It's a Friday afternoon, and I'm looking forward to a nice, comfortable weekend without having to worry about another damn hurricane making a beeline toward Florida! Of course, thoughts and prayers are with our friends and neighbours along the panhandle and throughout the Gulf South who are recovering from Ivan.

Now for some random thoughts...

---I made a post here several days ago asking the question "Do you ever think about your first love?" At the time I was thinking about my high school sweetheart from Texas. It seems that Dave at spacecoastweb: blog thinks about his all the time...a really great story you should check out for yourself. It put a smile on my face! (Scroll down to September 14's post).

---Happy Birthday (belated) to Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof in Miami. He's 52 (I put it here because he actually admits it!). I'm catching up, but hey, we're getting better just like fine wine!

---Tommy at Sticks of Fire is taking some time off. As the saying goes, you can't be good to anyone unless you're good to yourself. Enjoy, but don't be gone too long.

---What's this I read this morning about Mel Martinez's campaign having second thoughts about a statewide televised debate against Betty Castor unless NBC Washington Bureau Chief and "Meet The Press" host Tim Russert is replaced as moderator? Russert has a reputation of being especially well prepared and a tough questioner, and does these type of debates across the country for NBC affiliates. Martinez' camp is balking on the grounds that they favour a Florida journalist, but News Director Forrest Carr of Tampa's WFLA --- who would host the debate --- told the Tampa Tribune that Russert has a ten year tradition of having Florida journalists on panels whenever he has done these events previously in the Sunshine State.

Sounds more like the former HUD Secretary is afraid of tough questions...

---The Florida Supreme Court seemed to be uncomfortable with the question of wheather Ralph Nader should be kicked off the ballot during arguments today in Tallahassee, according to a report from the Capitol News Service. An interesting paragraph in that report:

While Nader may be a national candidate, he is the Reform Party’s candidate in only five states...and a party spokesman had trouble naming them. Patrick Slevin with the Reform Party of Florida says, “The Nader representative of those states that I heard her say, I can’t give you it.”

---The right wing conservative talkers are beginning to make a big item about a comment that John Kerry's wife Teresa Heinz Kerry made during a visit to a hurricane relief centre in New York earlier in the week while volunteers were helping pack supplies to sent to several Caribbean island countries savaged by Hurricane Ivan.

As usual, they like to take the comment out of context without reading the entire text. Would you rather your children starve and be clothed or be naked for a few days and have the life sustaining necessities of food and water? That is what Ms. Kerry was saying, although her comment was not the most prudent.