john and jane

It is very important to note that I am not trying to pick on any gender here and I my only real point is to facilitate understanding of how the sexes think and how they can better interact. Feel free to post your disagreements, but please be specific about what you are disagreeing with and why.

Imagine the following fictional scenario involving a husband and wife, John and Jane (John and Jane do not represent Dust and Golden). Jane has been dealing with an issue with someone at work, and she wants to talk through the issue. They have the following conversation.

Jane: "Yesterday when Joan walked into the office and I said, 'Hi,' she didn't even acknowledge me. But then in the afternoon she acted like she wanted to be my friend."
John: "This sounds like the same sort of thing that you have been talking to me about for the last couple of weeks."
Jane: "Exactly. I think she's trying to drive me nuts by making me think she hates me then likes me. Maybe she is only nice to me when she needs something from me. I'm not sure."
John: "Why don't you sit down and have a straightforward conversation with her about this. I'm sure she will be happy to discuss this rationally."
Jane: "Stop trying to solve my problems. It makes me feel like you think I'm stupid."
John: "Okay."
Jane: "So, then after I helped her complete her TPS report cover letters she went back to acting like she was better than me."
John: "What did she say?"
Jane: "Nothing. She didn't need to say anything. She just acted better than me. Are you even listening to me?"
John: "Uh, yeah. I think."
Jane: "So, I am so not looking forward to having to deal with her tomorrow because it's just the same thing day after day. I don't know why, either. I mean what did I do to set her off?"
John: "As I said, why don't you ask her?"
Jane: "I can't believe you're still trying to fix my problems."

As I said before, this is a completely fictional situation. I purposely wrote this scenario in a way that does not mimic the content of any discussion I have ever witnessed. Also, Golden is about the most understanding woman in existence regarding my desire to fix her problems when she wants to discuss stuff, so this has very little to do with our interactions.

The reason that I want to introduce this scenario is that this is the one type of situation that just about every relationship book, seminar, class, etc addresses. The observation that is almost always relayed can be easily summarized with the statement that women want to discuss things and men want to solve them, so men need to resist the urge to solve women's problems. I don't disagree with this, but I do think that this statement does not tell the whole story. The following are what I think John and Jane don't understand about each other in the above conversation.

What John doesn't understand
Obviously, I am at a disadvantage as to what John doesn't understand about Jane because I only have second-hand information on what women get out of conversations and what their needs are. Nonetheless, John's problem is that he doesn't understand that the point of the conversation has very little to do with solving the issue. It has everything to do with the fact that Jane gets something (that I don't fully understand) out of talking about the issue.

John, being straightforward, thinks he is getting mixed signals from Jane. As a result he keeps acting like Jane wants his advice because he wrongly assumes that Jane's conversation is a cry for help. This is no excuse. He should probably seek to understand why he is getting mixed signals.

John also probably doesn't understand how important it is to Jane to be able to connect with him by continually discussing this issue.

Finally, John is naive in thinking that the idea of Jane confronting Joan is a guaranteed fix. Joan will probably act like nothing is wrong. Stupid John.

What Jane doesn't understand
Usually relationship materials point out that men tend to fix things and they just need to resist that urge. Jane already knows this, so she has learned little about John's motivations. In this case, John's motivations will have to be understood through my experience.

When I talk about an issue for days on end that means that I have not found a solution that I am confident about. If I am talking about it a lot, this means that I am more than willing to hear someone else's brainstorms about how to fix my problem.

When I hear the same issue discussed again and again it can be bothersome. When I hear someone talk about an issue what I am hearing is, "I have a problem and I am asking you to help fix it." When I resist the urge to fix it or if the problem is continually discussed after a fix is determined I hear, "what kind of a man are you that you can't provide a solution that I am confident in?" Even though I know better I can't keep from thinking this.

What Jane needs to understand is that by discussing the issue day after day after day, she is either going to drive John up a wall or invite him to solve her problem. If she always gets upset about him solving her problem she is going to make John very strongly desire to tune out her future conversations.

