What is up with the opossums lately? In the last three days I've seen at least three of them, and I could have run over two of them if I had tried even a little bit. I'm pretty sure the ones I saw tonight weren't little kids dressed up.....
And here's your greeting for the season.
Last week a lady at work brought up a good question that I was reminded of this evening when I went to use a ziploc bag. Why do those types of bags always come out of the box sealed? Do they test the seal of the bag before they ship it? Does it make it easier to put in the box? Does it keep contaminants out of the bags? Does anybody know the real answer to this? Has anybody ever toured a Ziploc factory? I already asked Jeeves, and he didn't know.
For part of the past week and weekend, I was in Nashville for a National Society of Women Engineers convention. It was a lot of work and very exhausting, but lots of fun too. Below are a few pictures of some of the things we did.
The first night, there was a genuine George Jones sighting. I guess his aging process has been a little bit out of the ordinary since his skin turned color and everything. I also saw Elvis and Tony the Tiger while in Nashville, but I didn't get any pictures of them unfortunately. And, I was told that the "real" Garth Brooks was in the building while we were there, but we were busy working and couldn't go to see him.
This week my car needed a minor repair on its exhaust system, and I was reminded again that my car is getting sort of old. I have been contemplating getting a new one, but Reggie still runs too well to get rid of him yet, and the other problem is that I don't know what I want. But to be prepared, I should probably try to figure this out ahead of time so that when Reggie finally gives up the ghost I'm only in a mild state of emergency.
Here's my criteria for a new vehicle:
Today I did things a bit differently. I didn't go so far as to do my evening activities first and then go to work. I went to work like usual. But, after work, I went outside and ran around and got all sweaty, then I went to the YMCA and changed out of my exercise clothes and into my "Tuesday -go-to-meetin' " clothes, then left. I was there for probably less than 10 minutes. I betcha the people manning the front desk don't see that real often. Possibly because the people who do goofy thing like that slip out the back door so it's not so obvious how goofy they are.
Al Gore? A Nobel Peace Prize? I feel like a grandparent who always bemoans what this world is coming to. But I read in a magazine just yesterday about how to improve our lives we should count every day three things we are grateful for and not dwell on the negative so much. So, I'm grateful.....
I was at a restaurant yesterday, and near the cash register was this small urn thing with a cork stopper, and on it someone had painted "Ashes of Rude Cell Phone Users". Apparently they hadn't had any rude customers lately because it was empty. Or else they have so many they have to empty it really often.
I turned my furnace on last night (October 10th). My aunt and uncle stopped by for the night, and it got kinda cold yesterday and looked like it was going to stay that way for a couple days. It's ironic that two of the three times this year that I've had overnight company corresponded to the day that I turned my AC or furnace on.
So let's see now....October 1st to October 10th would be.....9 days. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner who guessed correctly! I have no clue who it is, but if whoever it is wants a free blog post on this site, that's the usual prize. Apparently no one wants to be associated with this site too badly as I haven't had any takers on this offer from my previous polls.
That's about all that's happening here, folks. The daylight hours are rapidly getting shorter, and it's cold, drizzling, and dreary here. This all leads to an increased "depression index" that must be combated with trips to the YMCA and going somewhere on the weekend. The sunny side is tomorrow is Friday with a whole weekend ahead! Later gators.
The person I went on the hike/walk with was a very nice, kind, enjoyable LADY who has two teenage daughters and a husband. :-) Sorry to dash your hopes! And Eva, I'm not quite sure I understood your comment from the previous post. You didn't like my nature pictures? Or maybe they weren't as good as my prose from the post before it? Or was that sarcasm that didn't come through very well?
I'm not sure if I would include convention stew, but I should definitely add convention strogonaff to the list of fall foods. Mmmm....Mmmmm....Mmmmm.
I don't have much to say today, but I thought I would post a couple pictures from a walk we took going through some DNR land yesterday. I went to visit some friends a little over an hour away, and we had a good time with a bonfire, racquetball, and this nature hike. I also went with them to a thing called "If These Stones Could Talk", which was a theater thing in the local cemetery where you went to seven different graves of people from the history of the town, and an actor would pretend to be that historical person and tell you about him/herself. That actually was better than I had expected. They use some of the proceeds from the event to restore old graves in the cemetery. Enough with all the chatter, here's the pictures.
The danger of wild grapevines (picture above).
There's something about the start of a new season that I always like. It doesn't really matter what the new season is, it's just fun to know that there's new things coming.
