Ah, holidays. We hardly knew thee.
- I was late for supper on Christmas Eve. By an hour-and-a-half. Whoops.
- The expected niece is no longer "Katelynn." Apparently my brother disliked the nickname "Katie," so he made up "Kelbi." I asked what everyone else was buying her, and apparently .22 rifles and camouflage dresses are actually on the list. The family laughed as a whole when I asked if I'd be the only person buying her books, so I'm taking that as a "yes."
- The Christmas haul was excessive, but at least I didn't have to figure out how to fit four folding chairs into my car this year. Favorite gift? My mother hand-wrote every single one of her recipes into recipe books. Four times. So we'd each get an original. Apparently it was her "a few hours a night while watching tv" project for several weeks.
- I scandalized my family with my artistic nudity portfolio. The majority of the crowd at my grandmother's on Christmas Day thumbed through it. People said they liked it. I think some of them were just being polite because I was standing there, but a couple of my cousins asked for the link to see the rest of the portfolio. Most of my immediate family passed; I think it's weird for them.
- The Chili's in Scottsbluff needs to have its salt privileges taken away. I've discovered that excessive sodium can lead to headaches.
- I toured the farm house of my sister and her husband for the first time. It's within sight of Chimney Rock, which is cool.
- Haley nearly won the Trivial Pursuit game we played at Linde's house (losing by one pie to Linde), despite boldly stating that our neighbor to the north is "Canadia" and London is in France. I earned the "geek award of the night" for knowing the definition of the word "prehensile."
- Haley took me out to an abandoned farm homestead in the Sand Hills to take photos (which are still on the camera). It was a great outing, except for the 8-degree wind chill and the fact we both walked through a cactus patch.
- I visited with my father's parents for a few hours. They're holding up for being in their mid-eighties, but they can't hear each other talk so I nearly ended up with vertigo from trying to carry on two conversations at once.
- I brought magic berry pills for my family. My brother was adamant about not participating, but once I talked him into it he ate most of a lime by himself and asked where to order the pills.
- One of my aunts pulled a used sword scabbard out of a junk pile somewhere and gave it to me for my sword collection. My brother looked at it and, referencing the sword I gave him as a graduation present years ago, said "My sword is *way* too big to fit in that. Mine is huge." I asked him if that was a euphemism, which earned me a blank look and a "what?" in response, accompanied by stifled laughter from the rest of the dinner table.
- Quote from an unnamed family member: "You can't use the shower yet. I have to get my crescent rolls out of the dryer first." (They were, in fact, in the dryer, using the heat from the last laundry cycle to make them rise faster.)
- The trip back was uneventful. I averaged an astounding 47 mpg (unheard of for a 10-year-old non-hybrid car) through careful hypermiling and new tires. I verified (by not stopping for gas) that I can make the entire trip from Oshkosh to Omaha (about 375 miles) on just under 3/4 of a tank (as long as I don't mind a nearly 7-hour drive).
I hope everyone had a peaceful and happy holiday.
Labels: family, haley, holiday, jeff, mom
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Tuesday, December 23
King of the Road
I could whine in large vocabulary about the unplanned expenditure that put four brand-new tires on my car today, but given the incredulous looks I've received from multiple people regarding the state of my old tires, I'm leaning more toward being amused at the value I've squeezed out of the rubber. Apparently, tires have mileage ratings. And people look at you askew when you grumble that your tires only have 107,000 miles on them . . .
(Hey, I still had 3/32nds of tread left!)
Labels: amusement, car
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Sunday, December 21
The Cableless Guy
I'm considering dropping my cable. I made a preliminary audit of my television-watching habits the other day and realized that the only show I specifically plan to watch on television is Atlantis, and it only has two more episodes. Everything else I stream from Hulu or Netflix (or else is just random channel flipping that I wouldn't miss). This was brought into stark relief last week when I was talking about "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" to one of my coworkers and encouraged her to watch an episode; she agreed and asked for the channel and time, and I sat there confused for a moment before saying "Erm, Hulu, whenever it's convenient?". The savings from dropping cable wouldn't be *huge*, but they'd be noticeable.
In furtherance of my cable-pondering, I visited the site of my somewhat-less-than-illustrious cable provider to check on current pricing. The visit did not do much to dispel my disappointment in them . . .
I also like how their premium package is advertised for "large file downloaders" (wink, wink).
Labels: amusement, television
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Friday, December 19
Cathartic Sacrifice
There is something in the sudden awareness of an approaching wave of snow, showered off the street in perfect parabolic arcs by a city plow, reminiscent, in its way, of the movie staple of the car splashing water from a puddle onto a hapless pedestrian, that leads one first to swear and then to laugh at the absurdity as the efforts of an hour of snow shoveling are reburied under three inches of greyish muck.
