Shallow Thinker

I wonder if this guy listened to XM radio the whole trip…

A Long Test Drive

The article says that this guy had to be in the car all day every day.  Not to mention that the car must have been fully loaded to cost that much.  Well, at least he was a gentleman!

The human brain is an amazing thing. I’m especially amazed at the ability of the brain to links smells or sounds with memories from many years ago.

Every time I sit in my truck, the smell rushes my mind back to trips to my grandfather’s farm. Most times that trip consisted of my brother, sister, grandfather and I crammed into the cab of the truck with fishing equipment in the back. (I don’t think that would be legal today.)

The smell of a musty old basement reminds me of evenings spent at my other grandparent’s house where my brother and sister and I would run around and explore their piles of junk stuff that they had collected over the years. One time I even found an original Pong game set. (I have since tried to find it again because that would have to be worth some serious money.)

Perhaps the most intense sensory memory I have, though, pertain to my days on the gridiron. Every Friday night as we prepared to face our opponents, the sound system would blare songs to help us get prepared. And right as our pregame drills started to get intense, they would start Right Now by Van Halen and follow it with Welcome to the Jungle by Guns-N-Roses. This ritual became so ingrained into my head that even now when I hear either of these songs, my muscles start to tighten and my eyes begin to glaze over. I start rocking back-and-forth…like an addict needing a hit. (Pun intended) I made the mistake of listening to these songs before a flag football game one time and was immediately tagged with a 15 yard penalty for tackling an opposing player…that hadn’t caught the ball. That’s when I first realized the hold that this song had on my brain. I also realized that some people just aren’t appreciative of a shoulder buried in their spleen.

But sometimes things can erase those lines that are carved so deep into our memory. I recently heard this version of Welcome to the Jungle and I had absolutely no desire to ram my body into a stationary object. I wonder why…

Here is today’s ethical dilemma for you to wrestle with. Tell me what you think…

Back in September, I traded in “The Grey Goose” and got “The Green Goblin.” Keeping the goose was a sacrifice that I made when we needed reliable transportation for our family. I traded in my truck for a minivan, which the wife now drives, and I got her car. So, here we are a few years removed and the wife and I decided that I should have a car that I’m comfortable driving. Well, actually, I decided this and talked the wife into it.

One of the neat features of the Goblin is that it came equipped with XM radio. Now, normally, I probably wouldn’t have cared anything about it, but since it had a 3 month free trial subscription, it didn’t hurt anything to try it out. So, during those three months, my commute was spent exploring the programming and settling on the comedy stations.

The beginning of March is the start of the 6th month of the 3 month free subscription. Here’s the moral question…is it wrong for me to continue utilizing this service that is beyond the 3 month window? Should I call the company and have them turn off the radio? Should I purchase the service? What would you do? Let me know what you think and give some rationale for your decision.

While this isn’t something that the fate of the world hinges on, it does reveal a little bit about one’s character. For instance, if someone is willing to cheat on something as simple as radio, what would they be willing to do in a situation with more gravity?

I look forward to hearing your comments about this. While I wait, I’m going to drive around and listen to more Brian Regan on channel 151.

Apparently, I’m not the only one that has issues with home repairs. Invariably, something goes awry and I spend entirely too long trying to figure out how to keep things from completely falling apart.

Since Saturday was a beautiful day, I though it would be a good time to spend half the day inside trying to mess-up my house in the name of “home improvement”.

We have a toilet downstairs that features a continuous flush mechanism. That’s fancy speak for “it runs all the time.” Nothing better than hearing the toilet randomly flush in the middle of the night. But it has started to flush more and more frequently, so I took advantage of the visit from my in-laws and got to work.

First, I had to pick a new toilet to put in. Apparently, there are 6,473 different styles of toilets. And the colors are insane. I needed an “off-white” to match the other decor in the bathroom. The available selections in this category were bone, alabaster, biscuit, cream, and pearl. WOW! There’s statistically no way for me to make the right choice here.

And then, my father-in-law pointed out something that I failed to notice….I get to pick the performance of this thing. For the environmentally sound, there’s the “efficient” models. However, most households in the south probably utilize the “standard” flush. So two engineers are standing in the aisle of Lowe’s trying to decide on which toilet to get…which do you think we got?

That’s right. We got a “high performance” model. There’s nothing better than feeling of 53 gallons of water surgie through a small bowl in less than 4 seconds. The walls in the house shake, the dishes rattle….yeah, it’s a good flusher.  The sticker on this thing in the store had a picture of a roll of toilet paper and a statement that read “flushes up to 150 feet.” There are a lot of jokes that I could put in this space, but I’m above that type of humor. (Actually, I’m having a hard time picking the best one. Got suggestions?)

But picking the potty was the easy part.  The hard part was putting it in.  2 trips to Lowes, a leaky valve, a low mounting flange, a washer that’s too large, the resulting trim-down with a dremel, 2 extra wax seals, and some left-over pieces later….we have a new toilet installed.  If give it a week before the whole thing falls through the floor.