arizona Diamondbacks, who will throw Brandon Webb, Danny Haren and Randy Johnson at them.  With Zambrano/Harden/Dempster, the Cubs are able to match up arm-for-arm and their line-up is significantly better.  But if those two guys (worst case scenario obviously) are not around, a Dempster/Lilly/Marquis/Marshall rotation puts them in a world of post-season trouble.  101 years anyone?

*Meanwhile the White Sox seem to be hitting an all-too-familiar September stagger.  The good news is the Minnesota Twins don’t seem likely or even capable of burying the Sox in September either.  This one is likely to come down to the final week of the season when the two teams meet in a Tuesday-Thursday series in Minnesota before they both host final weekend series (Sox vs. Indians/Twins vs. Royals)

*How good was Sarah Palin last night?  Well, if you believe most of the political pundits, her speech was the equivalent of Usain Bolt’s Olympic 100 Meters.  I thought she came off as tremendously likeable and certainly answered a lot of questions about her own resume.  But (and I admit to a bias here), the Republicans are spending a lot of time talking out of both sides of their mouths this week.  John McCain is the man with the most “experience,”… yet in the same breath they want to distance him from what has happened in the last 8 years (an 8 year span he has been profoundly involved in) when it suits them.   He’s a “leader” when it’s time for a leader, but a “maverick” when it’s time for change.  And how does Sarah Palin and the Republican party make her family such a focal point of not only her speech but the entire presentation yesterday… while at the same time blaming the media for making them such a focal point???

For more “fact checking” of Palin’s speech as well as others… check out http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080904/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_fact_check