Here is the important part. I think that Jane should still feel free to discuss these issues at length with John and I think John should attentively listen. Jane should understand, though, that John does not think the same way she does. John has no idea what to do with frequent monologues about the issues Jane faces. Therefore, when Jane tells John about her problems she should be a little understanding when he tries to solve her problems, but let him know that she is not looking for solutions.

I think both John and Jane have a lot to learn. Not that I am trying to fix their problems.

the money pit

Several years back when Golden and I were living in an apartment someone warned me about the costs of home ownership. He referred to his house as a money pit. This concerned me because I don't like to throw money away, but I remembered that most things in a house only need replaced every ten to twenty-five years.

Now that Golden and I have lived in our house three-and-a-half years, we have had foundation work done, replaced the garage door, replaced the front door, replaced the roof, performed numerous small fixes/upgrades around the house, and we will probably replace the furnace this summer. I have to ask those who have owned houses longer, is this abnormal? Is there a general frequency with which you expect to have major work done on your house? Our house is forty years old, so that could be part of the problem.

Anyway, I had the following conversation with an acquaintance this weekend.

Me: "We just had the roof replaced this past month and now it sounds like we're going to have to replace the furnace shortly as well."
Acquaintance: "When it rains it pours."
Me: "Last month, when it rained it leaked."

Believe it or not, that line didn't get a laugh.

i'll drink to that

I get free pop (soda, to some of the contentious) at work. I don't go overboard, but I do drink at least one a day for lunch. My manager has been limiting his pop intake for a while, so I will occasionally open a can of Coke or Pepsi in his earshot for kicks. I am starting to give his philosophy some thought, though.

I completed watching Super Size Me a few minutes ago and am left feeling a little sick in the stomach. I know that part of the point of the documentary is to portray the fast food industry as a heartless corporate machine with no concern for consumers' health. My sickness is not due to the heartless corporate machine, however. My sickness is due to seeing what eating a bunch of junk food can do to a healthy body.

This is something that my mom did right. She kept me on a healthy diet nearly to a fault and limited my intake of a lot of unhealthy stuff. When I moved out, though, I did start to indulge some food and beverage vices a little too much. I have a natural aversion to a lot of what I should be eating as well.

I do take solace in the fact that I don't crave all of the unhealthy food at McDonald's (which figured strongly in the movie). I actually have had a hard time stomaching the fries for a while. I like enough of the bad stuff that the effect of junk food is a concern, though.

I don't generally like making resolutions, because they are almost always guaranteed to be broken at some point, and so they just discourage my future growth (or in this case reduction). I think I have come up with a resolution that will work for me, though. I am going to reduce my work pop intake to three cans a week from about six. This doesn't seem like much, but it could add up, and I'd like to see if such a small change can make a noticeable difference.

Since I am announcing my resolution on my blog I expect that a few people will keep me honest if only for their own entertainment. I have other things that I could be drinking at lunch anyway. I'm sure V8 won't get old too quickly.

contrived dialogue

I decided that I would play around with crazy conversations different people and characters may have in some bizarro world. If this goes well I may try it again in the future.

Descartes and Popeye
Descartes: "You think, therefore you are."
Popeye: "I yam what I yam."
Descartes: "Yes, but you must first establish a frame of reference other than personal perceptions with which to determine whether you yam--I mean are--actually in existence.
Popeye: "I yam what I yam, and that's all what I yam."
Descartes: "That's impossible to say, because we do not have a proper frame of reference for who you are. Are you a physical being? If so what perceptions you have are unreliable because physical evidence of existence is not the least bit trustworthy.
Popeye: "Are you trying to ruffle me feathers? Why I yaughta eat me can of spinach and..."
Descartes: "I take it back. You don't think, therefore you aren't."

Paris Hilton and (does it really matter?)
Hilton: "Checkmate."
Other Person: "Um, we're playing poker."

Moses and a hostage taker
Moses: "Let my people go."
Hostage Taker: "What's with all the frogs?"

Frodo and Confucious
Frodo: "I know what I must do. It's just... I'm afraid to do it."
Confucious: "Confucious say, 'Hobbit who not deal with fear before reaching his destination is dread on arrival.'"

Foghorn Leghorn and Colonal Sanders
Foghorn Leghorn: "I say--I say, boy. I say--are you listening to me, boy? I say, you're really making me nervous with that look in your eye. The fryin' pan don't--I say the fryin' pan don't make me feel too good neither, boy."

