I don't qualify

I was born and raised in New York City and only briefly lived in the Midwest.
I not only went to college, I graduated with two degrees and went on to get a Master's. Plus, I was educated in part by Jesuits.
I don't hunt.
I don't fish.
I don't drive a truck.
I don't drink much beer.
I like to read things that challenge me.
With all those qualities in hand I have come to accept two things:

• I will never be the subject of a country music song.
• And Sarah Palin will probably never consider me a real American.

She probably wouldn't think most of my family, friends and colleagues are either.
We're just not folksy enough. We think being educated is a positive.
As for me, there's this other major character flaw I've borne for more than 30 years.
I work in the media.
It's a wonder they let me vote and have a drivers license.
Later.

Back from where we'd never been

One week ago today, Mary and I were riding a van with a tour guide and a couple from New Hampshire, exploring the south rim of the Grand Canyon and the adjacent Navajo Nation.

Grand doesn't quite describe the Canyon. Magnificent, awesome and spectacular come closer, but if Grand is enough for the people who named it, guess it's good enough for us.

The tour was part of a really fun week-long trip that started and ended in Las Vegas and also included a detour to Hoover Dam. Neither of us are really gamblers -- Mary likes the slots a little and I played a few times -- but Vegas was still a lot off fun. We about broke even and took in shows staring Ray Romano, the winners of "America's Got Talent" and a "Rat Pack" tribute cast -- the guy doing Sinatra was pretty good.

Neither of us had ever been there before and I wouldn't place a Vegas wager on us ever going back. But much like our 25th anniversary trip to Hawaii three years ago, this was a blast from start to finish.

Among the highlights:
-- Getting the two-seat, more leg room row on Southwest both coming and going. When you have a five-hour flight ahead of you and are 6-foot-5, leg room is everything.
-- Seeing Romano at the Mirage the night we flew in. It started at 1o p.m. -- 2 a.m. by our east coast body clocks -- but we hung in there and laughed it up like natives.
-- Getting to see some of our favorites from "America's Got Talent," a show Mary and I watched quite a bit this summer. The woman who should have won -- in our opinion -- opera singer Babara Padilla --was even better live and I got to meet her after the show. We also loived the Texas Tenors and when those three guys and Padilla teamed up, it was fabulous.
-- Getting to learn all about the Grand Canyon on Wednesday and then heading out to explore it ourselves on Thursday. It just takes your breath away.
-- Dinner at the Hard Rock cafe with that iconic huge guitar out front, and drinks at Caesar's Palace.
-- The musical fountain show outside the Bellagio
-- Not working for a week and spending great time together.

The only down sides: It was pretty damn cold at the Grand Canyon -- 16 degrees when we woke up there Thursday -- and Wednesday night we found ourselves in a hotel pub where a couple actually wanted to watch a stupid early season hockey game instead of the World Series, and talked the bartender into putting it on the big screen TV. Amazing. For a few minutes I wondered if I was still in America. Needless to say we found another place to watch.

We planned this trip initially because we needed to use money we had on account with Southwest after we cancelled last spring's trip to Arizona, when son Dan was left off the travel roster with the Division III College of New Jersey baseball team

So basically, to some degree, we owe the great time we had -- not to mention the fact that Dan is now on the roster of the much better Division I George Mason University baseball team -- to the TCNJ coach being a jerk and not wanting to play those recruited by his much better predecessor.

Thanks, Coach.

Later.