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It’s amazing the things that go through your head at 2:27 a.m. and you can’t sleep. Some of you know about this, some of you don’t.

I have to say, insomnia is unusual for me. I don’t get the recommended eight or so hours a night, usually just six to seven, but it’s what works for me.

Last night? I got three. I was sitting in a meeting earlier today and I swear to God, if the woman next to me hadn’t offered me one of the mutant-sized Tic-Tacs, I’d fallen asleep right then and there. Thankfully, I got the mint (and a back-up, just in case) and powered through the meeting.

But as I was laying there, counting the stucco bump on the ceiling last night, I think I figured out what caused my detour from Lilly White’s party (as my mom used to call going to bed: “All right you three [me and my brothers] time to head for Lilly White’s party.” Ahhh, childhood). Anyway, I think I figured out my problem.

The night before, Saturday, I’d stayed out late and didn’t get home until 2:30ish. But it was what I did before that that is the root of my problem. (Right now? Typing with my eyes closed because it feels like sleep. How sad.)

Q. How do you know you’re getting old?
A. Your idea of “pre-gaming” for a night out includes a two-hour nap.

Yeah, I did that. (In my defense, I'd also gone on a long-for-me bike ride earlier that day as well.) Probably wouldn’t be a problem, ‘cept Sunday afternoon I dozed off while reading. I was probably out for a good hour or so. This, I think, hit the ol’ sleep pattern reset button in the brain.

But getting back to the thoughts. Some of them were pretty cool: like flying above the desert and water and grassy plains and any other relatively flat surface you can think of at high speed; that naughty little waking dream I had about … well, someone; it was right about here at, say, 12:33 where I was just about asleep when

BAM!

I swear my upstairs neighbor was trying to get his name into Guinness by going after the post-midnight bowling ball dribbling record (the record, btw, is two).

Instantly I went from the warm embrace of Never-Never Land to total wakefulness and instant readiness to repel any intruders. Damn my amygdalae! I said good day, Sir! Wish I could have said good night.

So, ‘bout 10 minutes later, just as the quart of adrenaline has leached from my system, I guess the guy figured he really really really needed that record ‘cause:

BAM! again.

And that was it. Until after 3. So I put the time to good use updating my email address book. For some reason, my Outlook address book didn’t make the move from the PC (Evil Opus) to the Opus III, my new Mac Mini. (It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up).

I did use the time for one productive project between my ears: I thought up a couple of topics to write about this week. And they’re really good…but I was so tired I forgot most of them. You’ll just have to…yawn…make do with…yawn…what I can rememberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (Editor's note: Foggy's nose was removed from the "r" key at 2:29 p.m. EST.)

Random firings of neurons

I really haven’t been feeling it the last couple of days when it comes to writing. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s because … hell, if I knew I’d fix it. I started writing something yesterday and got pretty far into it, and then realized it was crap. You may see it, you may not, but that won’t happen until it’s up to snuff.

What I think happened to my muse lately is this: I started this thing almost a year ago to talk about politics and life and art and drinking and this, that and the other. But mainly politics. Anyone who knows me knows I enjoy a good debate. We were in the midst of a hotly contested presidential election with an almost, but not quite, foregone outcome.

But now, now the political debate has almost all but disappeared from the public discourse. It’s almost like it was 1994 again. Or, better, 2002. At least in ’94 we had one party in the White House and another in the Speaker’s chair.

Does everyone remember what it felt like in 2002? A widely popular wartime president called 1600 home, and a GOP almost super-majority ruled the Hill and K Street with iron fists. To criticize them and what they were doing was un-American and, when you get right down to it, damn near traitorous. Reporters stopped asking questions and digging up the facts and we the people accepted because we didn’t want to be accused of “forgetting 9-11.”

As if that could ever happen.

But guess what folks? We now have an even more wildly popular president and even bigger majorities controlling the House and Senate, it’s just this time they’re all democrats. The words have changed, but the venom behind them hasn’t.

Now, instead of being an un-American traitor when you voice a dissenting opinion, you’re a closed-minded, reactionary hillbilly Klan member.

My personal political leanings are mixed up enough I can be sure I have at least one that will piss off folks on either side of the aisle with equal vehemence. Such as:

I fear a government controlled by Democrats as much as – if not a little more than – the previous Republican leadership.

While I don’t personally agree with Miss California, she has every right to believe and say she is against gay marriage. She also has the right to not be attacked for her opinion.

I think Congress needs to turn the volume down from 11 on the whole he said-she said gotcha investigation into who knew what and when and why and how and where and who was doing the enhanced interrogations. Is it wrong to smash someone’s fingers and toes joint-by-joint with a ball peen hammer as you water board them? Perhaps. Were innocent lives saved and bad guys shot in the head because of the results? Also, perhaps.