Corporal Klinger and his wife
Klinger: "Your slip is showing."
His wife: "So is yours."

A 22-year-old hippie in 1967 and himself forty years later
1967 Hippie: "Trust no one over thirty."
2007 Hippie: "Trust no one under fifty."
1967 Hippie: "Down with the establishment."
2007 Hippie: "My social security check is late."

Barney Fife and a pushy florist
Fife: "Nip it. Nip it in the bud."

Adolph Hitler and the Soup Nazi
Hitler: "With your soup I could properly nourish my superhuman, Aryan army."
Soup Nazi: "Pay and step to the left!"
Hitler: "You would dare talk to the Führer that way?!"
Soup Nazi: "No soup for you! Next!"

Used rug dealer and Alladin
Rug Dealer: "This rug is a beaut. The last owner was an old lady who only rode it to mosque on Fridays."
Alladin: "That's good, but I have some questions about the limited tassel to tassel warranty."

Jack Benny and a bellhop
Bellhop: "Ahem."
Benny: "Yes?"
Bellhop: "Ahem."
Benny: "Oh, you expect a tip?"
Bellhop: "That is customary, sir."
Benny: "Do you have change for a dollar?"

where are you from?

In my class on Monday the professor opened by asking each student where they work and where they are from originally. Of course, about eighty percent of people are from Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, or Nebraska, and the remaining twenty percent are from outside the United States. I found that, since I was born in Arizona, I am the only natural-born American citizen in the class who wasn't born in the general area.

Later in the night, an example was being discussed about the "rust belt" in Ohio and Pennsylvania. A question was asked regarding whether anyone in the class was from the Pittsburgh area. As I raised my hand I wondered if anyone was thinking of me as a liar since I had earlier said I was originally from Arizona.

There are few questions I hate answering more than where I come from. This is because it isn't a short answer. It is also because I more or less feel like I am not from any one place. When people find out that I have only lived in Kansas a few years then ask where I am from, I usually reply that I come from Pennsylvania. I have lived in Kansas about the same amount of time I lived in Pennsylvania, though, so I am not really more of a Pennsylvanian than a Kansan. I have family in both regions, so I guess I could consider myself from both places.

Even these two states don't fully describe where I am from, though. The time I have lived in Kansas and Pennsylvania doesn't even add up to half of my life. I have also lived in Arizona, Michigan, South Dakota, and Missouri for extended periods of time, but none longer than five years. This has kept me from thinking of myself as from anywhere in particular.

I think there are advantages to this. This history shaped a lot of my perspectives. It was also a little hard on me, though, because I preferred things not to change and I preferred to not have to leave old friends and make new friends as much as I did. That's probably how most kids feel. It could have been a lot worse, though, so this is something I need to avoid complaining about.

So, if you want to know where I am from I'll tell you. It just may take some time.

back to school, again

Today is my first day back to classes this semester. I have noticed that my attitude sours dramatically at the beginning of each semester because I don't necessarily want to be taking all of these classes. This is just something I think I'm supposed to be doing. Later in life I expect that I'll take some community college classes for the fun of it, but what I am doing right now is very literally business before pleasure.

Anyway, this semester looks to be the busiest of all that I have planned. I will be taking five classes at different points throughout the semester for nine credits. That's four two-credit classes and one one-credit class. I do have some reasoning for doing things this way.

The program that I am in is fifty-two credits long, and the classes have to be completed within six years of me starting the program. I get reimbursed for the equivalent of about eight credits a year through work. I am not willing to plan on stretching this to six years, so I knew from the start that I would need to have at least a couple of years where I am paying a decent chunk of change out of pocket. I figured that I would load up on credits in the first two years before tuition got outlandish (too late), then not take as many credits for the last three years. I hope to have twenty-six credits at the end of this year, so I will be able to take between eight and ten for the next three years and coast to the end.

