1. The President’s State of the Union Address – we let the boys stay up until 10:00, even though the President was still talking we had to get them to bed since they get up at 6:00 am for school (yes, that is crazy early, the bus comes at 6:45).   We kept pausing the TV because as he was talking, it was bringing up issues that we wanted to discuss further with the boys. We talked about the difference between the Senate and the House, we talked about the Supreme Court and their overturning of campaign spending limits, we explained the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out our own representatives – both Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin were front and center!  We marveled over the fact that Al Franken, who is the most Junior of the Junior Senators, was sitting right behind the Joint Chiefs of Staff (we thought seating had something to do with seniority).

And we discussed the fact that Joe Biden was wearing a purple striped tie, Nancy Pelosi was wearing a lavender suit, and Michele Obama was wearing a purple dress. Did they call each other beforehand to decide they would all wear purple? Nathan thought maybe it stood for something, I think maybe purple is the “hot” color right now and when all three went out to buy clothes for the event, that’s the color the stores were pushing.

Please feel free to leave a comment about what you thought of the State of the Union Address, all opinions are welcome here.

2. In yesterday’s USA Today, there was an article about the USNS Comfort, the Navy ship that is docked off of Port-Au-Prince. According to www.navy.mil, the Comfort is “three football fields long and one wide – has 250 hospital beds and a 550-person medical team that includes trauma surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, head and neck surgeons, eye surgeons and obstetricians and gynecologists. The team also will include medical professionals from the Navy, Army, Air Force and U.S. Public Health Service, as well as nongovernmental organizations.”

The Comfort is seeing hundreds of patients a day, including people crushed by falling buildings, children who lost their whole family, women in labor, people with diseases like tetanus (which can be cured if treated quickly, otherwise it’s fatal), and they just work and work and work to save as many people as they can.  If you are the praying kind, I think the officers on the Comfort deserve a mention for the work they are doing.

3. According to the Wikipedia page for Sarah Palin, she graduated from High School and went to FOUR different colleges.  So I think it’s fair to say that she received a decent education, right? So how come when Glenn Beck asked her to name her favorite “Founding Father”, she froze, blinked, and then said “All of ‘em”?   I’m not a fan of Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin, but dear gods, woman, if you are going to be interviewed by someone who is organizing conventions, writing a book, and planning a March on Washington to promote something he calls the “Refounding of America”, you’d better brush up on the, you know, FOUNDING OF AMERICA.  Doesn’t this woman have anyone who helps her prepare for interviews??

4. Apple, Apple, Apple.  The iPad?  Seriously???  Was there not a single person at Apple who said “hey, um, this is embarrassing, but have you thought about the word Pad? Sure, it can mean a swinging 70′s bachelor apartment, but it also is the word for, um, a feminine hygiene product”?  And did they not think about the fact that there’s only one letter difference between iPod and iPad?  Just imagine the conversations-”honey, have you seen my iPad?”  “Your iPod? No, haven’t seen it”. “No, not my iPOD, my iPAD!”  etc. etc.    You know who is happy about this new device? The people who’s jobs it will be to create all the iPad accessories, because it’s too big to tuck into a purse or jacket pocket. There will need to be iPad sleeves, iPad totes, iPad cases.  Ka-CHING.

5. American Idol – the Dallas auditions were awesome!  First of all, OMGNPH – that’s Neil Patrick Harris if you didn’t watch, he was the guest judge for one day of the auditions, and he was…wait for it…LEGENDARY.  The second day of auditions, the guest judge was Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, and he just sat there. When it was time to vote he just said “yeah.”  It would have been nice to hear him actually say something about singing to any of the contestants.  Unless he doesn’t actually know anything about singing. (sorry JoBro fans).

And THEN…there was Erica Rhodes who was one of the cute kids on BARNEY, and they showed a clip of her on the show, and I looked at Ryan and he looked at me and we REMEMBERED HER! Ryan hates to admit it but he used to like Barney. And this girl was on the show! And now she’s a grad student, and she came into the judges’ room wearing black leather and stiletto boots and CRACKING A FREAKING WHIP.  NPH asked her to sing the Barney theme song and she did, then she sang “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue and she was totally good and got a golden ticket to Hollywood!

Comments are welcome on any or all of these, or share something you’ve been thinking about!