A conversation I had last week is a good example. As I was warming up in my reply to a “violence is never the answer and true strength comes from inside” type statement, the discussion was shortstopped by the other party. I believe my comments about man being a top predator (not the top, but a top but that’s something for another day) and national power coming from the barrel of a gun were call cynical and considered not worthy of serious reflection.

Cynical? Perhaps. But true? History would seem to back me up. At least for now.

Anyway, I could go off on this tangent forever, so I’ll get back on point. And my point is we should be careful what we wish for, ‘cause we just might get it.

Also, why the hell do the new razors make it so bloody hard for me to shave right under my nose? Seriously, have they even tested these blades?

And, before I forget, thanks be to Saint Margarita on the Rocks that Ted Mosby, architect, did NOT get back together with Stella on this week’s HIMYM. He told her how he felt, comedy ensued, and he was left standing on the sidewalk with his yellow umbrella.

Big flash, lots of noise

If anyone's interested, you can watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis live here.

The clock is ticking with about five minutes to go before launch.

Friday Pictures

You know how sometimes when you lust after someone or something and when you finally obtain the object of your affection it doesn’t always quite measure up to what you imagined?

Well, for the last two or so years I’ve lusted after a particular digital SLR camera (Nikon D200), but was never able to justify the expense. Funny thing about new jobs, you sometimes get more than just new career opportunities.

Long story short, but I was able to buy the exact camera I’d been wanting and, last Saturday, I took it out for a test drive. I wanted to go somewhere pretty, but also somewhere I hadn’t been before. Since I was down Old Towne way with a friend to pick up her new Honda Fit (see, all of us are pitching in to help the economy by buying Japanese-made products) I figured I’d go for a little walk around Jones Point.

Jones Point? Where the hell is Jones Point, you ask. Well, Jones Point is the little spit of land where the new (and old) Wilson Bridges land in Virginia. OK, I admit it, I’m a bit of a bridge geek, comes from growing up the son of a bridge engineer, and I wanted to get a closer look at the new Wilson.

Jones Point, I think, is one of those secret little places in the D.C. area. You know them, places in plain sight, but places few people go. When, I ask you, was the last time you visited Teddy Roosevelt Island or the National Arboretum?

But anyway, back to my pictures. Because like any real man I believe mechanical devices have souls and feelings I’ll have to be gentle about this so as not to offend my trusty, venerable, solid and all-around dependable Nikon F3, but my new camera rocks in so many ways. I think my walk lasted maybe an hour and I took more than 150 pictures. To compare, during 10 days in Ireland I took around 1,000 on film. Funny what you can do when your camera fires up to five frames a second and you have a memory card that holds 1,300 pictures, you quickly stop caring about how many pictures you’re taking.

Without further ado, the pictures.

Did you know we have one of the only bascule bridges in the Interstate Highway system here in our area? Well, we do. The old one opened about 260 times a year stopping traffic each time. This one is 20 feet higher and only has to open about 60 or so (according to the bridge's Web site). And for those of you wondering what the hell a bascule is, it's the part of a drawbridge that goes up and down.

But wait. What is this lonely little concrete marker beside the trail as patiently as a bill waiting on the steps of the Capitol? Perhaps we should investigate.

Fancy that, it's a boundary marker between Virginia and Maryland. Down around the bend there is another one just like it and, together, they would seem to indicate the border between the North and the South is the high-water mark of the Potomac. Alas, the point where the District, Virginia and Maryland all come together is out in the middle of the river, so I don't have a picture of that (although it may actually be in the first picture).

Spiders are our friends. As long as they don't mind living outside. This one has apparently been busy getting its web site ready for summer.

There's just something about a field of soft, fuzzy pussy willows. It just draws you right in and holds your gaze.

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Hope you enjoyed the pictures 'cause you're bound to see more as the summer progresses.

TMI Thursday: How do you spell relief?

I’m sure we’ve all been there. The phone rings late at night. The message is short, but the tears and talk go on well past midnight. 

“I’m late," You heart stops. "A week late.”

Fade back in time to three weeks ago. You and your girlfriend are visiting friends over the long Memorial Day weekend. The barbecue and beers that Saturday night were chased by more beers and, if you remember correctly, tequila. Lots of tequila.

The beer and tequila were later chased by lots of mad, passionate drunken sex.

And now, three weeks later, she’s out of town visiting her parents for a few days.

“What are we going to do?” The question brings you back to the present. 

“Are you sure?” you ask.