I figured if I took this semester on the chin, the fall semester would be significantly easier. The key to this plan, though, is that I have to make it through the semester (as does Golden, as does NJ). Wish us well.

the perfect murder

I watched Dial M for Murder just a little bit ago, which is a Hitchcock film about a man who plans his wife's murder. He then frames his wife when she succeeds in killing the person who was hired to assassinate her. In the movie one of the characters mentions that it is possible to plan the perfect murder on paper, but implementing the plan would be nearly impossible. Something always happens that wasn't in the plan. This got me thinking. Could I plan the perfect murder?

Don't get me wrong. I don't fantasize about knocking someone off, but I kind of understand the mentality of someone who commits a crime to prove he could pull it off without a hitch. I know that, even if I had the heart of a cold-blooded killer, I could not commit a serious crime without getting caught because I would inevitably make a mistake along the way. What I would like to know, though, is whether I could develop a plan that would work on paper.

Am I the only person who thinks about this? Does anyone else ever have the guilty pleasure of thinking through the necessary steps to evade capture or to make the evidence point elsewhere? Will these statements ever be used against me in a court of law?

celeb, i am

Since we were aware that NJ was on the way I have been noticing children's books more. The conclusion I have reached has been that there is a lot of chaff out there, and a few good works.

The other day I was in the dentist's office and noticed a children's book by Jamie Lee Curtis. No offense to Mrs. Lee Curtis, but what makes her more qualified than anyone else to write a children's book? She just happens to have enough name recognition to sell a critical mass of the books to make it worthwhile to a publisher, and I think that is why she gets to write the stories.

I did a little searching and found that I am not the only one who has noticed this trend. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did a story on this a couple of years ago. One observation made in the article is that some celebs think that any idiot can write a passable children's book. Maybe they are right. In the end, though, I would prefer to read NJ a book by Dr. Seuss than Madonna or Ed Koch. I have to do my part to keep NJ from being a material boy.

two mildly disturbing things

Being that I am a geek, I enjoy watching some of the documentaries on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, The National Geographic Channel, etc. Based on a couple of documentaries I have seen, I have learned two mildly disturbing things about myself.

Mildly disturbing thing number one:
I have always liked the way my first and last initials looked together. I think it is the straight lines and similar appearance of the "A" and the "H." I did like them enough for my initials to be among the things I most commonly scribbled into loose paper throughout my life.

About a year or two ago I was flipping through the channels when I noticed silverware imprinted with my initials on a show on the History Channel. I wondered excitedly what person from history shared my initials, so I stopped to watch. Imagine my dismay when I realized that this was a documentary on how Adolph Hitler lived in his military bunker system.

I console myself that Alfred Hitchcock also had the same initials.

Mildly disturbing thing number two:
I have always liked my birth date. The end of July is in the heat of the best of the four seasons. The year 1979 marked the death of disco and started the transition to the 80s.

Recently, I was watching a documentary on Saddam Hussein and found that he first asserted his power as Iraqi president and held political mass executions on the date of my birth, July 27, 1979.

I'm starting to wonder if I missed my calling to be a dictator who rules with an iron fist. Perhaps in this case missing my calling is a good thing.

stupid grammar rules

While I have a great appreciation for the English language and I enjoy writing, there are several things that frustrate me about the rules for proper English writing. My general opinion is that rules should be in place to make communication either more effective or more artful.

My personal favorite styles of literature to read and write are very conversational because that type is the easiest for me to understand the author's point. A lot of what I feel makes some pretentious writing pretentious is due to the rules that have been put in place for proper English. Many grammar rules simply do not appear to make the written word any easier to understand. Here are just a few of those rules.

Stupid Rule #1: No prepositions at the end of a sentence
I have known about this rule since I have known what a preposition is. On the surface it sounds good. A preposition always needs an object. When I try to put this into practice the resulting sentences are often very awkward.

I think that when someone ends a sentence with a preposition what is happening is that the preposition is being used as an adverb or the object is implied. I have heard the response that it's simply not right to use a preposition as an adverb. I still can't figure what is so wrong with it.

Stupid Rule #2: Spell out a number when...
Why does it matter whether I type out "100" or "one hundred"? Both get the idea across. In my opinion there should be no grammar rules for spelling out numbers. Whatever seems to fit the situation should be used.

