The best part of returning from a great vacation? I'll let you know as soon as I figure out what that is. The worst part? Feeling like you've never been away.

Here's a thought that may keep you awake at night, especially if you're creeping closer to retirement age. Social Security will soon be paying out more than the system takes in. What does that spell out for the future? We're not talking about a small deficit here. Next year's shortcoming is estimated at $10 billion and $9 billion in 2011.Best line I've heard lately. Don't tell (President) Obama what number comes after a trillion.Speaking of Obama. He's lucky the voting age in America isn't lower than 18. He wants to see longer school days and shorter summer vacations. I'm sure the kids, and their teachers, won't appreciate that idea.Good news department. The Humpback Whale may soon be taken off the endangered species list. The mammoth beasts of the ocean are thriving again. As long as the Captain Ahab's of the world aren't allowed to start hunting for them again, the whales should be in good shape for future generations.Akron, Syracuse and Temple. Penn State football can't keep opening the season against cupcake opponents and hope to ever challenge for a national championship. After three straight easy wins over inferior programs, Penn State finally came up against a formidable opponent last week in Iowa, and the Hawkeyes beat them for the eighth time in the last nine meetings.ACORN, an organization once conceived by a group of poor mothers who wanted to figure out a way to buy school supplies for their children, has turned into a corrupt national organization of embarrassment. Acorns and members of the group have one thing in common - they're both nuts.The Purdue University football coaching staff's decision to call for a time out in the final minute of the game last Saturday night was the biggest gift Notre Dame fans have gotten all season. Purdue was ahead, but the Irish were driving for a potential winning touchdown with time running out. Not only did the time out give Notre Dame an extra play, it also gave them time to regroup and execute the game winning touchdown in the final seconds. The Purdue strategy has to be the dumbest call of the year.Pennsylvania ranks third, behind West Virginia and Michigan, in the number of deer/vehicle accidents. Coming to work at 4 a.m., you could have fooled me. By the number of deer I see early in ther morning, I thought Pennsylvania would rank number one. And I wonder how Pa. ranks in the number of skunks run over by cars? I'll bet we rank high in that category also.Lehighton's decision to name the new police station after the late mayor and councilman Wilbur A. 'Cap' Bauchspies is a fitting tribute to a man who dedicated his entire adult life to the betterment of the community. The "Wilbur A. 'Cap' Bauchspies Borough of Lehighton Police Station" will be looked upon with pride, and will enable Lehighton residents to remember the many accomplishments Bauchspies brought to the community. He was truly an institution in the borough.The domestic spat of the week has to involve the Texas woman who got into an argument with her significant other over some jewelry. She got so angry that the jewelry wasn't returned to her that she took his pet gold fish, fried them up and ate them, police said. Next time the guy buys some pet fish, he should think about purchasing a school of piranha.Don't know how relevant this is, but I recently read where dogs have 300 million receptor cells (things that help them smell) in their nostrils compared to only 6 million receptor cells in the human nose. That's why my dog can be outside, in the back yard, and know exactly when supper's been put on the table. Not that we'd give her any table scraps, mind you.Mary Travers died two weeks ago. Her "Peter, Paul and Mary" songs will never die. Even though they were out front in the protest movements of the 1960s, I still enjoyed their music.According to the New York Times, the average American now owns 25 electronic devices. And we wonder why kids and adults aren't getting enough exercise?