“It’s been a week. I could be.”

“Come back tomorrow, we’ll talk about it together.”

The goodbye lasts almost as long as the call. You tell each other “I love you” too many times to count. 

And then you hang up.

Sleep comes fitfully, if at all. Did you even sleep? It doesn’t matter when the alarm goes off, you still have to get up and go to work. 

A quick call to make sure she’s OK and still coming back that afternoon. 

“Meet me at work,” you say. “I’ll leave when you get here and we can talk.” 

The morning seems to stretch toward infinity, like you’re on the event horizon of a black hole. One more step...

Lunch comes and goes. The next two hours are spent checking your watch every 10 minutes. Every five minutes.

Every minute.

Then, just before three, you’re outside taking a smoke break with some friends and you see her car pull up. Your heart races and your hands shake as she pulls into a spot just across from you. 

She gets out looking more beautiful than you remember (khaki shorts and a blue tank) and your eyes meet. 

She sees the look on your face and bites her lip. And smiles. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she says, then laughs after she realizes what she’s said. “I had to stop on the way down and buy some tampons.”

Up like a cannonball

A couple of things caught my eye this morn as I perused my online NYT, but I’ll get to them in just a minute.

Let me say this: “ Hey MOSTFAMOUSNAMESHOUTEDINAMOVIEEVER!!!!”

Last night on HIMYM, Ted Mosby, architect, finally got around to telling his kids the beginning of the story of how he met their mother. After a couple years wait, I might add.

I won’t go into all the funny details (in case some of you have it on your divver and haven’t watched yet) except to say Barney nails a body builder chick by accident (she calls it her cardio) and Ted Mosby, architect, meets the eyes of a woman he’s known as they wait at a crosswalk. But I say too much.

So, without giving too much away, I hope the next thing that happens is she introduces him to another woman who becomes those silent kids’ mother. Because if it’s her, I’m giving up on the show. The only thing making her his true love would do is turn Ted Mosby, architect, into Ted Mosby, total pussy push-over.

I can handle Barney having the hots for Robin, but Ted cannot fall for this woman. I’d much prefer he fall for Victoria, the baker. At least she didn’t leave him at the altar.

Ground Control to Major Tom
This article in the NYT, (Finally! He got to where he was going) about the shuttle heading to the Hubble, reminded me of my very first research paper in 7th grade about the shuttle. And by 7th grade research paper I mean copying information about the shuttle out of the library’s encyclopedia and a copy of NatGeo at home and presenting it as research.

The article got me to thinking. Do you still stop and look at the TV when a shuttle takes off? Is anyone else still amazed, and I mean deep down tingle in your stomach amazed, when you see those men and women ride a controlled bomb into, through and out of our atmosphere?

I’ll admit it, I do. If you don’t I can’t understand. Let me try something here: Imagine you’re you, and today’s still May 5, but instead of 2009, it’s 1961. Just 48 years ago. The Commie Reds have beaten the True Blue Defenders of Freedom and Right into space the month before and the defenders are now rolling the dice.

Down in Florida a young Naval Aviator, name of Alan B. Shepard Jr. is sitting high up in his 60-cubic-foot capsule (for reference, a 3x3x6-foot box is 54-cubic feet) and is waiting to blast off. To become the first American to ride a rocket toward space. The rocket in question attached to his Freedom 7 capsule is a retired Redstone missile. It's 60 feet long and about 6 feet in diameter and provides 78,000 pounds of thrust.

Pee-U-Knee. Puny by today’s standards, but it'd still kill ya.

When Atlantis launches toward Hubble next week, it will ride not only its three main engines (400,000 pounds of thrust each), but two, TWO!, solid rocket boosters. These boosters might have even scared Shepard, John Glenn, Gordo Cooper and company. (According to Mike Mullane, author of Riding Rockets, who flew the shuttle three times, they scare today’s astronauts.) Measuring in at 149 feet long and 12 feet in diameter, the SRBs together produce almost (finger to the corner of the mouth a la Dr. Evil) 6 million pounds of thrust.

Now imagine that Shepard’s back on Earth safe and sound. How do you feel? Our first steps in space were so small I’d barely dare to call them baby steps, but we’ve been there.

And we went back.

Imagine now that it’s July 20, 1969, just a little more than eight years later. We’ve gone from clawing toward the stars to walking on another planet.

July 20 is such an important day, in fact, you take your 2-month-old son from his bed and lay him in front of the black-and-white TV so that someday he can say he watched man walk on the moon for the first time.

And we’ll be back.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m near a TV next Monday, you can be sure I’ll take the eight and a half or so minutes — the time from lift-off to MECO (main-engine cut-off in orbit) — to watch man head toward the stars and inspire me one more time.

