The Update Desk

My Sweet Baboo and I returned Sunday night from a quick trip to the Lake Champlain area of New York, with side trips to Ausable Chasm, the connecting islands between New York and Vermont, and a long ride on Route 100, a beautiful trip on a perfect fall day. On both the way up and back, we avoided major highways and meandered through the Adirondacks instead. It takes longer, but it's worth it. We came home relaxed, refreshed and ready to head into the last quarter of the year.

I'm now hoping to find time to download and organize all of my pictures; this trip I went solely digital, while MSB brought along his regular camera and several lenses. I get the sense that, as usual, his pictures will be better than mine, but I had a few that I think are OK, and will be posting some up in the coming days. And, because of the trip, I’m a little out of touch with what's been going on in the world and behind on my reading, but I thought I’d provide some updates on some previous posts.

Regarding President Obama’s intervention into New York politics, most everyone in the state agreed with me that it’s our responsibility to vote folks out, not Washington’s responsibility to 'encourage' them out. In this poll, taken a few days after the news broke, 62% of New Yorkers indicated that Obama should stay out of the race.

After the shenanigans in Albany earlier this year, where Republicans adopted a couple of ethically challenged Democrats and ‘stole’ the Majority, only to have the Dems ultimately regain power through some very shady dealings of their own, I wrote to my State Senator asking for responses to some simple questions. I never did hear back from him; I’ll keep trying, though.

I did hear just a few days ago from NY’s Junior Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, after I sent in a postcard to her asking that she not support the kind of health care reform that could theoretically put my regional, not for profit health insurance company out of business and me out of a job. She basically thanked me for writing, then proceeded to completely ignore my opinion but tell me hers, which was in support of a public option.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee failed to get approval for a couple different versions of public option. I hope they’ll keep trying to get real reform, in a thoughtful and fiscally sound way, just as my company will continue to support other significant health care reforms. Let the debate continue, sanely, until a solid solution can be realized.

Last, in this post from March, I talked about the trees that MSB and I started to care for after they were planted on an empty lot several blocks down the road. We had hoped to be able to tend to them throughout the spring and summer, but they were in the middle of a construction zone from April through last week. Now, it's too late for us to prune them. We’ll check back in with them in the spring, and hope for better luck next year.