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I got done with work today in the evening and went for a short ride on my bike. Off to the west I could see sheets of rain coming down, heading my way. I rode toward the west, so I could come back towards home on a nice piece of road that I enjoy before settling in for the night. Shortly after arriving at home, a thunderstorm broke. It was one of the storms were there's long, rolling thunder, and the rain comes down straight and hard, with the sky lighting up randomly.

I was going to put some more work into my house, but I have a weakness for summer thunderstorms. I decided to go out onto my favorite part of my house, the large porch added back in the 1950's. It's nearly thirty feet wide, and eight feet deep. As long as the wind isn't blowing too hard, you can sit there and watch the rain come down all evening without getting wet. Took out some Swiss cheese my wife brought back from Wisconsin this past weekend, a good cigar I brought back from Iraq in 2004, a couple bottles of good English pale ale, then sat and listened to the thunder and the rain coming down through the trees in my yard while my dogs laid next to me.

Off in the distance I can hear a train moving down the tracks. The rain is soft, the occasional car goes down the street, and I have some moments to appreciate how fortunate I am to live here, where no one cares what religious sect I belong too, or what political party I support. Where there's virtually no chance of a bomb going off in my local market, my family is remarkably safe, and my greatest concern is my son's grades.

Most of the world isn't like this. Most of the people I know aren't aware of that. For the most part, we are blissfully ignorant of the squalor that's the more common condition of the rest of the world.

I wonder how long we'll be able to keep what most of us take for granted.