Insufficient Affection Funds and the Social Contract

I have been thinking a lot about my unwritten contract with society.  I read about this concept in a book once and as I recall it had to do with acceptable and unacceptable behavior and the agreement that we all have with each other to do the former and not the latter (in public anyway).  Every time that I am asked to do something (socially), I think back to what is expected of me from society and if the thing that I am asked to do is required from this social contract.  Let me give you an example.

I just returned from a short trip back to Kokomo, Indiana, where I spent most of my time visiting with my mother and grandmother.  I did meet friends for lunch or dinner but most of the time was spent at my mother’s house.  I did visit my old church and spent a few minutes each with the people that I know that still attend there and greeted them with the socially acceptable hand shake.  I think a few minutes each is the socially acceptable amount of time and if you divide the number of minutes that I had by the number of friends to greet then the math works out.  Before I left however my wife asked me to say “Hi” to several, specific people.  I thought this a little overkill as she and the kids were up in Kokomo recently (about 2 months previous) and she does keep in touch with most of the people that she asked me to greet via Facebook, E-mail, etc.  Also, the people that she asked me to greet were not folks that were necessarily on my short list of folks that I wanted to chat with.  Given my short time there and her recent trip, I basically told her that I did not feel it necessary to greet them for her.  I do not think that part of the social contract requires me to be the conduit for greetings in this manner.  I actually think she bought my reasoning / excuses however this was not the end of her requests for me.

She also wanted me to visit a pet store where she worked off and on for the dozen or so years we lived in Kokomo.  Now I did spend a lot of time at this store but mostly it was either dropping her off for work or picking her up or the occasional time we had to run in for pet supplies.  I got to know some of the workers there and know all about them and their families but only because the wife talked about them quite a bit and kept me up to date (note: I think this is part of the marriage contract, namely to listen whether you are interested or not).  I am sure they know way more about me than I am confortable with as well as I imagine that the wife also talked about me when she was at work.  I probably would have stopped by to see the employees there even if my wife did not ask me to but I would not have hugged them.

That is right, my wife asked me to give one of the folks there a hug for her.  Now, as you can imagine, if I didn’t feel that I should be a conduit for a greeting to our friends at church then I certainly do not feel that I should be the middle man in this hug scheme.  I am not a hugger.  My mother only got 2 the entire time I was there (a hello hug and a goodbye hug).  So, to give out a hug to someone that I would not otherwise hug simply based on a request from the wife seems a bit of a stretch of the terms of the social contract.  Also, I only have so many hugs in my reservoir so there is the possibility of running out of hugs and not having enough for friends and family that I might otherwise hug.

I typically only give one armed hugs anyway (I think they require less transfer of affection funds) but if the huggee is a two arm hug person then I have a decision to make.  Unfortunately, the person that the wife asked me to hug preferred the two armed variety so my affection funds went down double the normal amount.  This act might even have put me in the red as the wife did not excessively hug me to make up for the upcoming deficit.

The wife has asked me to hug someone for her before but I have noticed a pattern (or an omission rather).  She never asks me to hug any female younger than me (other than relatives).  She has never asked me to hug a very pretty, 21 year old girl (and I am not holding my breath).  At any rate, I made it home and had enough in the hug tank for goodbye hugs for both my grandmother and mother.  And, I can say here in truthfulness that the wife did more than make up in the affection department once I got to the DFW airport and back home.  I do not think it is socially acceptable to go into much more detail here in this blog.

Jon

Inappropriate Excitement

Each of us get excited from time to time for various, oftentimes personal, reasons.  Even I succumb to the emotion from time to time.  But, like all things, there is a time and a place for excitement and there are times and places where excitement is not a healthy, normal reaction.  Let me give you an example.

Several months back, the son and I went to an all day seminar / conference for the local storm spotters group.  The son was going as he really likes weather and weather related things.  I was going as I either lost a bet with the wife or some similar reason (rock, paper scissors didn’t go my way, etc.).  The son was really looking forward to this, he was excited.  I was looking forward to this about as much as I look forward to a dentist visit.  We arrived a little early and I was very surprised at the large turnout.  We found some good seats and settled in for the first session.  The room was almost entirely filled with folks as excited about weather things as my son and this suited him just fine.  We ended up not staying all day (the afternoon sessions were a bit over our heads really) but I noticed a theme for the parts that we did attend.  The worse a storm was (they talked about recent storms and showed several videos), the more excited and animated these people became.  I have chided my son for this way of behaving as with bad weather comes damage, injuries and overall human suffering.  To be happy or (worse yet) wish / root for severe weather without considering the human suffering side of things is something I am working with him on.  I have asked him several times to tone down his excitement when our weather radio goes off announcing when we are under some weather alert or warning.  But here we were, in a room full of people that acted just like him.  Now I was the odd one out.  His behavior and reaction was justified it seemed (to him anyway).

The wife and I talk about this feature of our son on occasion (usually right after bad weather).  She is on the “he’ll grow out of it” side of things and I am on the “he will end up on TV doing some report outside when a hurricane hits McKinney” side of things.  I think we both agree that his excitement is inappropriate.  During our talks, we often end up on the “who does he get this from?” subject and of course we both deny being the origin of this behavior.  However, in this case, my wife is wrong.

My wife also exhibits inappropriate excitement from time to time and it also involves human suffering, namely mine.  You see, she likes to fancy herself an expert on homeopathic remedies for various illnesses.  A person in this line of work needs to experiment and one can only experiment on live subjects and no one usually volunteers for this sort of thing so you can understand that she gets quite excited whenever I am sick.  There is a special sparkle in her eye when she hears me cough or sneeze that I only remember from early in our courtship and on special occasions like our wedding day.  Oh, she tries to feign sympathy and compassion, but her excitement over a live (captive) test subject trumps all other shown emotions.

I woke up this morning around 4:30 with a headache and a slightly stuffy nose.  My stomach felt a bit off as well.  I cannot tell you what I dreaded more, being sick or being an unwilling patient.  I thought about trying to hide my feeling bad but it is hard to do.  Also, once she discovers my illness, I do not know what to root for, to feel better (due to her treatment and thus encourage her) or to continue being sick (to perhaps make her give up her profession).  It is a tough call.  Though I deny it to her face, her treatments do seem to work.  I am sick for a shorter period of time than anyone I know.  I chalk this up to clean living but the wife tends to take all the credit.

At any rate, I am pretty sure that this is where the son get’s his habit of inappropriate excitement from.  And one more thing, I am feeling much better as of the time of this blog posting.

Jon

Random Photos–2012-11-10

It is once again time to clear out the micro SD card from ye olde cellular phone and see what pictures I have snapped over the past few months.

This is the layout of the dog’s dishes.  I am not sure why I thought this was photo worthy.  From left to right: Nina’s food bowl, the shared water bowl, McKinney’s food bowl and Louie’s food bowl (notice that it is empty as he never misses a meal nor a chance to steal from the other dog’s bowls).

This is my daughter using my 47” television as a computer monitor.  I was running a test copy of Windows 8 for part of the summer and had that computer using my big TV as its monitor.  For some reason she preferred this screen to the 10” screen of her netbook.

This is from the local Whole Foods.  Don’t worry, we didn’t buy all the seaweed rice crackers.

This was my plate when I had lunch with my mother over the summer during her trip down here.  There was a lunch special where you got 4 courses for a certain price, all delivered at the same time (since no one has time for a 4 course lunch during their lunch hour).  Everything was delicious.

Louie “fits” right into our family don’t you think?

For reasons I will not go into here, the wife bought a juicer.  The smile on her face is BEFORE she drank the contents of the glass.

Another food photo.  This was a free lunch that I had at work.  My cubicle is very near a meeting room that is used quite often for all day meetings.  Sometimes these meetings have a cart delivered just outside the meeting room door that has a lunch spread.  It is an unwritten rule that anything left on the cart at 1:30 is fair game.  If you wait too much past that time, the cafeteria staff come and take away the cart.  This was my haul from the cart.  Sadly, all the cookies were gone.

