Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile

One of my goals as I moved to Seattle and started a new life was to read more.

The whole falling in love, being engaged and planning a wedding derailed that, to a point. However, I was able to read a couple of books that I would like to comment on. The first is the following:

You may recognize the title from the movie starring Tom Hanks and....Glenn Close? I think. Obviously I'm too lazy to do the google search and find out. Anyway...........

I love history. I love war history, especially. I would read books about the Civil War as a kid...World War II documentaries....the problem is, I've learned so much that I never really learn anything new. Maybe one little nuance in an hour-long documentary.

So the idea of reading a book about a war that I really no ZERO about? How cool is that?

I loved it. I actually read through it pretty quickly, I was on travel for business so I had some quality reading time. I really enjoyed getting the behind-the-scenes info on how some very imperfect people used some back doors to fund a war in Afghanistan that was one of the principal reasons behind the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Two issues that I found myself contemplating:
1. I think it's SO crazy how one person, one random senator from Pennsylvania are wherever, can be in charge of appropriating so much money... billions of dollars...often with so little oversight. I don't think that's right. (Yet...in this case it turned out at least fairly nice.)

2. Man, how about those unintended consequences? Our support for the various tribes of Afghans against the Soviets may have brought us Osama Bin Laden and a lot of the problems that we are facing in Afghanistan right now. Going back, would you want to change it all? Would our world be a better place without our pumping billions of dollars of weapons, technology, and training to the various violent factions in Afghanistan? Very possibly.

Anyway, a good read, not that my literary opinion means anything...making myself write a blog entry about it makes me accountable to someone.

Today At Work

So today at work, as part of our staff meeting, we had a brainstorming session about ways to cut costs. I feel like I can tell the world that, it's not proprietary information that Boeing is trying to save money. I'm actually a fan of saving money, and I approve that they are looking for our input in doing that, as workers are usually the ones with the best ideas.

Anyway, as is wont to happen, the brainstorming session eventually degraded into who can come up with the funniest way to cut costs. I was in the zone, and my ideas kept getting funnier and funnier.

I would target ideas that I knew my coworkers would find funny because of their tastes and the things they complained about.

"What about industrial strength toilet paper? Oh wait, we already have that!" ha ha ha
"What about if we have a policy where you only flush every other time? Think about it, 50% savings in water bathroom costs!" ha ha ha. my germophobic coworkers loved that one

I was on a roll. I looked at my manager and took aim. She's a pretty hard-core environmentalist, had a Prius the first year they came out, lives out in the country, has a lot of pets that she really cares about, makes sure we turn off our monitors at the end of the day to save a little bit of energy...really nice lady, I like her. At the perfect time, at a lull in the conversation, I looked up and said,

"Isn't just throwing everything away cheaper than recycling? How about we do that?"

Dead Silence. Finally I added a "Just kidding. Joking. I love recycling."

Nobody laughed. Oh well.

Something's missing...

I haven't been writing much in my blog because blogs are supposed to be funny.





At least that's the way that I look at it. I have a list of my friends and their blogs and which ones do I take the ones to look at? The ones that I know are funny.





Well, I haven't been stepping it up lately. I've been busy with marriage plans and work and running and elections and I just don't feel like I'm very funny.





That's kind of how my life has been. Let's take Halloween, for example. Last year, for Halloween:

Oh, wait...this is me and Torrie, pre-relationship, dancing. When I got her to dance (for those of you who know Torrie, she HATES dancing) with me, I knew that she liked me, cause I could get her to do whatever I wanted. Ha ha.

My change in funniness? Perhaps it has to do with my work. I am now surrounded by older people all day. The two people I sit next to have been with the Boeing Company for a few years, and I find that a lot of my efforts are spent making them laugh. I'm successful at it, but I don't think jokes about kids is going to cut it for the blog.

I can make Torrie laugh - I spend enough time talking to her on the phone that I'm still really good at that...but really, she laughs a lot so it's not that hard :)

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can be funny again? Perhaps some suggestions for funny blog entries? Cause I got nothin, but I refuse to believe that getting married means I have to give up my being funny.