The past few days, I’ve seemed to be walking on air. Yesterday, I seemed to be positively giddy the whole day long. I don’t know what accounts for it, though the great start we had at Hallie’s 9 month checkup probably had a lot to do with it.

The title of the entry, though, refers to a song that has gotten stuck in my head. The song is by the Raleigh group The Nickelslots, and would occasionally play on WKNC in the morning, causing me to immediately drop my coffee and turn up the volume. Catchy hooks, easy-to-remember lyrics, the song has it all. I am anxiously awaiting their next appearance around town so I can see them live. With commercial radio having become an artistic wasteland, finding a band that catches your attention is a rare thing, indeed.

I was driving home from work on what I thought was a typical trip down I-40. As I approached the Highway 54 exit, I spotted a bright light in the distance, above the left edge of the road.

The light hovered in place, appearing to be a few miles distant. I thought it was simply a TV helicopter, out filming beauty shots of the traffic for the 6 o’clock news. My clock read 5:49, a bit early for news footage.

But then the light did something alarming. It began to drop quickly out of the sky. I blinked to make sure it wasn’t moving towards me and I was just seeing it wrong. But in spite of my doubt, it was doing just what I saw – dropping like a rock.

“Damn, that pilot is screwed,” I thought. I believed I was witnessing a helicopter crash, possibly one that was being transmitted live to the area’s televisions.

I blinked again. The helicopter couldn’t have lost power, since it wasn’t “autorotating” to the ground. If so, the light would surely be spinning around.

The light plummeted as I continued to drive. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished, blinking out a few degrees above the horizon. I squinted in that direction but could not find any trace of it.

It took me a while to decide that what I saw wasn’t the usual helicopter sighting. No sane pilot would drop a helicopter that fast. And there was no trace of it afterward. Very weird. I actually spent the rest of the trip scanning the horizon for signs of smoke plumes, on the chance I really did see a helicopter crash.

Thinking about it again tonight, I decided it could have been a flare. Why someone would shoot a flare into the evening sky is beyond me, as is how it could hover in one place as long as it did before dropping.

Chalk it up to a mystery. It’s my evidence that my idea of always having a camcorder in the car may be a good one.

Woo hoo. Dave Barry, the Miami Herald columnist, has a blog.

Why does the building code insist on putting exit signs on the ceilings in a building? If a building is on fire, won’t the smoke rise to the ceiling and obscure the sign?

I mean, even the airlines — stupid as they are — have figured this out. The exit lighting in a plane is on the floor – where the oxygen is and where any survivors smart enough to get down will see it.

On the other hand, planes don’t always remain “this end up” during a crash. Thus, its possible that the exit lighting may wind up on the ceiling after all.

Buildings rarely flip their orientation, however. So why are the signs on the ceiling?

The rules of fire safety tell you to get on the floor if you’re in a fire. If exit signs made any sense, they’d be down there, too.

After flossing my teeth like I do every day week month, it dawned on me that the names of dental practices are all wrong.

In my view, gum care is more important than tooth care. Teeth are the hardest part of the human body. You’ll have teeth years after there’s no other trace of you left. But your gums, however, are much more fragile, and play a huge roll in dental care.

That’s why I think toothbrushes should be called gumbrushes.

I finally got over the stomach virus that plagued me for the past 5+ days. Thank heavens for Imodium. I don’t think I would have made it without it.

I found out today the coworker who likely gave me the virus gift never had vomiting. I suppose some people react to it differently (though the other major characteristic is the same!).

I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck today. The nasty, nasty virus that had been felling my family and friends over the holidays has finally caught up to me. Yay.

I was in a meeting yesterday afternoon at work when I began to not feel quite right. I headed home and caught up on some work I needed to do. Quite without warning, I was, uh “interrupted” from my work, and spent the rest of the night and morning fighting for sleep. I lost, in case you were wondering.

I’ve taken the day off from work to try to recover. I think that is the sickest I have ever been.

All this silly talk about war, — mainly from people who would do anything not to have to fight it themselves — has gotten me bent out of shape.

The Libertarian Party sums up my feelings on it. Is Saddam a thug? Yes, but so are members of the Saudi Royal family and we aren’t declaring war on them. Does he have WMD (weapons of mass destruction)? You bet – we gave them to him in the mid-80’s.

Should we go to war against him in an effort to repossess our chemical weapons? Hell no.

The United States, among 15 other countries, posesses weapons of mass destruction. Why isn’t the UN inspecting us? Can you say “hypocracy?”

I think its time someone began to talk about reigning in the Little Sheriff. He seems to have forgotten that the U.S. Constitution comes first.