Right now, the changes of fall are coming. You can hear and smell the rustle of dry leaves (in the trees and on the ground) and see the beautiful fall colors of the trees. It's still nice and warm during the day, but then in the evening there's a crispness in the air that's perfect for bonfires and hot apple cider. I haven't thought of this in awhile, but it also reminds me of being a kid and running around in the freshly tilled dirt after the potato harvester went through the garden. Speaking of harvesting, soy beans and field corn gets harvested around this time too. There's nothing like sitting in the combine and listening to some AM radio or some "real country" on an FM station. And let us not forget the foods: crisp apples, squash, and....other stuff I can't remember right now.
On the first day of winter (weather-wise, not the technical day), I love how the ugliness of late fall gets covered by that first fresh covering of pure snow. And, the snow makes the world so silent. Not only that, you can pull out your snowboard or skis and dream about the fresh powder coming in the next few months. It's also the perfect time to slow down a little, play a little music, organize your digital pictures, and cuddle up by the fire while reading a good book. You also might look forward to the next couple months when it gets really cold and you can go and ice skate on the pond in your backyard or else see a college or amateur hockey game. Favorite foods of the season: hot chocolate, tea, soups, grapefruit, and lefse.
Then comes spring, where you can finally take off your winter clothes and go outside without a coat. The air has that "fresh" smell that soap and deodorant makers try to imitate, the world once again turns green, and the tulips bloom. You can quit going to the YMCA so much and start doing exercise stuff outside again. I think I expounded on the virtues of spring in a previous post, so I won't belabor this season. Foods to look forward to when spring comes: strawberries, asparagus, and strawberries. OK, I kinda drew a blank there. Maybe you can help me out.
Finally, summer arrives. It feels good to go outside after freezing in the air conditioner at work and feel nice and HOT. There's always the beach, waterskiing or wakeboarding, bicycle riding, tennis, canoing, etc., etc., etc. Some other bonuses of summer are outdoor concerts, eating outside, lots of daylight hours, and easy driving. A few of the many best foods: fresh blueberries, peaches, raspberries, cucumbers, anything made on the grill, corn on the cob, and peas and potatoes picked that day from the garden.
OK, that wasn't comparable to Henry David Thoreau or anything, but I'm hoping you don't usually look here for that kind of stuff anyway. I suppose I could get used to Florida or Hawaii where the seasons never change, but I'm afraid I might get bored. That's it for now folks, now go take on the day and the new season!
twenty years later. Surprisingly, she didn't have any stories to tell on me (good or bad). I was going to upload a picture of her and me from twenty years ago, but my scanner is out of commission at the moment. I may still need a babysitter now too, but my parents quit providing one, and I haven't hired one myself yet. :-)
When I was back home where I grew up this past weekend, I was reminded of the book "If You're Not From the Prairie", which was written by David Bouchard and and Henry Ripplinger. The line I was reminded of from the book was "If you're not from the prairie, you don't know the wind, you can't know the wind." The wind was blowing incessantly while I was there, but to me it's part of being home and almost like seeing an old friend. Anyway, if you haven't read this book, I would recommend it, especially if you grew up on the prairie. It summarizes the growing up experience very well.
On another note, what is the point of summer if inside every building it feels like the arctic? At the place I've been at for work the last couple days, I have to put my coat on to go inside and take it off to go outside, where the temperature has pleasantly been in the 80's.
Look out world, I learned how to shoot a gun today. Today was the annual department outing/team building at work today, and one of the options for the morning activity was to go to the local shooting range/boxing ring/fitness center. I chose to go there instead of golfing. I got to shoot all sorts of guns such as a 38 (special and 357 magnum bullets), a semiautomatic 45, semiautomatic 22 pistol, a shotgun, and a semiautomatic AK47. It doesn't get much better than that. I think the only thing I missed shooting was the 22 rifle and the 9mm. And until today, none of that above mumbo-jumbo meant anything to me.
In the afternoon we played a little softball, tennis, volleyball, and cornhole. I am thoroughly sore now! What was interesting was that it was almost impossible to predict who would choose to go shooting and who would choose to golf. People I thought for sure would want to shoot went golfing, and some people you didn't really think of as interested in guns went shooting.
That's all for now. Have a good weekend everybody....
Today's thought on bathrooms involves choosing stalls. My theory is that if people enter a bathroom and a stall is already occupied, their natural tendency is to choose a stall so that there is at least one empty stall between them and the occupied one. And, if somebody goes into the bathroom and it's empty, they will choose a stall (when possible) so that if another person comes in they will be able to put one empty stall between them. Don't ask me what the behavior theory is for urinals since I don't know and don't really plan to do any observations to find out. Maybe my male readers could tell me.
