Shallow Thinker

You’d think that after my last experience that I’d know better than to waste my money on something random…but I’m a slow learner.

Those who shop on Woot know that not only is there the the occasional good deal on things, but about once a month they have a woot-off (detailed here). And usually, during the woot-off, they sell a “Bag of Crap”. So what’s in this thing? Crap…figuratively speaking, of course. You’re guaranteed a bag of some type (book bag, computer bag, fanny pack, grocery bag…) and at least one item of their choosing. Mostly it’s just left-over stuff that they couldn’t sell, but occasionally, rarely, actually, it’s something cool like an mp3 player, a roomba, or even a TV.

So after a wonderful evening out with the wife, we settled back in at home and she started watching a movie with her sister. I turned on the playstation and worked on a little Madden football. I turned my computer on to the woot-off and just watched it. And then it appeared.

..

The problem with the Bag-O-Crap is that it’s such a coveted item that the servers often crash during process, so only a lucky few get it. Woot rules allow you to get 1, 2, or 3 of any item, so the smart thing to do would be to get 3…but that takes a few seconds to do. So when the screen appeared, I left it on the default setting of “1″, clicked the buttons, waited, clicked another, waited, and then I got to the screen that I’d seen before…

Yeah, I’ve seen this screen before. There’s no guarantee that you’ve gotten through. I saw this one one time and then the servers crashed and I never got through. So I wasn’t expecting much. This page refreshed for about 10 minutes and then disappeared….like internet magic, it just went away. And then it happened….I got an e-mail.

I am now the proud owner of one (1) bag-o-crap. Now there’s nothing left but to wait for fed-ex smartpost to deliver, which could take at least 4 years. And I have to sit and wonder if I should have gambled to try to get 3. But if my 1 item is a flat screen TV, I don’t think that I’ll care much.

There’s an old saying out there that goes something like this: You can’t fix stupid.

I would like to amend that statement to say: You can’t fix stupid but you can hire it to work your cash register and drive-thru.

Not too long ago, I received an e-mail from my favorite fast-food restaurant that said I could have a free entree of my choice. Why this special treatment? Apparently I signed-up for an e-mail list, they found out when my birthday was and they wanted to do something nice for me. How about that….some company that I don’t even know buys me lunch. (What did you get me for my birthday? Now I see who my real friends are.) So anyway, I took my coupon to the restaurant, selected the “Fat Sam” (fajitas), customized it, and went to the cash register. Now, before you enjoy the wonderful discussion that ensued, I should point out that I took no cash with me to the restaurant because my wife doesn’t allow me to carry any. So with that in mind, please join me for a walk down memory lane:

Worker: That will be 45 cents
Me: What? Why 45 cents? The coupon is for one free menu item and that’s what I have.
worker: You got the “Alfredo Garcia” fajitas and added sour cream, so you have to pay for the sour cream.
me: No, I ordered the Fat Sam, which comes with sour cream and guacamole. I don’t want the guacamole, so there’s just sour cream.
worker: No sir, what you have is the Alfredo Garcia with sour cream added.
confused me: Listen…it’s the same thing. I ordered it this way so that I don’t have to pay for the sour cream. It’s all in how you ring it up. Just punch in that I have a Fat Sam and it will work out OK.
worker: I can’t do that. In order for it to be a Fat Sam, you have to have sour cream and guacamole.
agitated me: Look, you’re charging me to not take the guacamole. That’s absurd!
worker: No, I’m charging you for the added sour cream.
mad me: Alright, how about this. Put the guacamole in one of those little containers and ring it up as a Fat Sam since now I’ll have both the guacamole and sour cream.
worker: Yeah, I can do that. (Gets guacamole and puts it in one of those little cups - presses buttons on register) OK, one free Fat Sam, no charge. Thank you, have a nice day!
me: (Walk away with my food, but I leave the little cup-o-guac sitting on the counter)
worker: Sir, you’re forgetting your guacamole.
are-you-kidding-me? me: (trying not to throw my tray of food at the worker) Oh, I don’t want that…you can throw it away.
worker: (throws guacamole away, oblivious to what has just occurred….and then moves on to the next customer)

This is the future of our nation.  And judging from the interaction, that worker will probably hold public office someday.

