fully vaccinated

Today is the two week mark after I received my second COVID shot, so I'm officially fully vaccinated.  I'm definitely excited for the opportunity that represents for our coming summer compared with how things were last year.

While I am excited about things opening up, I am one of those introverted people who genuinely enjoyed many things about being locked down.  Being able to work from home, having an excuse not to go out and do too many social things, and having more time in general around the house was wonderful, especially early in the pandemic.  I enjoyed it enough that I felt some guilt, since I know this pandemic caused serious health and economic problems for so many people, and because so many people lost loved ones.

The one big issue that this caused for our family is that NJ had a very hard time dealing with things getting cancelled, and with everything about the year being different.  We tried to allow the kids as many safe social opportunities as possible, but his autism makes him an extremely routine-driven person, and having everything about the routine of the year last year change caused quite a bit of distress.

I can't tell if the year has been hard on CD or not.  She has actually been more social with kids at school than she has been historically, but she has been less social with people at church.  We'd probably prefer it be the other way around.  She excelled academically this year, and we have gotten far more family time than any prior year.  I hope she feels she had a good year.

We actually did keep pretty busy last summer, but we have more things scheduled for this summer, just due to more opportunity and less danger.  I think the rest of the year is looking up.

looking forward to winter

I remember as a kid the anticipation I felt toward the Christmas holiday.  The little Advent calendar seemed so long.  The twenty-five days leading up to the holiday seemed to take forever.  Of course, at that early age what really excited me about Christmas was the prospect of toys, time off school, and an opportunity to play with cousins.  The time felt long in part because my responsibilities leading up to the holiday were minimal.  I certainly did not appreciate all of the responsibilities my parents had in the time leading up to the holidays.

After all of my excitement, it was over so fast.  I enjoyed the next few days of playing with the new toys, but the sense of anticipation was gone.  December 26 was always bittersweet.  The next week when schoolwork started again was downright horrible.

In the past several years I have seen December as a bit of a chore.  There are a lot of things that have to be done for the holiday now including gift-buying, extra parties, traveling, and coordinating schedules.  That has made opinion of the holidays a bit less festive.  I have an advantage today, though, that I did not have as a kid, and that is that the time after Christmas day is actually quite enjoyable.

What I look the most forward to is undirected down time that I can enjoy how I like.  What I am realizing is that, while the time leading up to Christmas sucks that up and destroys it, there is more of that after Christmas.  Like when I was a kid, I typically get some time off around the holidays and can enjoy that time.  Unlike when I was a kid, I do not have a semester of homework to look forward to in January.  Beyond that, a lot of the things (both that I do and do not enjoy) that take my time are less of a factor in January than in other times of year.  There is no football that I care about as a Lions fan, and fantasy football does not stretch into the playoffs.  There is no mowing or lawn care in general.  There are fewer outdoor activities that I am likely to participate in.  There are more evenings when I can enjoy a movie with Golden.  It is really the perfect opportunity to enjoy down time with movies, games, or a hobby.  I have been clear that I generally do not like cold weather, but I don't have to be out in the cold to enjoy some of the side-effects of the weather.

This line of thinking came about because I am now realizing that this is the third December in a row where I am feeling optimistic about how much I expect to enjoy the upcoming winter months.  That seemed unlike me. It appears to be an outgrowth of the fact that I know what it is like to have work and school and a lot of other things ahead of me for the upcoming semester, and so with fewer things on my plate I expect to be happier.  This could become a trend, and so I could be modifying my negative attitude about the winter in future years.  Who knows, maybe I will even start enjoying the cold.

chuckles the car

For about a month the image below is part of what I have seen from my office.

What has stuck out to me is that white vehicle in the middle of the photo.While the driver of that vehicle has not been parked facing my office like this in the last few weeks, for several weeks he or she parked backed into the space so that the car constantly caught my eye due to a similarity my mind cannot ignore.

As I mentioned a while back, I have seen Toy Story 3 many times in the last two years, as it is one of our kids' favorites.  One of the characters is a clown toy named Chuckles.  All I can think about when I see this car from a distance is how much it reminds me of Chuckles.

