Tom Allen

I get all cranked up about the Olympics.  They only come around every four years.  Big world-wide deal.  Great athletes on the World stage.  Some sports I never watch otherwise (team handball is so cool).  You'll never catch me watching Women's Gymnastics on a Saturday afternoon, but, by golly, I'm not missing them in the Olympics. I saw the thrills.  I saw the spills.  The ecstasy and the tragedy  Pretty cool.  The US girls are amazing.  Three of our competitors' scores are in the top 4 out of everyone in what they call the "overall competition".  It's, apparently, a really big deal to be the "overall champion".  They take the top 24 scores.  Well, apparently, they don't.  No matter how high your scores are, they only allow 2 from any one country.  The Olympic committee's explanation was, "we want to spread the wealth around".  WOW, that sounds like President Obama talking to Joe the Plumber. So, here's...

We celebrated an anniversary recently...32 years.   32 YEARS!   That's a long time.  I've been married longer than I've not been married.   I'm not sure I can remember being single.  It's kind of a blur.  I know I was...but that was 32 years ago!   You can't really expect me to remember things that far back, can you?  Ancient history. I do vaguely remember that being single (in the 70s) had its challenges and issues.  Everything does.  But, honestly, I don't think the challenges were as great as they are today.  Even being married, I can see it's tough being single today.  With Americans choosing to marry later, with co-habitation being more of an acceptable option to marriage or even an expected precursor to marriage, with ever-changing moral rules and rights, being single, and, somehow, being Christian, have never been tougher.  Couple that with the fact that single adults in American are the fastest-growing demographi...

Tomorrow, I have Jury Duty.  Don't you just hate that.  Driving all the way to wherever you have to drive, sitting in a room with a bunch of other people who don't want to be there either.  Then there's always one lady in shorts and a tank top that the judge has to lecture about what's appropriate in society and in his courtroom and about showing respect, which she obviously knows nothing about.  Then there's all the people who don't bother to show up, because they keep calling their names and they never answer, and you wonder if anything ever happens to them and if it doesn't, then why did you drive all this way and sit in this musty old room with a bunch of complainers who don't want to be there either. Then you pray your name doesn't get called, because if it does you get herded down a hallway and asked a bunch of questions and that takes forever, and you might, heaven forbid, land on a jury.  That could go on for days. Even if you don't g...