Athena’s playing softball again this year; here she is up at bat and letting this particular ball get past her. In previous years, the coaches pitched to the girls; this year the girls pitch, which means lots and lots and lots and lots of walks. Well, I suppose they do have to learn. And it’s early in the season yet. Hopefully by the end they’ll get the hang of the pitching (and the catching. And the throwing. And the hitting — although some of them do just fine in that department). You may also notice Krissy in this picture, watching her little girl swing.

No idea where Zeus is. Probably off leaping on something.

I’ve been led to understand that Bebo is one of the more popular social networking sites over there on your fair continent, and several folks there have asked me to put up a Bebo profile, because the inability to friend me on their social network of choice is causing them unspeakable amounts of angst and pain. Well, fine: Here you go. Hope your angst gets better. Tums help.

Also in the LA Times this morning (guess which Web site I’ve been reading), a piece on how the trucking industry is now finally pushing itself to get more than five miles a gallon out of its trucks, spurred on by (you guessed it) high fuel prices, which mean that it can cost up to $1,800 to fill up a truck’s fuel tanks. That astounds me; I get depressed about paying $60 to fill up my minivan. This piece is of special interest to me because several of my neighbors drive trucks for a living, and the fuel crunch has been hitting them where they live. If truckers start going down, it’s going to make for bad times in the little rural town where I live.

Apropos to the discussion of California’s Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage and whether the ruling was the work of “judicial activism,” the Los Angeles Times has a profile on the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, a Republican appointed by a Republican governor (and then later reconfirmed by the voters, as is California’s way) whose court has gained a judicial reputation of being “cautious and middle of the road,” and whom supporters of same-sex marriage suspected would not be on their side of the argument (he wrote the opinion).

It’s an interesting piece, and does accentuate the point that just because a ruling doesn’t go your way, it doesn’t mean it was a case of “judicial activism,” unless all that the term “judicial activism” means is “rulings that don’t go the way I want.” Which in the case of those who use the term with any regularity, is pretty much how it is.