By the Grace of God

And the mediation of St. Valentine I guess.

I work with a guy whose retired from his second job at an airline. He is going to hook me up with a buddy pass, so Chloe can fly out to the 'Nati (what Cincinnatians call our lovely home) at the end of May.

She is set to leave from Australia for Thailand in one month. And though I am bummed, since I had originally planned on going to see her there, this is the next best thing and all but makes up for that. Biggest drawback to not going to SE Asia--I won't be proposing to her while riding an elephant on a beach (you think I'm joking...she said it had to be creative). Nevertheless, that time will yet come and yours truly will definitely concoct a fantastic memorable scenario.

Hopefully by the time she arrives I will have my grad school plans and Student VISA (for Canada) set to move back North in July or August. Then the lovebirds will embark upon the adventure of moving in together after 6 months of dating (in the same city) and (by then) 18 months of long distance relationship.

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In other news, don't know who to root for in the game tonight. I'm an AFC man, plus a Midwesterner, so by all rights I should be going for the Steelers. But then again, it took 15 years of me rooting for the Bengals to watch our hopes dashed on the second play as our franchise's knee buckled.

The Cincinnati theory: von Oelhoeffen did not intentionally go to take Palmer out, but he did have time to get out of the way or lessen the blow, hit him around the waist for example. Of course I buy into that theory.

I wonder what's happening in my old haunts in DEE-TROIT (aka de-Twois). At least with it being cold most of the thugs and murderers will be indoors--I hope. But you never know the Fans might be welcomed to the gates by a car or two on fire. Thoughts of ignited rubber, glass, fuel, and steel and bombed out houses bring a tear to my eye.