So I have to shovel again when I get home tonight . . .
Labels: amusement, house
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Thursday, December 18
Means of Transportation
I'm not sure what a serpentine belt is, but apparently in the mechanical world it translates loosely as "about a hundred bucks."
I've also been advised to replace all four tires "in the near future." Saturn offered to do it on the spot for $450; somehow I think I can probably get a better deal somewhere else. It still won't be cheap, but considering how well my car has held up I can't really complain.
I *did* complain a little (to myself, in my car) when the complimentary car wash, combined with 7-degree weather, froze my windshield wipers solid, a fact I didn't discover until I was firmly ensconced in traffic and my application of wiper fluid remained where it was, bordered by two small paths where just the tips of the wipers touched the glass (yay for sudden zero visibility in busy traffic!). Not that I directed the complaint at Saturn; this was just "one of those things."
Labels: car
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Tuesday, December 16
Here There Be Dragons
I'm sincerely hoping none of my family and acquaintances are still using the pox upon humanity known as Internet Explorer (I've installed Firefox on all of my family's computers, so if any of you are using IE you're in big trouble), but if by some odd chance you are,
you need to stop. Now. This is as good a time as any to switch to Firefox (or Safari or Chrome or what have you). Just trust me on this one.
Labels: computers, internet
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Friday, December 12
Who Says Black Friday Is Over?
Labels: amusement
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Thursday, December 11
Sodal Disobedience
A small confession. Whenever I encounter a soda machine with specific instructions on how to orient the proffered currency in order to encourage the machine to accept it (these days most commonly denoted pictorially with a rough little sketch of ol' George facing a specific direction), I always give the bill a 180-degree turn and feed it in backwards. I wonder what that says about my psyche.
For the curious, the machines have always accepted such rebellious offerings and vended my purchase without so much as a glaring eye. I've heard, from others frustrated by the intricate rituals often required to appease the vending gods, that this is an anomaly, but it's one with a surprisingly strong track record.
Labels: amusement, introspection
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Monday, December 8
Math Is Hard, Pt. II
From the great source of timeless wisdom that is the John Tesh radio show (heard on the radio last night):
A recent study found that one third of people have admitted to sending an e-mail or text message to the wrong person. That means that on any given day, 1 out of 3 e-mail or text messages go to the wrong recipient.
Yes, in much the same way that if 75% of people admit to having had chicken pox at some point in their lives, on any given day 3 out of 4 people have chicken pox . . .
A corollary to the above is
another math question that has been popping up on OkCupid for me lately (mostly because my answer differs from most others, and the site for some reason wants me to be aware of that fact):
If "some men are doctors" and "some doctors are tall", does it follow that "some men are tall"?
I'm going to skip the
Venn diagrams and just say that the question is a theoretical problem with no relation to reality (you could swap out "companion cubes" for "men," "nerf herder" for "doctor" and "vorpal" for "tall" if abstract words help to divorce the question from the idea that "of course some men are tall"), and the question only asks if we can prove some men are tall from the information given, not to prove that all men are short. Logic puzzles are funny that way.
Labels: amusement, social commentary
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Friday, December 5
Just Let Me Grab My Credit Card
Behold! The wonders of cheaper airtime! Step right up with money in hand to purchase these products that are so special, so unique, that only people with non-standard sleeping schedules are blessed enough to even be aware of them!
I have to imagine the language is perfectly crafted to avoid the legal pitfalls of product liability or misrepresentation, but I still have to marvel at the audacity of selling
a product that "hydrates" water. The overeager salesman began with run-of-the-mill junk science about the unnamed fluid in the $40 plastic tube sending out "waves" that align the water or some such, allowing it to be more easily absorbed by the body. Standard non-specific claims of "hundreds of studies." A single quote from a peer-reviewed paper on a completely different topic. Blah blah blah. But then to my amazement the man actually claimed that this piece of plastic will help you lose weight because, and I quote, "in my opinion obesity has nothing to do with body fat; it has to do with your body retaining water because it's not getting the right *kind* of water it needs to flush out toxins." Really, diet, exercise and genes have nothing to do with it. It's all bloating. I feel a curious blend of sadness for and disappointment in the people actually taken in by such transparent nonsense as this. I mean, if they're going to propose some "magic" material that changes the physical properties of water, they could at least go all out and use
Ice Nine.
But as though sensing my ire at humanity's failings, the television eagerly cheered me up by showing another infomercial, this time for a product that I can only describe as an easy way for your family to
all buy the same color cult robes . . .
Labels: humanity, social commentary, television
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Wednesday, December 3
Money To Be Made
