This afternoon I packed about all I can pack for my upcoming business trip to Kansas City. It will only consist of a three-night stay so I shouldn’t need much, right? Ha.

Even If I am going off for a weekend I appear as if I am undertaking an expedition of the Lewis and Clark magnitude. Here is the thing: I want to be comfortable. I want to be prepared.

Thankfully, I will not be traveling from 70-degree to 20-degree weather as I first feared a week ago. It will only be in the 50s when I leave “The Golden Triangle” in the a.m. and a high of around 24 degrees upon arriving in KC in the early afternoon. The wind is expected to be 11-15 mph with gusts up to 25. Snow is forecast on Wednesday. A slight chance of snow on Thursday with the low Friday morning between 1 and -4. Then, I fly home where it should be around  50 degrees when I return that afternoon.  I won’t be traveling through a lot of extremes but it is extreme enough. Then I have “business casual” to wear to those two days of our meetings. Will I do anything after the days’ meetings? I don’t know. But I’d like to be prepared.

Also, there is always a chance of a canceled flight. I have only had that happen once. But I did have to cancel another flight because of delays elsewhere which would prevent me from making a scheduled connection.

Along with the preparation category is making sure I have all my medicines. I take a bunch, I am not very happy to say. One doesn’t want to be off without a supply of their blood pressure or diabetes medications. And methadone. Don’t leave home without it.

I am not a frequent flier. I’ve taken perhaps 30 or so flights over the last 10 years. Actually, a couple of those were in 1999 and before 9/11.  During this time I have found that each flight could behold something different. Most of this is from our friends at TSA. It can be a pain the butt but if they have actually learned something new to help us stay safer, then I suppose it is worth it. Then, of course, you have to be aware of what new restriction or fee the airline has put out.

Perhaps if you fly every week or every couple of weeks, you get the routine. But if you are like me it seems everything is different only by the slightest degree. This time the 800-pound gorilla was a heavy winter coat. Where to put it? Well, if  the temp will be in the 20s when I get off, I think I probably should have a coat. I could put it in checked baggage, but what if my checked baggage gets lost. That’s happened twice to me. I could buy another coat, but I’d be freezing my huevos off going to a store to find one and probably having to pay for a taxi  instead of the shuttle. If you absolutely positively got to have it, take it with you . So instead of my computer bag, I’m taking my trusty backpack to stow the computer, winter coat, camera and all my electronic chargers. Crap, I feel like an electrician sometimes.

So now I just thought of something else I need to do.  Hopefully I will have a chance to blog the next couple of days. Ta. See you in KC maybe.

Sometimes I wonder if the American people work on Friday?

I know when I had a full-time job I certainly worked on Friday. It seemed, though, as if most of the rest of the world didn’t work on Friday. This was especially true in government offices. Now that I work part time for “them” I know that isn’t true. But since I work part-time, I don’t work every Friday. In fact my schedule this year has quite a few free Fridays. There is a reason for that.  That’s the way it goes.

When I am out and about on Friday afternoon, in full-blown errand-running mode, it really seems as if no one works on Friday. The bank lines are full. The shopping district traffic is almost as crazy as on a Saturday afternoon.

I would imagine that a good many of those who do work on Fridays and Friday afternoons are thinking about not working on Friday or Friday afternoons. So in honor of all of those who aren”t working or thinking about not working or thinking about the weekend or dreaming of that first glass of cold beer or imagining  a hug from the kiddo or your cat jumping up in your lap — Work’s over. Go home.

It is rather amazing how much one can bend and bang up their body while still not breaking or tearing anything apart. I say this after mopping the bathroom floor yesterday and realizing too late that the floor had not sufficiently dried. This resulted in a split. One leg went that a-way while the other went this away.

I would have gotten up on a pair of crutches I have from a previous injury but it would hurt me way too much to get on the crutches, not to mention having to walk on them.

Today I have aches I haven’t had in years or never had. Both sides of my butt feel like the last time I rode a horse.  Gosh dawg I’m glad I never played organized football.  I suppose I’m accident prone, or I’m getting that way in my old age. Chi — huahua!

Thus I am taking a break to let my fingers and wrists and arms and shoulders and back and butt and feet and who knows what all, have a little recovery.

