Lights Out

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

There is a mystery in our house that up until now I have not been able to solve. The lights in some rooms keep coming on by themselves. Mind you, it never happens when I am in a room. It is only evident when I leave a room and go into another room and that room's lights are on. I must turn off lights a dozen or so times over the course of a normal day. I have asked my family about this (mostly the kids) but they SWEAR that it is not them turning (or leaving) on the lights. They SEEM to be honest so IF I take them at their word then we have to research other plausible explanations.

You might recall that my house also suffers from FSD (flat surface disease). You may recall that I blogged about this a while back. FSD is where all the flat surfaces in the house gather stuff over time (the only cure for FSD is to blog about it – worked like a charm last time). Because of my house's tendency for disease, it is not unthinkable that it also suffers from SORLOD (Spontaneous Other Room Lights On Disease). SORLOD mainly effects the bathrooms of my house. This may be a normal symptom or perhaps is it specific to this case. Who knows how long this has been going on as I have only recently began to gather data. This could have been happening the entire year or so we have lived here. It is hard to say. I think the previous owners of this house read this blog so maybe they can chime in on the history.

There are sister diseases that have spawned.

• IRSPETNOILTID (Irresponsible Radio Still Playing Even Though No One Is Listening To It Disease): This usually effects the kid's rooms and only in the mornings after they have woke up from sleeping with the radio on all night.
• DSFTCPRIHTCIFAPD (Desperate Search For The Cell Phone Resulting In Having To Call It From Another Phone Disease): Some disease names are self explanatory. This is the MAIN reason we keep a land line I think and don't switch to a cell phone only lifestyle. The phone
• WAMKD (Where Are My Keys Disease): Thankfully this only affects the wife as I put my keys in the exact same place every time I come home. This has occasionally occurred to my keys but only after the wife has borrowed my car so this disease is evidently communicable.
• HM/HWOOSD (Hey Mom/Honey We're Out Of Spoons Disease): For some reason, we have always (dating back to our early years of marriage) constantly run low on spoons. We buy more spoons but to no avail. Throwing spoons at this seems only to worsen the situation. This disease is not specific to this house for us so we might have brought it with us.
• ???: I am sure there are more afflictions that this house suffers from but this is a good beginning to the list.

On the beard front, I still have the caterpillar on my face. I have not had that many comments though I do get the initial uncomfortable look from people. I think this means that they have no idea what to say or perhaps they can't tell if I am doing this as a joke or a serious fashion statement. My grandmother did appreciate the tribute to Apollo (the Olympic short track speed skater). That is as close I have gotten to a compliment thus far. I am leading song service in church tomorrow morning so I might get a little more exposure and comments at that time.

On the work front, we have a new team member whose name also is Jon (without an H even). I wasted no time claiming my veto rights to any nicknames given to us so as to avoid confusion in team conference calls. We have a few Chris' on the team too so this should be fun. I remember being in a 40 man bowling league once where there were no less than six of us with the same name and 5 of us spelled it with no H. Forget winning the league, we were all vying for top Jon/John.

On the neck front, we are making progress. Sleeping is still restless as any position is not comfortable for more than an hour or so. Having to reach above my head to dislodge Oreo from my pillow does not help when attempting to find a new position. Throwing the dog at the wife seems to have no effect as he just migrates back, stealthily within the hour. The wife has this neat little thing that you can throw in the microwave for 2 minutes and then put around your neck. This really helps but I fear I am growing addicted to it. Fortunately we have 2 of them so there is no fighting (other than for first microwave rights).

On the "no new music" front (one of my New Year's resolutions) I am doing good and at the time of this blog writing I am enjoying some 80s/90s Steve Camp music. My pastor mentioned a song (Living in Laodicea) to me last Sunday night so this renewed my interest in Camp's music. It is typical Christian 80s music in quality and subject matter but I still like it nonetheless. I am seeking out the sheet music for the Laodicea song to see if I can sing it as a special during a future church service (assuming I can find a keyboard player to help me out).

On the "no soda" front (another resolution) all is well. No temptations to speak of really. I am surviving on hot tea, hot coffee, iced tea, water and milk. This might be too easy and this makes me a little uncomfortable as resolutions should have some degree of difficulty to them.

