Blog Number 68

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Kudos to the wife who reminded me as I was heading to the bedroom that I had not blogged tonight.  Read on to see if she should have just let me go to sleep.

Like most families, ours has a nightly routine.  Typically it is dinner, then bath / shower time (for the kids), then we do family devotions and then the kids are off to bed.  There is usually time for a game of chess in there or maybe a walk.  Sometimes we do popcorn or ice cream after bath time just to mix it up a little.  Right after the kids are in bed, the wife lays down on the couch and falls asleep and sometime later I wander over to the PC and blog.

Now, you are probably saying to yourself, "Jon, stop it!  Your exciting life is making me feel bad about my really boring one!"  Well, I am sorry.  I cannot lie, my life is just THAT exciting.

One thing that usually changes each night is who will give our daughter a bath.  She will be 5 in December and has not quite graduated to the shower like our son has.  Sometimes giving her a bath will be used as a bargaining chip, "I will take the garbage out if you will do the bath tonight."

Either way, a bath MUST be given.  The daughter keeps track of who's turn it is.  If someone gets two "turns" In a row, she is there to point out this unfairness.  You see to her, giving her a bath is a privilege.  She says, "It's your turn, Daddy." like it is a special treat or something.  As if we should be happy that it is our turn.  And she is serious too, and points out how unfair it is to my wife should she happen to do bath duty two nights in a row.  I don't know where she gets this idea from really.

Now the wife is all business when it comes to bathing while I (of course) tend to have more fun with it.  "Let's see if I can hit the ceiling with the water!" or "Let's see how many bubbles we can make with the body wash!"  It is no contest really who is the more entertaining bath giver.  Maybe I oversell how much fun I am having, who knows.  I don't miss giving my son a bath and really enjoy the fact that he is self sufficient in that area but I imagine I will actually miss giving someone a bath once the daughter graduates to the shower.

I think eventually though when she is all grown up, I will wish it was my "turn" again.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 67

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Tonight's thought is about men's restrooms or perhaps just restrooms in general.  I will admit (quite proudly) that I have spent precious little time in women's restrooms so I have no idea if this applies to all restrooms or not.

I have noticed that the toilet paper in the restroom closest to my cubicle always has a full roll of toilet paper.  I have been at work about 25 or so days and I do not think that I just happen to need to use the restroom right after the TP has been replenished.  I wonder what happens to the partial rolls?  Is there a market for half rolls of TP out there?  Some sort of black market perhaps?  I will say that it is really hard to get the TP out when the roll is so full.  It will hardly turn.  I usually start working on getting the necessary amount of TP right from the start.

A concern I have is what people think as I am leaving the restroom.  Do people wonder whether I washed my hands or not?  I do, I swear!  From time to time just as I am leaving the restroom (after washing my hands thoroughly) someone else will flush the toilet.  To the passer-by, it seems like I flushed the toilet and made a mad dash for the door.  I feel like I have to defend myself to whoever may be within view of the restroom door.

So anyway, if you see me leaving the restroom, no matter what sound you hear, rest assured that I washed my hands.  Also, if you see someone trying to sell a boatload of half empty TP rolls, let me know.  I will just carry it in with me so as to avoid using the full rolls already in there.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 66

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

As you faithful readers know, I am now living in an apartment.  Also, you know that I live on the 2nd floor (19 steps off the ground).  On the way up these steps I can see 2 of the 4 doors to the apartments on the first floor.  Each of these doors has a welcome mat in front of it.  As I go up the stairs I can see the doors to all 4 apartments on the 2nd floor (including mine of course).  All but mine have welcome mats as well.

This really started bugging me today.  I have no idea why.  The welcome mat is really just something to wipe your feet on and since it has seldom rained here, we really have no need.  Does not providing a welcome mat make me a bad neighbor or an unwelcoming host?  Does it make my apartment less inviting to passers-by?  So I walked up to the 3rd floor to see what they had in front of their doors.  Only 2 of the 4 had welcome mats.  So I walked downstairs to check out the 2 apartments that I could not see and they both have welcome mats.

So what have I learned today (other than there are a lot of places on the web to buy welcome mats)?  I think we can all agree that we have enough scientific evidence to prove that the higher the floor your apartment, the less "welcoming" you are.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 65

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So a few nights ago I slept on the couch all night.  "Jon," you say, "what did you do that was so wrong that your wife made you sleep on the couch?"  My, aren't we inquisitive today, hmm?  Well if you MUST know, I slept on the couch because I wanted to.  I love sleeping on the couch!  As my wife heads off to bed each night, she warns me NOT to fall asleep on the couch.  Oftentimes she will come into the living room in the wee hours of the morning and make me come to bed.

I have no idea why I enjoy this.  I enjoy napping on the couch as well.  There is just something comforting about it.  My daughter likes to sleep on the couch with me.  The word "couch" comes from the French word "coucher" which means "to sleep."  So I am actually using this piece of furniture for its intended purpose.