Here's one more thought that I have come up with on this topic over the past year or two. I think all of this new-fangled technology has taken some of the art out of road trips. It has taken some of the hassle out of it too, but we're going to focus on the art part today. Nowadays, when people go on a long trip, they bring along their Game Boy or handheld PlayStation (whatever they're called), their DVD player, their mp3 player, their cell phone, their GPS, books on CD/tape/mp3, and who knows what else. Using all of these gadgets, everyone can fully ignore everybody else in the car for the entire trip unless you have to request a bathroom stop, and in that case you just send a text message. :-)
Whatever happened to riding in the car and having a deep meaningful conversation, doing Chinese fire drills, playing the "who can keep their hand on the window the longest when it's 20 below" game, playing the license plate game, the alphabet game, everybody's mother's favorite "little red schoolhouse" game, singing songs a capella, getting lost because someone can't read the map, making signs to put in the windows of your car, tormenting your siblings because you're bored, and listening to your sister scream because your brother is bored and is tormenting your sister? I was also going to mention using walkie-talkies between cars, but maybe that counts as a new technology?
I don't think the art is completely dead yet though. A few months ago I met some kids from Minneapolis who still know how to do a road trip up right. They were doing all sorts of fun things including running to the thrift shop next door while gassing the car up, making up little car dances, and making the person whose turn it is to put in gas do something silly while they put in gas.
I agree with Jen that this remote communication stuff keeps people in their "bubble" more. But I try to resist this temptation sometimes and get out there and meet new and interesting people. And get to know some old friends better.
Here's a couple other random thoughts:
Reggie now has an opossum and a squirrel under his belt for the year. The opossum barely made any kind of thump, so it may not have been a direct hit.
There are some days when I'm at the YMCA when I wish I had a camera. Today I saw a lady on an exercise bike reading a newspaper with one pair of glasses on her face and another pair of glasses on her head in her hair. That just kind of struck my funny bone.
One of the best inventions ever was mapping programs on the computer. That's a definite good addition to the modern road trip. Maybe the next post will be all the benefits of road tripping with new technology.
Someone opined to me many months ago that people are more likely to say things on the internet, instant messenger, and e-mail that they would never say in person. I think that is probably true. The question then becomes: Do people do that because there is less personal interaction and they don't think about and can't see how their words will be taken by the other person? Or is it that people are more true to who they really are when they aren't face to face with somebody? Or, are they more likely to lie because they know it's less likely they will be caught when the person can't see their body language? With all these new and less personal methods of communication, will we start to have more and more antisocial people on the earth? Or is the human desire to have personal contact strong enough to prevent this?
I think people still know subconsciously that these remote methods of communication are not a substitute for personal interaction. At work, I work with people from at least three different countries almost every day, and I'm sure all the people at work, including me, would tell you that more effective work gets done when you have met the people you are working with in person. It's even more effective to sit near them every day while you work.
With all the blogs people have started, will this help people stay more connected or less connected to others? I definitely keep up with the lives of people who don't live near me much better if they have a blog. But, I don't see them or call them any more frequently. I just know what's going on in their life. Is that then a false sort of connection with someone? Are blogs a way for people to feel like they have had a conversation with someone when in reality they're only talking to themselves? Kind of like I'm doing now...
My favorite example that illustrates the ridiculousness of all this remote communication is when you see 3 or 4 teenagers in a car hanging out and cruising, and each one them has a cell phone attached to their ear. It's like, "Why are you bothering to try to be near each other if you're going to ignore each other?" By the way, that is one of my bigger pet peeves is when people come to visit you and then spend large portions of their time on the phone not visiting with you. Or vice versa, where somebody calls you and then spends all of their time talking to people in the room with them while you're on the phone. My biggest pet peeve is people who don't know how to listen. Laces Out Dan says that I have a lot of pet peeves, but I'm not sure that's true.
By the way, I don't have any answers to these questions, I just like to stir the "thought pot" every once in awhile.
If you don't know exactly where the Mason-Dixon line runs, here's another way to tell. You can tell you're in the south when they ask you if you want iced tea and it comes already sweetened. You're in the north if they ask you if you want iced tea and the default is unsweetened.
If a dyslexic person drives through Lansing, MI where I-69 and I-96 meet, what is the probability that they will end up on the wrong road, assuming they do not have GPS?
I don't have time to post something deep and meaningful, so here's a funny picture to tide you over the Labor Day Holiday. I believe its caption is "New Riding Lawnmower", and usually there's a good story to go along with it about a wife nagging the husband to get her a new riding lawnmower, so he does. Have a good weekend everyone!
