Point of No Return

We evolve.

Now, wait a minute. I’m not diving into the quagmire that is evolution versus creationism. No, no, no. This is more about what we do as a civilization in general.

There’s an ongoing one-sided dialogue between myself and my dogs. The reason I say this is one-sided is because it’s, well, one-sided. My dogs can’t speak. Well, not English, anyway.

There are a few certainties in my life every August.

Through selfless compromise and a keen eye toward the welfare of our citizenry, our national leaders reached a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling on Tuesday. This prevented our proud nation from going into default and showed once again that we the people have done another stellar job of selecting the best of the best to lead us into ...

Ah, summer.

When I was 10, this was undeniably the most wonderful time of the year for me. Christmas was great — don’t get me wrong. But it was fleeting. There was a day of receiving presents, and then, well, a hurried rush to see family members and then a quick return to school.

He’s back.

There have been some mind-boggling inventions throughout the course of my lifetime. No, I wasn’t around for the dawn of the automotive industry, though Bob Bertram tells me they were indeed exciting times. And airplanes were already a standard means of travel by the time I started digressing around the house in diapers. But some of the advancements I’ve seen in my relatively short amount of time on this planet often make me mentally pause and digest just how far we’ve come.

Verdict brings back memories of Simpson

Floored.

Shocked.

Angry.

Frustrated.

Incredulous.

There are times when acceptance of an inevitable truth comes to one slowly — a steady progression of experiences that leads to an unmistakeable reality that something has indeed happened.

So, I went to Sunday’s final round of the U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.

According to a report released by three Democratic U.S. Senators earlier this week, a significant number of weapons used by Mexican drug gangs come from within our country.

When I was a kid, there was a certain classmate who delighted in bullying me.

There is nothing like a good old family connection story that truly touches the heart.

I thought I was all set for doomsday. Huddled beneath my kitchen table with a helmet strapped tightly to my head and a flyswatter in my tightly-clenched fist, I kept a keen eye on the digital clock by my side.

Well, that was a fairly quick offseason, wasn’t it?

It’s been a couple interesting weeks for me.

So, it’s been pretty-well documented that I love my Mommy.

We’re big proponents of free speech around here.

I’m a poker player.

Casino, home game, poker room or online site, I love to play the game. There is something about check-raising somebody out of a pot when you don’t have a hand, or laying down top two pairs because you just know in your heart that you’re beat that is incredibly satisfying.

Have you ever pulled into your driveway after a long day of work, opened the door and been hit with the smell of a steak grilling that just completely overtook your central nervous system and erased all other thoughts that might have been rambling around in your brain?

As I write this column, the Baltimore Orioles are 4-0 and on top of the American League East standings.

As you read this column, the Baltimore Orioles could be 4-2 and I might be done looking at the American League East standings for a while.

English is a mutt of a language.

Every now and then I stumble across something that is both interesting and a little dorky. No, no, no ... I’m not talking about our advertising rep, Susan Mutz. But I completely understand why you’d think that.

There are certainly a lot of great days that come around every year.

By the time this week’s paper hit the streets, I was sitting on a plane heading down to Florida for a week-plus of sunshine, live music and a few cocktails.

A piece of American history died last Sunday.

I recently completed a three-part series on the perils of prescription drug abuse — ranging from physical and mental dangers, to an uptick in property crimes to the damages done to friends and family members of those addicted to the pills. We spoke with numerous members of the community, officials in non-profit organizations and care facilities and those in law enforcement, along with one family who was struggling with this in their own home.

Great, something else that’s smarter than me.

A police officer in Manatee County, Fla., was flagged down by a 27-year-old man last week and told that the man was robbed at gunpoint about 90 minutes earlier, according to an article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune. Apparently, police became a little suspicous of the man’s story because of inconsistencies in his story and the delay in reporting the crime.

It’s a term we’ve all heard over and over again throughout the course of our respective lifetimes — “Like a dog with a bone.”