>>>I have a good friend in NYC - we go to many jazz clubs. He's definitely left of center. We actually don't talk much politics - our conversations are usually about jazz, or the software industry, or our kids.
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>>There you go.
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>Tonight I was listening to some of the early Yes albums. I hadn't listened to them in quite a long time.
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>Amazing that a hardcore Ayn Rand fanatic like me would like the music of a bunch of ultra-liberal tree-hugging hippies, but the Yes albums from the 70's represent some of the most creative rock of all time.
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>I'm not sure if I'm more a smart-aleck these days or when I was in college. I was probably worse in college. I remember having to read "In the Shadow of Man" by Jane Goodall in a college anthropology class. The book was the most pretentious piece of garbage in existence. In the paper I had to write on the book, I began with...."To quote Shakespeare, Jane Goodall's 'In the Shadow of Man' is a 'tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'". And then later in the paper, when I documented her parents buying her a stuffed animal to commemorate the opening of a zoo in London, I added the following comment...."What an inspiring notion!!! On my child's fifth birthday, I shall buy her that which I revere - a toy replicate of a nuclear power plant". My professor (a self-professed communist) refused to grade my paper.
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>So I guess I've mellowed - I didn't buy Katy a toy replica of a power plant on her last birthday - and I'm not getting her any Ayn Rand comic books for Christmas. Just toys associated with Disney Princesses and a new bike. Wow, I've mellowed.

Excellent Christmas gift choices. Add a puppy and you've hit the trifecta.

Sorry to read about your wife's health problems in another post. Best wishes to her.

BTW, John Ryan is good people. I was fortunate enough to spend a week with him in New Orleans a couple of years ago. He ran his booth like a pro's pro, all business, but there were some good times and good meals as well. I would literally trust him with my life. I am pretty confident the two of you would get along just fine if you met in person.

He did not like New Orleans. It has always been one of my favorite American cities but I had to admit it has gone downhill since the storm. The medical conference we were there for had enormous attendance -- I was told it was one of only two that year that filled up the convention center -- and we wound up staying to hell and gone on the east side. Which is not the good side of New Orleans. John's pithy comment was this is like a third world nation.