All life is a road from the past to the future. And what the future will be depends only on us.

 My hatred for baseball announcer Joe Buck knows no bounds. I had to physically leave the room last night during the All-Star game because my brain could not stand his incessant prattling. The man would not shut up for even a few seconds, especially when he was mouth-frothingly spewing his inane diatribe about Kenny Rogers’ off-field behavior (that would be Kenny Rogers the pitcher, not the fried chicken entrepreneur). Hey Joe, I’ve got an idea: why don’t you announce some of the play-by-play action once in awhile? With some spaces of dead air known as “silence” in between? Hmmm? How would that be? P.S. Hey Monday Night Football: if you want to kill me, assign Joe Buck to do the broadcasts with John Madden. Seriously, that would be great. Then I would no longer fear death, but instead, would WILLINGLY SEEK IT OUT.

 Lately, it seems that my verbal communication skills have vanished. Oh, I can write just fine - big, grand sweeping verbose stories and literary limericks with the benefit of an easy-access delete key, but when I find myself talking, that’s another thing altogether. Words that aren’t even words come tumbling out of my mouth like a stampeding mass of verbal hysteria gang-rushing the exit sign during a fire, pushing and stomping until they make it to freedom, which results in me saying such things as, “Ooh, sloppy joe’s for dinner? That would be graat.” [silence for about 3 seconds] Jason : “Did you just say, “GRAAT”? Me : “What?…no. No, I don’t think so.” Jason : “Yeah, I think you did. You said graat.” Me : “No, I di-Hey, I like this song on the radio.” Jason : “Don’t change the subject. I want to know what the heck “graat” means.” Me : “Uh, I guess it’s the combination of ‘great’ and ‘grand.’ You know, ‘Dinner at the Palace? That would be GRAAT.’” Jason : “OK…Why would you even c...