You don't need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

And just because I'm feeling generous tonight, a second pic:

This HAS to be photo-shopped, right? If not, imagine the trouble he has clipping his nails.

I was on the driving range at 6:30 this morning and it was sooo peaceful. I think I was the only one anywhere on the course.

Came home and climbed on the bike. Tuesday is a short distance/speed day so I did the 15 mile loop up the hill and back. Including stops for red lights my average speed for the loop was 18.6 mph. That's pretty quick by my standards. Hurt in my legs but felt good in my head.

Did some work for church and then headed into town to have lunch with the pastor of a Baptist church who contacted me. He'd seen our ad in the local paper and just wanted to connect. Good conversation about ministry. Shop talk.
From there to the hospital to see the newest Pathway person, Tami & Josh's new little boy. That's always fun - visiting with new parents.

Found a new song we'll sing at Pathway Sunday. "Majestic" by Lincoln Brewster.

I used to subscribe to Sports Illustrated. Dropped it when they dropped Rick Reilly. I don't remember who, but one of their columnists occasionally titled his column, "Things I Think I Think."
I like that. There are some things of which I'm absolutely certain. On the continuum line, to the right, are things I think. To the far right are things I'm sure I don't know. In between the things I think and the things I know I don't know are the things I think I think.

The things I think I think are subjects I'm working on. They're in the "active" file. I'm collecting data, listening to others, formulating, testing and discarding hypotheses.

With that prelude, herewith things I think I think:

• President Bush set this mess in motion by spending way too much money, never vetoing a single bill in eight years, and getting us involved in conflicts overseas. The outcomes include a Democrat in the White House and Democrats in control of both houses of Congress. Pretty impressive victories.
  
• Two years later we've got a bigger mess. While most Americans (including me, I think) can't nail down all the specifics we have a sense that the country is in worse trouble and heading down a path toward even more.
• I used to think Democrats and Republicans just had very different answers to the problems facing the country at any given point in time. They came at issues from opposite ends. And maybe that was true then, but this is now. Now I think I think the Democratic leadership has something that might be called a grand design for re-shaping the country. The last two years haven't just been about solving the problems left behind by the Bush presidency, but taking advantage of those problems to effect broad structural changes. I think those changes would make America more like a European country: top down, centralized, and - dare I say - something approaching an oligarchy.
• The response has included some pretty bizarre opposition characters who may or may not understand what's going on. But they can see an opportunity for their 15 minutes. Local or national, there's never a shortage of dim bulbs who fancy themselves political wizards. Hey, being mayor of Wasilla is hardly a resume' lock for leader of the free world. But these new faces make lots of silly and/or scary noise and promise they'll turn everything around. (How??) Cf. Carl Paladino in N.Y.
  
• But at the other end of the Republican party are the political players who have been a part of the system for so long that they represent business as usual. Gov. Haley Barbour seems to fall into that category.
• So what's gonna happen? I can see bigger trouble if the country, a) elects the crazies because they make a lot of noise, or b) elects the standard party players who have the money and the machine. Least likely - c) elects thoughtful, intelligent and informed conservatives who will move us down a very different road more like the America we thought we had, with an emphasis on individual rights and state's rights, very minimal entitlements and a business-friendly environment.

OK, that's my hypothesizing. I don't expect you to agree. Mostly this was an example of thinking out loud about things I think I think. By tomorrow morning I might well have changed my mind. But given the reading I've been doing, all across the spectrum, that's where I am on a Tuesday night.

FWIW (A: absolutely nothing!)