Timeout

It's been a busy day.

I started today at an early coffee reception for Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN), co-hosted by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY). I shook both their hands and questioned Lugar briefly about Iraq. He said something non-committal about civil war and then changed the subject to Nunn-Lugar. I can't say that I blame him; maybe he didn't have anything nice to say about Iraq.

In his talk, Lugar discussed US education, loss of manufacturing jobs, the growing "engineer gap" between the US and China/India, and the need to think about these points as foreign policy and/or security issues.

It was like listening to Robert Reich channel Ike after Sputnik.

Since I met Chuck Hagel earlier this year, I've decided I might work my way through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Hagel, by the way, seemed more personable -- and Lugar is shorter than I thought he would be.

Much of the rest of the day was spent dealing with a stolen credit card. Someone broke into our house last Friday afternoon, but my wife and daughter came home and the individual ran away in surprise. We didn't learn of the missing credit card until today, when the bank phoned to inquire about the odd string of purchases. Ugh.

Finally, this afternoon, we went to pick up the two 9-week old Lab/mutt puppies the family adopted on Saturday. The male (Darrowby, or Roby) and the female (Paddington, or Paddy/Patty) had to be "fixed" Sunday before we could take them from the Humane Society. They're cute and fun. So far.