"I want to de-friend you but your photos and status updates make me feel so good about myself.

I've ordered a new trailer hatch hinge from another teardrop site and it should be here by Wednesday. The guy said I'm not the first to have trouble with that hinge which is, in his opinion, junk. After he pointed me to the appropriate option on his site I can see why he says that. This one is MUCH heavier gauge aluminum, has a more intricate interlock, and surface mounts. Now the challenge is to get the old one out from under the skin. But I'm feeling a lot better about things now. I was getting concerned that I had an irreversible design flaw.

Rick Santorum was on Meet the Press yesterday (I watch the first 15-20 minutes before I leave for church) and on The Today Show this morning. Interesting. He makes, IMHO, a compelling case that Romney's campaign has some fatal flaws which will become more clear in the next couple of weeks. Romney has outspent him 10 to one, has victories in his three "home" states, and still hasn't been able to put away the competition. That doesn't bode well for his chances in a general election against the other party's nominee. Also, the campaign is moving to the South where Santorum is expected to do much better.

He has made some almost Bachmann-esque gaffs that make him look like a doofus. And I'm not prepared to dismiss those off the wall comments ("makes me want to vomit," etc.) as indicators of a noteworthy problem for someone who designs to be Commander in Chief. But what I hadn't seen until this weekend was his self-mocking comments at subsequent stops for those stupid statements. He said they no sooner come out of his mouth than his cell phone rings and his wife says, "What were you thinking??" And when he hears her say it back to him he thinks, "What was I thinking??" He went on to say that he's learning on the job to be more circumspect as he speaks extemporaneously.
I can identify with that. Yep, me too.

And as long as we're talking politics, Newt Gingrich (no fan here) made an interesting comment over the weekend re. the ABC show GCB. It's based on a book by Kim Gatlin titled "Good Christian B***h" that's set in the Bible belt. ABC decided using just the initials was a safer course. Both the book and TV show (which, full disclosure, I have not seen) satirize the stereotypical southern Christian. Gingrich said no one would ever think of substituting "Islamic" for "Christian" in the book's title or the show. Unthinkable. He cited that as an example of the anti-Christian bias in the "liberal" media and entertainment industry.
I'm not even going into the liberal media morass, but methinks he's got a point about the media's very different actions re. Islam and Christianity.
I'll let you decide if that represents a lack of appropriate respect for Christians or an overly deferential approach to Muslims. Or both.

In a USAToday.com article about Sect. Clinton's remarks at a just-concluded summit, where she talked about the efforts of "extremists" to control women:
"Clinton's remarks to the Women in the World Summit come as Democrats and Republicans fight over issues such as access to birth control."
Dear USA Today,
The issue is NOT access. Nobody, incl. evangelicals and the Roman Catholic Church, is trying to deny anyone access to birth control. The issue is who should pay for it! Should birth control for some be paid for by everyone, or should it be paid for by the individuals who choose to use it and their insurance companies if they decide to include it in the coverage? Why is this so tricky? Have you cited anyone who says women should not have access? But many of us reject the notion that birth control is an inalienable right we should pay for.
Think dental care. (Note: there are more parallels than might first appear.)
It's about funding, not access.

I called Pat today. After an explanation of why the car isn't painted he said he should be home Wednesday from Vegas where he works on that rich guy's cars so he can paint it Thursday. I had told him about the trailer, and he asked how it was coming.
"It's done."
"Oh! Then I guess I better get the car painted, huh?"
Forgive me for not being optimistic.

It dawned on me what we don't have any of here.
Cemeteries.
If I had to find the nearest cemetery, or any cemetery, I wouldn't know where to go. That's particularly odd when you figure I live in a community where the average age is 73.
Where are they putting all the dead people??
I understand their absence from the SW Valley where tract homes built by the hundreds, all since 2005, are filled with young families without a thought of their own eventual death. But I don't know of a single cemetery on the whole west side.
Is that good?
In Michigan graveyards are everywhere. We lived in the tiny (!) community of Forest Grove that had its own cemetery with settlers' grave sites dating back to the 1800's. Three miles up the rural road was the Zutphen cemetery with its own ancestors' graves. Three miles west, the Drenthe cemetery.
Driving by a cemetery on a daily basis is a healthy reminder of our mortality, that like the flowers that bloom we too will wither and die.
I miss cemeteries.