Another resolution that I almost made was not to check out any books from the library until I had read the books we have in the house. I did not think of this until a few weeks into the year and I have not broken it yet and were it not for my anal-retentiveness in such matters (resolutions need to be made at or around new year's day) then I would claim it as a 4^th resolution. I finished a few books that I had started (Couplehood by Paul Reiser, SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld and History of the Millennium (So Far) by Dave Barry) and have moved on to Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. The son just finished Treasure Island at school so I think we might have him read this other book by Stevenson over the summer. I have a collection of short stories by Tolstoy (short being a relative term given Tolstoy's typical lengths for novels) and I want to re-read Watership Down as well. We probably have 30 or so books that I have not read just sitting on the book shelf in the living room. Why waste the gas to head to the library?

On the kid's laptops front, we had to abandon Ubuntu. The daughter's 6 year old laptop kept losing the screen. You could tell the OS was running based on sounds and such but only hard rebooting seemed to help. We have switched back to XP Home for now. The son's laptop's sound card did not play well with Ubuntu as it could not get very loud at all. I researched a bit but could not find a bug thread about this issue. Given the other non working hardware (both wired and wireless network cards) I thought it might also be a hardware problem but after installing Fedora (another flavor of linux) all is well again and he seems happy enough.

The work counter tells me that I am pushing 1,300 words now so I think I will wrap this blog up.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Twitter and MySpace and 2010

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My new manager at work is very into social networking. We have several internal sites / applications available to us at work including internal blogs (yes, I have one) and a twitter-like site. Blogs I know how to use but twitter I do not. As such I have decided to create a twitter account and see what the fuss is all about. I have been thinking about it for a while but when one of my favorite authors joined Twitter, I decided to join and follow him. My Twitter page looks pathetically blank thus far but I have managed to gain one follower. I have to try to remember to post all the inane things that go on during my day so my follower it kept apprise of my whereabouts and goings on.

I also created a MySpace page. I have never really liked MySpace. The layout on every page I ever visited was clunky and confusing but I did use it to keep up with a few favorite bands and stream music. MySpace still seems better (to me) for this kind of thing but it is due for an overhaul (unless of course the idea is to appear disjointed and confusing, then I guess it is perfect). I am up to 280+ friends on FaceBook so far so I have a ways to go in order to catch up. Perhaps I need to get one of those cool cell phones that lets me tweet on the go. That would be a big jump since I have not owned a cell phone for over a year now. I just don't see myself becoming one of those people who does those kinds of things.

On the New Year's resolution front, I am still holding fast. So far no new music and no soda pop for me. We are about 15% of the way through the year so I am not predicting just yet that I am going to make it. I still owe you my third resolution as well but that will have to wait for another blog.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Wednesdays with Grandma

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

In the fall, winter and spring months the kids have a function on Wednesday nights at our church called AWANA. They also attended AWANA in Texas so the wife and I used this time for a small date night. It was fortunate that the church we attended also had a (privately owned) coffee shop so we could kill 90 minutes or so enjoying coffee items and the free wi-fi. This year the wife volunteered to be one of the AWANA leaders so that left me with Wednesday nights free (and lonesome) so I decided to take Wednesday nights to visit with my grandmother. I am the oldest of her (4) grandchildren and am winning the race so far in producing great-grandchildren for her.

My grandmother is over 80 years old and actually bought a house this past year (with a 30 year loan to boot!). She had not owned a home in quite a few years so she actually qualified for the Obama first time home buyers tax credit. Due to her being widowed multiple times and having retired from GM, her income is complicated involving many pensions and payouts from various investments. Normally she does not receive a tax refund from the federal government so this year she is very excited.

Over the months of visiting her, I have learned a thing or two about her life. I wonder about people that reach an old age and how much of their life is unknown to everyone but them. I think it would be a disservice not to know at least the basics. For instance, I learned that she was actually born in Iowa and lived there for a grand total of (9) days before making the trip to Indiana. I heard the story of the struggles of her large family (there were 10+ children) during that time in history when times were tough and how various kids stayed home from school to help out around the house and farm. I learned about the first time she tried a coke (she said she had to water it down 2:1 with water in order to get it all down).

