Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disor…

Check the calendar.  Check your BlackBerry.  Check your pulse.  It’s Summer! 

Quick, get moving. The rain has stopped… for now. 

You really do not have time to sit down and thoroughly peruse a whole column.  With all due respect to Nat King Cole, this is no time for the “hazy, lazy days of summer” mind set.  I, for one, am in Solstice Power Ranger Mode.

So, rather than the usual long, rambling stuff I throw your way, I will give you 4 quick columns – really, more ‘run-on sentence’ than actual ‘column’. Celebrate the Summer Solstice with this ITB 4 Pack. 

(It was going to be a six-pack, but I had two on the way home.)

ITB Solstice Column 1 - “Road Constructive Criticism”: As you know, asphalt is a mixture of aggregates, binder and filler. The aggregate could be crushed rock, sand – or my personal favorite, slag.  The binder is almost always bitumen.  The filler is the mystery meat of road construction. The point?  Asphalt is fairly simple stuff.  

So why does a street – say 84th Street, just north of Edgerton, have to shut down for weeks for repairs?  I am just asking…

ITB Solstice Column 2 –   Really, have none of you seen Godzilla?  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ring any bells? Little Shop of Horrors – “feed me”?  This covert, Reiman-backed messing with Mother Nature can – and will – have consequence. For example, these Brazilian hybrid mutant corn seeds have Jack and his beanstalk feeling inadequate. Greendale resident Dave Olsen’s kids – in this same spirit of “horticulture fun” – once encouraged a dandelion with watering and fertilizing. That was the last we saw of the Olsen family cat.

“Plant it… and stand back” is not a slogan, peeps – it is a warning.

ITB Solstice Column 3 – “Summerfest 2011”: What, what?  Kanye, The Wailers, Katy Perry, REO, Def Leopard, Buddy Guy, Jason Mraz, Finger Eleven, Frampton, Kansas, Britney, The Black Keys, Dashboard Confessional, Toby Keith, Taking Back Sunday, Taj Mahal, Jason Aldean, Better Than Ezra, Sugarland,  O.A.R., Goo Goo Dolls, Loretta Lynn…

Really, Summerfest, you had me at Meat Loaf.  Dear Employer, I have a touch of the two week flu…

ITB Solstice Column 4 – “Macro Economics”:  John Maynard Keynes was telling me – over a double shot espresso at Broad Street Coffee – that “some microeconomic-level actions—if taken collectively by a large proportion of individuals and firms—can lead to inefficient aggregate macroeconomic outcomes, where the economy operates below its potential output and growth rate.”  I replied, “Duh, John – and supply creates its own demand!”  We both giggled like caffeinated school girls, until we were asked to leave. 

But be warned… this will be the Summer of Budget Debate, filling in the void left by no preseason NFL football. Email your representatives and remind them of the wisdom in Jim Hightower’s dad’s words: “Everybody does better when everybody does better.”  And throw in some Supertramp: “Give a little bit.”

Okay, enough.  That last column smelled more 'November' than 'June'.  Plus, some alert reader is going to call me out on that coffee with Keynes thing.  He has not had anything but decaf since 1946.

It is officially Summer in Greendale. Slap on your flips and some SPF 15.  Lets catch the  Freeway Flyer and head to the lake front.  REO!