"The winner ain't the one with the fastest car; it's the one who refuses to lose." the late Dale Earnhardt Sr., known as the Intimidator

It's Tuesday, February 25, 2014, and I find myself turning left and looking in my rear view mirror this morning. Not really. But I am thinking about this year's edition of the Daytona 500. By now the most remote people on the planet referred to as un-contacted peoples likely have heard that Dale Earnhardt Jr., won the race. It came late Sunday evening after a more than 6 hour rain delay. I wanted to watch it. I weighed the pros and cons. I can watch it, get all entangled in it, and end up being wired when I should be snoozing. Or, I can leave it, and get up early and find out who won. I chose the option behind door number two and I know I am better off for it. My driver finished 4th, #24, and that's not a bad way to start the year. Dale Jr. is the most popular driver in NASCAR for the past ten plus years in a row. He makes around $24 million a year doing what he does. So, here's the deal. The most popular driver wins the most prestigious race of the year and the Junior Nation as it is called can be joyful ...... for at least one week, (for a change). Here's a funny coming out of the race. During the rain delay Fox ran a rerun of last year's race which was won by Jimmie Johnson. Obviously, some NASCAR fans are not always clued in to what's going on. At the end of the rerun of the race, Twitter was nearly shut down with folks sending in their congratulations to Jimmie on a great win. Jimmie finally had to come out and remind people that while he appreciated their vote of support, it actually had happened one year ago. Truth is always funnier and stranger than a made up story.

I know some of you think that if I were a true fan I would have bitten the bullet and stayed with it to the bitter end. That's a reasonable point of view, but, with age comes practical wisdom and that often ends up making more sense. I did watch the truck race Friday night and the Nationwide race on Saturday afternoon, if that counts for something. Speaking of competition, as in the Olympics, the Russians took home the most medals at 33 won. The United States was second with 28, closely followed by Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands. The official ranking is based on the number of gold medals won and that places the United States at 4th overall. The US won 37 medals in the 2010 Vancouver games while Russia only won 15. Therefore, one would conclude that the home court advantage was very very good for the Russians. This year's games had plenty of controversy with the security concerns, the normal stuff about favoritism in the judging, poor conditions at times due to unseasonable warm weather, (Where is Al Gore when you really need him?), and the civil unrest going on in the neighboring country of Ukraine. In spite of all of these issues along with what I thought was woeful coverage by NBC's team of so called crackerjack celebrity broadcasters, well, to me, it's the individual stories about men and women overcoming great personal hardships and obstacles to achieve the ultimate in their respective competition that tell the real story reflecting the Olympic spirit as well as the spirit of the games themselves.

I was reading from an editorial in a reprint of an old newspaper the other day where the subject being addressed had to do with how those running for reelection always come home to say all the things they think their constituents want to hear. They didn't vote that way before but now they are the loudest proponents of those issues near and dear to the hearts of their people. Fast forward. No wonder people say the more things change it is the more they stay the same. I think if I hear one more electoral commercial talking about how they will single handedly fix our porus border I'm going to run for the hills. To my chagrin, this kind of stuff actually works. I know. It's really all about the money, except in very rare situations. Will Rogers, humorist and social commentator during the 1920's and 1930's, was right when he said: "Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated." That's why I encourage everyone to become informed as best they can and then to vote their heartfelt conscience, regardless of the so called wisdom of the political experts. Alrighty then, time to move on for today. Have a great one and may God bless us all is my prayer. Amen.  ...More later.