Stupid Rule #3: To comma or not to comma
Comma rules are too complicated and arbitrary for something that is simply supposed to indicate a short pause in a sentence. If the author of the comment thinks the reader should pause, then a comma should be valid.

Stupid Rule #4: Who and whom, affect and effect, etc
Why are there different words that are almost identical but mean essentially the same thing? Who (or whom), besides a grammar snob, really knows or cares about when to use "who" and when to use "whom"? The words should be interchangeable.

Stupid Rule #5: No sentence fragments
Perhaps this comes from my appreciation of conversational writing. Sentence fragments can be very effective (or is it affective?) for providing emphasis. People use fragments in conversations all of the time. Why is it that fragments are frowned upon in writing?

Stupid Rule #6: Limit contractions
Actually, contractions are probably not frowned on much any more. I think they make writing less stuffy and they don't take away from the meaning of what is being written.

please call back

This past week Golden called me at work about a message on our answering machine. According to the message someone had listed me as a reference for a job. I was supposed to call an 866 number back to address this. There was only one problem. I had never heard of the person for whom I was supposed to provide a reference.

I puzzled over this for a while. Why would someone who I couldn't remember list me as a reference and not notify me? It seemed fishy, so I didn't address it for about a day.

After the message had been on the machine for more than a day Golden asked me to decide what to do with it. Since I had to decide if it was worth calling back I did a Google search on the number that I was supposed to call, and I got this site.

Apparently, whoever is calling is either a scam artist of some sort or a collections agency. I'm certainly not going to call them to find out, though, so it will have to remain a mystery.

do not call list

One Remaining Number Not on "Do Not Call" List

AYNOR, SOUTH CAROLINA, January 11, 2007 (OTB)--Telemarketers are annoying. Telemarketers are evil. Telemarketers are out to get consumers' every last cent. Just don't tell that to 83-year-old Ellen Carmichael, whose home phone number is the only remaining landline number in America not yet added to the Federal Trade Commission's "Do not call" list. "I considered adding my name to the list because everyone else in my bridge club was doing it," Carmichael remembered, "but I couldn't give up the pleasant interactions I have with those wonderful people every day."

Carmichael pays for all the items she purchases with the proceeds she received selling her late husband's quarrying business. "Ronald would have preferred it this way," noted Carmichael. "He left me more money than I can use, so I like to think all the nice telemarketers who call me so frequently can really do more with it. Plus, I'm not as lonesome as I was right after he passed when I am answering the phone every ten minutes."

Since Carmichael is now the only consumer they can call, the remaining major telemarketing firms have had to plan calls around each other's and her schedule. Darling Brothers Telemarketing, based in Orono, Maine, gets the first two-and-a-half hours of Ellen's day starting at six in the morning. After a half hour delay phone representatives from Best 4 Less Telemarketing, based in Sandpoint, Idaho, call Ellen for the next two-and-a-half hours. This pattern is repeated throughout her day.

While selling products to a woman who will buy anything sounds like an easy task, it is not without risks. "We had to shut down operations for two weeks when some [idiot] from Specialty Telemarketing sold her a ten day cruise," recalled Tom Howtzer, director of sales with Darling Brothers. "I'm sure he made a good commission, but he put us out of commission for a while." That incident was one of the motivating factors for an agreement signed by the telemarketing firms that have reserved the right to call Carmichael, known as the Carmichael Five.

Now, per contractual agreement, only products that all the firms in question approve as not likely to keep Carmichael away from the phone may be sold to her. She may not be peddled vacation packages, cars, or satellite television service.

Ellen is not going to live forever, and this is not lost on the Carmichael Five. "We know we have to find someone else like Ellen who is willing to be removed from the 'Do not call' list," remarked Howtzer flatly when the subject was mentioned. "I don't want to say too much, but we believe we have inside information on a wealthy 62-year-old widow whose son added her to the list against her wishes. If we can get her removed from the list, we can double operations."

Even when presented with the negative, the Carmichael Five try to stay positive. Of course, that's their call.

casual griping

There are certain things about the way that I think that are different from most people. With many of these things it is obvious. When I hear people who are more normal in the obvious stuff it is not difficult for me to realize that I am different. I generally like it when I think differently. Sometimes I don't like it. I always note it in my mind, though.