Are there similar things that show up in your everyday life that constantly reminds you of something or someone else?

office people watching

This is about people watching from my office rather than other people in my office.

The office I had for a year-and-a-half overlooked a major road with a sidewalk that hosted a few pedestrians.  Most were normal and boring, but on occasion I'd see someone abnormal or entertaining.  A lot of what was entertaining was trying to figure out the back story for what was going on.  There is a residential area across the street, and some businesses along there too, but for various reasons it's not really a place where it makes sense to walk from one place to another.

While there were quite a few joggers, there was once a woman who, instead of jogging, did some sort of stretch-as-far-as-you-can-every-step walk for about a city block down the sidewalk.  Once, I saw a woman jogging with a man right behind her who was not subtle about the fact that he was checking her out the entire time.  Another time someone walked down the sidewalk in a full business suit pulling a small suitcase on wheels for the entire distance of the road that I could see from my office, which made little sense to me because he was on the residential side of the street rather than the office park.  One group of people that always piqued my interest was gaggle of four people (two men and two women) who I frequently saw walking one direction or the other in full business wear in mid-afternoon in no particular hurry.

My office has moved to a different side of the building as of the last month or two, so the people watching has had a different flavor.  I now overlook a parking lot facing the main entrance to the building, so I get some entertainment noticing the different expressions, gaits, and other nuances that people have going into the office versus leaving the office.  Most people have a more serious and determined (and often hurried) presence about them coming in compared to going out.

Probably the most entertaining thing I have seen so far happened on a morning a couple of weeks ago.  I noticed one specific middle-aged woman furiously spraying something on her clothes and in her vehicle before what I assume was her coming into work.  I wrote it off as her trying to get rid of cigarette smoke odor, and I was probably right.  However, as she got out of her vehicle she lit up a[nother] cigarette.  Why light up after spraying yourself with perfume or air freshener (or whatever it was) rather than before?  So perplexing!  I'll have to see if she does it again in the future.

the case for television

I was asked recently what Golden and I do together, or what we have done together, as a couple. I hesitated before answering because some people appear to look down on this, but we have always watched TV and gone to movies together. We do other things as well, but our "us" time has always been largely comprised of TV and movies. My question is why should we feel bad about our television habits? I have heard a few arguments which I will detail below.

It's unhealthy

While I agree that excessive TV watching can be unhealthy because it is associated with a lack of activity, so can excessive book reading. I don't feel that the health argument applies to me because if I watched less television I would not be replacing that time with exercise. I would be replacing it with Internet, gaming, and reading time, none of which is active.

It rots the brain

There are shows that I believe have to decrease the intelligence of the audience, but I think those very rare. Actually, if we are to believe that books, theater, and music make people more intelligent, it seems counter-intuitive to believe that entertainment built from these things (even the mass-market kind) would do the opposite. Someone I used to work with once compared Shakespeare's writings to soap operas in a less than positive way, and I wonder if more people wouldn't agree if the Bard were to write today.

It thwarts creativity

One of the arguments go that, while with books you have to visualize everything that is happening yourself, with television your experience is more passive. This could be true, but my experience tells me that my experience is only passive for slowly-paced shows, and this mimics my experience with slowly-paced books as well. As an example, when I read Captain's Courageous in high school I really had to fight to stay engaged in the story. My brain was not becoming more creative for the experience.

I think that watching shows and movies that pose scenarios that cause us to ask what we would do in a specific situation or perhaps speculate some unknowns about a story (Lost comes to mind) can actually make people more creative because the creative parts of their brains are forced to become engaged.

It negatively impacts culture

The negative influences of television probably outweigh the positives, but I hold to the belief that this is because many of the people who could make a positive impact through television have directed their efforts to other things. One possible solution to this would be to support shows that positively impact culture and to encourage others to do the same.

There are other arguments against television as well, and some are probably valid. My main point is, though, that television is not any more a vast cultural wasteland than a lot of things that are seen as culturally redeeming. Is going to the play Legally Blonde (or Grease, or Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, et al) really culturally superior to catching it as a weekend TV movie special?