I remember one time asking her about what it was like to be around when the 49^th and 50^th states joined the union. I wanted to know what it was like to see the US flag change and other various things that would have had to change (seats in congress, etc). She did not even hesitate when she told me (flat out) that (to her) there will always only be 48 states. I was dumfounded. It was like she was saying a big "screw you" to Alaska and Hawaii. I don't think she meant any malice toward these states and having never visited these states (or perhaps owned a flag post 50's) she probably simply has no use for those states. I guess when you are over 80 you are allowed to your own opinion about such things.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

8th Times A Charm

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Our beloved (oh for a sarcasm font) Doberman (Nina) is supposed to be transitioned to sleeping in our son's room. This works fine as long as 1) she is let out around 10 pm and 2) if the son's door is kept closed after the dog is back in the son's room after 1) occurs. Lately (for reasons I will not go into) the son has decided that he does not like his door being shut at night. Due to the canine's natural inability to mark time passing, Nina will come into our room every hour or so. There are various theories as to why she thinks that she will be welcomed into the bed but I think she has heard the story of the women and the unjust judge and has taken it to heart. Typically we use our mean voice (or at least the vest version of it that we can muster up at 3 AM) and tell her to leave and she does so quickly. The floors in the hallway and in our bedroom (and in the son's room) are all wood so he nails betray any kind of stealth entry that she may have planned. I did break down at 4 this morning (aka "the 8^th time she came in) and with a click of the tongue and a small leap, she was settled in for the rest of the night.

The neck is still sore, but better. I did go to the chiropractor yesterday so hopefully I am on the road to recovery and we are only supposed to get 1" of snow today / tomorrow so I won't have to shovel. The rain we have had over the last few days has melted most of the previous snow and even the icicles are gone. I do see a coating on the Buick though out my front window. Well, it seems that I am running out of time to get ready for work so I have to sign off for now.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

A Loaf-asis

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Last night our church had one of its famous food contests. We have these every so often but mostly in the winter months. Typically there are (3) food categories and a small prize is awarded for the winners (as determined by the volunteer judges). Eight years ago (when we started attending this church) we actually entered dishes and vied for the coveted prize (a $10 gift certificate to a local bookstore). We came from a church where we were high in the standings as far as good cooks go but after a few failures (i.e. not winning any category) we discovered that we were a big frog in a small pond and this church was the big leagues as far as cooks go. I even tried a White Castle casserole once and did not even get an honorable mention. It was at the point in time that the wife and I gave up and she became a judge. We knew when were outgunned.

About a month ago, one of the categories was soup. Let me tell you, we all ate good that night. These recipes must have come from the old country or something and I have no idea how the judges could have possibly chosen a winner from the 9 or 10 that were outstanding (I think a coin toss might have been involved, it was the only fair way). Another favorite is anytime that breads is a category. Anyway, last night the (3) categories were hot veggies, potato dishes, and meatloaf. There were about (10) entries and the contestants cut their loafs (side though, is the plural of meat loaf "meatloafs" or "meatloaves"?) up into small enough pieces so we all could try a little of each. There as a ham/sausage loaf, something called a pizza-loaf and (the winner) a gyro-loaf (complete with toasted pita bread). The gyro-loaf was the winner (a dish submitted by our pastor, whose secret wish is to be Emeril) though we did have to launch a small investigation into vote tampering (just kidding).

I braved the hard metal chairs from the get together (my neck was / is still bothering me) for the loaf-asis and it was worth the discomfort. With a stomach full of meat, I should have slept well but the neck would not let me (that and Oreo kept trying to find a comfortable spot on my pillow, pulling my hair in the process). Well, it is time to head to work so I better finish this up.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

A Pain In The Neck

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

For about a week now my neck has been hurting. I have several theories as to the origin but I think it is from falling asleep on the couch while watching the Olympics. More specifically it is falling asleep on our couch with the wife in front of me. Even more specifically it is falling asleep on our small couch, with the wife in front of me, and her shoulder blade piercing into my abdomen forcing me to lay in an awkward position that resulted in a sore neck (translation: it's the wife's fault). The first day or two was pretty bad but then I had a few good days. Today however it is worse. There is no normal position that is comfortable. I might have to seek professional help.

We don't have any plans for today. Historically that means that it will be a busy day as we try to do everything that needs to be done as we remember it. This means that there will be chaos driving around town with the routes being uncoordinated and wasting time and gas. Without a schedule you can never be done. I think I might have to take a few moments before we leave to get with the scheduling agent and clarify our agenda for today. I think it will have to involve buying coffee. We seem to run out of coffee in a pattern that is off from our grocery buying. We consistently drink two cups each of coffee every day but we have not synced up our coffee buying as of yet.