I’d like to announce my eligibility

At the end of my junior year a couple of friends, who passed many an hour playing pick-up ball on the court behind their dorm, hatched a plan. The were going to follow in the footsteps of some of the most well-known alumni of the University of North Carolina and announce their eligibility for the NBA draft.

They figured “What the hell, it can’t hurt" and it could be funny to see an pro scout come around campus asking about the previously unheralded 5’10” shooting guard from North Carolina.

To follow in their footsteps, I too would like to announce my eligibility. My eligibility for the highest court in the land.

I want to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ha! You laugh, but as far as I can tell, there really are only a few actual requirements for the position. Actually, according to Article 3 of the Constitution, there are none. Unlike being elected to Congress (25 years old to be a rep; 30 to be a senator) or president (natural-born citizen and 35 years of age), the Constitution sets no requirements.

Why would I, the Foggy Dew, make a good addition to the court? I thought you’d never ask. Here’s why:

Not a lawyer

I see this as one of my greatest qualifications. I do, however, know how to read and I have a fairly high level of intelligence, so I’m pretty sure I could understand the concepts presented by the parties involved.

If I don’t, I’ll just ask questions of them until their time ran out and they have to shut up when the red light goes on. So I win.

Also, as a reporter, I’ve spent a good deal of time in courtrooms. So let’s just call that OJT and call it even for the lack of a JD.

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Fair-mindedness

Often you'll hear about judges being discussed in terms of being a "liberal activist" or a "strict constructionist." I'd bring what I call "Liberal Constructionism" to the Roberts Court. The Constitution is the law of the land, but yet it is not a suicide pact as Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote in his dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago.

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I believe in the First Amendment, but I also know the founders did not hold freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly or petition in as high regard as we do. I'll let you in on a little secret: The First Amendment was not the first amendment. It just happened to be the first amendment to pass.

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Amendment the First dealt with congressional apportionment (and could still be approved today if enough states approve it), and Amendment the Second prohibited lawmakers from giving themselves a raise. You may recognize this one, it became the 27th Amendment in 1992 after waiting more than 200 years for approval by three-quarters of the states.

I also believe in the Second Amendment. As Moses said, “From my cold, dead hands.”

All of the arguments people have about whether or not the Second Amendment allows gun ownership to individuals to protect themselves, or to members of state militias to protect the public is bullshit.

The reason the Second Amendment exists is the one lawyers, politicians and judges don’t talk about. It exists for one reason: to protect us, We the People, from the government. Remember, the men who wrote the Constitution had just fought and won a revolution. A revolution that often required its soldiers to bring their own guns to the fight.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” (If you look to the right, you’ll notice I’m reading a Jefferson bio, I highly recommend picking it up.) The Second Amendment is kinda like the watering can.

As for the other hot-button issues, I’ll just lay it out there for the Senate: Gay marriage, for it; abortion, never had one, never plan to, but I believe in the right to choose; prayer in school, shouldn’t be there, religion can be taught at home (is this still an issue?); privacy, the Constitution may not specify it, but the less the government has to do with my life, the better.

Skeletons

Skeletons

I don’t have anything in my past involving hookers and blow in Vegas that would prevent me from being confirmed. At least not that I know of. There are a couple of years there that are a little misty, but I’m pretty sure no one who was there will make the connection to my appointment. They were a lot more fucked up than I was.

Self-appointed term limit

If appointed and confirmed, I promise to step down in 10 years. It’s been said that sometimes it takes the court a while to catch up with America. That may have been fine in the past, but no longer. We need justices who can understand changing times require a change in perspective.

Laws don’t need to be popular, but they do need to be just. You can’t expect that when the people making the decisions are in their dotage. No disrespect intended. But, seriously, David Souter is retiring at 69, and John Paul Stevens is 89. Something isn’t quite right about this picture.

Wardrobe

As the picture below demonstrates, I already look good in a black robe.

That's me, second from the right, during graduation

from Sleepy Hollow High.

Access

I promise, if confirmed, to keep this blog going. You, America, will have unprecedented access to the inner-most workings of our most mysterious branch of government. I understand the need to keep a bit of a low profile, but the people need to know what the hell’s going on in there.

To sum up (since I’ve already ‘splained) I’m just as qualified as the next guy to be the president’s first nominee to the Court. The only strike I have against me is the one I just stated, I am a guy (I’m also white as well, so two strikes), but I think America can see past that and get behind my nomination.

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So click this link to drop a note to the president and tell him you too support The Foggy Dew for the Supreme Court. Together we can make this happen.