Misc. Friday Thoughts

It’s been about three weeks since Older Son announced his engagement and things have calmed down a bit since the initial excitement.

He and his fiancé have made a lot of progress. They have set a date, June 18. They will be getting married at the church in Nashville they have been attending for the past year or so and they have a venue booked for the reception. So all systems appear to be go.

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I told my future daughter-in-law I would have to come up with a blog name for her and I think for now I’ll go with the very original “Future Daughter-in-Law” or “FDIL” for short.

FDIL is a no-nonsense type, which I think is a big reason Older Son fell in love with her. She’s easy going and not easily frazzled. She will be a beautiful bride and they will have a lovely wedding but I can tell she’s going to enjoy it and not get into a dither over it all.

She, Older Son, Younger Son and I drove up to Lexington, KY a couple weeks ago, a week after the engagement announcement, for the Auburn-Kentucky game. Older Son drove most of the way and Younger Son rode up front with him.

FDIL and I rode in the back and she had a little stack of bridal magazines she was flipping through. “Just to get ideas,” she said and was folding back pages of things that she liked. I don’t really understand bridal magazines but from what I saw they all look pretty much the same, full of photos of dresses, apparel for attendants, china and silver, etc.

A few days later FDIL was over at the house and had a little notebook (not only is she non-nonsense, she’s also very organized), all about the wedding, including clippings from the aforementioned bridal magazines. She and Wife had fun looking through everything.

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We are still heavy into football. Younger Son’s last regular season game is tonight and it’s Senior Night. Before the game he, Wife and I will walk onto the field together as the senior players are presented. We still have the playoffs to go, and we’ve clinched a spot, so the season is not over yet. After tonight, though, it is single elimination -- one loss and we’re out. We’ll see how far it goes from here.

Auburn football has us over the moon with an 8-0 record and a quarterback who is front runner for the Heisman Trophy. Daughter, in her senior year, is having a ball and both sons are beside themselves. Still plenty of the season left, though, and we all know how quickly things can change.

Wife and I even made it to the Tennessee Titans’ game last Sunday. We have had tickets the past couple of years but the boys usually use them. Frankly, I’m not a huge NFL fan anymore, much preferring the color and pageantry of high school and college ball to the contrived entertainment and politics of the pros (OK there’s plenty of that on the high school and college levels too but I’m a little more oblivious to it there). Also don’t like to have to find a parking place and fight the crowd. But it’s still hard not go get behind the home team and every five years or so when I have the opportunity, I’ll make the trek downtown and watch a game.

Last weekend both boys had gone to Auburn for the LSU game on Saturday night and would not make it back by noon Sunday, so we decided to use “their” tickets. (I put “their” in quotes because you know who paid for the tickets!)

Wife and I heard about a great shuttle system which eliminates the necessity of having to find a parking place, which in turn eliminates one of my objections to going. We went to our local minor league ballpark which is about three miles from LP Field where the Titans play. We parked there, paid $10 and boarded a very nice bus that took us right to the gate. When it was over we hopped back on and returned. We hardly had to wait a minute. There are bus lanes marked off on game days so these shuttles are essentially non-stop from the ballpark to stadium and back. The Titans are having a pretty good season too and we saw a good game. I might even go back in five years or so.

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You never know what’s going to get a response in the blog world. Most of my posts about business or politics receive polite, yawning comments if any. I even started my most recent entry about mortgage foreclosures with an apology.

But what do you know, six thoughtful, interesting comments from six thoughtful, interesting readers have been posted. In going back and reading my entry, though, I thought I came across a little hard-hearted. Please understand that’s not the case; I was only trying to point out the cold hard facts of the system. A couple of sharp readers pointed out that lenders will (usually) bend over backwards to help someone stay in their home. That’s an excellent point. Most banks do not want to be in the real estate business, nor do they want a defaulted loan on the books.

Along the lines of unexpected comments, I have to wonder if Kelly expected the flood of responses to her recent post about her five pet peeves in which she invited her blog visitors to enter theirs. Kelly has from time to time posted about five “favorites,” everything from books to songs, and has received a number of comments regarding her named topic, but when she wrote about the things we DISLIKE, well, the grumpy commenters came out of the woodwork. Guess we’re a discontented bunch?!

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This Tuesday is election day. We have a governor’s race here in Tennessee and the Republican, Bill Haslam, is thought to be a shoo-in, even though we’ve had eight years of a Democrat, Phil Bredesen, in our state capital, in a very Republican state. The thing is, Bredesen, even though a Democrat, is a fiscal conservative and has been immensely popular among our citizenry.

We have some local state and congressional races in surrounding areas (none that affect me but we get the ads) and I am very tired of their very tiresome advertising. Here in Tennessee, many of the candidates seem to think going on TV dressed in camouflage and holding a gun, or standing in front of a church, will get them votes. No comment here, just stating facts. Maybe they’re right. I’m just glad it’s about over and I don’t have to see it or listen to it anymore, or at least not for another couple of years.