"When you adopt a dog, you have a lot of very good days and one very bad day." — W. Bruce Cameron

Parenting is difficult under any circumstances, and in my father's view, to raise a morally upright and honest child, you sometimes have to lie to him.

I don't think my father considered allowing a teenager to follow his dreams was necessarily good parenting, or even parenting. I think he thought I was a teenager with teenage impulses. I'm pretty sure he knew that if he just let me follow those impulses, it would wind up being very expensive and perhaps even life-endangering.

I've always thought that I'd make a pretty good police officer, except maybe for the danger part. I have a rare medical condition that makes it difficult for me to risk getting shot, so probably I'd have to be one of those officers who work in 'do not shoot' areas.

When you have a half slice of chocolate pie, it's as if you owe yourself the other half - what's known in medical circles as a 'caloric deficit.'