Now that I have staked out one position, perhaps someone reading this has some thoughts to counter mine. If you do, you know how to air them.

put a cap on it

I understand most common etiquette. Generally, it's a good thing, because it allows for interaction between people who might not be able to do so otherwise. It also is a means of shielding your true feelings about a situation, which I have heard lauded and denounced. I think etiquette is generally motr og a good thing a bad thing. There are some individual manners issues that I simply don't understand, though.

Two issues I have already discussed are holding the door open for others and tipping. In both of these cases the issue is that the standards for how to deal with those situations are not standard enough. Today's issue is wearing hats indoors, which is more an issue of me not knowing why it matters.

My hair has a very peculiar nature. If I get within a few feet of a hat it spontaneously gets hat head. It could take the form of a yamaka shaped ring on my head or it could take the form of an Alfalfa-type tuft of hair sticking up for the world to see. In some cases what about my hear has changed is not immediately obvious, to me at least, except that something in general just doesn't look right.

There is actually video of me at my college graduation that perfectly illustrates what I am describing. When I put my mortarboard on I knew something was not quite right, but I did not figure that it mattered. However, at some point during the ceremony there was a prayer where the men were expected to remove their mortarboards. At that moment my mom focused the camcorder on my head. There was one tuft of hair that was pointing the wrong direction and it seriously looks like I had a bald spot there in the video.

Because I am so prone to hat head, I have long avoided wearing any kind of hat. There is no use putting one on if I am going to have to take it off indoors and have everyone find out what my hair decided to look like today. Really, in the last fifteen years I have only worn hats with any frequency in two specific situations. The first was to minimize sunburn when I worked for a general contractor in high school and the second has been to keep from freezing when scraping off my car on frosty or snowy mornings.

If hats were not considered a faux pas for men to wear indoors, I might sport one more often. For example, in the winter I could wear a functional hat outside, like a tuque, and I could wear a less sweltering and more stylish hat indoors to hide the hat head, like a fedora. I know that I would be more likely to wear a cap in the summer months as well if I didn't think I was violating some social rule by wearing it indoors. As it is, I don't own any baseball caps that I am aware of because I wouldn't wear them.

I should look at the positive side of things, though. This rule in etiquette is saving me all of the money that I would otherwise be spending on caps and fedoras. Some day I really should calculate how much I would have saved by not buying hats and invest it in a company that makes head gear. If nothing else, it's would be something mildly interesting to talk about.

seeking direction

The laptop is a lost cause, so I will be posting from the home PC for a while. I will probably get back on track with posting after the baby is born. I will try to update when it is possible until then.

I don't like stopping to ask for directions. I know it is very cliche, but in my case that stereotype is true. I will stop and ask for directions if I have to, but I have to have come to the point where it is a necessity. I do not know whether most women understand why a lot of men will not stop to ask for directions, so that is what I am going discuss in this post.

Men, and I have to use myself as an example, generally do not like to admit to weakness. I doubt the reason for this is much deeper than that men do not want to feel weak, either physically or intellectually, but this tendency runs deep. Boys who run to their mothers when things are bad are called sissies (or much worse). Girls aren't. I know of one situation that illustrated this for me where one guy was teased mercilessly when he sent an email to his department (composed entirely of men) saying he was taking a sick day because he was "feeling weak." I was not that guy.

When a man stops and asks for directions he is admitting that he has a glaring weakness. He is so incapable of finding his way that he has to bow to someone else's superior sense of direction. It may sound crazy to most women and some of the less stereotypical men, but this really is the rationalization involved. Admitting you are lost can be the same as admitting that you are a failure in this area of your life.

I actually take this to a further level. Today as we were in the grocery store Golden got a free sample of some food. I found a way to walk around the display unnoticed. I have a very difficult time accepting even a sample of food for free. This is because I feel like I am putting myself in the position of accepting a handout, and that gives me the feeling that I am somehow not providing for myself. Again, this may sound crazy, but it doesn't make it any less true. I can pay for my food, thank you very much.

