Word this past July that the New York Times was shutting down its sports reporting desk couldn’t have come at a worse time for me.

Being the planner I am (pause for laughs), I find that in looking ahead to 2024, I’m already behind. According to various media reports, it’s even now too late to book a room for viewing the total solar eclipse, currently slated for April 8. The management (this would be God) reserves the right to make last-minute changes.

This evening at sundown is the start of the Jewish High Holy Days. I thought I should mention it lest my Jewish readers think I’m heretical, a self-hating Hebrew or an atheist.

Item: “Two electric vehicles caught fire after being submerged in saltwater churned up by the storm (Hurricane Idalia),” reports CBS News. “Firefighters in Palm Harbor, Florida, cited the incidents, both of which involved Teslas, in warning owners that their rechargeable car batteries could combust if exposed to saltwater.

A provocative headline in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal asked, “When Do We Peak Mentally and Physically?” Since I was reading it at 7:30 a.m. while brewing a pot of coffee, meaning I had yet to consume any, I knew the answer: “Not now.”

My new goal in life is to qualify for a Part 107 FAA pilot’s license. It won’t allow me to fly a plane, you’ll be relieved to learn, but will allow me to sing “Send In The Drones,” the song my beloved Stephen Sondheim might have written had he spent more time with lifeguards in the Hamptons before he passed two years ago at the age of 91.

Labor Day arrived this morning at 12:01 with a couple of irrelevant traditions still attached to it.

The term “self-storage” sounds like a program to help us tuck away our egos, perhaps to concentrate on the greater good of mankind. Think self-denial, selflessness.

You are cordially invited to attend the alienation of many of your fellow readers as I ask this simple question: What’s up with tattoos?