Even I am getting tired of the snow that is still on the ground from 2 weeks ago. We got another ½" or so overnight and 5" more is coming on Sunday night / Monday morning. Depending on the temperature it might only be freezing rain but wither way the drive to work should be interesting. The constant snow on our rooftop has resulted in some gargantuan icicles hanging from our house. There is currently one on the back of our house that I swear is 5 foot in length. It could serious impale (or kill) a creature (like say, a dog) that might be in the wrong place when temperature and gravity decide they have let it grow long enough. Another good spot for killer icicles is just off the front porch where the sidewalk starts. There is a pile of leaves still in that section of roof and the result is a rust colored icicle due to the water running through the leaves and then freezing. Unlike leaves, this color of brown is not appealing to the eye so I try to knock them down as soon as I see the baby icicles forming. Maybe my constant looking up and knocking down icicles has added to my neck issues.

I did remember / was reminded that the facial hair left on my chin is known as a soul patch. I friend who say my new look reminded me of this with made me remember that you can choose this particular facial hair style on the one golf game I have for my old GameCube. I can remember not choosing that style for my golfer due to it looking rather silly (for a digital golfer, for me I guess it is OK). The daughter still thinks I look crazy and has take to covering her eyes when I arrive in the room begging me to shave "that thing" off my face or to grow my "face beard" back. So far, no grown up that has seen me in person has offered a comment. This might be due to kindness on their part or perhaps shock (come to think of it, isn't that what style is supposed to do, shock people? I mean, look at some of the get ups in the early rounds of American Idol!).

I mentioned that one of my new year's resolutions was not to purchase any new music this year. A second resolution is not to drink and soda / coke / pop / carbonated beverages this entire year. I am 50 or so days into the year and so far, so good. I have not even been tempted really though not buying any for the house really helps as well as leaning toward hot drinks due to the temperature. We will see if I can make it through the summer months (and if I get a ruling on whether frozen cokes count or now since they technically are not carbonated). I have one more resolution but I will save that for a later blog (or not as it will be the hardest to keep for the entire year). Well, typing on the computer this long is starting to hurt the neck and I would hate to think blogging was the real origin of all this pain.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Time For Something Different

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Those of you who see me in person on a regular basis have probably noticed that I have not shaved in a while (since the week before Christmas to be more precise). The wife usually complains about a week into the bead growing process. The short whiskers bother her when we kiss (or something like that). If you will look at the below chart of kisses per day compared to relative whisker length (OK, I really don't have a chart, but admit it, you thought that I did [OK, I really do have a chart, but I do not wish to share it with you]). Anyway, I kept the beard going for 2 month and it did provide me with a few extra minutes each morning (normally reserved for shaving) and some extra protection against the Indiana winter. I about cut it off after driving home from Texas as (in my boredom during the drive) I tended to stroke my beard for hours on end and my face was very sore at the end of it all. But, when the Kokomo cold hit me, I decided to keep it.

But in the end I decided that I liked kissing my wife more than I liked being warm or having a few extra minutes each morning so I grabbed the trimmers and had at it last night. Here are the various stages of trimming…

- -

And here is the final result (for now).

The son thinks I look cool. The daughter thinks I look weird. The wife offered a nice, "No Comment." I don't think it will last much longer as I tend to obsess about making sure it is even (based on past attempts at goatees) but we will have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Self Indulgent? Yes, I suppose.

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I was chatting with a fellow blogger yesterday (this blogger happened also to be my manager). He took a 6+ month hiatus on his blog during the latter part of last year and I was telling him that it made me feel better to see another abandoned blog. He stated that he only blogged when he remembered and called his blogging "self indulgent". I thought about that for a few seconds and realized that he was right, especially for my blog. I mean, come on, I am not really providing a service here. I am not giving any new information and overall I am not adding to the good of mankind. But, I like it so I will continue to do it (I know my 20 or so regular readers are breathing a sigh of relief).

