"The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself." - John Ciardi

It's nice to know Christian leaders aren't the only ones who engage in bad behavior. In South Korea a hidden camera captured a group of eight Buddhist monks drinking, smoking and gambling in a high-stakes game while at a luxury hotel for a fellow monk's memorial service. This was all done with money donated to the religious order. The footage, which aired on Korean TV, has caused quite a dustup, but not just about their actions. The Buddhist leaders are also trying to figure out who bugged the room. Speculation is that they've got an internal power struggle and individuals from one group are trying to discredit monks from the other.
This is the kind of bad boy intrique we rarely get here, unless you're talking our religious leaders, or our athletes, or our politicians, or....

Pam uses liquid soap but I prefer bar soap in the shower. Going into grocery stores is something I avoid in all but the most extreme situations, but not having soap for a shower seemed to fit that category. So a couple of days ago I went into Basha's, a local chain, and got a four-bar pack of Ivory soap. It was the cheapest.
Tests indicate our sense of smell is the most powerful for evoking memories, and that's sure the case when it comes to the smell of soap. Back in the day Ivory owned the bar soap market and every kid in America knew the feel and smell of that "99.9% pure" product. The packaging says it's still that same 99.9% pure and I don't think anything else has changed, either. As soon as the bar got wet and I got a whiff of the smell I pictured our porcelain tub, the rubber stopper on a chain, and the towel bar hanging on the inside wall of the tub enclosure. (Showers weren't typical back then.) If you're old enough to have used Ivory bar soap as a kid you gotta spend the little bit of coin it takes to get a package and relive your childhood. Cheapest trip you'll ever take, and a lot of fun.

The front brakes have been disassembled, cleaned and reassembled, this time with all the appropriate parts in place. I repacked the outer bearings and noted that the RF is a new Timkin bearing whereas the LF is the original. Now I'm wondering if I should replace the LF with a Timkin - if I'm living on borrowed time and a bearing is destined to fail at the worst possible time and place. The good news: I have a source here for Timkin bearings that I found when I replaced the cheap Chinese bearings on the trailer.

The dr.'s office called this morning. Two months ago he raised the level of my synthroid because the readings were on the low side of the normal range. I go back to see him Monday, and last Wednesday I went as instructed to have blood drawn so he could check the levels with the higher dosage and have that info before next week's appointment. Today's call was to say he wants me to go back to the lower dosage because my TSH levels have swung too far the other way.
I'm glad to hear that because I don't like the effects of the higher dosage. The thyroid gland functions as the body's throttle, controlling the pace of everything by regulating metabolism. I've been losing weight, feeling hyper, and my pulse has been about 15 bpm higher than normal - which for me is in the upper 50's. I even tried eliminating caffeine to see if that would help. Nope.
So now the question is how long it will take my body to drop back down. I know it's a matter of weeks, not days. Phooey!

Albert Pujols, last year's homerun king, has hit one so far this year. Alex Rodrigues has five. Josh Hamilton has hit six in the last week, and we're not done yet.

If you haven't already, you should read this open letter that Indiana Senator Richard Lugar wrote the day after his defeat in the Republican primary in Indiana. He speaks the truth, IMHO.

Carroll Shelby died today. He built some great cars but he also had a reputation for being an insufferable egotist and profiteer. And if you want a hot Mustang you should get a Roush model, not a Shelby.
But you can do so much better than a Mustang.

The fridge is empty of everything but yogurt (blech!) and hotdogs. I had two of those for dinner last night. So I'm going to take Jack for his walk and then go get some pizza at a pretty good one-off nearby. I'll get a medium and bring half of it home for tomorrow night. And I'll take my Kindle to read that book I just got.
People will look at me and think, "That poor, lonely old man. How sad that at this stage of life he's all alone and has nothing better to do on a Friday night than eat pizza by himself."
I'll wear my most pathetic face the whole time. Maybe they'll adopt me.