8:30

Last night Golden and I went to the mall. The trip ended up being in vain because we didn't get anything that we had intended to get, but for once I wasn't bothered by it. I was quite content that we had piled into the car, dealt with all the rain that fell last night, and burned an hour out of the evening. This was because all of this occurred before 8:30PM.

Any more, the time after I get home from work on weekdays is divided into two parts. The first part is when NJ is awake. We keep him entertained and make sure he stays out of trouble. The second part is when he is asleep, which is a valuable commodity given the number of television shows that we try to keep up with. We don't really watch any of our shows when NJ is awake, so this limits our viewing to about an hour each night. This also means that I don't necessarily accomplish much after 8:30. It feels like I am wasting time if I do work after 8:30.

It seems my home life is spent in one of two modes. I am either waiting for NJ's bedtime at 8:30 or I am trying to get my TV watching and Internet surfing done after 8:30. While I love my time with NJ, I still try to do what I can to make the time before 8:30 go faster. Going on small errands is one of those things. When we go somewhere I still have time with him, but he is usually more easily distracted and better behaved.

It is nice to be with NJ. That doesn't take away from how nice it is when NJ is asleep.

did i blink?

I'm asking because it feels like summer is concluding before it has even started.

While I was taking classes this past semester, and this is really the case any time I am taking classes, I could not wait for summer. I couldn't wait for all of the free time that I would have. I had some grand plans for some leisurely activities, mostof which involved reading some books or writing. Somehow, I got to the end of the summer without doing a lot of those things and I have the feeling that I haven't taken real advantage of whatever free time I was supposed to have.

The reality is that the amount of free time I have does not change that much, regardless of what is going on in my life. I make spare time for myself regardless of the situation. If I have a lot of spare time I fill it with things that are ultimately time-consuming. If I don't have spare time I'll give up an hour of sleep here or there. Also, when I am in class Golden ends up doing a lot of the things that I would be otherwise doing, so my schedule isn't as extremely different as it would seem it should be. I am busier when I have a class, but I am not doing nearly as much around the house.

I am not taking any classes this semester so that I can be around the house more as Golden's due date gets closer. I had been looking forward to having this semester off, but I have a feeling that it is going to speed by the same way summer did without me really doing much of anything. I probably should not go into the next few months with specific expectations so that if I get a windfall of time it comes as a pleasant surprise.

No matter, it is nice not having to go to class for a little while.

something lighthearted

Every topic I can think of lately is either dull or deep. That is a problem because a person can only take so much of that. Here are a few random lighthearted thoughts off the top of my head.

Golden and I are expecting to find out the sex of our new baby today. She will probably post that information before I do, unless I just add it as a comment to this post.

I never realized how much kids can talk without using real words. NJ will talk for extended periods of time and I know that he is genuinely trying to rely information to me, but I can't decipher most of what he says. There are random words I recognize, but the words I pick out represent so little of everything that he is saying. How much of his conversation is real and what is he actually talking about?

There is very little that is more enjoyable than sleeping in. Everyone knows I feel this way. I have taken the opportunity to sleep in since I am not at work this week. Does anyone else get a weird feeling that his or her brain has not fully turned on for a couple hours after waking up late? I get this all of the time, but it is the most strong for me when I sleep in.

I'll never understand people who drive slow in the passing lane. The passing lane is for passing.

Our house has felt overrun by bugs in the last month or two. I have seen more insects inside the house this year compared to every other year we have lived here. I am seriously considering a call to the exterminator, but I don't know if most exterminators have simple, spray around to discourage bugs from coming inside rates.

This is my first post that is automatically posted. If all goes well, it should post while I am still happily asleep at the moment that this is posted. The very thought brings a contented smile to my face.

after you

Someone I work with stopped by my office the other day for a random conversation. He pointed out that he had been thinking about one of those things that is relatively inconsequential, but that it was something that might qualify as the main topic for a sitcom. His topic was actually something that I have considered as a blog post in the past, so it will be my topic today.

