Thursday November 5th, 2009 - Sault Ste. Marie, MI

   The drive between St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie is only about fifty miles, but today it seemed like five hundred because of the weather conditions. There was rain and sleet and slow and wind, and then it was sunny for five minutes. Then it was like a blizzard again.

   It went back and forth like that the whole way and I can’t recall ever seeing such diverse weather conditions on such a short trip. My little Toyota was rocking back and forth with such force there for a while I thought for sure I’d wind up dead in the ditch as bear chow.

   We ended up making it to the Kewadin Casino and checked in. They feed us here and it was lunch time so we went and had a spectacular meal. That’s one of the perks of this run so Tom and I made full use of it. After lunch it was nap time and I made full use of that as well. I didn’t get much sleep last night so I went down for the count and sawed some logs.

   I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon and woke up around 6pm. I don’t usually turn the TV on often but today I did and saw the coverage of the shooting situation in Texas at Ft. Hood. Of course I was stunned like anyone else would be and it made me feel very sad for the families of the victims. If anything puts a damper on comedy it’s a mass shooting.

   These kinds of situations are never going to go away unfortunately, but I sure wish they would. If the guy was that wacked out, he should have gotten help or just blown his own head off. Why do these nut bags always have to take out innocent people? Have a plan.

   The second thing I thought of  was his name. They said he’s from Jordan and probably a Muslim and that pours gas on that whole situation. I know all Muslims aren’t bad but this won’t do anything to squash those rumors. Innocent people will get screwed once more.

   My friend Azhar Usman comes to mind immediately. Azhar is a wonderful person and hilarious comic as well. Unfortunately he looks like he should be the poster child for The Taliban’s recruitment division. He’s dark skinned and has long hair and a beard and he’s about 6’2” tall. I have to admit, I’d look twice or more if he was on an airplane with me.

   HE’S the one that has to suffer the most when things like this happen because everyone assumes he’s a terrorist along with every cab driver and millions of other good folks who moved to America to build better lives for themselves and their families. It’s just not fair.

   I know life isn’t fair and never will be but my heart goes out to Azhar and everyone else who happens to be of Middle Eastern descent who are good people and just want to live a peaceful life. I know there are bad ones just like there are bad apples of every group but it stinks that those maniacal selfish bung holes have to ruin it for all the others, and they do.

   Check out Azhar’s website at www.azhar.com. He’s really funny and a very gentle soul. Hopefully he can help to cool off some of the tensions that are sure to get tighter after this little cowardly punk stunt. Life is tense enough and nobody needed this. Enough already.