On Christmas day, my brother gave me a 6 year old laptop that he no longer needed. I put the factory image of Windows XP on it and spent a few hours patching it up and then decided what use it would be to me. I decided to put it in the son's room and set up a shared on the main computer so he could stream the movies that we have ripped to our main computer's hard drive. Due to the age of the computer and the slowness of the wireless card that was in it, this did not work so well and the movies were often choppy. The son then started using it as a music player. Recently my sister-in-law had a BSoD problem with her 3 year old laptop and rather than try to repair it, decided to buy a new laptop. She then sold her old one to my son for $50 which then started the discussion with the daughter whether or not I would sell her the other laptop (so she would not be left out). The new(er) laptop's internal wired and wireless network devices both stopped working (XP didn't even find them) so it is pretty useless as a laptop.

I decided to put ubuntu (linux) on the older laptop since XP was really slow on it. The daughter has not really used Windows that much so switching to another OS would not be an issue for her. I was secretly hoping the son would be jealous and desire to have ubuntu on his as well. This plan worked perfectly and now he is running ubuntu now as well. I even got a usb wireless card working on it with little effort. So now, both kids are making me a proud geek dad. I don't know why I like the idea of NOT using Windows but I just do. And to have kids that can function with linux, well that is just another feather in my geek cap (and self indulgent).

So if blogging is self indulgent, what is blogging about self indulgence?

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Ulterior Motives

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

When we were visiting friends on Hitching Trail (the street we lived on during the last year and a half while in Texas) our kids got right back into the routine of playing with the other kids that lived on the same street. I mean, the van had not even come to a stop in front of our old house before they jumped out and were running down the street announcing their return. While the son was the same age as several children, the daughter really only had one friend that was the same age. Let me go back a bit though to paint a bigger picture.

Ever since we migrated back to Indiana, the wife has been second guessing our move. This mostly raises its ugly head when there is bad (i.e. cold) weather but also comes into play when we are missing a particular restaurant, store, building, etc, or when we are missing our friends. She has openly fantasized about returning to Texas off and on for about a year now (so, since day one of our return). She not only wants to return to Texas but also wants to return to the same street so we have the same neighbors. She just wants to go back to the way things were. Based on the changes to Hitching Trail and to our church in Texas, it is just not possible to get back to the way things were. Things just change.

OK, back to the daughter's friend on our old street. It seems that her family had to move only a few weeks before we visited. No one on the street seems to know exactly why but a few commented that it was all of a sudden. So when the daughter knocked on the front door of her friend's house, there was no answer. Once she was told by another kid on the street that the family had moved, she was heartbroken. As the wife and I were walking from one friend's house to another, we saw our sad daughter. Once she calmed down and was able to tell us what was upsetting her, we tried to console her. That is to say, I tried to console her. The wife's mind was too busy at work thinking of how big that house was and scheming to plot a plan to convince me to look into it. I called her on this and after a brief time of denial she gave me the "how do you always know what I am thinking!" look. I explained to her (for the thousandth time) that we could not move back (plus the house was over 3,200 sq ft and way out of our price range). This did not stop her from spending 90% of our time telling me how much she missed Texas and how she would sell a kidney to get back.

Our first week back has allowed here to settle back into her misery here (it has not been above freezing in a few weeks and we have this weird thing called freezing fog lately too). If you couple that with the fact that the garage (where we have our washer and dryer) is so cold that the pipes freeze and she can't do laundry and you can see how she is constantly reminded of how bad it is here. Spring can't come soon enough for her (or me).

One thing that I have not mentioned to you yet is my New Year's Resolutions. I made (3) but I only wish to tell you about one at this time (just in case I break the other 2 [I have not broke them yet]). I resolved to purchase no new music this year. I estimate that I bought 100 cds in the last 3 months of 2009. I have not had time to listen to all of them yet. In fact, I still have stuff I have bought in 2008 that I have not listened to more than once or twice. So this year I am not going to purchase any new music and force myself to listen to what I have. So far (6 weeks or so in), so good. As long as I keep away from the pawn shops, used book stores, and goodwill stores, I should be ok.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Who’s That Knocking at My Door?