The topic was the gray area regarding when you are obligated to hold the door for someone else. How far does someone need to be from the door before holding it open is not necessary? How close does someone have to be before it isn't awkward waiting for them to get to the door? Unfortunately, with the different speeds that people walk, the range seems to change based on whomever happens to be behind me when I am going through a door. I actually frequently adjust the speed that I walk to the door to my office building in the morning so as to avoid those gray areas.

The guy I was talking with noted that when he holds a door open he usually expects thanks. I don't, but that's probably a personality thing more than anything. I generally hold the door for social reasons and so I'm not responsible for the door slamming into someone's face. It really isn't for incredibly altruistic purposes. If someone thanks you in that situation it is more obligatory anyway, so it doesn't mean much.

I generally like to use the elevator as well in the morning. I will take the stairs, though, if going toward the elevator will lead to another gray area decision. I don't like to have to figure out if I should hold the elevator door for someone else, or to have someone else make the decision about me. Something about awkward elevator situations makes me feel like I am that creepy guy that a lot people aren't comfortable riding with in the elevator. I don't want to be that creepy guy and I don't want to be the jerk who doesn't hold the elevator open for others, either. That's okay, though. I could use the exercise.

the perfect parent

Everyone is human. Everyone makes mistakes. For the life of me, though, I cannot think of anything seriously morally wrong that my parents did in my entire life. I think they must be as close to perfect as possible.

When you grow up in a family you get to see everyone's flaws because it is difficult to be fake to people you are living with, so it would stand to reason that I should have seen something that my parents did wrong. I can't think of anything, though. They didn't even do the things that a lot of people in church seem to think aren't really sins.

My mom was not a gossip. My dad was not greedy. They never told a lie. They never took advantage of a situation for financial gain. Neither of them did anything that even appeared remotely unseemly. I think there is a probably warranted feeling in American culture that people who have the appearance of piety are not so holy when no one is looking. I did not have that opinion when I was growing up, though, because what people saw of my parents in church was exactly the same as what I saw at home.

While this is a spectacular legacy, it was a little annoying to grow up with, because no one can live up to perfection. It took me a while to truly accept the concepts of grace and mercy because seeing near perfection gave me a brutal view of anything that could be even a close approximation to sin for a while. That shouldn't be blamed on my parents, though, because to do so would be to blame them for not slipping up at some point. That is lunacy.

As NJ is growing up I am becoming more and more alert to the impression that he will get from his parents. His soon-to-be sibling will be watching as well. I don't want either of them to think that they have to be perfect through their own power, because that can ultimately lead to a frustrated rejection of God or a lifetime of faking it. I also don't want them to think that anything is acceptable because grace covers it, because that can eventually lead to serving something that isn't quite God or even passively rejecting Him. Most importantly, though, I don't want them to think their parents hypocrites. I don't want them to have an excuse to reject God. How is that possible, though? Nobody is perfect.

going backwards

The other day when I was visiting the local Blockbuster the guy at the counter asked how I felt about my online service plan with the company. I noted that it worked fine for me. He then commented on how it had gotten more expensive, so maybe I would be interested in a different plan. Below are the details of my plan and the plan the guy wanted to sell me.

My Plan:
$19.99 per month plus tax. I get three movies at a time through the online service and I can turn in five movies a month into the store for a free rental. It is certainly not as good as my plan a year or two ago, but it is still acceptable given how much I use it.

The Other Plan:
$21.99 per month plus tax. I would get one movie at a time through the store and could exchange it for another movie whenever I wanted.

I know there is probably a scenario or two where the second plan makes sense, like if someone lives across the street from the Blockbuster and only wants to watch movies available at the local Blockbuster. I have some serious questions about the sanity of even offering such a plan, though. Consumers may have bought into it ten years ago but they will not today. If I am stuck with getting only the movies available at the local Blockbuster, Redbox is almost certainly a better deal.

