Ned Luce

Wow, if you were a regular viewer of C-SPAN you had an exciting week with the voting for the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

In spite of the incredibly gray weather, I did have a really nice week. Last Sunday I celebrated another birthday when I again woke up on the sunny side of the grass, not that there was any sun. However, it does seem that there is some wear on the grass. My sister from LA was in town early in the week and we went to Port Townsend for lunch at Doc’s followed the next day by a trip to Edmonds to enjoy lunch out with our daughter at “Chanterelle.”

On Sunday we again took the Kaleetan ferry to Edmonds on our way to celebrate my birthday with family. We don’t remember seeing that ferry on the Edmonds run before. We need to get out more.  Again, this year, it is appropriate to recognize that Don Whipple, Peggy Kulm, Elvis Presley, and other luminaries also enthusiastically celebrate their birthday on Jan. 8. At least I hope so. 

For us, my birthday typically marks the end of the holiday season and the beginning of the process of taking down the decorations — at least the ones inside — because the rain has put a damper in the efforts to remove the outdoor lights, even though it was a “light” year. 

The sports scene is looking good as the Seahawks made the NFL playoffs with a little help from the Lions in Detroit. They play the San Francisco Forty-Niners on Saturday and with a win they qualify to play the best team in the NFC, the Eagles, a week later. 

The Kansas City Chiefs are the best team in the AFC thus, like the Eagles, earned the first week off. 

KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes set an NFL record with 5,614 total yards. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Justin Houston had credit for one quarterback sack changed to a half sack costing him a $500,000 bonus. 

Come on, can’t we just round up and get the guy his half a million bucks? 

College football fans know that the Horned Frogs of TCU played the Georgia Bulldogs on Monday in the NCAA title game. That game happened after my deadline for submitting this column so I cannot report on the results. 

I was cheering for TCU because of their tough-as-nails quarterback, Max Duggan, and their mascot named “Super Frog.”

For the record, I did not go to Wabash College because they are the “Little Giants,” but I is one. 

I saw that TCU had odds of 200-to-1 against them to be playing in the title game. Hey, those odds are better than the Mega Millions but the Mega payoff is around a billion dollars! 

On the subject of big money, how about that Elon Musk? It is reported he has lost $182 billion since November 2021.

Friends, don’t worry, it is just a “paper” loss.  

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident with no “loss” for words. Contact Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)