What do you get when you combine love and the South? You get something like this:

After the football season is over, what do they parade across the news….The Westminster Kennel Club. I dedicate three months to watching people bash into each other and when it is taken from me, I’m supposed to fill that void with dogs prancing around in a circle? I was getting ready for work this week when I heard them announce this year’s winner of the dog show and it caused me to stop and smile. “Uno” is the first ever Beagle to take home the award for best in show, and beagles have a special place in my heart.

The farm that was my grandfather’s is a place that framed a lot of my childhood memories. Picking apples, playing in the hay loft, riding horses, fishing, family picnics, picking up sticks (and snakes)….and the list goes on. Years ago, when the Queen and I were dating, we went to visit my grandparents. My grandfather, whom we called “Daddy Bill”, took us out to his farm to check up on things. It seems as though time had turned the farm from a productive, fertile piece of land into a tract needing the necessary upkeep. When we got there, I learned that he was raising a bunch of beagles. He had raised and shown beagles long before any of the grandchildren were born and one of the rooms in his house even displayed awards from that time long ago. I was surprised to see the puppies because he hadn’t mentioned this earlier during our trip…and I soon found out that he didn’t mention it because he was keeping it a secret from my grandmother. It was probably just another thing that the doctors probably told him not to do that he was going to do anyhow. When we got back to my grandparents’ house, my grandmother waited until my grandfather had left the room and said, “So, did you see the beagles? How many are there now?” She always had him figured out.

It was on that afternoon that this picture was taken (I think). I’ve got it sitting on the little table beside my bed. Some days it is lost beneath piles of clothes and I never see it, other days my eyes will glance past it, but on occasion I’ll sit on the bed and spend some time studying the scene. It serves as a reminder to me about the pace that he went through life. I don’t think I ever saw him in a hurry. He walked and enjoyed the moment. When all of the grandchildren were younger and he took us on a bike ride, he peddled slow and steady as we whirred around in constant motion, but if we ever got tired, we knew that we could drop back and ride along side Daddy Bill. Even when he played checkers or scrabble, he would take his time and enjoy the conversation…and of course he enjoyed watching us squirm when we realized that there’s no way we could win.

Perhaps by the time I began to notice, it was his health or his age that had caused him to lighten his pace, but i do remember a gentle man that took his time to get to know each and every person that crossed his path.

When he passed away in 2001, I was fortunate enough to get to meet some of the people that knew him in his every day life. And I get the feeling that the grandfather that I looked up to is the same friend, doctor, loyal church-member, brother, and husband that they all knew.

So thanks, Westminster Kennel Club for serving the reminder and thanks Daddy Bill for serving as a walking example of the phrase “Love is patient.“

In our lives, we often become attached to inanimate objects. Such is true when it comes to my obsession with power tools. And I’m non-discriminatory when it comes to tools. They can be powered by plug, battery, gas, pedals, windmill, happy thoughts….it doesn’t bother me. I just want to know that if it isn’t used properly, I could severely injure myself.

This weekend I finally got a few minutes to work in our back yard. There are some trees that are dead/dying that need to be cut down and have been needing if for a long time. (I was hoping that if I left them long enough nature would do it for me. Nature is much better at this waiting game than I am.) It is important to stop here and note that “this weekend” is past tense and “need to be cut down” is present tense. The weekend has passed and the trees still need to be cut down.

My Christmas gift from the in-laws was a gift card that was wasted utilized on a chainsaw. Take a look at this thing…it’s got to be the perfect chainsaw. It’s got crazy colors like purple and green…and….um….metal. And it’s called “wild thing”. Isn’t that crazy?

Well, my crazy chainsaw went and did something really insane….it broke. Surely I must have been cutting down a large sequoia and I just got the thing overheated, right? Well, almost. I was cutting a limb off of a tree. Was it a big limb? Well, if by “big” you mean thicker than my arm then….well, no. Bigger than my thumb? Well, that’s probably pretty close. I was just cutting this little limb and the next thing I know the chain is laying at my feet. That’s odd. I thought The chain really should be attached to the saw and not at my feet. But what do I know, I’m just an engineer.

So, I took the thing apart, fixed it, put it back together, cranked it and……..nothing. It sounded like the wild thing of old, but the chain did not move like I had hoped it would….which would mean that it didn’t move at all. (For those of you unfamiliar with tools like this, chain movement is a highly desirable feature in chainsaws.) So I took it back to the store and after evaluating it for about 30 minutes, the guy finally concluded that the chainsaw was indeed not functioning as it should. (I had offered to crank it up and show him, but he didn’t trust me….I dunno why. The skull-and-bones shirt might have had something to do with it. I doubt he could tell that the stains on my shirt were blood, though) The nice gentleman did take the time to demonstrate that if I moved my hands really fast and made a special noise with my mouth it would almost seem as if the saw was working. Since I couldn’t make that noise, I just got my money back…and I learned a valuable lesson as well. This purchase was clearly a waste of money and I won’t ever spend my money on something as frivolous as that again.