Another photo taken at work.  This was taped to the refrigerator for a few days.  The thief is still at large.

Finally, one last photo from work.  I was invited into the meeting room (where the lunch cart is sometimes delivered) for a few hours during a 3 day conference.  Several of the attendees were from outside of the US and brought some local treats for us to try.  This was some sort of pineapple pastry thing.  Interesting but not something I think I would try again.

Well there you have it.  My phone photos folder is emptied again and ready to be filled with random photos again.

Jon

Getting Back On The Horse

Hello!  Long time, no blog.  Sorry ‘bout that!  There are lapses of time in my life when nothing truly blogworthy happens.  What can I say?  But, I did ride my bike yesterday so I would like to blog about that.

“Wow, Jon” you might say, “how boring must your life have become to make a bike ride blogworthy?”  I am glad you asked.

It has been 2 weeks since my last bike ride but I must first set the scene and give you a little background.

My last real blog (2 months ago) was about the wife and I trying to decide about moving back to Indiana or not.  One thing that determines this is the budget.  One thing that I would like to cut out of our monthly budget is cell phones for the kids and I (the wife will keep hers).  The only upside to the kids having cell phones is that we can call or text them when it is time to come home for dinner otherwise we (and by we, I mean me) have to hunt them down somewhere in the neighborhood.  This is where the bike ride 2 weeks ago comes into this story.  The wife had asked me to call (not text) the daughter to tell her to come home for dinner.  Given that I am very close to deciding to ditch the cell phones, I thought I would ride my bike to hunt her down.  This would help me to determine if I really wanted to discontinue our cell phone plan or not.

The wife and I got new bikes for Christmas last year and they are the best bikes that either of us have ever had.  It is very fun to ride them, especially on a beautiful Texas, windless evening when the temperatures are going down.  Many an evening I will put on my headphones and hop on the bike for a 45 minute ride down the bike trail that is near our neighborhood.  People are out riding their bikes, walking their dogs or just walking with their families.  The bike trail meanders through a school playground, around a small pond (where some people fish) and under several bridges.  It is probably 3 miles before it ends and normally I just turn around and come back.

My bike ride 2 weeks ago lasted about 8 feet and I never made it out of the driveway.  I hopped on my bike in the garage, positioned it so I could head down the driveway on the right side of the van that was parked in the driveway and then pedaled exactly once.  It was about 2 foot down the driveway that my front tire went off of the driveway and into the yard.  The driveway is about 2 inches above the yard (give or take) and instinctively I tried to steer back onto the driveway.  It was at this point in time that physics took over and gravity (who was to be my friend in gaining speed down the driveway) became a near mortal enemy.  I realized immediately that I was not going to make a miraculous save and stave off the imminent crash so I began to position my body to minimize the damage.  I landed on my left shoulder and left knee and have the still healing scabs to prove this.  I also landed on my left upper arm and drove my left elbow into my ribs.  This is the section of my body that has been constantly reminding me of my crash for the past 2 weeks.  it was just last night that I could take a deep breath without cringing in pain.  Even as I was writing that last sentence, a sneeze occurred and, well, OW!

Once I had stopped bouncing down the driveway, I immediately jumped up.  I wanted to see if I was really hurt or just scraped up.  I tried to “walk it off” as they say.  I hobbled around for a few seconds, picked up the bike (which seemed none the worse for wear) and walked the bike back into the garage.  What happened next falls into the category of “he said, she said”.

The wife, upon seeing that I had returned so quickly and that I was not walking in a manner that a healthy, uninjured person would walk, asked what happened.  I explained as best I could and then she said the following statement…

“Did anyone see you?”

How I interpreted that statement.

I interpreted this like any person would, namely that she was concerned that I had embarrassed myself (and her) by crashing my bike before I even got out of the driveway.  Now, I do not blame her much for this statement as it may have been part of the reason that I got up from the crash site so quickly but she is my wife and she only spent about 5 seconds making sure I was OK before she said this statement.

What she said that she meant by that statement.

She CLAIMS that she asked this question to see if any of our neighbors had come to my rescue or at least asked if I was OK.  She still defends this excuse to this day.  If she had not have bust out laughing RIGHT AFTER she said this statement, I might be inclined to actually believe her.

Anyway, my ribs are feeling better every day and I really did go on a bike ride yesterday for about 20 minutes.  I did pay more attention to the edge of the driveway and the edges of the sidewalks throughout the entire ride and overall was more careful during turns and intersections.  That is probably a good thing.  As for ditching the cell phones, I am still undecided.

Jon

The Listening Project–Supplemental Blog 5

It has been 6 weeks or so since my last blog about my CDs.  The wife and kids spent the last 10 days of September in Indiana and I stayed home with the dogs, the fish and the toad.  This left me with a lot of time to kill evenings and weekends.  I hit a great 4/$1 sale only to find a greater 5/$1 sale at the next store.  I then hit the 1/2 Priced Books clearance rack and paid the outrageous price of 1/$1 for the balance on the list below.

#	Artist	Album	Date Listened	Again?
1103	Becoming the Archetype	Celestial Completion	9/22/2012	Yes
1104	Various Artists	All You Need Is Love	9/22/2012	Yes
1105	Church Of Rhythm	Church Of Rhythm	9/22/2012	Yes
1106	Aaron Jeoffrey	The Climb	9/22/2012	Yes
1107	Depeche Mode	Enjoy the Silence	9/23/2012	Yes
1108	The Parachute Band	Glorious	9/23/2012	No
1109	Todd Agnew	Grace Like Rain	9/24/2012	Yes
1110	Phish	A Live One (Disc-1)	6/24/2012	Yes
1111	Phish	A Live One (Disc-2)	9/25/2012	Yes
1112	Hole	Live Through This	9/25/2012	Yes
1113	Michael Bolton	The One Thing	9/25/2012	Yes
1114	Newsboys	Thrive	9/26/2012	Yes
1115	Various Artists	Totally Hits	9/27/2012	Yes
1116	dc Talk	Welcome To The Freak Show	9/27/2012	Yes
1117	Mariah Carey	#1's	9/29/2012	Yes
1118	The Alan Parsons Project	The Best Of The Alan Parsons Project	9/30/2012	Yes
1119	Boston	Don't Look Back	9/30/2012	Yes
1120	Various Artists	End of Days Soundtrack	10/1/2012	Yes
1121	Rush	Grace Under Pressure	10/1/2012	Yes
1122	Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers	Into The Great Wide Open	10/1/2012	Yes
1123	Janet Jackson	Janet	10/1/2012	Yes
1124	Gary Allan	See If I Care	10/3/2012	Yes
1125	Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers	She's The One Soundtrack	10/3/2012	Yes
1126	Suzanne Vega	Solitude Standing	10/4/2012	Yes
1127	Temple of the Dog	Temple of the Dog	10/6/2012	Yes
1128	Boston	Third Stage	10/6/2012	Yes
1129	Loreena McKennitt	The Visit	10/8/2012	Yes

• Becoming the Archetype “Celestial Completion”: I am not sure what to call this genre but it is growing on me.  Mostly breakneck speed drumming and strumming and then some screaming / growling thrown in for good measure.
• Various Artists “All You Need Is Love”: This 4 track disk appears to have been only available at Starbucks and I only bought it for the U2 song that is on it.
• Depeche Mode “Enjoy The Silence”: I am breaking a Listening Project rule by listing this here as this is really a 8 track “single” release with 6 versions of the same song.  Some I liked, some not so much.
• Boston “Don’t Look Back” & “Third Stage”: Even at $1 each, these were good finds.  I don’t think there is any rhyme or reason to the logic behind getting put on the clearance price at 1/2 Priced Books.
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers “Into The Great Wide Open” & “She’s The One Soundtrack”: These were both in the 4/$1 or 5/$1 rack.  A great find if you ask me.
• Suzanne Vega “Solitude Standing”:  This includes her hit song, “Luka” and this one has spent the last month in my CD player in the Buick.  Awesome stuff.
• Temple Of The Dog “Temple Of The Dog”: A little disappointed as the song “Hunger Strike” (the only one I had heard before buying this CD) is the only song I cared for at first listen.

