This weekend, our family went on our first bike ride of the season. Of course, Owen has gotten on his bike a few times and went around the block, but Saturday was the first day the four of us (with Isla in the trailer) took off for a substantial ride.

We biked about two miles, probably a little more. We followed the road down to the Mississippi River, then stayed on a bike trail under the High Bridge and toward downtown. We stopped and gawked at the water, then biked a little further, then made U-turns and cycled back home.
Coupling this with a lot of work around the house, and I sure felt beat Saturday night.

Back in December, we obtained a Wii for Xmas, and the three of us (Isla doesn’t really participate) have been quite regular at exercising using the Wii fit. I’ve tried to log a half hour on it each time I fire it up: sometimes I run, bike, or box; those are the high-calroie burners. Sometimes I’m a bit easier on myself, such as when I try my hand at juggling or soccer. All in all, it was a great way to move our bodies during those bitter cold months of December, January, February, March, and, evidently, April. More importantly, it helped Owen tire out. I’m all for having kids get tired out.

Jennifer felt pretty worn out from our bike ride this weekend, too, and she said it was evidence that the Wii doesn’t serve as an adequate substitute for “real” physical activity. So, I don’t know. Is it pointless? I feel like I work out when I use it, and it’s gotta be better than just sitting around whining about how dark and cold it is outside. Maybe it’s just not intense enough. I don’t know. I’m just glad we’ve had a few days here to get outside. This weekend was one of the best springs I can remember.

A few years ago, I had some email exchanges with one of my uncles. One of my dad’s brothers. It largely concerned religion. In fact, once I divulged to him that I no longer believed the Jehovah’s Witnesses were “the truth,” the correspondence completely concerned religion.

In one of his final emails to me, he said…

I can’t believe that this system will go on for more than two to three years. 

He wrote that on April 23, 2007; so, six years ago this week. Already, the world has lasted twice as long as his outside guess, and his hoped-for paradise hasn’t arrived.

Every year around this time, I think about this sentence he wrote. Witnesses think the end is coming any day now, a belief they’ve had since before they were even called “Witnesses.” Back in the early 1900s, for example, they believed the end was coming in 1914. When that didn’t happen, they moved their predicted end date further and further into the future. For a time, they held on to 1925, then the Watchtower Society hinted that 1975 would be the momentous year of Armageddon. By the time I was a little kid, most Witnesses were convinced the end would arrive sometime in the 1990s; the year 2000 at the latest. I was repeatedly told I would never graduate from high school, never get a job, never need to worry about a college education and certainly never have to plan for retirement.

In fact, in the mid-1990s, I was in a car with several other Witnesses, and one of them asked us how long we all thought this world would continue. Everyone else in the car was sure the end would arrive within a year’s time. I guessed five years, and everyone gasped at the audacity I had to make such a long-term guess. They said I wasn’t thinking right, and that if I thought the end was five years away, I might lose my sense of urgency.

Turned out, I was right: Five years came and went, and the Witnesses still weren’t in paradise. Five years came and went again. And again.

Anyway, I’m not trying to rip on the Witnesses here. I just think it’s sad. My uncle is nearing his 50th birthday and yet, through all those decades, he’s been convinced that the end was right around the corner – that it would be here in two or three more years, tops.

As a dutiful Witness, he, of course, shuns me, so I haven’t spoken to him since we corresponded via email six years ago this week. Still, I wonder about him and the other Witnesses every April 23rd – does he remember saying that the world would end in three years? Does he recall how often he’s had to revise his belief of when God would destroy the world? And what about now; if I asked him, would he say he thinks the end is coming in six months, or three years, or ten years? How does he feel now that he’s lived long enough to graduate from high school, see his nephew graduate from high school, gotten married, outlived his brother, and now has to think about his impending retirement?

Like the “good” book says, expectation postponed is making the heart sick.

Last December, I whined about missed out on a couple of opportunities to see the new film Hitchcock. This weekend, I finally was able to view it. It’s out on DVD now, so there’s no need to get a baby-sitter and spend a fortune at a “movie” theater where you watch a dozen commercials. 

The film certainly kept my interest. It’s only about an hour-and-a-half long, so I suppose that’s not saying too much. But really, I’m probably biased. Having read several books about Alfred Hitchcock and his films, and having seen every feature film he directed, it stands to reason that I’m gonna be intrigued by any film about the man if, for no other reason, than to see how it sits with what I already know.

Actually, though, the film was too short. The story tries to squeeze too much in: the making of Psycho, Hitchcock’s waning persona, and his faltering marriage. Despite covering a period of only about one year (late 1959-late 1960), I think the film left out too much.

