Thoughtful Cookie
As I awaited my change I opened the fortune cookie and was pleased to find one that actually had a fortune in it. They all have the little slips of paper, but very few have fortunes. This one, however, told me that I would have luck when I got home. Maybe it was my full belly or the MSG, but I started to think about what my luck might be; about what I’d actually want my luck to be. I didn’t find myself hoping for large sums of cash or Kate Upton handing me my slippers, pipe, and the daily paper. I would just like a quiet evening, maybe a walk around the neighborhood, a good meal, maybe a short nap and a Penguins win.
It was funny for me to 
My wife and I recently had the task of taking our youngest child off to college. Though not terribly far away this is our last child and sort of an end of a chapter in our lives. There will be holidays and summer, but more time will be spent living away than with us. That is life and that is how it is supposed to be rather than sitting in their childhood bedrooms staring at faded posters into their late twenties.
I recently had the misfortune of spending four hours in a auto shop waiting room. The real tragedy is that I took the truck in for an oil change, tire rotation, and to have an exhaust clamp replaced. I work for a large bureaucracy with lots of systems and procedures. One of the systems is to get preapproved for fleet repairs, schedule the work, and then have the garage fax and estimate for the work before proceeding. I arrived at eight and the garage had my truck in the bay within 30 minutes. The outlier was the exhaust pipe which was currently held in place by a wire hanger. The customer service rep came out and explained that the clamp actually ripped a hole in the exhaust pipe when it failed and that they would actually have to replace the entire tailpipe. Fortunately it was covered by warranty and would cost ZERO. So all that had to be approved was an oil change (my tires didn’t need rotated).