"Have a Nice Summer"

Jeffrey W. Garner, 45 of Connersville, passed away unexpectedly at his residence on March 9, 2006.

When in doubt, one can always count on Joss Whedon for the easy answers. And the "invisible girl" episode ("Out of Mind, Out of Sight" being the title that didn't get a suit from Marvel) leaves us with the phrase "Have a nice summer" as the one you write in a yearbook "only...when he or she has absolutely nothing else to say."

I went digging through the high school yearbooks for the two previous years (I don't have the one from my graduation year), searching in vain for a picture of Mr. Garner. Found nothing. No pictures or references to him at all in either year, not even the little one they allocate to the Underclass.

Things probably were not well with him

He had been employed at Hillhurst Farms and Dougherty Orchards for several years and C & P Engineering for 2 years, retiring due to his health.

and I wouldn't have crossed paths with a Jehovah's Witness in any of his activities

He enjoyed working at odd jobs, listening to music, going to church, reading his bible and martial arts where he was a fifth degree black belt.

so the best I could say would be "Have a nice summer." Which isn't possible any longer.

Might as well blog.

Excerpt from an upcoming novel

The novel itself is not showing on the B&N website, so if the link above came through, it's to an abridged CD. And, since this is from the galley, the finished text may be different:

How do you think Iraq got started? Four or five neocon theorists, totally committed to the cause, taking a few discredited reports from a handful of paid informants, completely unreliable, plus one forged memo on yellowcake uranium and a satellite photo of a mobile chemical lab that turned out to be making insecticide instead of anthrax. Pretty thin stuff, huh? But the next thing you know, 135,000 troops are slogging through the desert toward Baghdad.

And the thoughts of the main character to that?

...wondering if he really believed it. It seemed unlikely. But a few years ago, the idea of a war with Iraq would have seemed just as outlandish, and now half the globe was seemingly on alert, waiting nervously to see where the American hammer would fall next. [emphasis mine]

The American hammer? You mean the one with overextended troops who can't control the two countries in which they are currently battling?