The laundry is done. The cats are sleeping. The kitchen is immaculate. Five of my six inboxes are devoid of pending emails. And I recline at my desk, feet propped on the sill, sipping some Johnnie Walker Swing, thinking.

Friends Moving On
Sad as it is, you can only do the heavy lifting in a friendship for so long before you realize that proximity and utility mean more to others than keeping a friendship well-tended. And that's OK. Lamentable, but OK.

Ukraine
The American with the best understanding of the Ukraine crisis is probably Jared Leto.

Just Show Up
Having just returned from a 1.5-day conference in Chicago, for the leaders of state healthcare-quality associations, I realize more than ever just how true the saying is: Eighty percent of success really is just showing up. Well, engaging, too — but strolling through the wide-open door is usually a good beginning. The rest is often gravy.

Las Vegas
I'm off soon to Las Vegas for another mini-vacation. The trip will be fun, as it always is — I think this will be my eighth or ninth excursion to Sin City in the last six years — and we shall see whether the Gamblin' Gods will be ever in my favor.

Complexification
Is it human nature to take simple things and make them unnecessarily complex? For the last six months or so, I've been wrestling with a problem that, at first blush, seems trivial. Yet I'm not "there" yet with a solution. Every possible answer merely suggests a different set of permutations. Meanwhile, the problem remains unresolved. Perhaps I don't want to solve it?

Faith
Faith without doubt is meaningless. Faith that boasts of its truthfulness is dangerous. No system of belief — religious, political, scientific — should demand unnecessary dogmas or subvert necessary caveats.