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Our morning routine consists of turning off the alarm when it goes off and then discussing the possibility of getting out of bed. The discussion continues until Oreo decides that it is either time to go outside or time to start licking my head. We head to the kitchen to start the water boiling for French press coffee. We then either do sit ups / crunches (Tue/Thu/Sat) or pushups (Mon/Wed/Fri) while waiting for the water. Then we fiddle with the antennae until we get a channel in that is showing the morning news and we watch it while enjoying coffee and waiting for the kids to wake up. Pretty boring I know but such is our life (and the coffee is very good!). Yesterday our routine was interrupted during the water boiling stage when (at around 6) there was a knock on the door.

This knocking set off the alarm dog (Oreo) into a spasm of barking. Watching his body during the bark-fest, you can tell he is giving it his all, not leaving anything back. Nina reserves her bark until she sees any danger. Her bark kicked in when I opened the door and this guy (sporting multiple facial piercings) stood on our porch. He appeared very cold and so (with Nina in full "scare the living daylights out of any sane person" bark going) I inviting him in. It is moments like this that we really appreciate Nina for even if this guy had any evil plans, they would have quickly have had to have been rethought. He said that he was out snowmobiling for a few hours and his snowmobile broke down. He had been walking for a few miles over the fields and ours was the first house that looked like someone was awake. The wife tried to offer him the phone but he said that the only person he could call was his wife and their car was not running so he asked (very politely) for a ride about 5 miles down the road. Since he appeared to be legit and I had him in height by about 6 inches and it seemed even if he had other plans, a quick punch into his multiple pierced mouth would quickly bring him a ton of pain, I got in the Buick and drove him home. It seems he is a welder of sorts and travels a lot. We made small talk about Kokomo and then the Colts super bowl loss and quickly arrived at his home. He thanked me (a few too many times for comfort) and then I headed home.

We must have an inviting house as (if you recall) we had a teenager pull their ailing car into our driveway last spring. She did not need a ride, just permission to leave her vehicle until a tow truck could come. I wonder what it is about our house that is so inviting. I wonder what I would need to do in order to make is less inviting. Just kidding.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

His Cheeseburger

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So we made it back in one piece from Texas. The drive home should have taken about 15 ½ hours (930 miles at 60 mph average) but it took us around 17 ½ this time. We left at 4:15 AM local time but could not get ahead of the snow in Arkansas. We had hoped it would stay warm enough to keep the precipitation in the rain category but the temperature guage in the van read at a steady 32 degrees and so it was snow. It snowed every mile that we were in Arkansas, all 330 miles! By the time we got out of the state, we were hopelessly behind schedule. Even the dry weather and roads in Missouri and Illinois could not help us catch up. One thing that we reserve for long trips is our Veggie Tales CD. We know most (if not all) of the lyrics and it is a good way to kill an hour. One of the songs (our favorite) is "His Cheeseburger" (as sung by Mr. Lunt). For those of you not familiar with this tune, it is a song about a man who wants a cheeseburger so badly that (despite the drive-thru being closed) waits all night for a chance to order a cheeseburger. His undying love is measured in his offer to (should the world suddenly run out of cheese) get down on the floor to look for any cheese that might have been dropped. That song and "Puppies" (they're never nasty or mean) got us through the final hour of Illinois.

We are happy to be home despite being met the last 2 days with about 8" of snow. The son and I spent a little over an hour shoveling the snow (our driveway is about 100 foot long). The hardest part was the last 10 foot as the snow plows really piled the snow high. Our labor resulted in both the wife and I being able to get out of the driveway with no issues. High winds are expected though so it might all just blow back into the path that we carved out. Having spent a few days in Texas (where there was no snow), the wife is really tempted to move back there. So much so that she is now somehow blaming me personally for the cold and the snow here in Indiana as emphasized by the glaring look that I get from her whenever the weather report comes on the local news. Let me set the record straight here that I am in no way responsible for the weather and (as much as I love shoveling snow – not) I would not bring cold and snow if I could.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Hitching Trail, We Missed Thee

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

We got up this morning bright and early (our internal clocks are still on eastern time) and hit the breakfast bar here at the hotel. The waffle maker cranks out Texas shaped waffles so I (of course) had to have one. We then killed a little bit of time in the room and then headed out to Sprout's and Mardel's. Sprouts is a farmers market kind of store that we loved to shop at when we lived here. We hit the bulk food bins and got some snacks for the ride home (toffee covered peanuts, dark chocolate covered raisons, etc) and bought 6 bottles of red wine (at 3 for $10 – right in my price range). We then killed an hour at Mardel's which is a huge christian book store chain. After that we headed back to Hitching Trail.

