A-Ha

When I look out the window in my office at work, I can see through the window to some of the older homes in our historic Old North Durham neighborhood.  It is an older neighborhood with homes from the 20’s and 30’s.  Most of the view is obstructed by the asphalt shingle roof of the transmission shop next door.  It is not a bad view.  there is plenty of natural light and I always know the weather.  But most days, it is as close as I get to the “street.”

Thursday was no different.  It was overcast.  My ceiling lamp was struggling to overpower the darkness.  And, my task felt more like tilting at windmills to a greater extent than normal.

We have done some tilting, for sure.  This spring, we suggested to the newspaper that subprime mortgages would lead to a Great Depression-like event.  We challenged Fifth Third, Bank of America, Countrywide, Wachovia, and First

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How to Eat Your Candy

There are really two ways to approach a sack of Halloween candy.

Some will say that you should eat all of your best candies first.  Create a hierarchy: baby ruths and 100 grand bars, along with Twizzlers.  Those are first.  Dots and goobers are good.  Three musketeers, dum-dums, tootside rolls, they can wait.

People who utilize this strategy have little to worry about.  With each bite, their hoard becomes less significant, and they are more indifferent to its contents.

The other way is a hoarder’s method.  Those best candies – they go last.  They are not just for eating.  That Baby Ruth is for savoring, maybe for months.  Those crisp nuts, that luscious nougat.

This is a fine method if you want to eat your candy bit by bit.  There are risks, though.

One risk is that the preservatives will not last.  They only last a few months.  Another risk is from parents or uncles.

“Just a taste,” my dad often said, about some piece of candy he’d have his eye on.  He would show me the whites of eyeballs, as if that made his request somehow more reasonable.  “You can have  the rest.”