Tuesday, 01 February 2011

Jennifer and I have been trying to make a more diligent effort to eat healthier and work out more lately. Jennifer has been pretty much heading up the eating department. I think we already eat pretty healthy, but there’s definitely room for improvement, especially in the grains and portion-control departments. For example, if you put ten pounds of potatoes in front of me, I’m going to eat them all. Fast. So I need to correct that.

We’ve also been visiting the work-out room at our apartment complex more. I’ve been using the exercise bike. This is a bit of a cop-out, since I should really be running on the treadmill for a more thorough work-out. But here’s the problem: running is really boring. Like, reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo boring. But sitting on the exercise bike is not boring because I can read while I do it. Today, for example, I finished reading The Far Side Gallery 2.

I get the feeling that I spend May –October working out, going for walks, riding bicycles, running, and stuff like that just to make up for what I did to myself during November-April. It’s easy to get sluggish during those months of cold and darkness. Anyway, I’m trying to get a head start on it this year. I’ve said this before (perhaps I’ve said it too much) but, with the birth of my children, I have this weird feeling that I need to stay alive for the next two decades. And I don’t want to turn into some bloated Jabba the Hutt (oh for God’s sake, another stupid Star Wars reference) along the way.

Wednesday, 02 February 2011

So, I’m less than 24 hours away from beginning another semester of college. Already I’m starting to feel overwhelmed, and I haven’t even seen the syllabus yet. I have all of these non-necessary things that I do with my time, and I’m starting to feel like they’re crowding me out. The problem is, each one individually is fun and enjoyable, but all together, especially when linked up with things I HAVE to do, makes for too much stress and pressure in my life.

I was going to devote today’s blog post to listing off the things I do with my time and ranking them by priority. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to figure out how to properly rnak them. I mean, first, there are things I have to do just to stay alive, like eating and sleeping. That takes up a lot of time. Then there are things I have to do in order to have some semblance of a good life: I have to go to work, I have to spend time with my wife and children, I have to devote time to recreation. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being with my family, and I even enjoy my job, but those things take up a lot of time. The problem is, I add in a whole bunch of other things: I’m an editor for The Minnesota Atheist, I co-host Atheists Talk, I’m a member of Toastmasters, I insist we work-out (see above), and, as of tomorrow, I’ll once again be a college boy. There are more things to this list (oh – I just thought of one – I maintain this blog). I need to write them all down and rank them by priority, and chop a few off.

Saturday, 29 January 2011

Today I went to work for a few hours in the morning. As I was leaving work, I went out to my car and saw that the front driver’s-side tire was flat. I mean like riding-on-the-rim flat. The tire was fine this morning; I’m sure I would’ve noticed if it was THAT low. I must’ve driven on something like a nail or a bevy of porcupines.

I jacked up the car and took the hubcap and nuts off with no problem. I then removed the spare from the trunk. I then tried to take the old tire off of the bolts. No luck. I used the tire iron as leverage, but still…no luck. To make matters worse, it was rather cold outside and very slushy on the ground, so I was filthy.

I went back into my job and asked the lady at the security deask if someone would be able to help me. She paged her male co-worker who came over to me and said, basically, that he couldn’t help me.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, mostly for insurance reasons,” he said.

“I don’t get what insurance has to do with it…?” I said. “I’m just asking as a fellow human being…”

But he said that if he was to get injured, then I might think the company is at fault. Yes, it baffled me too. He said my best bet was to ask one of my co-workers to help me. (Um…I thought I just did.) I told him that none of the people from my department were at work at the moment, since it’s a Saturday. He said, “Yeah, well, with staffing issues, I really can’t go out there.”

I’m not sure what sort of pansy-ass excuse this was, especially since he already gave me an iron-clad litigious reason, but it’s just plain stupid. How many members of security need to be “on staff” on a Saturday morning? And, if something was to happen, say a theft or a medical emergency, it’s not like I would say, “Sorry, pal, but you’re helping me change out this tire and I refuse to let you go assist with that actual emergency.”

Anyway, I went back out to my car. Still couldn’t get the tire off. I called my wife to have her come pick me up. She asked i there was anyone else I could ask for help, and a large guy happened to park and get out of his car right then. “Excuse me sir,” I shouted, “Can you help me get my tire off my car real quick?”

