In keeping with what is now a two-year Christmas tradition, I wrote Kym a poem, a la Dr. Seuss, that is an extension of one of Kym’s favorites, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Pretty much sums up the year we've had...

Oh, the year we have had! with its jostles and bumps
We’ve been high on the Rooftops! And down in the Dumps
Just when we thought that our future was clear
We’d turn ‘round a corner and Change would appear
With his old pal Uncertainty one step behind
All the This-Way-Then-That-Ways became quite a Grind!

Just writing a poem about this year’s events
Creates quite a story that’s rather intense!
We started the year with the Best New Year’s Yet
I popped the question and you said, “You Bet!”
We partied all night at a Y2K ball
And, according to F.J., your gown beat them all!

We moved you to Boston to start a new life
And prepare for the day we’d be Husband and Wife
But our hopes for the future were dashed when we learned
That your Hodgkin’s, so long in remission, returned
For two weeks we viewed your prognosis with terror
When finally we found that the test was in error!

A lesson emerged from that troubling event
Each day must be lived to its fullest extent
We made a decision on that very day
That we should get hitched without further delay!
A few short months later we flew to Hawai’i
And, witnessed by loved ones, were wed on Kaua’i
But wait! That’s not all that occurred on that day!
For that very same night we conceived Taylor Jay!

Talk about Changes! These DINKs ‘til their day’s end
Were suddenly thinking of Pampers and Playpens!
And Sippy-Cups! Strollers! Au Pairs and Papooses!
Barneys and Pokémons! Potters and Seusses!
Our image of just you and me quickly faded
We “Saabed” on that fateful day Cloe got traded
But no doubt, this all will be worth all the Fuss
The day we see Taylor’s eyes looking at us

There’s just not the room to depict all our plans
Of Start-Ups that didn’t and Möbius Bands
Of Legal Frustrations and Selling Sensations!
Of New Jobs and Old Saabs and Small Tribulations
And next year – Look Out! We’re just getting started!
We may move from Boston to places uncharted

But one thing remains – be there Change or whatever
My love for you grows every day we’re together
And one other thing remains Certain, my wife –
I still cherish the night you danced into my life

And last year’s poem…

Oh, the places We’ll go! With hopes flying high
We’ll soar through the air! Our limit, the sky!
Except when you fall and Deep Troubles brew
But when life is its darkest I’ll be there for you
And wouldn’t you know it? The opposite’s true!
When I’m in the Pickle you’ll bail me out too!
For life is just Grand! Despite the Rough Parts
And life’s even better when shared as Sweethearts
So here’s to the Journey! And our yet-revealed Fate
I’m honored to walk the unknown as your Mate
And as we go forward as Husband and Wife
I’ll cherish the night you danced into my life

I know it's not Thanksgiving yet, but I've been in a thougtful mood today, considering all that I have to be thankful for (plus I've finally been getting around to writing thank you notes for gifts Kym and I have received for our Summer Solstice wedding). The last 12 months have been a rollercoaster ride for sure, what with a cancer scare, a wedding, an unexpected conception, two deaths in the family (each more a blessing than a curse)... the list goes on. But the resounding truth in it all is that Kym and I have found a love -- and that love has endured. Amen.

I’m really not as obsessed about the election results as I probably sound. It’s just that it’s a topic so ripe for pontification that I just can’t resist. So please forgive yet another electoral rumination…

When the whole concept of a “chad” (which, by the way, received the “red under-squiggle of shame” as I typed it into Word) was dumped into our collective memory databanks, I thought briefly, “Hmm… “The Hanging Chads.” Wouldn’t that be a cool name for a band?

A few days later, a fellow musician from Southern CA (check out The Over-Reactors) sent out his periodical e-mailing which said, “Wouldn’t that be a cool name for a band?”

I did just a little snooping at Network Solutions to see… Sure enough, you’ve already missed out on the opportunity to reserve www.thehangingchads.com, www.thepregnantchads.com or just about any derivative of these top-level domain names. I could only find two that had actually been put to use yet – a conservative pol has reserved www.thepregnantchad.com and www.thehangingchad.com and is starting to fill them with commentary.

No doubt it’s not the first time a concept has hit the scene and brought many individuals to the same conclusion spontaneously. It’s called zeitgeist. So don’t go suing anyone saying that they stole your idea. The courts are too busy already.

One last word about that squiggle – even though Word didn’t recognize chad as a word (nor did my very dusty Webster’s Unabridged 3rd Edition), Bill Gates slyly put it into his Bookshelf 2000 dictionary. Isn’t that interesting that an earlier product did not have the word, but a more recent one – one that was still before the election – in fact did. Coincidence? Perhaps. Conspiracy? We may never know…

Another day, still no President-elect. I'm starting to not mind it so much. The rest of my life is in limbo (the new company I'm helping to found is still searching for that ever-important next round of funding), so why not share the feelings of uncertainty with the rest of the nation?

The stock market hardly knows what to do with itself. Pundits always say that the market hates uncertaintly. That's always seemed funny to me because uncertainty is what makes it possible to have a stock market in the first place. If everyone had perfect knowledge of each company's performance, there would be no need for a market; stocks would have a solid value, like that of currency.

At some point, we all get comfortable enough with the idea that life is pretty much an unpredictable phenomenon. Some shroud that unpredictability under a cloud of denial, saying life doesn't change, life changes but I can control it, or life changes because of intervention from a higher power. The higher power issue aside for a moment, it seems pretty outrageous to say that we have much control at all about anything except our response to what is happening around us.

This is my first blog. I thought it would be a good place to dump random thoughts. Here's one...

I sent this to NPR last night...

The bright side of our election debacle is that the national consciousness is now riveted on a subject of much greater social import than our prior obsessions, most notably the O. J. Simpson trial.

The downside is that the legal eagles involved in the case are comparatively far less colorful. If Johnny Cochran were on Gore’s dream team, the verdict would be a done deal: “If the chad doubts mount, you must recount!”