Hitching Trail is the street we lived on for the last 15 months or so of our stay here. We really clicked with several of the neighbors here and we spent the whole day at one house or another. The only problem is that one friend is a diehard Saints fan so there was plenty of trash talk back and forth all day long. We called a truce late in the day and wished each other good luck for the game tomorrow. One of the kids on the street had a birthday party so that killed a few hours and the wives up and down the street got together for a ladies night out while I hung out with the kids and watched "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" on blue ray. We actually own this children's book. I have watched plenty of movies based on books that I have read but this is the first time doing so with a kid's book. The movie added quite a bit to the original story but overall it was OK.

Well, though I have lots more to tell, I am quite tired from our full day so I will have to catch you up later.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

It’s Good To Be “Home”

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well me made it to Plano, TX with no issues to speak of other than the normal wear and tear on the mind body due to spending 15+ hours in the van with your family. We drove about 5 hours on Thursday to the grand town of Marion, IL (which I will admit to have never hearing of it until I booked the hotel on Thursday). The EconoLodge there was sufficient. When I was researching where to stay in the south half of Illinois, this hotel was within my financial parameters and the recent reviews seemed to lean toward the "about what we expected for the price" category. All n all it was OK and met our needs. The place was clean, the beds were not uncomfortable, the heater worked and the shower had good pressure and plenty of hot water. What else can you expect for $65? So, if you are ever in Marion, IL, for any reason, and all the other hotels are full, and you can't drive on to the next city, then by all means, stay at the EconoLodge.

Since we only drive about 5 hours on Thursday, that left the bulk of the driving for today. We got on the road around 7 central (local time) and were on the road for almost 11 hours. We had a few too many pit stops for my taste and our personal best time for a Texas run was not in jeopardy at any time We packed food for the trip so we ate both breakfast and lunch in the car so other than $7 worth of coffee, milk and lifesavers in the morning and $4 worth of drinks and snacks in the afternoon, and the gas, we got off pretty cheap. We normally take a route that goes through Missouri but this time we headed south more quickly and end up driving through Arkansas. After 330 miles driving through a rainy and at times foggy Arkansas, I take back everything bad I ever said about the boring, 290 mile drive through Missouri. We were all very happy to see Texarkana (the town on the Texas border with Arkansas [in case you could not tell from the town name]).

Since we arrived around 6 local time, we stopped by our old neighborhood right as we arrived into town. We spent about an hour or so catching up and setting up plans for tomorrow and then it was time for some dinner. We had planned on hitting Pei Wei for some Pad Thai and Orange Chicken but our plans were changed when our daughter discovered that her best friend from down the street had moved in the last month. She was quite distraught so I offered to let her pick any place to eat that she wanted. She chose Brooklyn's (our favorite pizza place down here) so as I sit on our bed in this nice hotel room, my stomach is full of wonderful Brooklyn's stuffed meat lover's pizza ($4.99 a slice and worth every penny).

Well, everyone in the room is zonked so I am going to finish up here and join them.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Vacation, the Day Early Edition

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

As we ready our minds for our trip to Texas we have been keeping a close eye on the weather. There is a winter storm heading toward Indiana and it is interfering with our laid out plans. Our plan was to leave early Friday morning and drive the 15 hours or so it takes all in one day. This is normally how we do it on the way down to Texas since the excitement of getting there drives us on mentally and a break overnight in a hotel is not needed. This storm that is coming though has different plans for us.

We will likely try to leave this afternoon and get as far as we can tonight. The bad stuff is coming late tonight and the farther south you go, the more likely it is to rain versus snow or sleet. So not only are we heading out early, but we are altering our route to head south quicker instead of our normal westward trek. So, Indiana weather has evened affected us on our way to Texas.

Not lost on me is the fact that this will cause us to incur an additional night's hotel bill. A hotel that we will likely not get to enjoy due to our late arrival time. I am hopeful that it has internet access so I can blog / complain about it some more later today.

