Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts

• I watched a little of the great movie Snatch last night (which I think is Brad Pitt's greatest role), and it reminded me of something. It doesn't matter how smart you are, how rich you are, or how "gangsta" you think you are: You do not get in a battle with people who have nothing to lose. 
• There was a murder on White Creek Trail near a bridge in Dallas yesterday which I posted about. I jogged there once in an organized race and that area creeped me out. 
• If House Republicans can't even agree on a Speaker I doubt the party will be able to nominate a presidential candidate that stands a chance of winning. It is a dysfunctional and split family. 
• A man was freed in Dallas yesterday after serving 25 years in prison based upon the stupid "science" of "bite mark evidence" where a freaking dentist testified there was a 1 in a million chance that the marks on the victim came from anyone other than the defendant. You kidding me?   Think about this: In the famous Lake Waco Murders, David Wayne Spence was executed by the government after his conviction based upon "bite mark science".  One of his co-defendants was also found guilty but after a reversal on appeal, and a re-trial in Tarrant  County on a change of venue, he was found not guilty. Read Careless Whispers - a thirty year old book which is fantastic.  
• It's rare to see a fresh newspaper on a front lawn. 
• It's a weird college football world: Steve Spurrier quits mid-season at South Carolina, the USC coach gets fired because of drunkenness, and Baylor sits at #2 and TCU at #3 in the polls. It's Bizarro World.
• A friend read my Sports Trip post yesterday and later walked past me and said, "Hey, Walter Mitty, that was a heck of a weekend." You know, I am Walter Mitty. And I'll be dang if The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty wasn't on TV last night. (And I flipped between it, Phantom of the Opera and Gone Girl.)
• In yesterday's Random Thoughts, I mentioned Mount Everest, climbing to the top of Guadalupe Peak, and taking risks that might kill me one day. Keeping in mind the above bullet point, look at this line from the great book Into Thin Air (by the author of my often mentioned Into The Wild):  "Walter Mittys with Everest dreams need to bear in mind that when things go wrong up in the death zone (above 26,000 feet)—and sooner or later they always do—the strongest guides in the world may be powerless to save [you]." Mitty. Everest. Climbing. Death.
• I forgot to mention yesterday that I took the trip carrying only a backpack. There is something incredibly freeing about traveling with only a backpack. (And I no longer fold my clothes. I roll them up.)
• I loved a comment yesterday from someone who said I wasn't a real "sports fan" because on my Sports Trip I left a game early. I would like to alert the public there is someone out there who is so mentally disturbed that he thinks I take those trips to see who wins the games.
• A buddy asked me yesterday if my reference to "Time is not your friend" was some type of secret code that I have a terminal illness. I told him, "No, I don't. At least as far as know.  But we are all dying."