Hello?

Long time, no blog, and a lot has happened in the last week.

Let's start off with the tragic bridge collapse last week. We were very fortunate that we weren't personally affected by the collapse, and all of our friends and co-workers are safe. It's a very surreal experience. Even though we've seen it on TV and tried to get a closer look in person it still feels like it's happening in another city.

They have plans to have the bridge rebuilt by the end of 2008, a pretty aggressive timeline. However, I've talked with a friend of ours who is a CFO at a major construction company and he informs me that usually the only reason these heavy construction projects (highways, bridges, etc) take so long is because the construction company is waiting on funds from the government. That doesn't appear to be the case with rebuilding the bridge.

It's amazing to think there are over 70,000 bridges around the country that have the same rating or lower than the bridge that collapsed. And a lot of our roads/bridges probably weren't built to handle the amount of traffic they see everyday.

My concern is that there will be a knee-jerk reaction to raise taxes to pay for everything. The government wastes a lot of money every year and gets into things it probably shouldn't. The role of government has changed dramatically in the last 50-75 years and I'm not so sure it's in a good way. We need take a long hard look at where we spend our money and make some tough decisions. Continually raising taxes can't be the answer. By moving money from one area to another we can do the things we need to do without us having to pay more in taxes.

On to another subject... Julie and I went to see the musical Grease on Saturday. The show was entertaining and they did a great job singing, but they changed things too much. They left out songs that were in the movie while adding new songs that weren't in the movie. They shifted the plot some and added quite a bit more raunchiness to the show. It wasn't the same, but it did keep us mildly entertained for the two hours we were there.

On Sunday night my nephew Stephen got into town on his way up to Grand Marais for his new job. His father (my brother) calls me Sunday afternoon to tell me that Stephen is near Madison, WI, and has $6 in his wallet and is not going to make it the rest of the way without some intervention. Julie and I were thinking we were going to be driving to Madison in order to give him money for gas when we get another phone call from my brother.

Apparently, my other nephew Eric had been in Duluth and was on his way back to Ohio when he saw Stephen heading the other way. Eric called Stephen, at which point Stephen begged his brother to come give him some gas and some money. Eric obliged and gave him as much as he could, getting him the rest of the way to our house. Amazing. To be 20 again.

Well, that's all for this post. I promise to be more diligent in my posting, so please stop back again soon.