I have not really blogged in 6 weeks and it has been 2 weeks since I finished listening to these new CDs.  I just could not get motivated to sit down for 15 minutes to write a new blog.  Perhaps I have outgrown blogging?

Jon

How To Decide

It has been a while since I wrote a new blog.  I have had a few things on my mind.  We have been renting out our house back in Indiana for about a year now.  Our rental agreement with our tenants expires at the end of this month so we have to decide (as do our renters) if we should set up another 1 year rental agreement, continue to rent month to month (as outlined in the existing rental agreement) or do something else.  The “something else” would be in the vein of taking out a home equity loan and making some updates to the house so we can rent it out for a higher amount.  Another option is to sell the house (with our without a home equity loan and updates).  One final option is to move back to Indiana (which may or may not also involve a home equity loan).  Our lease here in Texas ends in January so there is a 4 month gap between the ends of the agreements (though with some potential financial penalty we could get out of this lease early).  At any rate, the wife and I have been talking about what we should do and entertaining the thought of returning once again to our native state of Indiana.

This is not the first time we have thought about Texas and Indiana and where we should live.  If you know me at all, you know I make decisions almost solely on numbers and spreadsheets.  If you know my wife at all, her thought process is best outlined by the below picture.

I often make a rocking / wave motion whenever we discuss the Texas / Indiana subject.  She goes back and forth on where would be the best place to live and oscillates between the two choices (represented here by the Crest and Trough) quite often.  I note also the Length and Height references on the picture.  The Length indicates how quickly she changes her mind back and forth (and back again) and the Height could indicate the level of passion for whichever section of the Crest / Trough cycle she is on in her mind at any given moment.  I give her a lot of grief over this but lately I too have been going back an forth on this decision.  However, since I do not want to paint myself as a Crest / Trough kind of person, I had to find an alternative description of my thought process.

At first I thought that I could explain my thoughts by a simple teeter totter.

You can put Indiana on one side and Texas on the other and whichever way the teeter totter teetered would be the decision.  This is not how I think however.  The problem here is knowing what the blue boxes represent (or even the two sides).  Are the sides here Texas and Indiana?  Do the boxes represent reasons to live in one place versus the other?  What about reasons NOT to live in Indiana or Texas?  Where do they go exactly?  Once I decided that this is not how I decide, I decided to make it more complicated.

Here I added some purple shapes to indicate the reasons NOT to move to Indiana or Texas.  They would go to the opposite side of the teeter totter.  I also added a heart to indicate where I would really want to live if money were not taken into consideration.  This last thought (ignoring the money factor) is something that does not fit into a column or row of a spreadsheet (trust me, I have tried).  This really does not fully describe how my mind works either.  Let’s try this…

Here we have a teeter totter for both places along with good and bad reasons to live there.  There are 2 hearts (my heart is split really).  In this scenario I am comparing the angles that the teeter totter teeters as it goes up and down as I throw things on it.  As time goes on, I think of more and more things to throw on one side of the teeter totter or the other.  Over time the up and down motion can be plotted.  If you graphed the height of the sides of the teeter totter over time it would look something like this…

Hey, wait a minute!  Maybe the wife is not as crazy as I make her out to be!

Jon

The Listening Project–Supplemental Blog 4

It has been 2 months or so since my last blog about my CDs.  I bought 5 CDs about a month ago and dutifully listened to them.  It was not until I bought one last week that I remembered again this project.

#	Artist	Album	Date Listened	Again?
1096	FM Static	Critically Ashamed	7/25/2012	Yes
1097	The Cars	Greatest Hits	7/25/2012	Yes
1098	Harry Connick, Jr	Only You	7/25/2012	Yes
1099	Paul Baloche	Open The Eyes Of My Heart	7/24/2012	Yes
1100	Connie Francis	Side By Side Disc 1	7/24/2012	Yes
1101	Brenda Lee	Side By Side Disc 2	7/24/2012	No
1102	Mychildren Mybride	Unbreakable	8/24/2012	Yes

• FM Static “Critically Ashamed”: I recalled that this group is a side project of the lead singer from Thousand Foot Krutch.  Other than the obvious similarities in vocals, this band it quite different but still listenable.
• The Cars “Greatest Hits”: Just fun to listen to, all of the time.
• Harry Connick Jr. “Only You”: This is Harry’s take on some popular songs from the 20’s to the 60’s.  Nice and relaxing.
• Paul Baloche “Open The Eyes Of My Heart”: If you have not heard of this artist before just visit any modern worship service at a church.  Paul will have likely written or co-written half of the songs that you hear.
• Connie Francis / Brenda Lee “Side by Side”: If I were honest with myself I would have to admit that I still have a crush on Connie Francis.  I used to listen to a Connie Francis LP that my dad had when I was growing up.  I never got tired of it.  Of course my crush is on the young Miss Francis on the album cover of that LP but that is what I immediately reverted back to when I popped this CD into my player.  This CD does not contain all of her hits (it is missing Stupid Cupid and Lipstick on Your Collar for starters) but for $1 I cannot be picky.  The other CD of Brenda Lee music is mostly live recordings of sounds that I do not recognize so it gets a rare NO in the Again? column.
• Mychildren Mybride “Unbreakable”: There is no way the drummer on this CD makes it through more than 2 or 3 songs in a concert without taking a break.  The drumming and guitars are so fast and so in synch that I can forgive the grovel vocals that almost always goes with this style of music.  I popped this into the car’s CD player after buying it and the wife complained about the vocals.  I asked her what other type of “singing” could possibly go with the overall sound and we both couldn’t think of any.

I have slowed way down in building my collection (6 CDs in 2 months).  Amazingly I do not even have the desire to head to the clearance rack or garage sales to look for more music.  Maybe I have enough CDs now (I don’t believe so either).

Jon

The Last Card I Gave My Wife

“Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.” – Joel Barish (about Valentine’s Day from the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

I just watched this movie this week (thanks to a free month of Netflix).  It is a strange movie and a bit hard to follow in portions.  The above quote is from the very beginning of the movie and is noted as a “random thought” by Joel in his journal.  I can relate.

You can ask my wife to verify, but I do not like greeting cards.  We were recently invited to a graduation open house for a daughter of friends of ours.  We discussed / negotiated the amount to give as a graduation present (we were just giving cash in the form of a check) and arrived at an amount that we could both agree to that would not seem over exuberant or under appreciative.  On the way home from church on the day of the party, the wife announced that we needed to pick up a card (in which to place the check).  I argued (half heartedly as I knew I would not prevail) that a card was not necessary.  We could use a normal envelope and a hand written note to get the same effect.  This would not do evidently so we hit the 2 for a $1 card section of the Dollar Store.  As the wife was writing the check I suggested that she deduct the 54 cents that it cost us for the card (with tax) and write a check for the lower amount.  She fought initially but when I suggested that we could write a cute note explaining the amount that it would make for a nice memory for us all, otherwise she (the graduate) would just cash the check and then forget about it (other than the mandatory Thank You notes that would have to follow).  The wife agreed and we all had a laugh when the card was opened.  Time will tell if she (the graduate) remembers this event or not.

A long time ago (well, over 10 years anyway) we were invited to a baby shower for a friend at my work.  As with all my friends, the wife had weaseled in and became friends with my coworker and his wife.  On a side note, I have no friends of my own that are just “my friends” as the wife muscles her way in to all my friendships (that is of course except the friends that she does not know about [yet]).  Anyway, we bought a suitable gift for a baby shower and the wife wanted to get a card.  The glorious 2 for $1 section had not yet come to our Dollar Store yet so we were forced to consider paying full retail.  It was going to run us $2 for a card (give or take) so I decided (they were my friends after all) that I would write a hand written note and tape 2 $1 bills together and stick the note inside.  The note basically suggested that if they really wanted a card then they could take the $2 and buy a suitable card or (if they were logical like me) the could take the $2 and buy something useful like diapers.  I never heard what they did with my $2 but I will bet you they did not go out and buy a card.

