By MARK PATINKIN, The Providence Journal

Thoughts at large:-- I'm not sure she meant it this way, but Hillary Rodham Clinton was right when she said Indiana and North Carolina would be game changers.-- Great line I saw: Clinton's hyper-optimistic campaign manager, Terry McAuliffe, has become Baghdad Bob.

It turns out most people spend about 1.2 percent of their income on water and sewage. We spend a fraction of a percent each on rugs, books, bicycles and cleaning products. And a tenth of a percent on sewing. I didn't know anyone under 50 sewed anymore.

My first choice was Oberlin College, in Ohio. My whole world depended on getting accepted there.Decades later, I barely remember why.But at the time, my senior year in high school, it was all I cared about. Part of it was that my best friend planned to go there. Some other friends had gone there the previous year, including this girl I liked.

I just came across a study about the "Millennials." Those are people ages 21 to 29.I hadn't known that's what they're called.

I was 15 or so at the time, the late 1960s, hanging out with two friends who lived nearby. Ours was one of those nice, middle-class neighborhoods that was not so nice two blocks over. All right, I'll say it. I lived in a white area next to a black area -- homes with lawns bordering inner-city apartments. I never went in the inner-city direction.

I asked Craig Robinson to talk about the side of Barack Obama you don't see in public. I figured he would know. Robinson is the brother of Obama's wife, Michelle. He is 45 and coach of the Brown University basketball team.He told me there is no different side.

I asked the visitor's desk at Arlington National Cemetery where the more recent graves could be found. They gave me a map and pointed out Section 60 as one of several places. Soon, I'd left behind the other tourists, who were mostly headed toward the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and other major monuments.

I learned in biology class that a key difference between living things and inanimate ones is that live things are highly organized. It's where the word "organism" comes from. Trees have rings and leaves have neat rows of cells. The higher up the ladder of life you go, the more it holds. Fish have scales, birds have aligned feathers.

I have been having trouble with lines lately. It started a few weeks ago when we tried to fly to Florida. My folks winter down there, as grandparents are required to do by law.

A cold front had settled over New Hampshire's Presidential mountains, and the temperature at Bretton Woods ski area, was around zero. So it felt good to get inside, even though it was the first-aid building.