CNN.com has a new article up about a Michigan judge striking down their sex offender list. As much as people who get on it deserve no less than public humiliation, I have always found it sickening that they are so degraded as to be put on public offender lists. Even if they are gross child molesters, I still would not be in favor of putting them on a list and effectively branding them with what may be the deepest cutting stigma in our society....for life. And what if moreorless innocent people get stuck on there? That's as inexcusable as a mistaken Death Row inmate.

I'm glad to see this challenge renewed, and I'll be glad when this list is taken off across the boards. If there is a sex offender, then perhaps authorities like the police can be notified of their whereabouts, but the general public has no business having access to that sort of list... What is next, a list of all the gay people in the country? The people with AIDs? The people with a faulty cancer of the thigh chromosome?

Car dealerships are notorious for having annoyingly loud, screaming, brazen ads on the radio stations. Lately though, I've noticed another industry making a stab at the "annoying radio ad" title: furniture companies. As often as I hear these companies having retiring presidents, close-out sales, liquidation sales, closing their doors forever, it amazes me that there are any furniture stores left! How many times do these companies have a "going out of business" sale? Seemingly every 4 months.

But I guess those sales work...since they seem to do so well in those sales that they end up not closing shop...

Coming home from a movie tonight, my mind got thinking again. I was wearing my scrubs like I do sometimes when I go out late, usually to a movie. And I thought, "You know, I could have been anything." I have the intelligence, the fortitude, and the personality (or the ability to adapt it) for nearly anything I could want to be in life. Surgeon, lawyer, computer expert. It got me thinking about whether I am happy with where I am going; and where I am. I think I am happy, but still, the question came up.

By the time I sat down here to write up something, I started taking it further. I could have had fun as a lawyer....there's not many people who can run everyone else around in so many circles as I can. A statistician can tell a thousand arguments (all contradictory) using the same set of data, just presented differently. Others can use argument, logic, and words to do the exact same thing. I could have had fun as an environmental officer, or engineer.

Then I started thinking how it sucks that all the lessons of life are learned after they are useful. After the time is already spent and gone. I dislik...no, I hate how everyone that is young (well most) don't listen to people who are older than them, that know the lessons, and try to pass on the baton with a good headstart to them. Hell, I was one of them. The good careers and choices are always so clear once we're past those points in life. High School would have been easy to be valedictorian; but I wasn't one, not even close. College would have been a breeze in even the toughest subjects; as it was I had my share of failures. Choosing a career would seem quite cut and dry now; but it took me a lot of time to find a path to start going down.

I know that in ten years, I'll probably realize I could have done something different that was right in front of me, had a better life, had a better girl, and so on. Not that I'm complaining about what I have now...but I'm starting to digress.

People in high school don't listen to the words of people older, at least not enough and not fully. And they can be such good lessons to learn. Funny, this little lesson to listen to the lessons, is late. Irony rules the night.

Then again, perhaps it all comes down to what I sometimes give as my excuse: "I know you're probably right, but I want to have my own experiences, my own decisions, and my own lessons learned; otherwise I may never see which side of the fence has a greener pasture, not for sure anyway." Even scientists who study other people's research will recreate the experiments just to make sure for themselves. That's the life we live I guess, only in a more macroscopic view.

***

I know the following thought isn't something I completely agree with, in fact, it's a bane to a large part of my outlook on my life, but it's something that creeps in sometimes. But, what if all we're designed to have is regret, as humans I mean? Regret that something could have been different in the past, could have been chosen another way, could have turned out another way. You know, I think even those people who truly believe they have lived or are living the perfect life, still have those doubts.

But again, I regret nothing, deny nothing, and cherish everything that comes before me, because it makes me who I am here and now. But still...always that thought...