A month or so ago I bought a card off the 2 for $1 rack at the Dollar Store and hid it from the wife meaning to give it to her at a later date.  This is a big deal for me as even at 50 cents, I still do not like cards (I could go on and on here but I think I will keep this short).  Last night I decided that I would give this card to my wife.  It had a silly picture of a dog on the front and basically just said “I love you” on the inside.  I signed the card, licked the envelope and then began to think about where to hide it so she would find it later.  I thought about putting it in her pillow case and then saw her nightgown laying at the end of the bed.  I took the card and wrapped it inside the nightgown thinking that she would find it when she changed when getting ready for bed.  Sometime around 7:30 PM I took off to make a Kroger run (looking for something sweet and some cheap wine).  Sure enough when I came home the wife had changed into her nightgown.  We sat on the couch together and watched a rerun of Leave It To Beaver (again, thanks to Netflix).  She made no mention of the card, not even a hint that she liked it.  We sat there through 2 episodes and still nothing.  She asked me to rub her feet, etc. but did not acknowledge my giving her a card.  I was starting to get perturbed.  Finally we sent the kids to bed and headed to the bedroom.

As she was brushing her teeth I noticed that the envelope was sitting on the end of the bed.  I picked it up and to my surprise it was still sealed.  It was laying right there in the open.  She HAD to have noticed it when she changed while I was at Kroger, right?  As she exited the bathroom I handed the card and explained what I had done.  Though happy to get a card from me (this is a rare event) she could not help but laugh at herself as she replayed her changing clothes and how she could have possibly missed seeing a card drop from her nightgown right onto our bed (the white envelope had to stand out on our deep purple bedspread).  I pretended to be deeply hurt and (once again) swore off giving cards.

You can read the title of this blog as indicating that it is about the card I LAST gave to my wife or you can read it as I intended it; namely that this IS the LAST card that I will EVER give my wife.

Jon..

Bad (or Perfect) Timing

It has been 2 weeks since I last sat down to write a new blog.  I have been spending my time migrating my old Xanga blogs to my new Blogger blog but it is slow going.  I am amazed at how many spelling errors there were in those early blogs.  I am probably a quarter of the way done but it is a tedious task and no one out there (that I could find) has a quick way of migrating from one to the other so it has to be done one by one.  I have about 400 blog entries on the Xanga site and then I have a few hundred on the site where this blog entry is posted so I have a ways to go.  Anyway, that has kept me busy and hence I have not had the time to write a new blog but I did want to take time today to tell you about an incident at work this week.  First though (as always), a little background.

The wife has been hounding me for the past few months to get into the doctor and have a suspicious area on my shoulder looked at to see if it is anything that needs attention.  I have a “to do” list that I keep for work and dutifully placed “see doctor about spot on shoulder” on that list and then (like a lot of things on that list) I kept putting it off.  There is an on site clinic (and pharmacy) right at my workplace and it is probably only 200 feet or so from my cubicle.  You can call or even log onto their site and schedule an appointment but for all that convenience I still kept putting it off and worked on other things on my list.  Only after receiving an email from the clinic announcing free skin cancer screenings did I take action.  I think I am motivate a lot by “free” even though I doubt a regular doctor visit would cost me much based on my company insurance.  Anyway, once I got that email, I took the 30 seconds to make the appointment and then informed the wife that I had (finally) done what she had asked me to do.

Due to my schedule (and the schedule of the doctors on site), my appointment was a week or so out from the day that I called.  The date of the appointment was this past Tuesday (July 31) and at 3:30 I sauntered over from my cube (allowing 2 minutes for travel time) and started filling out the paperwork.  As far as paperwork goes, this was not too bad.  There was a basic information page (which kills me since they have all that on file) and then a page with an anatomically incorrect drawing of the human body (front and back) so you can indicate where on your body any suspect marks might be located.  I did my best to mark the approximate area and then handed the papers back to the receptionist and then waited to be called back.  Another lady showed up who had picked up poison ivy and was looking for a shot before the end of the day.  One good reason to stay away from the doctor’s office, there are always sick or infected people there!  After about a 10 minute wait I was called back.

We bypassed the scales so I knew that this was not going to be treated like a normal visit since normal visits always involve weighing in and then taking of your temperature and blood pressure.  When I got into the room I was told simply to strip down to my underwear and put on the paper robe that was folded on the examination table.  I had hoped that since I just wanted one spot looked at that I would only have to take off my shirt (or just pull back my shirt to show the spot that my wife was concerned about.  No dice, I had to strip down to my skivvies and get a full, head to toe exam.  I quickly got undressed and into the robe and not a moment too soon as right when I pulled the robe on the doctor entered the room.  Based on her accent and skin color I would say she was from no where around here but I am quite used to dealing with folks of varying accents to I understood her well enough.  She took a look at the spot I indicated on my paperwork and assured me that it was nothing.  She proceeded to look all over my head and torso while quizzing me on proper sun issues like wearing sunscreen and having proper sunglasses.  My wife has other ideas about getting enough sun (and vitamin D via sunbathing) so I just told the doctor what she wanted to hear.  I did not want to start a fight and I am quite under-equipped (unlike my wife) when it comes to arguing with a doctor about health.  I assured her that I basically only got sunshine as I scurried from building to building or car to building and I would make a perfectly good vampire and then she asked me to lie down so she could check out the lower half of my body.

It as at this time that the buildings fire alarm went off.

Other than using the rest room, this is the only time that I have been this naked at work and this is also the only time I have ever heard the fire alarm go off.  What are the odds?  The good doctor must have thought this was a test as she just kept on with her inspection (albeit at a slightly faster pace) until someone knocked on the door to make sure we were making haste to exit the building.  The doctor left and then I got dressed as fast as I could.  I left my shirt untucked and carried my socks, shoes and belt outside with the masses.  The receptionist hunted me down (I was easy to find as I was the only partially dressed guy outside) and handed me my paperwork and some pamphlets on the dangers of the sun and I tried to find a semi-private spot to put on my shoes and belt so I did not have to explain why I was barefoot before the alarm went off.  It turned out not to be a test but rather a false alarm and we eventually got to go back inside.  The day finished with no more excitement.

As I was relating this story to my wife I was trying to tell her that it is incidents like this that make me not want to go to the doctor.  I was hoping that some good could come out of all of this and I could avoid a future check up.  Her laughter was not reassuring.

Jon

The Cost of Free

While enjoying our coffee this morning, the wife and I were listening to this podcast from NPR’s Planet Money.  There is a new podcast from Planet Money twice a week and we are a week or so behind.  I will not go into details about this particular podcast but I recommend listening to it as it is worth 20 minutes of your time.

The story looked into a short period of time when the Red Cross started to charge the US soldiers for doughnuts during WWII.  Despite the fact that they were told to do this by the US government and despite the fact that they protested before following orders, some veterans still hold the Red Cross in a bad light for this one thing that happened 70 years ago.  Toward the end of the podcast they talk to several economists about why this one thing has had a life of its own for so long.  One economist’s hypothesis focused on the concept of “free” and how the relationship changes between two parties when something goes from free to not free.

In one example of this hypothesis the economist asked us to assume how we would react to being asked by your mother to pay $10 after finishing Thanksgiving dinner.  You would not question that $10 was not a fair price for the meal but it would dynamically change your relationship with your mother from family member to service (for a fee) provider.  It would tarnish everything going forward and they way you interact with her would forever change.  This is what happened with the veterans and the Red Cross.  They way that the veterans viewed the Red Cross changed since their relationship went from one thing to another.