This next purchase, though, was much more thought out and rational:

My next post includes a funny anecdote about a trip to the doctor because of a deep gash on my leg.

Those of you who know me know that I like to play guitar on occasion. Those of you who don’t know me….well, I guess you know about the guitar bit now because I just brought it up in the last sentence. I went and spoiled the surprise of what this post is about, didn’t I? Sorry…

At any rate, I’ve been struggling to find a style of guitar that I can call my own. I’ve been going back-and-forth between two distinct sounds. They are “drunken moose mating call” and “piano falling down a flight of stairs”. Both of these have their distinct advantages, so I’m having trouble deciding which one to focus on.

But at last, I finally found someone who sounds a lot like I do on the guitar:

You know, it’s odd. When I was taking guitar lessons (all 6 of them) my teacher never taught me any of this stuff. He must not have been very good. All he knew how to do was silly scales.

I know what you’re thinking: Is there any way in the world to improve upon an insanely popular song that make no sense? It’s amazing, I was just thinking that same thing. Well if you’re lucky enough to hear some of my music, you know that you can always do an acoustic version of songs. (Students at The Z may recognize that I actually did this song back in ‘04 at the talent show.) Now don’t get your hopes up too much, he’s not quite as good as I am, but he’ll do.

If you like this type of performance, you should check out Hayseed Dixie who does folk versions of numerous songs. (Get it? AC/DC….hayseed dixie?…..get it? no? ah, don’t worry about it)

It’s a good thing that I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. With such knowledge and education, I was able to take this simple two-day project and stretch it over a week and a half. And I’m still not done. There is a section of monkey bars that needs to go up, but we decided that it was probably best to wait. Our excuse is that Ladybug enjoys crawling around in the top of the house and we don’t want a wide open gap for her to fall through. The reality is that this thing beat me. It sits in our backyard taunting me. The monkey bars are just too much.

When I put this up, I used sand to level the ground. The down side is that the sand came from the sandbox that I had made a year ago (on the left side of the picture)….so now I have to go get more sand. And we need some cedar chips around the base. See what I mean? This playset is a monster. And now it sits in my backyard laughing at me. Just look at it sitting there all smug…

At the beginning of the project, the choice was between building my own design and constructing a prefabricated unit. One of the biggest factors was all the time that the prefabbed unit would save. I’m pretty sure I could have whittled a playset out of granite in the time that it took me to finish this. And with the granite, I probably wouldn’t have had as many leftover parts, either. Really, I can’t figure out why I have this many bolts that I didn’t use. There’s only one way to test it out…Butterfly, get up in there and jump around and let’s see if it collapses.  But don’t jump with that stick in your hand…safety first!

My wonderful Alma Mater offers a degree in Technical Communications which basically helps you learn how to take technical things and explain them to the common person. For instance, want to explain how to operate a chainsaw? A Technical Communications major probably helped write the instruction manual.

Why is that information important? Because the person (or people) who wrote the manual on how to assemble the playset obviously did not hire a TCO major. Not to mention that the thing was written in French. Apparently there were 2 manuals. One was written in English and one in French. Perhaps this was stated at the beginning of the instructions, but since I couldn’t read French, I didn’t know. By the time I found the other manual, it was too late. I’d assembled the wrong language playset. Now my child has to play in French.

Things got so bad that we had to recruit Butterfly to come and help out. You can see her in the picture to the left adjusting some of my work. She immediately noticed that I had used Item EE with a 1.25″ screw in step 22 instead of Item EG with a 1.27″ screw. Also in the picture, Dr. Dave is trying to figure out how in the world I installed a railing where the slide is supposed to go. (I blame public education.)

At any rate, by the end of Day 2, we had a ladder which lead up to the platforms. On the downside, there weren’t any railings or walls on the platform. So, the desire to play on the playset had increased while the safety factor had managed to decrease. Apparently sharp, pointy objects aren’t supposed to poke you in the skin. Just another fact they should have included in the manual.

Not too long ago, the wife and I decided that it was time for a playset in the back yard. Because she is able to work from home, she also has the “joy” of entertaining two children all day. So, a playset seemed like a perfect idea. It includes climbing, jumping, sliding, swinging, and several opportunities to fall and give concussions…everything a child needs to grow healthy and happy.

So at the start of the project, I did what I do with everything I purchase. I used my obsessive-compulsive powers to research and analyze virtually every option available. After a detailed cost analysis and numerous graphs later, I had it narrowed down to two possibilities. I could either design and build my own playset or I could buy one of the prefabricated one’s from Lowe’s. Having seen how skilled I am with powertools, my wife strongly recommended that we go the prefabbed route.

So, the first thing you need with a project like this is a good work bench. It just so happens that I had one handy that I could use…

Nothing works quite as well as the bed of a ‘74 Chevy. Well, a ‘73 comes close but I’ve found that the ‘74 just holds things a little better.

Next, I needed a device to help me hold everything in place, hold it level, and hold it square while I screwed it down. Ah, yes, there it is…

The side of the ‘74 Chevy works here. Some people try to use the front, but it doesn’t offer the support that you need. The side gives plenty of stability because it….um….IT JUST DOES, OK! Geez, why do you question every decision I make?!

So, after a the first day, with the help of my utility tool and my friend, Dr. Dave, we were able to get the playset far enough for Butterfly to want to play on it, but not far enough for it to be safe. Yeah, that’s a good day’s work.

When Queen Kelley and I write posts about our daughters, we refer to them as Butterfly and Ladybug. Perhaps you’ve wondered why the nicknames. Well, it’s a good question and I’m glad you’ve asked.

Butterfly goes through her days fluttering from one project to the next. She lights on one activity just long enough to rest her wings and then moves on to something else. In just over three years, we’ve watched her transform from a small baby into a beautiful little girl. And just like a butterfly, we sit back and watch her enjoy her days oblivious to her surroundings. Ladybug crawls happily all over anything she can. And if you turn away for a second, she’s climbing up a window. Her “flights” are much shorter and sporadic than her older sister’s, but she still takes them and enjoys them. (Not to mention, she just loves the little critters.)

In reality, my words for my daughters are never as poetic as I intend, nor do they display all of the emotion that swirls in my mind when I think of my girls. When we picked nicknames for them, we really wanted something that would describe their personalities….and the above paragraph is about as close as we could come.

Ah, who am I kidding? We’re not that original…the oldest is daughter’s room is decorated with (take a guess…) butterflies and the youngest with (this one might surprise you…) ladybugs. And truth be told, we never call the girls these nicknames except in blog-world.

So why such silly reasons for such silly names that we never use? Because I’m an over-protective father. That’s also why you’ll never see pictures of the girls on our sites. If you know us, then you’ve seen the girls and we probably pester you with e-mails every week proclaiming their cuteness. If you don’t know us then your imagination should suffice…not to mention that your life must be really dull if you’re keeping up with my blog. (seriously…you need a hobby. Try zorbing)

Does the insanity stop there? Oh no…..If I’m not right beside my girls, I’m usually keeping an eye on them from a distance. Some parents are comfortable letting their children run free and mingle with others….not me. I don’t let them color with sharp crayons….I actually don’t let them color at all because of the risk of paper cuts. Do I let them run with scissors? No. What about drinking liquids from under the sink? Again, I just don’t let my girls have any fun. Why? Because I am an over-protective father…it’s what I do. And because I know that some day a boy will come by the house to take one of the girls on a date. And when that day comes, I’ll need all of the sharp objects and poisonous liquids at my disposal for his “interview.” Let this be a warning to any of you three year olds out there reading this blog who may be thinking of asking my daughter out…

While I’m on a rant about commercials, let me hit Toyota again -

Did you see it? At about the 7 second mark, down at the bottom there was the disclaimer:

Professional Driver and Structure. Do Not Attempt.

So let me get this straight, the whole point of this giant see-saw is to show me how awesome and powerful the towing capacity of this vehicle is. Not to mention the superb braking ability that is demonstrated on the flip side.

You mean to tell me that If I just happen to have a giant see-saw in my back yard, I can’t go play this game with my Tundra? Hey, what is the point of showing me that I have these capabilities if I’m NEVER SUPPOSED TO USE THEM?! I sure feel sorry for some of my friends who have ginormous see-saws sitting in their back yard…