One thing about my personality that I have noticed very few people who are different from me is my enjoyment of casual griping. I am not talking about straight whining, because most people (even the whiners) don't care to hear that, but rather complaining about something in a way of kind of airing pet peeves. I have met many people who at least act like they enjoy discussing minor irritations.

I think that casual griping is very fun, and it can be entertaining when other people are doing it. I always assumed that I was in the majority because a large percentage of comedy is based on either someone griping or someone being portrayed in a negative situation. I still think I am in the majority, but there is really no way for me to know for sure.

You might note that a lot of my posts can be qualified as gripes. That is part of my personality and it's probably not going to change. So long as it doesn't turn into full-fledged whining, my readers will just have to learn how to put up with it. If it does turn into full-fledged whining... my readers will just have to learn how to put up with it.

you sure can pick them

As with probably every couple, Golden and I each have a set of movies that one of us likes that the other doesn't along with the set of movies that we both like. I think there are more movies that we both like than that only one of us likes.

It used to be that we would watch a ton of the movies both of us like and hardly any of the movies only one of us likes. Since we have started Blockbuster Online, I have begun watching a lot of movies that Golden probably wouldn't care for in addition to the "us" movies we watch together. I have watched enough that I actually have trouble finding a movie that I specifically want to watch in the Blockbuster store that I know Golden won't want to watch.

On New Year's Eve, I went to pick a "me" movie from Blockbuster and really couldn't find much I cared to see (again, that Golden would not want to see). On a whim I picked up The Butterfly Effect 2. I knew it wouldn't be a brilliant movie, but I figured I would at least be entertained. I did slightly dread going through the line with a movie that was so likely to be a stinker, but I figured my self-consciousness about it was mostly unfounded paranoia.

After I got to the counter a conversation very similar to the following condensed version occurred.

Girl at Checkout: "You're really getting this?"
Me: "Yeah."
Girl at Checkout: "This is such a dumb movie, though."
Me: "It probably is."
Girl at Checkout: "Why don't you get a better movie, like this one." (She pointed at Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby)
Me: "My wife will want to see that movie and I am renting something for after she goes to sleep tonight."
Girl at Checkout: "Seems a waste."

Fast forward to this past weekend. I was in a similar situation for picking out a movie, but decided The Wicker Man would be worth a try. I ended up at the same girl's counter again, and the conversation went something like the following.

Girl at Checkout: "I know you. Didn't you rent something bad last week?"
Me: "You thought it was bad."
Girl at Checkout: "What was it again?"
Me: "The Butterfly Effect 2. It wasn't good, but it wasn't horrible."
Girl at Checkout: "I'm just glad I didn't have to sit through it. The Wicker Man is pretty bad too. You sure can pick them."

I sure can.

duped - christmas pt 4

Sometimes I am a little harsh on my parents. It took me too many years to figure that out and believe it. Now that I am on the other end I am getting a better understanding that adults are still figuring things out even if they don't let the kids know it.

One night on the visit to my parents after everyone else had gone to sleep I had a discussion with my mom and sister. Among the topics discussed was how we used to view sin.

I sometimes point out that I grew up in a conservative environment. This is true, but my mom grew up in a much more conservative environment. Her history is from when our denomination actually reflected its holiness movement roots very strongly.

My mom's revelation to me over the holiday was her feelings about some of the things she was taught. Some of the points of contention she dealt with were related to whether women could wear much jewelry or makeup. She also mentioned that it was a big deal when the church camp that she attended started allowing girls to wear pants to services.

My mom pointed out that when she learned that a lot of this stuff wasn't important she felt duped. Being duped implies that someone is purposely trying to trick someone else, so she probably wasn't really duped in the literal sense. Even so, though, I am amazed because I often feel very similar to how she described.

I remember having the mindset that specific things were right and wrong not for particular moral reasons, but just because there was a rule somewhere that said it was wrong. Essentially, rules influenced morals rather than morals influencing rules. This is how I read the Bible and this approach was not discouraged in church. The approach isn't absolutely horrible if it is temporary, but it is technically inaccurate and immature.

This history is why Romans 14 is one of the most important passages of Scripture to me. Reading that chapter is what ultimately moved me out of this stage of life, and it remains foundational to my beliefs of how a Christian should live.

Any more, I have to bite my tongue any time I discuss Scriptural things with someone who has a very rule-based (rather than priciple-based) doctrine. It is not usually worth arguing, but I don't like to see people who I think are being duped.

fallingwater - christmas pt 3

Before we went to visit my parents my mom asked if I would want to visit Fallingwater, which is a house Frank Lloyd Wright designed in a very rural area of western Pennsylvania, while I was there. Originally, the plan was for my dad to watch NJ and for my mom, my sister, Golden, and myself to go, but my dad had to work, so Golden volunteered to stay back and watch NJ.

Fallingwater was designed as a summer lodge for three adults and no children. The lodge itself is not very large, but it has several patios and is built over a waterfall. As it is a lodge, it is very masculine with stark lines through the design and is made out of materials like limestone and steel. It also feels just a little ahead of it's time because it has a 70s ambiance, though it was designed and built in the 30s.

The idea of the house is to make residents feel outside even when they are inside. The stone floor is supposed to be waxed in a certain way so it looks wet. There is a stairway from the living room to the creek below the structure. Entire walls are made of glass.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the interior of the building, so most of what I have is various angles around the outside.

The visit was a lot of fun, though it was a tad on the cold side. It would probably be enjoyable to visit in the summer some time.

need for speed - christmas pt 2

Golden, NJ, and I were on the road a long time over our Christmas break. We put just short of 2,000 miles on the rental car, so I had plenty of time to make the following observations.

• We got a Ford Taurus from the rental place. I drive a Taurus as well. Both cars are a lot of fun to drive. People don't usually say that about the Taurus.
• We drove through seven states (KS, MO, IL, IN, OH, WV, and PA). Missouri drivers were the fastest insterstate highway drivers that I noticed. Indiana drivers took a very close second.
• I don't think that state troopers in any state were really looking for speeders. I saw plenty of police cars set up to look like speed traps but I hardly saw anyone pulled over. I blew by one or two of these "speed traps" at 80 MPH.
• Speaking of speeding, I am much faster at driving across that expanse than my parents. I can drive it about two hours quicker than my parents average. This is something that disturbs my mom.
• We must have packed ten bags that I had to continually transport to a grandparents' house or to a hotel room. I actually made three trips to the car at our first hotel before the lady at the desk noted that they had a luggage cart.
• NJ does not like sleeping in hotel rooms. At all.
• Pennsylvania has what I consider the dumbest speed limits of all the states. Most of I-70 that I drove in the state has a 55 MPH speed limit. Half of the drivers observe it and half don't, so there is no real consistent flow of traffic. Rather, I did a lot of dodging between people going 55 and people going 75.
• Golden told me that it seems like I am always posting about driving. I disagree, but I am sure that this post is reaffirming her feelings on the matter.

lounging - christmas pt 1

Golden and I spent quite a bit of time with family this past holiday. From the night of the 20th until noon on the 23rd we were with her family. From the afternoon of the 24th until noon on the 30th we were with my family. Probably to the chagrin of Golden's and my family, I very literally tend to treat holiday time as vacation time. I sleep in. I don't do much. I try to just forget about the outside world.

Already I can hear people pointing out that this is not much different from how I am when I am not visiting family. There is a difference, even if no one else recognizes it.

I have a few reasons for kicking back like this. The first is that the time leading up to the holiday is generally very stressful, so I want to completely shut down once the actual holiday arrives.

The second reason is due to our families. When we visit Golden's family we usually watch TV in the night time. In the morning and early afternoon, Golden usually does something with her mom or both of her parents and I stay behind. I don't mind, but it causes me to lounge around a lot.

When we visit my family we spend a lot of time around the house largely because my mom wants quality time with us more than to be doing something. We end up playing board games and doing puzzles partially because these are quality time activities. We enjoy the games and puzzles as well, but I think that the main appeal is that everyone is together. Again, this tends to put me in a lounging mood.

There are probably other reasons for my lazy attitude over Christmas as well, but it isn't worth listing them. I look bad enough already.