Now, with most things in life, my take away from listening to this was different than the wife’s.  She took away what most people took away, namely that companies have to be careful in dealing with their customers.  There are actions that are taken that, while they could be quickly reversed, would take years (or in the case of the Red Cross, decades) to repair.  Instead, I thought about how I might charge for things that I give away for free (like the mother in the example charging for Thanksgiving dinner).

For the most part, the rest of my immediate family (that is to say, the wife and kids) are very touchy / feely people.  They like physical contact, hugs, kisses, etc.  I am not against this but there are times when I prefer not to be touched (or for that matter near anyone).  Sometimes I don’t like it when someone, even my kids, just run up and hug me with no forewarning.  This probably sounds absurd to most of you but the kids have learned (for better or for worse) to announce first that they are going to hug me before diving in with the affection.  I know that some day I will look back on this issue of mine and know that I was in the wrong but for not it is what it is.  But this podcast got me thinking, what if I charged for hugs and kisses?

Come with me for a moment on this crazy thought.  My goal is to be happy and if my level of happiness is lowered by making others happy then I need to associate a cost for their happiness to compensate for my loss of happiness.  If I could set a price per hug then the child (or the wife) could decide if the happiness that they would get (by my hug) is worth the cost of that hug.  Since the kids only get so much for allowance then there would be a limit to how many hugs that I would have to give out.  I see my own veterans / Red Cross issue forming though.

I see several problems with this (besides the painfully obvious ones like me being seen as an unfit parent).  First, there are times when I am more inclined to give out hugs for a lower price or even free.  If I were to set a price for hugs then it would have to be a price that went up and down, probably on an hourly basis.  This would involve having to set up some sort of index that showed the current value / price of a hug.  Even if I could set this up, my kids, not being dummies, would probably just wait until the price was low (or free) and horde my hugs creating instability in the hug market.  Also, it is possible that they could simply get hugs from the other source (my wife) as she would undercut me in this market and cut my profits (it is hard to compete with free).  Oh, I could market my hugs as being “worth it” or “higher quality” than her hugs, but that would involve work as well not to mention having to give out free samples to prove my claims.  The market might just decide to put me out of business.  What would I do then if I needed / wanted a hug?

So, as you might imagine, I have decided not to implement this “pay for hugs” program in my household.  A special note to the wife.  Honey, you know those times when I am staring off into space deep in thought and you ask me what I am thinking?  And you now how I almost always answer, “Oh, nothing.” or “You don’t want to know.”?  Well, this morning was one of those times.  It is a dangerous thing sometimes to ask me what is on my mind.

Jon

The Anxiety of Lateness in Dreams

I blogged about 6 years ago about a dream that I had.  Since then I have had plenty of dreams I am sure but none that I decided to blog about; until now that is.

Sometime in the past week I had dreams on consecutive nights that had the general theme of being late for something.  I remember after waking up after the second dream thinking that I really should blog about these.  Here are the dreams.

• Dream 1: I was in a house that is unknown to me in the real world but I was familiar enough with it in my dream that I knew where things were at inside the house.  For some reason I had some friends over.  These were friends that I had in my high school days so I knew them.  For some reason not explained in the dream, we got home very late and because of this we slept in later than normal.  We had to leave to get somewhere by 8 AM and I had just awoken at 7:30 and I was taking a shower.  The water pressure was horrible so the shower was taking longer than normal.  To complicate matters, I had longer hair and the water pressure was not allowing me to rinse the shampoo / conditioner out of my hair.  I was very frustrated at the water pressure, my choice to have long hair, my sleeping in and the whole situation in general.  I woke up before I got out of the shower
• Dream 2: I was in our current house here in McKinney as far as I could tell.  We were late getting out of the door to go somewhere (church maybe?) and we were trying to get the dogs put up into their cages.  The dog we were having trouble with was not known to me in the real world but in the dream it was our dog.  After failing to round up the dog and due to our lateness we decided to leave the dog to roam the house out of its cage while we were out.  As I closed the door and was locking it with my house key I noticed that the dog was now in the yard.  Somehow we got the dog back into the house but we were all the more later for it.  Finally I went to turn the key on the front door and the door came off of its top hinge.  I was very frustrated with the dog, its behavior, my front door and the whole situation in general.  I woke up right as I was trying to get investigate how long it would take to get the door back on its hinges.

For several minutes after I woke up after both of these dreams I was still anxious.  In real life, as in the dreams, I hate being late.  Before I was married and especially before I had kids (and dogs) I tried to be early to everything.  I remember showing up for youth bowling league on Saturday mornings right when the bowling center opened (about 30 minutes before the league started).  The jobs that I had early in life all had working hours with a start time when I was expected to arrive and clock into work.  After I had a job that was no longer hourly and one that had a more flexible schedule I relaxed a bit but there there still things that had starting times (church for example).  Most recently I just try focus on my being ready to go and I let the wife worry about her being ready.  When I am ready to leave for church for example, rather than bellow out the current time like it was a public service that I was tasked to provide,  I just sit in a chair and (dare I say “patiently”) wait.  I purposely sit in a chair with no view of the clock.  Since I do not wear a watch or bring my cell phone with me to church, I have no way of knowing what time it is until we all get into the car.  I would wager that if you ask my wife if I was getting better about my anxiety of lateness she would agree but these dreams brought all those early year’s feelings back.  It is still a struggle not to worry unnecessarily about being late and these dreams have made me to consider working harder on keeping calm.  It is strange what your mind focuses on when you dream really as I have not felt this bad about lateness in more than 10 years.

Just like in my original blog from 6 years ago, let’s visit http://dreammoods.com and see what they interpret my dream as meaning…

• Late: To dream that you are late signifies your fear of change and your ambivalence about seizing an opportunity. You may feel unready, unworthy, or unsupported in your current circumstances. Additionally, you may be overwhelmed or conflicted with decisions about your future. Time is running out and you no longer have time to accomplish all the things you want. Alternatively, being late in your dream could be telling you that it is better late than never.

Interesting.  I do have a new manager at work and he does have a slightly different workload that he wants me to focus on than what I have on my plate now.  Also, I have been thinking more about my future retirement and whether or not I am putting enough into 401k’s and IRA’s.  Also, there are a few things that I would like to start doing (similar to me starting running a few months ago).  Maybe there is something to this dream interpretation thing!

• Door: To dream that you are locking the door suggests that you are closing yourself off from others. You are hesitant in letting others in and revealing your feelings. It is indicative of some fear and low self-worth.
• Shower: To dream that you are taking a shower in clear, fresh water symbolizes spiritual or physical renewal and forgiveness. You are washing the burdens out of your life

Either one of these things may or may not be true, I am not sure.  I was not really successful in either dream in accomplishing the task (completing the shower or locking the door) so I am not sure what that could mean.  Maybe I will have more dreams this week.  I will be sure to let you know.

Jon

Choosing Ignorance For Others

I was reminded recently that ignorance truly is bliss.  I have always known (to some extent) that what is seen cannot be unseen (just google “human centipede” if you don’t believe me [note: please do not google “human centipede”, trust me on this one!]).  For this blog I will focus more on “what is known cannot be unknown”.

Information is powerful.  We live in a great time in history as we are normally only a few clicks away from getting information on almost anything (I have personally lost [what seems like] a year of my life to Wikipedia).  Fortunately or unfortunately, with knowledge comes responsibility.  Once you know something, you have to choose whether or not to act on it.  You might have to change (ouch!).  You might even feel compelled to share your knowledge with others.  That would mean that those others will have to choose whether or not to act on this knowledge.  Most things you learn are not that important but every once in a while you learn something that is important, something that you feel compelled to share.  Information of this type is so important that not sharing would be potentially dangerous or disastrous and if others knew that you knew this information and knew that you chose NOT to share it then they might be upset with (or mad at) you.