Well it is time to head off to work and hope the boss lets me leave early.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

My Son, Whom I Will Miss

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My wife discovered something the other day while cleaning the house. First, a little background. I have probably mentioned in past blogs that we have a regimen of supplements in the form of pills, capsules or chewables. The daily dose contains the following (give or take)…

• Cod Liver Oil (3 or 4 pills)
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin B
• Vitamin D
• Acidophilus
• Etc (depending on if there are sniffles present or not)

The kids knock down the C, D and acidophilus and even the cod liver oil with little effort. The vitamin B, for whatever reason, causes them to gag. It is chewable and some fruity flavor but they can't stomach it. The son usually takes the C with the B in a bizarre version of "a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down." We often joke about being full before any real breakfast is served. Fast forward to yesterday when the wife discovered a stash of Bs and Cs down in one of the heat vents. Ironically, B is supposed to help him with behavioral problems as it has a calming effect. Official punishment is still pending.

Another thing we are constantly on him about is his finger (and to some extent his toe) nails. His recent excuse for not keeping his finger nails trimmed is based on the need for long "claws" (like Mufasa in The Lion King) in case he should find himself hanging from a cliff. The sad thing is that he actually thinks this excuse will work and his mother and I will say, "Ohhhhhhhhhhh, that's why, ok." Pointing out that Mufasa fell OFF the cliff to his death does not sway him from his reasoning so I had to take another approach, namely math. He is studying odds and ratios (among other things) currently. I appealed to logic in that while the odds of surviving a "hanging from a cliff" type experience MIGHT be higher with longer nails, the odds of being thrown OFF a cliff (by say, your mother) are exponentially higher and the net result is that it is MORE dangerous to have long claws than to keep them trim.

Well it is about time to get ready for work.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Come and Gone (The Weekend, That Is)

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Someone asked me on the phone at work late on Friday if I had any plans for the weekend. I did not have a ready answer. Even after thinking for a moment I could not think of anything. I was hesitant to answer, "No" though since the person on the other end of the line appeared to put great stock in having plans for the weekend and no matter what I had to do, it would likely pale in comparison to whatever they had planned. Even now as I sit here on the couch at 6:30 on Sunday evening I can't think of anything I did that was planned. I finished up working on a friend's computer but that mostly consisted of hauling it over to mom's house where there was high speed internet for a ton of Microsoft patches. And other than church this morning, the family and I pretty much stayed home and played games or watched movies. We have re-rediscovered Boggle and the wife did manage to find "The Sound of Music" for the daughter to watch. She, of course, loved it and has been singing several of the songs from the movie all weekend (I have given in to writing my own lyrics to "My Favorite Things" to break up the monotony – Ice cream on root beer and green chewy skittles…etc).

A game we play a lot since Christmas is Guitar Praise. This is sort of a religious version of Guitar Hero but is only available for the PC/Mac. Fortunately for us, I have our computer hooked up to our 32" flat panel TV so the screen is not too small to play it on (like it would have been on our 19" monitor that we used to use). We even went so far as to buy a 2^nd guitar however our 3 ½ year old computer can't quite keep up with all that strumming so we will have to wait until we have a faster computer before we can challenge each other at the same time. I thought we might grow tired of the game sooner or later but we show no signs of that happening. We also have a game called Dance Praise which is similar to the dance games you can get for the PS3 / Wii / Xbox game consoles. It is not quite as fun (and requires actual movement) so it gathers dust for now. Maybe once we get a faster computer and another dance pad, that game will be more fun. As for Boggle, I have had to keep two separate scores. One is the normal score and the other is the score I would have if the son was not playing. I have blogged in the past that he thinks more like me than his mother so he tends to mark more of my words off than of hers. This second score is how many points I would be ahead of the wife if she were not playing with a handicap (namely, the son stealing my points). I had a slight blow up when at the end of one particularly hard Boggle board I had found 4 hard to find words. The wife did not have them on her word list so I thought I was home free. The son, however, did. I responded as any sane man would. I ripped up my score sheet and threw it away along with taking the Boggle dice and timer and hid it. The family found my anger particularly funny and after I had cooled down (and dug my score sheet out of the trash) we proceeded with the game (which I did eventually win).

As bedtime nears tonight, we are going to sit down and watch an episode of Little House on the Prairie. We are toward the end of season 7. Having received seasons 8 and 9 for Christmas, we are now not so stingy with the few episodes of season 7 that we have left. The wife might make some popcorn and then we will settle in to the late 1800's and the tales of Walnut Grove. Well I had better put the computer away for now.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon