Hey! Where The Heck Have You Been?

A few days after I wrote my last blog piece in the middle of December, the Harley Honey and I jumped on the two-wheeled Green Machine and headed to Florida for a two-week holiday. In the weeks since, it has been difficult to bring myself to set aside the few minutes to write on the blog. Not because I’ve been too busy, but because I’ve been too lazy!

I’ve been receiving encouragement from several readers (okay, maybe three or four) to take up the plow and return to blogging. With this mid-February morning being so pleasant, I decided to move my coffee drinking and laptop to the sun-soaked front patio to try to write a few words.

In the two months that I’ve been away from blogging I’ve missed the opportunity to comment on some of the major news stories of the last of 2009 and beginning of 2010. Here are just a few news items I’ve missed, accompanied by a short editorial comment:

• The pre-Christmas snowstorm that brought Lubbock and the South Plains a White Christmas. It’s hard for me to comment on this because I was on the beach in Florida enjoying the 70-degree days down there. My friends here told me that there was lots of snow; I’ll take their word for it.
  
• The suspension and ultimate firing of Head Football Coach Mike Leach. Believe it or not, there wasn’t a whole lot of conversation about this in South Florida. Several friends contacted me about it, but all I knew at the time was what I read online or heard on ESPN. As I have come to learn more about the issue, I’ve decided there is plenty of blame to pass around, but it was probably time for the coach to move on.
  
• The retirement of Rep. Carl Isett, who represents District 84 (most of Lubbock) in the Texas House of Representatives. My take is that Carl, who’s been in office for more than a decade, is still feeling the sting of the fine that he got from the Texas Ethics Commission more than a year ago and decided he needed to make a living for his family. I’ve never been a huge fan of many of his political positions, but he’s a good guy.
  

There have been lots of other news items that I could have drawn comments, but these three are the big ones that I remember as I return to regular blogging.

Next week, maybe Monday, I’ll issue my predictions (not my endorsements or who I voted for) of some of the major races in this year’s Republican Primary. I’d do the same for the Democratic Primary, but, quite truthfully, so few races are being contested that there is little local interest in them.