Today is my birthday!

I'm now 32 years old. I woke up with a headache. Is this a shadow of the fun of getting older?



We are in the middle of "Crazy Week" in my family. Of course, Festivus is around the 23rd, Christmas is on the 25th. My son Aaron's birthday is on the 27th, mine on the 28th, and My daughter Savannah's birthday is tomorrow, the 29th. Then we have New Year's eve only two days later. Crazy Week! I am taking most of the week off work. Mostly because there is not a lot to do with most people taking the week off, and also because I really wanted the week off.



So Happy Holidays to everybody, and Happy Birthday to all us Capricorns!

I love Craigslist!

I love Craigslist. I keep an RSS feed for the "Free Stuff" category in my bookmarks toolbar in Safari and Firefox. At any point in the day, people that have extra stuff that is too nice to throw away, but they have no use for, put it up on Craigslist free for the taking.

Many of the things there are scams, but the Craigslist community kills them rather quickly.

Here is a list of some of the things posted on Craigslist in the "Free Stuff" category in the past two or three days:

• 2 pairs of ski boots, bindings, and poles. Mens size 10, Womens size unknown
• 8 cookie tins are yours for the taking.
• I have the following 3 pieces of heavy steel pipe, I guess its used for conduits or something like that. It has been sitting outside, but I think it is still good, just want to get rid of it:
• I have 2 pairs of excellent condition jeans if you would like them. Just to small for me now .......... its a sad thing..lol
• anyone wanting horse manure for gardens, flower beds, etc
• I have an older heavy duty stationary tub that I replaced with a single tub.
• Hey, I trying to get rid of a dining room table round without the leaf but in good shape and some moving boxes.
• Free Dirt....(you haul)

A veritable treasure trove of junk! I have personally partaken in both sides of the freebie transaction. I've given away a 19" color TV that I didn't want crowding my house any more. Some college student from Kent State took it.

I've also enjoyed the take side of the equation too. I've grabbed:

• An antique dresser that I'm just finishing the repairs on. I'll try to post some pics or something of this. The hardware on this thing was dated 1877, so this piece is pretty old, and is really well built.
  
• A box of 700 Legos!
• A huge bag of girl's clothes for my daughter. About 90% of them were really nice and will fit her next year.

So thanks to the people at Craigslist for making a place where I can dump things that I don't want anymore, and where I can snag some free stuff that other people are glad to get rid of.

Truly, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Happy Festivus!

We celebrated Festivus for the first time last night.

"What is this Festivus?" you may ask.

Well, Festivus is a wonderful alternative to Christmas, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, or any other year-end holiday. The most beautiful part about Festivus is that there is no pressure. Celebrating Festivus is easy!

We did it like this:

1: We erected a Festivus Pole. It consisted of a five-foot tall 2x2 piece of wood, with a plywood base. I painted it with black automotive primer, and flat black spray paint. No decorations are necessary, and decorating the Festivus Pole is actually frowned upon.

2: We danced around the pole. We chanted "Happy Festivus, Happy Festivus" over and over until we were sick of doing it.

3: The Airing of Grievances. One by one, we placed our hand on the Festivus Pole and told each other how they have disappointed us in the past year. I told my two-year-old how she disappointed me by continuing to poop in her diaper, rather than in the toilet. I told my wife how disappointed I am in the fact that my coffee is no longer ready for me in the morning.

4: Feats of Strength. My brother Mark and I thumb wrestled to prove our strength. He accused me of cheating to beat him, but it meant nothing because the Airing of Grievances was past. He then was so frustrated that he grabbed me and threw me to the ground. With a little help from the kids, however, he was pinned to the ground, and Festivus was officially over.

Overall, our first Festivus was a great event. Lots of laughs, and memories. We plan to either purchase, or make an aluminum Festivus pole for next year.

Until next year, Happy Festivus!!

Lowes privacy invasion

Thanks to one of my children, I found myself at Lowes this evening shopping for a length of copper pipe to fix a leak in my basement. I found what I was looking for easily enough, and proceeded to check out. Normally, I prefer to check out with a human as my cashier, but tonight I had two small items, with UPC codes clearly marked on them, so I decided to be adverturous and use the self-service checkout isle.

For those outside of the US, or for those fortunate not to have to deal with these things, a self-checkout is a computer that you interact with, and run your purchase across a scanner that reads the UPC code on the package. You then must bag the purchase, and either feed cash, check, or a credit card into it. It will then spit out change, and a receipt and wish you a good day.

Should be simple, right? Wrong.

About 50% of the time, you end up with the machine in some sort of crisis, and a real person must come over and clear the error, and take care of the transaction themselves.

Well, tonight I saw a screen on the machine that I never saw before, right before it asked me for my money. "More information is required to complete this transaction. Please input your phone number". Of course there was a nice bug touch screen ready for me to comply with this robot's command, and divulge my home phone number. Well, being a self-respecting member of the society that actually gives a care about it's privacy, I searched and found a small "Decline" button, which brisked me to the "Complete Transaction" screen.

