You don't have to be an electrical engineer to find these funny, but it helps.
Cribbed from Toothpaste For Dinner:
Archive for August, 2008
A Beautiful Thing
The sun. The sand. The smile on my daughter's face as a wave bowls her over and she rises, soaking but triumphant, from the ocean's spray and asks, once again, if I'll hold her hand so she can get out to the REALLY big waves.
These are the things I'll remember from our beach trip this year…
Coffee Consumption Can Prevent Car Damage
Hope that post title caught your attention! It's true. And if you're skeptical, just read on.
This morning I made an unscheduled trip to my local Dunkin' Donuts for a heart-clogging treat breakfast sandwich & coffee. The drive-through line appeared a bit shorter than the mass of people inside clamoring for sustenance of the sugary sort, so I decided to remain in my automobile and continue listening to my podcast of Spider on the Web. There were about four cars in front of me waiting to spout orders to the faceless speaker box that consistently garbles my orders, but the one that drew my attention was the one just before me in line – a black sporty Saturn coupe.
The woman within was obviously in a hurry – I mean, after all, who else would simultaneously be applying makeup, talking on a cell phone, AND honking their horn at the car ahead of them (indicating it should move up to close the half-car gap between it and the car in front of it)? I guess the guy in the old piece-of-crap car decided she was in a hurry, too, and that she deserved to take his spot. Because he backed up, bumping squarely into her front bumper, and then pulled out around the other cars in line, apparently intent on leaving the line and presumably, the lot.
As you might expect, Ms. Patience took umbrage to this action, and peeled out after the beater, honking her horn incessantly to flag him down. Whether she planned to extract revenge with a pair of tweezers or a call to her lawyer I could not say, but the look of determination on her face as she zipped around the building made me sure she would achieve her goal, whatever it was.
A movement in my rear-view mirror caught my eye and I looked back to see Mr. Fed-Up circle around and pull into a handicapped spot at a diagonal, Ms. Patience hot on his heels. She pulled her car up behind him so the nose of her car was blocking him in, and started lowering her window to give him a piece of her mind. What she planned to say next was quickly driven from her mind as she watched Mr. Fed-Up put his car into reverse, back up directly into the front corner of her car hard enough to make both cars rock on their wheels, and then pull in more-or-less straight into one of the parking spots.
It was at this point that the two participants in this little automobile ballet got out of their cars and confronted each other. I paused long enough to make sure they were going to interact verbally instead of physically, and just about the time I saw Ms. Patience get on her phone to call the police, I had to pull forward (and out of line-of-sight) in order to give my own breakfast order.
I made sure to circle the building once more after I got my food a few minutes later, checking to make sure that neither one was going to go postal on the other. Ms. Patience had pulled into another parking space and was sitting patiently, waiting for the police. Mr. Fed-Up appeared to have gone inside, probably thinking that if he had to sit around waiting for the police to show up, he might as well do it with a coffee & donut in hand. I hope he bought an extra half-dozen for the responding officer(s) – it probably wouldn't help his case any, but at least it wouldn't hurt it.
As I drove off, I couldn't help but think about how strong the addiction to caffeine can be. Before their morning cuppa joe, most people are sleepy, irate, dazed, slow, or depressed, and more often than not, all of the above. And then, I wonder just how many accidents or attacks of road rage like the one I experienced this morning could have been easily avoided with the judicious application of a decent cup of Maxwell House.
BBC Sport Monkey
For all the monkey lovers out there -
Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy head on a "Journey to the East" for BBC Sport this summer.
This animated sequence, based on the classical Chinese novel, "Journey to the West", has been produced by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, the men behind virtual band Gorillaz.
It will feature on TV, radio, web and mobile, introducing coverage of the Games on BBC Sport – the Olympic broadcaster in the UK.
Papercraft CD Case
An oldie-but-goodie, here's an easy way to make your own paper CD case for that loose CD you've got sitting around. I've used this a number of times when I've been at the office and just needed something quick-and-simple to keep a disc separated from the random crap that seems to float across my desk. Might also be fun for gifts, as you can decorate 'em any way you want after you fold them…
OK, This Time I’m POSITIVE the Calendar is Broken
It's that time of year again! (And no, I'm not speaking of my annual car-wash, that comes in September). I'm talking about my birthday! Which is today! And has been great so far, in spite of the fact that it's a Monday, and I'm at work! And this post really doesn't need all these exclamation marks!
So as of this morning, I can refer to myself as "Just shy of 30", or, when I'm feeling all of my 29 years, as "Not Yet 30!" Last year, I wrote a post about all the things that had happened in my life since my previous birthday. I thought it was such a good idea I decided to make it an annual blog post. Even though this year might not measure up to the extremely busy nature of that previous year, it's still one worth looking back on and remembering all the good (and not so good) things that happened.
Over the past year I:
-
Sat at my wife's side while she had a c-section and brought our 2nd daughter into the world
- Spent 5 weeks in Pune, India doing a system checkout for work
- Saw a severe drop-off in amount of blog posts I've written (mostly due to dealing with 2 kids now, but procrastination and laziness have had their toll on my posting schedule, too)
- Began running again
- Stopped running again
- Began running again (ok, ok, I know I need to keep this up – it's just been so HOT outside lately!)
- Read some good books
- Joined the local synagogue
- Wrote a sestina
- Attended my first ever NFL football game (ok, it was a preseason game, but still fun)
- Celebrated my other daughter's 3rd birthday and my wife's __th birthday (I have still not been given permission to release this information to the general public)
- Set up a personal website (and then promptly did almost nothing with it for 8 months)
- Took some golf lessons (enough to make me dangerous, I think)
- Took a trip to the UK for work and continued my streak of getting-sick-while-out-of-the-country
- Got my first ever speeding ticket (16 years without a ticket, not bad, eh?)
- Became the Electrical group leader for a new project at work
- Discovered my cholesterol makeup was NOT good, and began diet/medication changes to alter that fact
- Learned how to code for Greasemonkey and made some random scripts for Vox / Twitter
- Booked a trip to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, for January of next year!
- Made an effort to be a better person, husband, and father (and think I've succeeded)
In the coming year I expect I will:
-
Travel here and there for work (but hopefully most of the trips will be in-country and of a shorter duration than they were last year)
- Get behind again on all the home-improvement projects I've got lined up
- Make at least one big fatherhood blunder that everyone will laugh at in hindsight
- Start creating and managing my Homeowners Association website (oy vey, what have I gotten myself into??)
- Spend as much time as humanly possible with my wife and kids
And finally, in the upcoming year I hope to:
- Bring smiles to the faces of every one in my family as often as I can
- Get back into running regularly
- Do a good job as the lead on my project to show everyone that I'm ready for this responsibility
- Start attending more synagogue services
- Get out with the golf clubs occasionally
- Get my cholesterol down without resorting to eating (only) rabbit food
- Continue to post regularly on Vox
- Enjoy every day – Time's a one-way street and I don't want to miss any of the sights along the way