It is no secret that Blockbuster's business model is broken. The company's strength is in its brick and mortar stores, but the future of video is viewing movies through an online connection. The brick and mortar stores are probably going to get to be too expensive to maintain for the value they provide at some point. Furthermore, I haven't seen any evidence that Blockbuster is prepared to compete with NetFlix on downloadable movies and if it isn't, I think that will ultimately be the death of the company.

I actually hope that Blockbuster picks up on this shortly because I don't want it to fail as a company. I want both Blockbuster and NetFlix to be around for a while to keep prices down. Otherwise, I'll have to pay even more to get my movie fix.

saturday evening post

This is a little later in the weekend than I usually post, and it's just going to be an update of what is going on.

On Thursday I was supposed to pick up my car at the shop. I left work early to pick it up, then the guy I have been working with noticed a sound from the power steering and told me he'd prefer to keep the car one more day to make sure this wasn't a serious issue. I am thankful that he was willing to check on it, but I was very frustrated that I had to drive out to pick it up again.

On Friday the crew who were to replace the furnace and A/C showed up at the house. I was not there for any of that, so if there are details to share, Golden will have to share them.

Also on Friday I went to see the surgeon who will be performing my gallbladder removal (for those who don't know, I am having my gallbladder removed). He said the test results showed that my gallbladder was "filled with" gall stones. I can apparently rest assured that surgery is the best course of action. I am scheduled to go under the knife early in the morning on March 20th.

A final thing that happened on Friday was that I actually picked up my car after the mechanic bled the power steering lines and determined that there was nothing with my power steering. What was weird was that when I got my Honda Accord loaner I was not entirely comfortable in the car because the blind spots were in different locations and it handled a bit differently. I even mentioned to my sister that I still preferred my car. After driving a recent model car, though, mine feels a bit old. I still plan on holding onto it for several more years, though.

Today we travelled to Springfield to celebrate Golden's mom's birthday. The entertainment for the day has mostly come from NJ.

february

I always kind of joked that I was asking for trouble in marrying someone who was born in February. I need to make sure to remember two important days in such a short month. All that really was joking, though, because Golden is not difficult to please.

I have had other reasons to not like the month. I am always impatient for Spring while it is February because it is cold and because it is gray. There are few good movies that come out in February, and even before NJ it was always difficult to find something fun and different to do in this month. Did I mention it is cold and gray?

The last few years, though, I have really disliked the month of February. Since I went back to school I seem to have had the most schoolwork assigned in February of any month. I know this because I have not truly dreaded any month other than February. Every other month has felt manageable, even when I was busy. Getting through February, though, has simply been a matter of survival.

This year is not much different. I am ecstatic that the month is more than half over. I can't wait for March. My life begins again in March.

by the seat of my pants

Tuesday night I had a few errands to run on my way to Homer's. The first place I stopped was the post office. When I got back into the car I noticed a strange sound. I felt the car seat thinking that maybe I sat in something. Nothing.

I stopped by the gas station and contemplated on how cold it was. The weather seemed to cut right through me.

I went to Home Depot and returned some materials that did not fit in our bathroom. I also headed to the plumbing section to pick up the last couple of things necessary to get our sink into working order.

As I bent down to look for a specific part that I need I noticed the same noise I heard in the car. This time it was more distinct so there was no doubt what it was. I had torn the seat of my pants. Later, I would confirm a seven inch tear along my rear left pocket.

I wonder what the people who saw me before I realized what had happened thought. Did the guy filling his mini-van at the gas station get a laugh out of me shivering with a tear in my pants? Did the people in the aisle at Home Depot with me hear the tear? Did I look suspicious because of how quickly I left the store? So many questions, so few answers.

a pen for my thoughts

Over the last couple of weeks I have needed to grab a pen around the house to write something down several times. In our house this is a bad thing because the working to non-working pen ratio is not very good.

I can be guaranteed that if I am looking for a pen I will find about eight pencils, three markers, and three or four pens that turn out to have no ink. This last part is my fault because rather than throw away the inkless pens, I put them back where I found them. It is still irritating because I get my hopes up that I have finally found the implement that I need.