At a very high level, being a salesman is just conveying new information.  You build your case for your product by explaining (or skewing) various facts about your product (or your competitor’s product) and hope that this knowledge transfer will convince your prey (this is a strong word but it applies most of the time) to take action on this newly dispersed knowledge.  For the most part religion works this way as well.  With religion, especially evangelical denominations, not sharing your information and knowledge is frowned upon (and a sin [resulting in guilt]).  This brings me to my main point of this blog, guilt and the role it plays in making us act upon new, important information.

Recently I was invited to a friend’s house for a “free dinner”.  This should have raised a flag immediately but honestly it was the wife that was invited and I was merely (as I found out later) needed to help the host qualify for a free gift.  The whole evening was a sales pitch for Saladmaster cooking systems.  There were 3 couples present (if you count the hosts) and 2 single folks (for a total of 8 of us).  We started around 6 PM and we did not get home until close to 10 PM.  While the meal was good, it did not take us 4 hours to eat so the balance of the time was filled with the sales pitch.  The evening was initially presented as a “no pressure” event.  I can almost agree with that statement depending on how you define “pressure”.  It was not, however, a “no guilt” event.

Let me start with an obvious fact: Saladmaster products are extremely, horrendously expensive. They are not ashamed of this fact and do not take any great pains to hide it.  They led with this information in fact and then began, over the next 3+ hours, to explain why an investment in their products is worth it.  The Saladmaster representative admitted to reading from / following a script.  She has some personal stories to tell from her home life and also from others that she had sold this product to during dinners just like this one.  All the shared information was meant not only to force us to make a decision, but to appear ignorant if we did not make the (in their eyes) obvious decision; namely to purchase their product.

The main points that were made during the pitch revolved around things that you could measure (return on investment in lower grocery bills and medical bills) and things that you could not put a price on (better tasting food and your long term health as well as the health of your immediate family).  Now, I can appreciate a good ROI (return on investment) sales pitch.  You take your initial cost and compare it to some future savings to determine when you will break even.  They had great information showing you ROI based solely on lowering your grocery bill by 20% – 30%.  Depending on the amount of product you would buy and your current spending habits on groceries, your ROI was anywhere from 1 to 3 years (with some extreme cases going out further).  If you throw in the fact that your health would increase and result in less doctor’s visits then the ROI might be shorter (I have not personally had to go to a doctor in several years so this is not really a savings for me).  I also appreciated the taste of the food that was served (the food was non organic but had all the flavor of organic foods – the sales pitch was NOT to stop buying organic food, just that the food you have would taste better when cooked in their product – and I concur that it did).  What I did not appreciate was the heaping helpings of guilt that they kept serving throughout the evening.

During the entire evening we were asked questions like “Isn’t it worth it (to buy this product) for your children’s health?” and “Studies have shone that (insert bad thing from the cookware that we use at home) have been linked to (insert appropriately dangerously sounding horrific disease here) and wouldn’t you pay just about anything to spare your loved ones from this?”  She referenced study after study (the origins of which were in the fine print on a banner too small and too far away for me to read) that their product was rated highest in this or that and that this or that group endorsed their product.  She referenced past law suits against competitors (like Dupont who makes Teflon) and how they supposedly covered up the dangers of their competing products.  Time after time they kept hammering away.  They made some crazy claims like a woman who tested so high in iron (from using bad pots and pans) that she was banned from a computer lab after merely entering the room destroyed 33 computers (of course after a month using Saladmaster she was allowed back in with no damage done to the new computers).  If you assumed that everything stated was true you either 1) wrote a very large check / whipped out your credit card or (at a minimum) 2) swore off using your current cookware and converted to a diet mostly consisting of raw items.

Mercifully the evening came to an end but not after it was suggested that we also consider hosting a “free dinner” for our friends so we could share this wonderful information and allow them to invest in this product that (let’s face it) is worth every penny and you would be (at a minimum) doing a disservice to your loves ones if you did not buy it.  Of course if you host a party (or two or three) you would get wonderful free hosting gifts.  I knew two things heading into the evening.  First, I knew I was not going to purchase though this would involve having to be the “heavy” with my wife in front of friends and the salesperson.  Second, I knew that the discussion would not end at the event and would carry on back at my house that night and onto the next day.  This “free dinner’s” cost would really add up in the long run.

Now, let me really get to the reason why I am writing this blog.  For purposes of this discussion let’s  assume that everything that was said during the sales pitch was true.  What is my responsibility to my friends?  Am I doing them a disservice by NOT telling them about this product (that is to say, host a free dinner)?  I actually gave this a great deal of thought and have decided against hosting a party.  Here is my reasoning: they are not going to buy this product for either 1 of 2 reasons…

• They cannot afford (at this time) to make the necessary financial investment
• They know that (based on their lifestyle) they would not use the product (to put it simply, they cook very little at home and are not interested in changing that lifestyle)

Since they would not be purchasing then the only thing that they would get from all of this is a free meal and a certain level of guilt.  This guilt (depending on their ability to bear it) would at worst cause them to feel bad whenever they ate or (worse) when they fed their children.  This guilt would at a minimum lower the enjoyment of any meal they ever ate again that was not made with these products.  Now, is it my responsibility to MAKE them decide or should I simply (out of friendship) NOT share this information and spare them the guilt / loss of enjoyment of life.  Would they be mad at me if they were invited to a free dinner by another friend and then discovered that I chose not to share this with them when I had the chance?  It is my call to withhold information but I have watched enough crime dramas on TV to think that this might be a punishable offence, no matter my good intentions.

My choice is made (pending any further arguments put forth by the wife) but I cannot help but feel a little guilty for not telling them.  Guilt upon guilt!  Remind me to “thank” my “friends” who invited me to this “free (of pressure but not of guilt) dinner”.

Jon

Which End of the Leash Am I On?

Greetings,

This morning, like every morning, I walked my dog.  I have a 4 year old Doberman (Nina) and she loves her walks.  She makes unworldly sounds of joy, sound a big ferocious Doberman should not be making, when I grab the leash and she knows it is time to head out the front door.  Despite her size and power, she is an excellent walking buddy and stays beside me (my wife trained her well) but she does like to be ever so slightly ahead of me and takes every inch of the little amount of slack that I give her.  She does not pull hard, only a small amount, attempting to get me to move a little faster.  Other than the occasional suicidal rabbit that scurries across our path, our walks are uneventful, peaceful and enjoyable.

I mentioned that Nina likes to be ever so slightly ahead of me.  I think she likes to think that she is in charge of the path we will take.  The problem is that she is a dog and has no idea where we are going.  This presents a problem when we come to a fork in the path (sidewalk).  She does a pretty good job of guessing the correct path but this is more likely due to the path being familiar to her (like a trail horse walking the same trail every day).  She (Nina) likes routines whereas I like to take a different path from time to time.  When we come to a choice, she either guesses correctly or she guesses wrongly.  When she guesses correctly, I imagine she thinks that she made the choice of where we will go next.  Ultimately of course she goes where I want to go and a quick yank on the leash sets her straight if she guessed wrong and after changing direction she quickly inches out in front of me as she “leads” me in the rest of our walk.  On a recently morning, I began to see Nina’s habits during our walks as having a parallel to my life.  In a brief moment of clarity during that morning I had an epiphany.

You see, I like to think that I am in control of my life.  If you liken my life’s path to our walking path and if I assume that I am either the human or the dog as I am walking down life’s path then (up until recently) I would have said that I am the human.  I am in control.  I control the leash and I can decide which direction to go when there is a choice of direction.  This morning I realized that I might just be the dog; ever thinking that I am in control, that I am leading the walk.  When I have a choice between going this way or that in my life, it may be that I only seem to have control.  The times that I chose correctly were the times that I just happened to guess correctly (or that the part was familiar enough to me that the choice was obvious).  When I choose / guess incorrectly, inevitably there is some force there to yank on my leash and get me going in the right direction.