“Uh, no, I can’t do that,” he said.

So I got back on the phone and said to my wife, “That guy won’t help me either. I guess no one cares about their co-workers anymore, everyone’s too self-absorbed now.” I said this loud enough so that guy could hear me. Ha! Take that, large, burly man!

So, Jennifer came and picked me up, and my car will be spending the weekend at my job.

Meanwhile: my stereotype of security officers has been confirmed.

Sunday, 30 January 2011

So, after going about 7 years without stepping foot inside a McDonald’s restaurant, today marked the second day in a row that I was inside one.

See, last night, with Owen at his grandparents’, Jennifer and I decided to rent a movie. Of course, we already had Inception at home waiting for us (via Netflix), but we figured we could squeeze in two movies. So we looked up the Oscar nominees for Best Picture, and selected a few that sounded decent. Then we looked up the location of the nearest Red Box. Turns out, the nearest one is inside a McDonald’s.

We rented The Social Network, as that was the first Best Picture nominee we spotted on their menu.

This was my first time using a Red Box and, I gotta say, I liked it. Of course, since we are Netlflix customers, the Red Box is kind of redundant, but I could see how, if you suddenly find yourself with some time on your hands one evening, a Red Box is the way to go.

Also: we used a code that we found online, so we didn’t even have to pay. Free movie! Sweet!

Monday, 31 January 2011

After securing a ride to work thanks to my co-worker John (damn, I’m glad he wasn’t worried about the insurance if we had gotten into an accident), my first task upon arriving at work today was to go over to my car and lather the bolts in WD-40.

After spending the next three hours trying to rid myself of a certain WD-40 smell, another co-worker accompanied me out to my car. We first tried hitting the tire with rubber mallets. Then, we put the nuts back on, I got into the driver’s seat, and turned the wheel from one extreme tot hte other. Still no success. So then, I started the car and drove forward and backward about five feet. Still no success. So then I repeated the five feet forward and backward stunt. Still no luck. Finally, we positioned ourselves behind the dirty tire on the dirty ground and, together, we hammered (malleted?) the tire off.

He was kind enough to take me to Firestone which, contrary to their name, sells neither fire nor stone. However, they do sell tires.

The last time I had to change a tire on the Cavalier, I was on the side of the road on I-94. I remember thinking how godawful it was that I was risking mylife like that on the side of the road, but then I thought about how lucky I was that it was such a beautiful day (this was in June 2006). So, today, and back on Saturday, I tried to think about the positive aspects: yes it was cold, yes the security guy was an asshole, yes the ground was dirty. But the good things were that I was safely in a parking lot. Additionally, I was in the parking lot of my employer, so if need be, I couldn’ve left me car there for an extended period of time. Also, it was daytime, so that was nice.

Anyway, if anyone needs a tire changed, I have some tricks up my sleeve now. I can’t actually help you (due to insurance and staffing reasons), but I can provide you with a list of idea on how to remove a stubborn tire. Provided you sign this waiver first.

Thursday, 27 January 2010

I’ve commented about this before here, but it’s really disappointing when I pick up a book and find myself fascinated by the idea set forth in the book, only to have that idea been executed poorly. Most recently, I wrote a review of God Hates You, Hate Him Back HERE.

I always seem attracted to books that rank things. I don’t why; I guess I just like lists. My all-time favorite list book is Michael Hart’s The 100: A Ranking of the 100 Most Influential Persons Who Ever Lived. Others have tried to follow suit with Hart’s book, and they’ve always failed miserably.

For example, the book 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium seems like a good idea, but the committee of authors tried to pack too many people into too short of a book (most individuals get only a paragraph). Worse, there’s little argument given for the ranking. That’s the fun of Hart’s book: anyone could say that, for example, Buddha is more influential than Julius Caesar, but Hart explains why. But the 1,000 Years book, just lists off people. Why do they rank Columbus over Harry Truman? Who knows. They don’t say.

