Life happens

So, my plan to get to bed early -- I have been feeling quite tired and meh today, and am not sure if I feel a cold coming on or not -- has been dashed, as always, by life.  I watched the Tivo'ed episode of J! I had saved up (the misses on the Ohio Geography category were exceptionally egregious!), sent out a couple of food pantry texts, and... sat down at the laptop at 9.  I went through a bunch of emails, read some articles, answered some questions, handled some links...and here we are, at midnight.  Oi.  At least there was the illusion of productivity, as I like to say.  But...funny; at work it was much of the same today -- the usual Monday stuff, followed by going through stuff, reading articles, setting up a project, and in general clearing the decks for serious action.  May not seem like much, but...

Finished book 33 today as well -- Crosby's The Columbian Exchange.  I read a revised version, with a new forward by the author, but it was still... quite interesting.  He was one on the first to look at the colonization of the New World from an ecological/biological perspective, and while some of the stuff is... off, he was the first to be looking at it that way, so... anyways, quite interesting.  In addition to the look at disease, he also considered the animals brought to the New World -- hogs, cattle, horses, and sheep -- and how they soon spread; the crops of the New World that soon took over agriculture in the Old (corn, potatoes, beans, manioc, and tropical fruits); and, charmingly, syphilis -- probably from the New World, where, for once, a disease from there killed millions of Europeans.  Good stuff, not too long, and I love revisionist looks at things...

I like Mike Pence, but does anyone really see a lane for him in the GOP primary?  I know, anything can happen, but I would think -- especially after his performance on The View -- that Tim Scott would be a better choice, if one wants a non-Trump, upbeat candidate; he also has a number of advantages over Pence.  Again, I like the man, but... I am not seeing how he navigates the lanes here.