I have had some recent changes in my life path and I see a few more possible forks in the road ahead and this path does not look familiar right now.  I am momentarily confused (like Nina when she guesses wrong) but I have a feeling that I will be OK soon enough, inching as far ahead as my leash will let me go.  Some of this new path will look familiar (I hope).  I am also hopeful (confident maybe?) that whoever it is that has their hand on the leash knows what they are doing.  I have been very fortunate that my past wrong choices on my life path have not caused me (or my loved ones) too much discomfort so I probably need not worry too much.  For now I think that I am just going to enjoy the walk and not think about the upcoming forks in the road.

Jon

Random Photos–2012-06-23

It is time once again to clear out the cell phone’s micro SD card and try to remember why I took these pictures.

My manager recently took a trick to Europe with his family.  I think he visited 3 different countries.  He bought this “mug” for me (it is only 2” tall at most).  I display it in my cubicle at work now partially to impress him and partially because I just like it.  I found out last week that I will have a new manager starting in a week or so.  I have not decided whether the mug will stay in its current position past then.

On the days that I go into the office to work I like to get out of the cubicle at lunchtime.  Sometimes I go up the 6th floor arcade and play Donkey Kong.  Other days I walk across the street (a 6 lane main road) and sit near the man made pond there.  There are apartments, a hotel and tons of shops and restaurants as well so it is fun to people watch as well.  The above is my view from a bench that was mercifully in the shade on the warm day that I took this picture.

It is pretty warm in Texas this time of year so imagine my surprise when these company logo ice scrapers were a new arrival in the company store located just down the escalators from my cubicle.  I suppose they might sell since most of the folks that come to this store are people who have travelled here for meetings.  Still though, it is summer pretty much everywhere in the northern hemisphere and I would not give this product the shelf space just yet.

I recently accomplished my goal of running 5k   I look quite the mess when I get back to the house but I feel great, albeit a little warm.  Here is a picture after one of my runs.  For some reason neither the wife and kids are in a mood for a hug after I come back into the house after my morning runs.

I am not a big fan of Windows and one thing I really don’t like is all of the patches.  At home I can at least postpone them but at work they are forced upon you by the IT department.  Inevitably when I am trying to get out of the office on time it will be time for a pile of updates.  As with all things Microsoft, the information on the screen does not tell you much (being on update 8 or 16 does not mean you are 1/2 way done).  Fortunately it does not happen that often.

Well, the card is empty now and ready for more pics.  Thanks for reading my blog.

Jon

The Listening Project–Supplemental Blog 3

In retrospect I should have just kept walking.  It was Saturday morning about a week ago and Nina (the Doberman) and I were on our morning walk and we happened past a garage sell (or what would soon be a garage sell as they were still brining things out from the house to set out on the driveway).  Even from the sidewalk I could see 2 huge piles of CDs along with a sign indicating they were only asking $0.50 each.  I knew I was in trouble.  I should have kept walking like a recovering drunk should walk past a bar.  What is listed below is what I ended up with and is only this short as I did not have any more cash on me.

#	Artist	Album	Date Listened	Again?
1063	Bread	Anthology Of Bread	6/17/2012	Yes
1064	3 Doors Down	Away From The Sun	6/17/2012	Yes
1065	AC/DC	Ballbreaker	6/17/2012	Yes
1066	Dire Straits	Brothers In Arms	6/18/2012	Yes
1067	Rush	Chronicles Disc 1	6/18/2012	Yes
1068	Rush	Chronicles Disc 2	6/18/2012	Yes
1069	Prince & The New Power Generation	Diamonds And Pearls	6/18/2012	Yes
1070	Soundgarden	Down On The Upside	6/19/2012	Yes
1071	Ozzy Osbourne	The Essential Ozzy Osbourne Disc 1	6/19/2012	Yes
1072	Ozzy Osbourne	The Essential Ozzy Osbourne Disc 2	6/19/2012	Yes
1073	REO Speedwagon	The Essential REO Speedwagon Disk 1	6/20/2012	Yes
1074	REO Speedwagon	The Essential REO Speedwagon Disk 2	6/19/2012	Yes
1075	Chicago	Greatest Hits 1982-1989	6/20/2012	Yes
1076	Bon Jovi	Keep The Faith	6/21/2012	Yes
1077	Depeche Mode	Music for the Masses	6/21/2012	Yes
1078	Stone Temple Pilots	Nº4	6/21/2012	Yes
1079	Ozzy Osbourne	The Ozzman Cometh	6/21/2012	Yes
1080	Depeche Mode	People Are People	6/22/2012	Yes
1081	Metallica	Ride The Lightning	6/22/2012	Yes
1082	Peter Gabriel	Secret World Live Disc 1	6/22/2012	Yes
1083	Peter Gabriel	Secret World Live Disc 2	6/22/2012	Yes
1084	Ace Of Base	The Sign	6/22/2012	Yes
1085	Nickelback	Silver Side Up	6/22/2012	Yes
1086	Skid Row	Skid Row	6/23/2012	Yes
1087	Stone Temple Pilots	Thank You	6/23/2012	Yes
1088	Stevie Nicks	Trouble In Shangri-La	6/23/2012	Yes
1089	Depeche Mode	Ultra	6/23/2012	Yes
1090	Alanis Morissette	Under Rug Swept	6/23/2012	Yes
1091	Air Supply	The Vanishing Race	6/24/2012	Yes
1092	Def Leppard	Vault - Def Leppard Greatest Hits 1980-1995	6/24/2012	Yes
1093	Genesis	We Can't Dance	6/24/2012	Yes
1094	The KLF	The White Room	6/24/2012	Yes
1095	Tom Petty	Wildflowers	6/24/2012	Yes

• Bread “Anthology of Bread”:  I took a chance on this one as I cannot for the life of me name one song by this group.  The CD cover was a picture of the band in their heyday and they had some cool hair so I took a chance.  I can see myself listening to this one often.
• Dire Straits “Brothers In Arms”: I bought this only for the 2 hit songs that I remember from my MTV days.  The other songs don’t quite fit the same mold but it was an enjoyable listen.  I imagine my future listening of this CD will be limited to the hits.
• Rush “Chronicles Disc 1 & 2”: Wow, all this for 50 cents!  Awesome, awesome, awesome.  I cannot say that I eve heard more than one or two of these songs but I definitely discovered this band way too late in my life.
• Soundgarden “Down On The Upside”: Riding Nirvana’s coattails only lasts so long I guess.  This is the release after their best selling album (Superunknown) and it doesn’t quite pack the punch but it still is OK.
• Ozzy Osbourne  “The Essential Ozzy Osbourne Disc 1 &2” & “The Ozzman Cometh”: If I had know that “The Ozzman Cometh” was another best of CD then I likely would not have bought it (even at the 50 cent price point) since it contains mostly songs from the 2 disc other collection I picked up at the same time.  I really have only heard Ozzy’s later stuff (late 80s, 90’s) so hearing the earlier stuff was fun.  This is a great CD to run to as imagining Ozzy chasing you is a good motivator to keep running.
• REO Speedwagon “The Essential REO Speedwagon Disk 1 & 2”: Another jackpot.  I know most the stuff on disc 2 (their mellower, power ballad years) but I very much enjoyed disc 1.  You can really tell that they changed their sound to get some hit singles once they discovered that power ballads sell.
• Depeche Mode “Music for the Masses” & “People Are People” & “Ultra”: I really expanded my Depeche Mode library here.  The music is so simple at times but so powerful and emotional as well.  This is another band that I discovered to late in life.
• Metallica “Ride The Lightning”: This is the first Metallica CD that I have ever owned.  It is probably a good start.
• Ace Of Base “The Sign”: Don’t judge me.  We had this CD when my 10 yr old daughter was a baby and you could pop it in any time and she would start moving around (and stop crying sometimes) so this CD brings me happy memories.
• Air Supply “The Vanishing Race”: This is from the mid 90’s but the duo’s voices are still awesome.
• Def Leppard “Vault - Def Leppard Greatest Hits 1980-1995”: All the hits and a few others thrown in to get enough tracks so that you do not feel like you are getting ripped off.
• The KLF “The White Room”: This one was still sealed and I am not sure what that means.  I seem to recall a hit song by this band with special guest singer Tammy Wynette so I took a chance.  This is not great and it reminded me of a more subdued C+C Music Factory.
• Tom Petty “Wildflowers”: I recognize several songs on this disc (more than just the hits) so I am thinking I must have borrowed it from the Kokomo library at one time or another.  Good stuff.