The most obvious omission here is regarding Psycho. The shower scene and the music are given token screen time, leading viewers to suspect these were slapshot efforts that just happened to work, rather than the carefully constructed works of art that they are. Was the shower scene really filmed in ten minutes? From everything I read, it took over a week – several hours, sometimes, just to set up the perfect shot that would last, on screen, for all of about one second.

Also lost in the shuffle is Paramount Pictures’ anger with Hitch. He lost money for them on his most recent films and when they loaned him out to MGM, he created North by Northwest, and managed to make money…for MGM. There was also this pervasive view in the movie industry that Hitch had sold out by directing television shows and could not longer make the quality crafts he once had. This is quite funny since, during the time Hitch was overseeing his TV show, he directed Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds – which might be the greatest succession of four films by any director ever.

The film actually loses steam as it goes – it begins brilliantly. Knowing so much about Hitch, I had several ideas of how the film would begin, but Wisconsin in the early 1950s was not one of them. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents style that then kicks-off (and subsequently concludes) the film is likewise inspired. Hitch’s dark humor, wrangling with the censors and the studio, and his frequent daydreams are all on parade here, and Anthony Hopkins nails the difficult part…which is more than I can say for James D’Arcy, who’s evidently trying to portray Anthony Perkins. Scarlett Johansson and Helen Mirren are quite good in their roles, too.

But once we reach the one-third mark, the movie spins off in too many directions, unsure what to cover next: Alma’s affair? Hitch’s obesity? Tricking the sensors? An irate Vera Miles? In all this, too, the Hitchcocks’ daughter, Patricia, is not even mentioned (all the more surprising since she not only lived near her parents, but was actually in the film Psycho, and should have at least been in the “swearing the oath” scene).

Somehow, though, Psycho gets made, and Hitch finagles his way past the censors, and comes up with another one of his legendary stunts to increase interest in the film. Then, with the time running out on this too-short flick, The Hitchcocks’ marriage woes are tidied up in a nice little bow, and we fade out on Hitchcock narrating to us that he’s not sure what to do for his next film. And in case we haven’t picked up on any of the twenty subtle hints sprinkled throughout the film, inspiration literally swoops in and mugs for the camera. Cute, if too obvious.

My wife said watching this film made her want to see Psycho again. I agree. And maybe that’s the biggest thing this flick has going for it.

Hitchcock: 7/10

Last Thursday, after staying up late to watch a movie, I went upstairs to get ready for bed. A few minutes later, I walked into our bedroom, closed the door, and laid down. After a relaxing 20 seconds, I heard that brief, high-pitched chirp of a smoke alarm. I immediately groaned.

The problem isn’t so much that a smoke alarm needs new batteries; that’s not a big deal at all. The problem, beside the fact that this only happens between 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM, is that it’s extremely difficult to determine which alarm needs the batteries. All the alarms in our house have green lights on them, so I’m not sure why a dying battery can’t be denoted by, say, a light change to red. That would be perfect, actually, because then I would hear the chirp, and then instantly be able to determine which alarm requires maintenance based on the one that has a red light.

But, no. That would be too easy for Kidde (the hilariously-named alarm manufacturer).

So I sat up in bed and stared at the alarm in the bedroom. Another chirp. Did it come from the alarm directly above me? I don’t know. I can’t quite tell. The sound is so foreign and so quick, it’s hard to know for sure.

So I walk out into the hallway and call down to Jennifer (who’s still awake downstairs). “Did you hear that?” I ask her. Yeah, she did, but she has no idea which alarm it is, either. She claims it’s coming from upstairs.

While in the hall, I hear the chirp again. Now I’m really confused, because we have five alarms upstairs: one in each bedroom, on in the bathroom, and one in the hall, and they are all close to each other. It’s true: we don’t have a hallway as much as we have a squareway (some friends of ours used this term to describe their nearly square hallway, and it’s appropriate for our home, too). Each alarm is situated only about two feet into each room, so if I was to position a stool in any of the four doorways, I could probably touch both the squareway’s alarm and any given room’s alarm.

I figure my best bet is to check Owen’s room next. He’s in there, sleeping. As is Isla, who’s sharing a room with her brother while we work on her bedroom. Astoundingly, they’re both sound asleep despite the alarm’s high-pitched cry. I hoist myself onto the foot of Owen’s bed, and remove the alarm from the ceiling.

