Stupid spending and gambling isn't very smart

I read this article yesterday: http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/02/23/top/75na_090222_fasttrain.txt

And while I typically keep politics to another site, I couldn't help but want to rant a little bit here.

Obama wants to build a train from Los Angeles to Vegas.

Why? How is that a good investment? I agree that the west could use some rail lines. But lets be practical here. If you are going to build a fast rail, why on earth would you connect the two most useless cities in the union? What about rail lines from Seattle down the coast hitting Portland, then into Berkley, Oakland, San Fran and Sacramento then down to Los Angeles? Or connect Chicago to Denver and Salt Lake City or whatever.

It's just that if massive ammounts of money are going to be poured into a project don't be so completely transparent. It's obvious someone just wanted to take the train to gamble instead of having to fly.

I choked on a candy heart

Ah Valentine's Day. A day of love and, as my Mom says, it's about celebrating love and not just the romantic kind and I shouldn't become a cynic.

This week started out great, I ran around a squash court with a friend and then went to play another game managing to hit myself in the face with a basketball (also made two baskets in 15 minutes). My work was going well, the experiments looking up and a paper in the works.

Tuesday started out with a little sore throat, no big deal. I ignored it and threw myself into the day. I was looking forward to a party on Thursday night, an old movie night on Friday and another big party on Saturday, which would easily make me forget any lingering sullen thoughts of Valentines.

Then, sitting in front of an experiment I started to realize my face felt very much as it did when I'd been drinking red wine. All flushed and hot. Hmmmmm. Around 5 it turned into a headache plus fever and by 6pm my skin hurt from the fever and I knew I had to get home now. So I sluggishly dragged myself to my apartment arriving exhausted even though the way home is mostly downhill.

The next three days I spent in bed. I tried to get up for work on Thurs, but after it took me an hour to get to the shower and another to feebly wash and stumble back to bed I had to give up.

On the bright side I'm much better today. I have to rest after every flight of stairs and I'm wearing three layers of pants, shirts, socks seeing as my fever thinks it's funny to actually make my skin feel hot while the inside of me is freezing! But I'm at work, so good I'll get something useful done.

But there's no way I'll make the party tonight, so yet another Valentines day will go by in a fairly pathetic manner. On the bright side I'll probably be in bed by 9 at the latest and I didn't struggle out of bed till 2, so there you go, a nice short (very non-cynical) day.

See it's non-cynical cos I said on the bright side. Clever of me, I know.