I am pushing 1,100 CDs now and this is probably my best find so far based on quality of CD and price paid.

Jon

Concerning Black Licorice and Mr. Pibb

As I write this blog my wife is making me a Father’s Day lunch.  We (she) settled on homemade meatball subs and we just returned from a trip to Target to buy all the ingredients that we were missing at the house (which is just about everything on the ingredients list).  She asked me last night what I wanted for my Father’s Day dinner and was narrowing it down to meatballs of some sort.  I swayed her from Swedish meatballs to meatball subs.  I originally tried to talk her out of making anything special and that led to another discussion.  Before I get to that topic though I want to provide a little background and tie in the title of this blog post.

When I was in my teens I would get upset whenever someone (usually my mother) would want to share any drink that I had.  This sharing mostly occurred while driving somewhere in the car.  I have this habit of measuring how much more enjoyment that I have left based on the amount of liquid left in the cup.  I know at any given time them about how much more enjoyment I have left.  When someone decides they want a drink then the equation is upset in that pleasure is leaving one side of the equation but pleasure it not going to the other side (my side) of the equation.  I discovered that the amount of drink I had to share varied based solely on the flavor of the drink.  After much research I found out that Mr. Pibb was the optimum drink since my mom really did not like the flavor and she would only ask for a drink if she was truly thirsty.  Thus Mr. Pibb became my official drink and I ordered it whenever there was a chance that I might have to share.

My “love” of black licorice has a similar background only it occurred after I had kids.  Any candy in the house is fair game (I learned this rule the hard way several times) but certain types of candy seemed to last longer than others.  Through trial and error I discovered that candy like Good-n-Plenty of just plain licorice was the best candy to have to maximize the amount that I ate of the overall portion.

With either of these things I think I am not really getting maximum enjoyment.  I prefer several soft drinks to Mr. Pibb and licorice is not even in the top 100 of my favorite candies but I still consider them when I am given a choice in either of these categories  On a side note, Mr. Pibb and Good-n-Plenty together is just awful.

So, as you might have guessed, when I was thinking about my potential Father’s Day dinner, I was thinking of something that I like that no one else particularly cares for and thus would allow me to have more.  This is the discussion that I mentioned in paragraph 1 of this post.  The problem with meatballs is that everyone likes them.  I joked that since she loves meatballs very much that perhaps Father’s Day was simply the excuse for making them.  The initial look on her face indicated that I might be more right than she would care to admit.  This look was followed up with another “look” that I need not define further to you husbands out there.  I mentioned that she is making meatballs as I type this up so you already know how the story ends.  I ended up giving up on thinking of another meal that only I like as she likes almost anything anyway.  Try as I might I could not find any main dinner dish that had licorice as a main ingredient.  I have resolved myself to the fact that I will have to fight for the meatballs and any leftovers that might be there at the end of the meal.  Maybe being Father’s Day the wife and kids might show some pity on me.

Jon

Couch 2 5k–Week 9

This was it, the last week in the training program.  Even though I did not follow the training program exactly after week 5, I still had the end goal in mind; namely to run 5k.

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3
17 minutes	22 minutes 40 seconds	25 minutes 10 seconds

Day 1 of this week did not begin well.  I have my excuses.

• Week 8 entailed the sister-in-law and mother-in-law staying with us for the entire week.  Consequently, the wife and I had an excuse not to eat well (or in my case keep up my water intake).  I did OK during week 8 but I really felt it Monday morning.
• The son decided he would like to start running with me.  He made it all of 1/4 mile before he had to start walking.  He kept going on the path and I caught him right as I was completing lap 3 (2.1 miles).  Seeing him at that line was excuse enough to stop.
• I began to have the most serious doubts about being able to run a 5k.  Why punish myself on this day if I was never going to make it anyway?

Day 2 was much better and even though the son decided to run with me again, I was feeling much better health-wise with a few good days of better food behind me.  I stopped after 4 laps (2.8 miles) and began to think for the first time since Day 1 of Week 1 that I might, just might be able to make it 5k on Day 3.

Day 3 almost did not happen as the radar showed a lot of rain heading our way and a peak outside showed lightning strikes nearby.  I put on my running shoes and got Nina’s leash thinking that if it was too bad I would just walk a lap with the Doberman and be done.  After 1/2 lap (where my jogging start line is located) I decided to go for it.  The first 3 laps were fine and it was only about 1/2 way through the 4th lap that I began to start the conversation to compromise on how far I would run.  It does not help that the last 1/2 of the lap starts the steepest uphill portion of the lap.  As I could see the corner where I would turn and start my 5th lap I thought to myself “If I could ask myself during any of those times I was running in the previous 8 weeks if I should quite or not, how would I answer?”  From that thought process I mustered up the strength to continue on and finish the last 3+ minutes until the 5k mark.  It helped slightly that the initial portion of the lap is downhill.  Long story short, I made it.  I ran a 5k right on time and according to schedule.  25 minutes is not an impressing time really but my goal was not time related.

The only question now is, “Now what?”  I have not thought of where to go from here.  Do I want to run an actual 5k race?  Do I even want to continue running at all?  I have not decided yet.  I will probably run Monday morning but I am not sure how long (distance or duration).  I can tell you one thing though, I have no desire to run a 10k.

Jon

The Listening Project–Supplemental Blog 2

The son and I wanted to get out of the house and go do something and we ended up at Mardel’s.  I (of course) went straight to the clearance rack in the music section and scored some decent CDs at 75% / 90% off.  I bought one simply because it looked like a rap album and the son is getting into that style of music.  At only $1 you can afford to take a few chances.  Here is what I bought.

#	Artist	Album	Date Listened	Again?
1058	Sanctus Real	The Face Of Love	6/9/2012	Yes
1059	Jars of Clay	The Long Fall Back To Earth	6/10/2012	Yes
1060	Becoming The Archetype	The Physics Of Fire	6/10/2012	Yes
1061	Mars ILL	ProPain	6/10/2012	Yes
1062	Various Artists	Welcome 2 Holy-Wood	6/10/2012	Yes

• Sanctus Real “The Face of Love”: I have really wanted to get some music by this band.  I only have their “Lead Me” single that I bought so I could practice and perform it for church.  I never thought I would find any of their stuff on a clearance rack.  I have listened to this new CD about a dozen times already.  Awesome
• Jars of Clay “The Long Fall Back To Earth”: If I had not of read the front of the CD I would have swore I was listening to The Afters.  I think Jars of Clay is a band that I have really tried to like after they released their 2nd CD (I loved their first CD).  This one I really like.  It was released in 2009 so maybe this is their new sound.  Here’s hoping!
• Becoming The Archetype “The Physics Of Fire”: This group has a lot of growling for vocals (not my favorite) but the guitar and (especially) drums are awesome.  I sat in awe of how anyone could play either instrument that fast.
• Mars ILL “ProPain”: I think I was thinking of another band when I picked this one up.  I thought I was getting a dance / techno CD but alas this is more rap / r&b.  Still good but not what I was hoping for with this $1.
• Various Artists “Welcome 2 Holy-Wood”: This is the rap CD I mentioned earlier in this blog.  This was really for my son but it is not bad.  I put YES in the right column since I will likely be forced to listen to this again whether or not I really want to.

So there you have it.  All in all I showed restraint in that I only purchased 5 CDs,  Once again though I can say that I have listened to all of my CDs.

Jon