Another lousy attempt is The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived. Again, this sounds fun, but the authors don’t bother to say why they feel Joe Camel should outrank Bugs Bunny. I’d love to hear the argument, but, instead, they just give a brief bio on the fictitious characters and we, the readers, are left to figure out why Mickey Mouse was placed here or Tom Sawyer was placed there. A really stupid thing about this book is that they don’t even put the ‘people’ in order. When I began reading, I just assumed the first ‘person’ I came across was the highest ranked…but no. It was the 18th. Why? Again, I have no idea.

Anyways, I was at Borders Books today and I picked up the book 500 Rock Bands: A Line Up of the 500 Best Rock Bands.Though I suspected that this book, like 1,000 Years, would suffer from having too much squeezed into it (it does – a better book would have only 100 bands), I still decided to thumb through it for a while.

I think this book might be the worst of the bunch. First, my primary complaint is that, yet again, there’s no argument for why one band is placed in front of one and behind another. Do author’s not get this? If you’re going to say Led Zeppelin is the 5th best rock band of all time, a brief history of the band is totally unsatisfactory. I could find out a quick history of Zeppelin just by reading their Wikipedia entry. Instead, I want to know why the author feels Zeppelin belongs after the Rolling Stones but before Pink Floyd.

Second, I’m not even going to say which band is #1, because if you can’t guess than you must not know anything about popular music from the last 6 decades. Hint: it’s absolutely the most predictable and safest choice. But I’m okay with this selection, the dumb thing, though, is the author’s selection for #2 and #3: Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley. Have you ever heard of a band called Bob Dylan? I haven’t. The author must be referring to the person, but then she explicitly contradicts her book’s title. Sorry, Huffa, Dylan is not a band. Neither is Presley.

Third, where’s #83? As I was paging through the book, I read the entry for #82, then turned the page to #84. Assuming my fingers had clumsily skipped a page, I tried my darnedest to split apart the missing page. Alas, there was no page, #83 is just missing. So…I guess the book just ranks #1-82 and then #84-500. Perhaps her next book will have #501-1,000, with #83 thrown in as a bonus.

Friday, 28 January 2011

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger’s explosion. A few people today mentioned where they were and what they were doing at the moment they found out. It seems many of my peers were watching the shuttle via television in their classrooms. Not me. Here’s my story:

The powers that be at my school, Sky Oaks Elementary, decided to do jack squat for the event. I had no idea a civilian was scheduled to go into space that day. Heck, I didn’t even know their was a shuttle launch planned. Instead, we went about our normal school day. A couple hours into the day, our class headed down into the gymnasium to give the cool kids an opportunity to pick on the nerds. As I walked into the gym, I put my hands in my pockets (that’s where they always were during gym) and felt a piece of paper. Oh no! It was a note form my mom telling the teacher I would need to be excused at noon for a dentist appointment. Shoot! I was supposed to give that to my teacher, Mrs. Hogan, at the start of the day. Mrs. Hogan had left the gym, so I quickly turned and ran out of the gym to look for her.

I found her in the hall walking back towards the classroom. “Mrs. Hogan,” I said, “I forgot to give this to you.” I stopped and handed her the note. It was then that I noticed she was crying. “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she said weepily, and then marched towards the bathroom.

I didn’t know why she was crying. And I didn’t care.

About a half hour later, I walked out of the gym, grabbed my coat and backpack, and walked out of the school (a daring thing to do without teacher’s permission). My mom was waiting out front and I got in the car. She had the news on, and I listened to what happened.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

A few years ago, my wife found The Far Side Gallery 3 on sale at the local Goodwill. She wisely decided to buy it. Within the month, she also found The Far Side Gallery 1. I think this was back in early 2008.

Anyway, I just have to mention that these are just about the funniest comics I have ever read. For a few years in the late 1990s, my wife and I subscribed to the newspaper, and I always turned to the comics section. Turns out, that’s a big waste of time, since there really aren’t any funny comics. I mean, Peanuts was cute and sometimes it made me laugh. And (verrry rarely) I would get a laugh out of Ziggy. But most of that other garbage was just that. I couldn’t figure out how the comic creators had managed to get themselves published in major newspapers considering how un-comedic their ‘comics’ were.

Oh well. The only thing we use newspaper for now is to line the floor under the litter box.

