Home stretch, SOTU

Yesterday I had a trip back to the ortho. I got a plastic retainer for my bottom teeth to be worn at night. I have a wire retainer but that didn’t connect to one tooth on the bottom that was really angled inward. When I put the retainer on at night, that tooth hurt like a SOB, an indication that it had already started to move back in that 6 week time period. I also got my my last 3 trays for my upper teeth. The tooth straightening fiasco that began back in September of 2003 is finally coming down the home stretch. It’s hard to believe.

Last night I installed the new lock cylinder in the van. It installed without issue and the ignition now feels brand new. It feels good to identify, troubleshoot and fix a problem on your own. There are a few minor things on the list to fix on the van like replacing one of the seatbelts on one of the captains chairs and come up with a fix for the front cupholders. The repair list is nowhere near as daunting as the 88 Vette that had a list pages long of things to fix.

For some reason I had an urge to see W give his state of the union address. I soon remembered why I had avoided them recently. I can not stand the endless pause/applause breaks that make it drag on forever. However it does crack me up to see the networks cut to shots of people relevant to whatever Bush was referring to. The shots of the audience when the republican side would stand and applaud while the democrats sat and golf clapped were funny. Ali took notice that W was wearing a blue tie, evidently some sort of effort to show bi-partisanship since typically demos wear blue and pubby’s wear red ties. The basic theme that Bush kept implying was that there was one way for things to be done and that was the only way. Typically if you meet a person that thinks his way is right and is the only way things can be done, you would identify him as pompous, unrealistic, close minded and/or arrogant jerk. Yet, such a man is running the country. The shots of the mostly decrepit, dust farting, corrupt politicians, whether they be democrats or republicans left me feeling hopeless for any chance of real change ever going on in our government. The only thing I heard W say that was positive was the ideas about alternative energy, hybrids, etc. However his promise of reducing oil dependence by 75% in 20 years was one of those classic political statements that sound good but in reality mean nothing because he has absolutely nothing to do with what will happen 2 decades from now. His promise of reducing the deficit by 2009, after he is out of office is another empty promise that he will never be held accountable for. The speech was just chock full of bullshit. I was surprised to see the Virgina governor deliver the democratic response but he was quite capable and did a good job of delivering a message that more closely followed reality. The best moment of the night was when Bush mentioned how his SS reform was defeated which prompted the democratic side to erupt into applause, that was some funny shit. Keep cutting taxes for the rich, W and bury us in deficits of unfathomable depths you will go down as being one the biggest F sticks we ever had running the joint.