I walk downstairs and remove the two nine-volt batteries. At this point, I just want to get to bed, especially since I knew I had to get up early in the morning. But the alarm continues to chirp even with the batteries removed. This is annoying, of course, because not only does the alarm have a built-in back-up battery, but it was plugged in to the electrical wiring via the ceiling, so there really is no safety issue whatsoever here.

So then I walk down to the Windsor (that’s the name of our lowest landing), and grab our box of batteries. There are about 20 double-A batteries in there, and just as many triple-A’s. But there are only two nine-volts in there, so I grab them and shove them into the alarm. Then I stand there and stare at the alarm for about a minute until the stupid thing chirps again. Which, since it’s 11:30 PM, it does.

Now I don’t know what to do. I’m not running out to Walgreen’s to buy batteries, and I don’t want to hear the chirping all night. The last time an alarm cried out for batteries in the middle of the night and I had no batteries on hand to satiate it, I took it out to our garage and placed it in the bottom of my toolbox. But that was in our last house. My current residence’s garage is detached, meaning I’d have to go outside in the cold to get to my garage and, worse, I have a guy who rents the adjacent workshop, and I don’t want him to have to hear the chirp, either.

But then I notice the sticker on the alarm indicates it was manufactured in November 2001 and that this alarm should be replaced after ten years. So, at eleven-plus years, I figure it’s had a good run. I head down to the basement, recruiting my crowbar along the way.

I walk into our spare room  and lay the alarm on the concrete floor about midway between the litter box and our spare chairs. I then beat the living shit out of that annoying little device. I hit it again and again; a piece flew up and hit me in the face, and I heard another piece hit the wall, some four feet away. Wires and plastic and a tiny box with americium spun out in every direction. I gotta say, it was an extremely satisfying catharsis. Kind of like taking part in a standing ovation, or coming to the surface after you’ve held your breath under water for a minute, or finally sneezing after your nose has been tickling you. Regardless, I achieved a natural high and felt so alive I wasn’t sure I could fall asleep after all the excitement.

I plan to buy some nine-volts next time I’m at the store. In the meantime, go ahead and chirp, smoke alarms. I dare you.

A few weeks ago, Jennifer and I herded the whole family out the door for a fun-filled trip to Menard’s and Target. As we were leaving, I pulled out the stack of coupons we had sitting in a bin by the door. I asked my wife if we needed to bring any of them, and she said we didn’t need the shampoo coupon because she had just bought that shampoo at Target last week.

“Oh, and you didn’t use the coupon!” I said. She admitted she forgot. No problem. I grabbed the receipt from the week before and brought that, and the $2-off coupon, with us on our trip to Target.

When we got there, I walked over to the returns counter. The women working there pressed some buttons on her register. Then the drawer popped open and she handed me two dollars. That’s it. Just two dollars. Exactly. This was especially baffling since usually the employees just zap the code on the coupon and then on the receipt and the computer tells them how much to give back. If I had returned the bottle of shampoo, I wonder if she would have just given me back the $10 base cost instead of the $10.73 that the receipt showed.

So I said, “What about the tax?”

She said, “Huh?”

I said, “I paid tax on this two dollars, so I need that returned to me, too.”

She said, “No, sir, the coupon is only for two dollars off.”

I said, “Yeah, but look here at the receipt. I paid tax on the shampoo, and since I didn’t have to pay as much for the shampoo now, I don’t have to pay as much tax on it, either.”

She said, “Um…but the coupon only says for two dollars off.” She picked up the coupon and showed me.

So I said, “Whatever.”

Yep. That’s it. I just walked away. I mean, I know I could have stood there and complained, but after our brief exchange yielded no indication that the employee understood basic math, I remembered something from a book I recently read at work about the voice-of-customer: It’s better to complain to the customer service department. I mean, yes, the returns counter at Target is generally touted as the customer service department, but it’s just the first level. And, if it’s staffed by people who think I owe them tax on two dollars I didn’t pay…then my energy is best spent elsewhere.

So, that evening, I sent a brief email to Target. My main purpose wasn’t to demand my fifteen cents (though I did say it was still owed to me), but to tell them they need to train their employees on the nuances of refunds.

Last week, I received a response from Target Guest Relations. The letter read, in part:

We’ve taken these comments very seriously, so thanks for taking the time to let us know about not receiving your tax refund when you cashed in your coupon. Enclosed please find a $3 apology coupon. Thanks for writing. Your feedback helps us improve our service commitment to you.

So there you have it: Complain at the front desk, and I might – might! – have gotten my fifteen cents back. Write to the guest relations department, on the other hand, and I got twenty times the amount I was owed.

Oh, and I just made Target a slightly better place to shop. So, there. You’re welcome.