Anyway, today I received The Far Side Gallery 4 and Gallery 5 in the mail via Amazon. Apart from Dilbert and Peanuts, the Far Side is the only comic strip worth reading. And, evidently, owning.

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Today I gave my second speech in the Toastmasters’ Club.

The format was a little different this time. Instead of the usual one hour meeting during the lunch hour, we held a two hour speech-a-thon at the end of the day. There were eleven assigned speeches, and mine was tenth in line.

The title of my speech was “What Happened to Pluto?” I covered three main points:

1) How did Pluto change during the first 80 years after we discovered it?

2) What unusual characteristics does Pluto have?

3) What, exactly, does the word “planet” mean, and why doesn’t Pluto qualify?

For the first item, I gave a brief history of Pluto and how our increasing knowledge of that world meant a gradual decrease in its known mass. For the second item, I explained Pluto’s weird orbit and how similar in size it is to Charon. For the third item, I discussed the IAU’s 2006 “clarification” of the word “planet” and why that spelled downsizing for Pluto.

Sunday, 23 January 2011

At the credit union where I bank…

–Hold it right there: is that correct? Is it possible to bank at a credit union, or is that a contradiction in terms? Should I say “at the credit union where I credit union”?–

…they are currently sponsoring a contest relating to the NFL. That stands for National Football League, in case you didn’t know. The contest goes like this: guess which team is going to win each week during the playoffs. The person with the most correct guesses wins a $50 gift card.

And guess what, I am currently in first place for most correct guesses. Yep, it’s true. During the first week of the playoffs, I was correct on two of my picks. This was enough to tie me (along with ~20 other people) for second place. A few people were tied at first place with 3 correct picks, and no one got all 4 correct.

During the second week of playoffs, I picked all four games correctly. That leap-frogged me into first place with 6 correct. I am the sole person in first place right now.

Unfortunately, while I’m still in first place, I’m almost certainly sharing that spot with other credit union members now. I picked the Steelers to win, and that was correct. But I picked the Bears to win over the Packers, and that is not what happened.

Monday, 24 January 2011

I think now would be a good opportunity to discuss something that’s bugged me for, oh, about 30 years: Calendars.

The problem with calendars occurs whenever the month begins on a Friday or Saturday (well, not EVERY time, but close enough). Calendar makers must’ve decided long ago that the convention for laying out a month with such a characteristic would be to shove the 30th and 31st of the month so that they have to share a box on the page with the 23rd and 24th, respectively. In case I’ve just confused you, just look at this picture:

This is the calendar hanging in my cube at work. Notice how the 23rd and 30th of the month are “sharing” a box. Likewise, the 24th and 31st.

What’s the big deal you say?

Two answers: first, if you’re like me, then you write stuff on your calendars. In fact, for several years, I wrote things on my calendar after the fact (as kind of a journal) and then I kept the calendar in a safe place. Now I keep track of events in my life on computer, but the point is: there’s not a whole lot of room on those four days. Additionally, if something spanned the whole week, it was tough to show how it affected one day, but not the other. For example, let’s say I wanted to block off the 27th – 31st…the sharing feature makes this confusing, especially on those really stupid calendars that split those boxes diagonally (or, worse, don’t even split them at all – some calendars will just write “24/31” in the box, and that’s supposed to be cool).

Second, counting the weeks can get confusing. Today, for instance, I was in the lab at my job, and one of my co-workers prepared a solution with a one week expiration date. She walked over to the calendar to verify the date (it’s the 24th), but then she flipped ahead to February, then back to January. “Doesn’t January have 31 days?” she asked me.

I know it might sound silly that an adult with a science degree is questioning the number of days in January, but look at what she saw:

Where the hell are the 30th and 31st? Look closer: in the case of this calendar, they apparently come a few days before January 1st. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

A better solution would be to put the 30th and 31st in their own boxes on the next page. An even better solution would be to just make a sixth row. I mean, look at that calendar: there is clearly enough space on the page for the 30th and 31st to have their own rows. In fact, I have yet to see a calendar that doesn’t have enough room. It’s just laziness and poor planning.

Anyway, if you want to buy me a 2012 calendar for Xmas, you know what I’d like…

Oh – special thanks to my co-worker Nick for taking these pictures and emailing them to me.