I said to myself, "Surley, nobody in their right mind would just give out their phone number. They must all know that this will lead to telemarketers bothering them during dinner". Well, never underestimate the power of ignorance. The prople that were in line right behind me saw that screen, and gleefully forked over the number to the robot.

The moral of this story: always look for the "Decline" button, and always say "I'd rather not give that information out" when asked by somebody for your personal information when they have no real need for it.

Another Southpaw!

I'm a life-long lefty (Obviously ;-), and I notice that leftys always notice other leftys. It is just one of the perks of being a Southpaw.

I was reading a Captain Marvel comic tonight, and noticed something. Billt Batson is a Southpaw too! He was throwing a baseball, and sure enough, the mitt was on his right hand. I really doubt that a righty would have bothered to notice if he was a Northpaw (is that even a word?), but we leftys have the inate ability to notice those things without even trying to look for them.

So, if there was even a doubt if life was better writing with your left hand, just think of it this way: the World's Mightiest Mortal, Captain Marvel, a.k.a Shazam is one of us. Every other superhero is lesser than him, and most of them are right-handed.

A Michael Moore Christmas.

Where is everybody?

This is the week before Christmas.

Normally, when I drive to the office at abot 8:00, the roads are jammed with people making their way to work, but not the past two days. At 8:15, I was able to drive 75mph through the (normally) busiest parts of Akron, and the traffic looked like it was a Saturday morning. It seems like most of the workforce has taken this entire week off work, and from the few emails that I am getting returned, I think that's true.

The nice part is that the police don't seem to be anywhere on the highways either. I can comfortably drive at 75, and not be sweating the po-po giving me a performance award. This morning was especially fun. I just (legally) downloaded an album by a band named "Children of Bodom". They play very fast, and the music was a blast to drive to.

Friday is supposed to be 51 degrees and sunny. I may not be able to resist riding my bike to work that day, provided I come to work on the Friday before Christmas weekend.

Modern rock is so lame.

Modern rock is so lame. I gave it about 30 minutes today, and I felt like I needed to take a shower after being slimed by all the foo-foo guitar riffs, and sissy lyrics.

92.3FM knows the modern music scene is weak, so that is why they need to alternate every other song with something recorded in the early to late 90's. Back when rock music had some teeth.

There is this band out now called "The Killers". OK, that sounds ike a pretty hard core rock band, right? You'd think that they would be able to lay down some "Face melting" guitar solos (thank you Jack Black) with a name like that. Right? Wrong! They were the most girly-sounding bunch of femme guys I heard today.

I really want to be a fan of popular music put out today, but all the new, popular bands stink. Indie bands are really putting out some great music, and that is where my tastes are going. After I was finished punishing my ears, I had to purge them with some Nirvana.

What I did Saturday morning

I placed a geocache today in downtown Akron. I've wanted to place an urban cache for some time now, and after a meeting downtown, I found a great little spot. I waited until I emptied an Altoids tin, then after a meeting on Saturday morning, I swung by and documented it.



I waited until Saturday because there is usually a lot of people walking around the area, and I didn't want to have people watching me hide it.



I'm concerned that when people go out to find the cache, they will be seen, and somebody will go mess with it, or trash it.



I also put a travel bug in the cache to prompt some quick action on it.

One of the worst parts about being a motorcyclist

So I rode my st1100 to work yesterday. It was going to be about 50* and sunny, and I just couldn't resist anymore since I know those days will be hard to come by in the next couple of months. The ride was a bit cold, and my hair looked like a disaster on all my appointments, but people generally think its cool to have a sales guy ride his bike for a meeting.

So you may be asking "What is the bad part you mentioned, James?"

Here's how it goes:

Them: Wow, nice motorcycle!

Me: Thanks! I love riding it. (At this time, I'm zipping up my armored Aerostitch riding suit, and buckling my helmet.

Them: Yeah, I could never ride one though.

Me: Oh, really? (Thinking, here we go again....)

Them: Yeah, I had a friend (or uncle, brother, cousin, aunt, aquaintence, or somebody) that had a bike, and he got in a really bad accident. He got cut off (of course it is NEVER the rider's fault in these stories) by a cement truck and ran into the back of it. That broke his ribs and punctured his lung. Then he was thrown off a cliff by the car behind him. Then a semi-truck ran over both his legs and arms. Then a ninja jumped out of the bushes and broke his nose.

Me: (thinking, "Is this thing almost over?")

Them: So my friend (or whoever) is stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and has to eat through a tube. (Or they tell you how they ended up dying a gruesome death).

Me: Thats too bad.

Them: Now the entire family hates motorcycles. Have a safe ride, James!

Me: Thanks..... (as I hop on my bike and think "What an idiot")


So, why is it that people feel so compelled to tell you these horrible crash stories when they see you have a bike? Do they think you'll appreciate them for it? Do they think you really want to hear it? When people see somebody climbing into a pickup truck, why don't they run over there and tell the person how their brother got in an accident in his pickup truck, and ended up dead?

A bit too short!

This is a tough one to watch....

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