Perhaps I just like falling asleep watching TV and since the only TV I have had most of my married life has been in the same room as the couch, I associate that pleasure with the couch.  I did have a TV in the bedroom for a short time a few years ago, but seldom watched it in bed.  Maybe is a combination of the TV and the couch.  Who knows?

But when I am in trouble with the wife, she knows that she cannot punish me by making me sleep on the couch.  Ironically, her punishment is making me come to bed with her.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 64

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My son had his first soccer practice tonight so the daughter and I had some quality time together.  Lately she just wants me to play with her ponies.  Her aunt and nanna got her this set of horses / ponies.  There are 2 horses and 4 ponies.  A few days ago she asked me their names so I made up 6 names on the spot: Charlie & Lady (the horses); Nicole, Patches, Milky and Rocker (the ponies).  I played for 15 minutes or so after naming them and now she has decided that they aren't fun to play with unless I am playing along as well.

Not wanting to play ponies, I offered to play Yahtzee Jr.  Our is the Toy Story version so you try to get a yahtzee with either (5) Buzz Lightyears, Mr. Potato Heads, Hamms, Jessie's, or Rex's.  The Woody's are wild so if you get one of them, it counts as anything.  Now with most kids games aimed at this age group, the game involves little if any skill and winning and losing is rather random.  Unless you are me, that is.  Tonight I was slaughtered by my 4 year old.  By the time of my final turn each game I would need like (7) of something in order to win (there are only 5 die).  Overall I think my win - loss record is something like 2 - 23.  How does she get so lucky!

This is how it was when my son was this age as well.  The game then was Chutes and Ladders.  No matter, this game involves no skill as well and I swear my record was like 3 - 80.  I don't know how he did it but he hit every ladder while I hit every chute!  All you have to do is spin a wheel and move your piece.  I majored in Mathematics in college and I know what kind of odds it takes for him to win such a large percentage of the games.  It is incredible!  At that age, he was the luckiest kid I knew.

I think that is why I like chess so much.  There is absolutely no luck in involved.  There is nothing random about it.  Of course my son is winning more and more games against me as he gets better / older.  The wife and I will play every once in a while and I usually win.  However, the few times she has won well, that was just luck.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 63

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

So I was just reading a news story that said that gas prices have dropped $0.21 / gallon over the last 2 weeks and $0.37 / gallon over the last four weeks.  This is good news right?  Well no, not if you have my brain in your head (be thankful here faithful readers).

There are several reasons that lower gas prices do not make me happy.

1. SUV drivers: The gas guzzling people are suffering less.  Deep inside I think I have a disdain for these people.  I don't hate any of them on a personal level but I think my brain subscribes to the "It is not enough that I win, everyone else must lose" mentality.  This is actually my take on a quote by Gore Vidal, "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."  For some reason deep inside me, I get some kind of (sick) enjoyment that others are hurting more from high gas prices than I am.  I know, I am sick but at least I am honest.
2. My driving habits:  Since gas costs less, my safe driving habits save me less money.  This may just be a twist on the first one above but studies have shown that normal acceleration and braking can save you 50% in gas mileage.  Since gas is lower, my driving habits save me less money.
3. My Shell MasterCard:  I get 5% cash back from every $1 I spend on gas.  Now that gas is lower, I am "saving" less money.  This may be a twist on the second one above but what is the point of numbering a list if you only have one entry?

Anyway, this is the twisted way my mind works.  Others look at $2.40 / gallon prices and cheer or feel relief.  Me, I find a way to complain (and blog) about it.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

This Makes Bowling Look Exciting

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well today I screwed on our newly purchased Texas license plates.  For those of you still in Indiana, this is twice as much work as you are thinking.  In Texas, you have 2 plates per car.  One is for the front and one is for the back.  This was even more work since there were no holes in the front of our minivan.  We still don't have our driver's licenses yet but at least our cars are Texans now.

Since I have signed up for DirecTV, I have many more channels now then I did back in Kokomo with our cable provider there.  Mathematically this should give me more things to watch but I am here to tell you that it is not the case.  Now it does take me longer to flip through all the channels but I have spent most of my TV viewing time this week watching reruns of Who's Line Is It Anyway (both US and UK versions) and reruns on the Food Network.  Another thing that I could watch is poker.  It is on both ESPN channels as well as several other channels like The Travel Channel.  I have some friends who play poker and I will admit that I did try a few hands online the other night with play money (I "won" $150 in 3 minutes and then quit).

When I think of sports that I would not like to watch on TV, poker is toward the top of the list.   It is way behind the all time leader, fishing.  If others were to build a similar list I am sure bowling would be in their list.  Being a former professional bowler, I actually like to watch bowling.  One of the casualties of the move to Texas was my collection of VHS recordings of PBA telecasts.  I must have had 30, 6 hour tapes full of PBA shows from the 80's and 90's that I gave to a friend of mine.  He has really enjoyed re-watching the older telecasts.  Exciting stuff!  No really!

Anyway, I actually enjoy watching poker, but not playing it.  I think it all has to do with the production of the show and interaction of the play by play announcers.  The PBA has higher ratings recently and I know they have spent a lot on improving their image.

But trust me, there is no way you could make fishing exciting.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon