Is the world getting away from me, or is that just an old guy's impression?

Today, I drove 33 miles to work. That's not something I do any more, I usually just go into my "office", and sit at my keyboard and mouse, with the countless distractions and a nearby window to the rest of the world.

I seized the opportunity to grab a space at my old "dream job" workplace, which I've returned to three times in earnest since retiring, and to which have been 'telecommuting' for several months. A friend was going on vacation, and my supervisor gave me the opportunity to latch onto that space for a few days this week! It makes a difference to the productivity when you have a place to go.

As I drove into work this morning, my thoughts focused on the highway. This highway has been under construction for as long as I can remember, and surely as long as the time since I was a student at the University of Texas. The route of US81 between here and Dallas was supplanted by Interstate 35 in the '60's.

This right of way, which has been a free access highway forever, will eventually become the site a toll road, managed by a foreign company, and this particular toll road is destined to stay a toll road throughout its lifetime! Somehow that irks me. I do not like the idea of confiscating a free right of way to build a toll road. The free road (you realize, don't you, that I know that 'nothin's free', but I'm just usurping the term to distinguish the old from the new) will remain, but will be shunted to the sides of the toll lanes, and will require a tortuous route, and slower travel than currently.

Then, on the way home, I heard on the radio about a new plan of the Texas Attorney General to get legislation to allow him to try certain types of criminals in civil courts because he can get easier convictions and can "take their money" for the general fund.

Does messing with the law for self-serving purposes sound just a little bit like the sort of thing we just voted against on the national level?

Speaking of law, is it really legal to make a state mandated toll road out of a Federal right-of way that all the citizens of the country paid for long, long ago? So far, nothing has been done to stop the construction between here and Belton.