It is just another day in the life of this planet we call Earth.

Iowa Republican have set a date for their presidential straw poll. I don’t know much about which GOP candidates will be considered but I do have some opinions on straw.

Ninety percent of me says I don’t like straw when it gets down the back of my shirt. Seventy percent of me likes to lay down on straw when there is nothing else available, say a nice, comfortable King Size bed. As for the ability to build a quick fire, 99 percent of me thinks straw is a pretty hot commodity when you need fire.

More Republican news, see, I can be ambipolitical if that is such a word. This story says Harry Reid is upset with Republicans over earmarks. I knew some Reeds once, spelled with two “e” s. And no, it’s not the Reeds as in the one my cousin married. And it’s not Reed of  Reed and Roger, more cousins. I don’t know if the Reeds I am talking about were the Harry Reids or Reeds but I seem to remember one of them was hairy.

As for earmarks, I think Americans have the God-given right to mark their ears in any manner they want. Why I am so worked up about it, I am going to get a felt pen and draw a scary-looking happy face to mark on my ear.

How you like them apples? Is that a scary-looking happy face or what? Is that a pink tongue? I’ve had Pink Tongue before. It’s not like Pink Eye, it’s more like Pepto Bismol. Pepto Bismol, North Dakota. Wouldn’t that be the best town ever?

Gazillionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner with way too much time on his hands Mark Cuban is exploring the replacement of the BCS system with 12-to-16 team college football playoffs . Cool.

Finally, the Democratic Party is expected to soon pick a site for the 2012 Democratic Convention. Politico reports that the choice may be down to two: St. Louis and Charlotte, N.C.  I’ve been to St. Louis several times and  have never been to Charlotte, but I’d like to visit that area. After all, Charlotte is only 90 or so miles from Mount Airy, N.C. , the birthplace of Andy Griffith, the most entertaining country bumpkin ever known. The comedian explains through the eyes of a bumpkin the spectacle of a football game in the recorded comedy bit: “What It Was, Was Football.” Tw0 bunches of angry men gather and get pretty danged excited over a pumpkin.

 "One bunch got it and it made the other bunch just as mad as they could be!

Friends, I seen that evenin' the awfulest fight that I ever have seen in all my life !!

They would run at one -another and kick one- another

and throw one another down and stomp on one another

and grind their feet in one another

and I don't know what-

all and just as fast as one of 'em would get hurt,

they'd take him off and run another one on !!"

If I was the benevolent blogger that I should be, I would perhaps provide a recording of the routine. It is funny as all get-out. Get out? What is get out? When you have “all get out,” just how much get out is that?  Get out! But I am not. I mean, I am not disposed at this time, or any, to provide a recording of “What It Was, Was Football.” Sorry, I am hungry and need to start dinner, light a grill, prepare some hominy and corn tortillas. Ummm, ummm. Have a nice day.

Working a schedule with some rare night “premium” hours did give me a chance to look down on all the city lights that have been installed in downtown Beaumont.

All of the spruce up with the lights and brick sidewalks I guess came with the same money used to tear up Calder Avenue to install new drainage. I have to say Calder looks better. And will look even better than that when it is once again open all the way from I-10 to MLK.

One may find something in common with a Beaumonter (Beaumontite, oh whatever), while declaring  how inconvenienced you are by the Calder project. Getting around town these days by automobile is a big crap shoot. “For $500, which street will be closed today?” I am also still waiting to see what our city manager, Kyle Hayes’,  downtown lake will look like. It’s not just a lake, it is a grand plan to turn the downtown of our city of 110,000 into a combination of San Antonio and Venice by the tune of $8 million. Good luck finding a gondolier who can sing both “Cielito Lindo” and “Funiculi Funicula.”

Maybe the council will name the lake after Hayes. People around here kind of have a habit of naming big, questionable projects after the ones who instigated them. Take for instance the Carrol A. “Butch” Thomas Educational Support Center out on I-10 toward Houston. So far, the center is really a new football stadium, but the highest paid school administrator in Texas, Dr. Thomas, has grand plans including a luxury hotel and who knows what else.

Hell, how about swinging night spot and a whorehouse? If you are going to dream, dream big.