The reason that I do not throw out dead pens is that I am not always convinced that the pen is completely dead. For some reason I rationalize that it is worth keeping the pen around in case there is still some residual ink left in the pen. Plus fifty-cent pens are hard to replace.

I think that in the near future one of the things I want to do around the house is round up all of the pens, test them, then replace the ones that are all used up. Of course, that would take effort, and I am sure I will rationalize that this plan requires a lot of work to simply make sure I always have a pen handy.

slash

I like communicating through text, but one serious weakness that frustrates me is that there is no punctuation to express moderate excitement or surprise. I will often send an email or instant message to someone with a comment that I want to be expressed with some excitement, but not the level that an exclamation mark provides.

As an example of what I am talking about, take a look at the two following sentences.

1. "That joke you sent to me is funny."
2. "That joke you sent to me is funny!"

And yet another example.

1. "Your newborn child is cute."
2. "Your newborn child is cute!"

The first option in both scenarios could be read as obligatory comments, almost said in passing. The period makes me imagine an emotionless voice is matter-of-factly rattling off the comment.

The exclamation marks make it seem like the person who wrote the comments is piling it on. It is almost like when an adult takes a fake excited tone with a child, so I sometimes see exclamation mark overuse as patronizing.

So, what is a person to do if none of the choices for punctuation seem acceptable? Create a new form of punctuation. I propose that new sentence ending punctuation is adopted that expresses excitement, but not to the level of an exclamation mark. This could be done using punctuation that is already available, like the backslash.

If the backslash is adopted for this purpose, I will no longer have to choose between the apathetic period and the patronizing exclamation mark. I don't know about you, but that makes me moderately excited\

honk

On the way home from church yesterday I was behind someone who did not notice that the light at the intersection was green. I waited about five seconds then honked. As we moved forward Golden commented in a surprised tone, "You honked!"

In these ten years since Golden and I started dating I have probably intentionally honked the horn in my car a total of three or four times. Until yesterday I had never honked the horn with Golden in the car. Not ever.

There are a few reasons that I don't use my horn much. One big reason is that my impulse reactions to a dangerous or annoying situation do not include horn honking. Had I honked the horn a lot more when I started driving I may have become more comfortable using the horn now than I currently am.

Another reason that I do not use the horn is that, since most car horns sound very harsh, I feel like I should only use the horn when the situation is serious. Most of the situations that I am in when driving never seem important enough to use the horn. I might be frustrated that another driver cut me off or is driving too slow, but something in the back of my head tells me that it is petty to sound the horn for something so minor.

So if we meet on the road and you cut me off, there is a good chance that I will get frustrated. You will not hear a peep from my car, though.

christmas 2007 trip update

I apologize to anyone who has been expecting updates with the frequency that I normally provide. I have not had too much opportunity to sit down at a computer for long enough to post anything worthwhile for a few days, and I do not expect to have another opportunity until the middle of next week. There is a small chance that I will be able to post something before then, but don't hold your breath.

I leave you with a few updates on my trip.

• NJ has actually done very well in the car so far. He has been a handful when he is out of the car, though, so I think that he is acting out the frustrations I expected to see in the car elsewhere.
• When we have gone anywhere even remotely noteworthy I have forgotten the camera. This happened on a visit to Silver Dollar City and to the Big Mac Museum (which is basically a dolled up McDonald's, but still worth a few pictures).
• When I was growing up my parents couldn't afford to spend much at Christmas time. Now, as an adult, I am amazed that they spend so much on gifts for me and the rest of the family. I make out like a bandit with getting gifts from both Golden's and my family. We probably need to increase our immediate family gift budget just because we receive significantly more than we give.
• I have been reminded one reason why I cannot live in Pennsylvania. I always get car sick if I am a passenger in a car that is travelling around the rolling hills in western Pennsylvania. That is not such a problem in Kansas.
• Everyone keeps reminding me that I have gained some weight. That's what family is for, I guess.

I am sure that either I or Golden will have more information on our trip later, but that is what I have for now.