Snowed under

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Well the weather man was right...I guess. We had a Nor'Easter roll through New England today, Boston airport, 90% of the flights cancelled, nothing to do at work but watch the snowflakes fall. Time to ponder life and all that is going on around me, how things that are affecting me have no impact on most everyone else. Sometimes I reflect on the things that are affecting me that also affect everyone else. Sometimes I think about people who are just making ends meet, struggling to pay their bills, unable to spend anything extra or they won't have heat. "There but for the grace of God go I" is a thought that goes through my mind a lot when I think about these thoughts. I also think about the other extreme, the wasteful ways that people live, some have so much more than they ever need, they waste a lot because they have a lot to replace it.
I guess my family falls somewhere in the middle on the scale. We, thankfully, have enough money to pay our bills and spend some on extras (think dirtbikes). We do not have enough money to waste, at least waste in the way that I meant it in the first paragraph. I suppose we all waste things, I don't reuse plastic spoons for example and we use disposable diapers on our daughter which are very wasteful. But I digress, these thoughts or moments of clarity make me worry about what the future is going to hold for my child.
Is America going to provide the opportunities that were available to me to our daughter? How is China going to impact my daughter's ability to earn a living? What kind of jobs are there going to be for her? What are her interests going to be? Is he upcoming retirement boom going to move a lot of tax money away from the schools and towards services for the elderly? Ten years from now are we going to look back on the things George Bush jr, is doing and realize that his presidency was the beginning of the end of the America we knew? How are the issues we are dealing with radical Muslims, terrorists, homicide bombers, going to affect the world that my daughter is growing into. Some of these thoughts are scary, some are happy and some are just weird. They are my thoughts, unfortunately most of them do not have answers at this point. I have my own guesses about how these things will work out, hopefully I am wrong because most of my scenarios do not have happy endings.
These are the things that I think about when there are no airplanes to distract my attention. I am hopeful that the airport is open tomorrow.