My So Called Life

Good Weekend / Bad Weekend

/ Shane / 6 Comments

We had a really good weekend. And yet, we also had a really bad weekend. It’s funny though, because this bad stuff kept happening, but somehow it didn’t really ruin anything.

On Friday, I went outside to take the kids to the library, and I found out I had a really low tire. I have a compressor, so I put air in and went to the library, no problems. However, when I got home, as soon as I opened the car door, I could hear the air coming out. It was pretty loud, in fact, you could hear it all the way up to our back door. The tire had gotten wet from melting snow, so you could pinpoint the source of the leak pretty easily. However, we didn’t really need the car anymore on Friday, and on Saturday I got it repaired for $15. No real life disruption whatsoever!

Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of our trouble.

Saturday morning, Sara was using the microwave, and it was acting funny. As she demonstrated it for me and we played with it, starting and stopping it, the power to the microwave suddenly went out. This was followed shortly by the stove, and then later by the refrigerator.

What I know now is that something in the wall came loose, causing a small electrical fire (which I smelled at the time, but assumed was the microwave). Since the microwave was on, it fed back power to the stove, frying the control module and all the outlets on that circuit. The refrigerator is on a separate circuit, but they share a common ground (which is apparently common, and correct), which blew out the outlets on that circuit, but did not fry the refrigerator.

The whole thing is very frightening! From what the electrician said, it was just a random thing that could have happened anytime, anywhere. Luckily, there wasn’t too much damage. We have to pay for the electrical repair, a new microwave, and a repair for the stove. But it’s not as pricey or disruptive as a house fire, that’s for sure!

In fact, it didn’t even disrupt our plans for the day! We went ice skating.

Neither Sara and I are ice skaters. I think I’ve gone 2 or 3 times in my life, and I mostly remember them as being full of pain and humiliation. I was going for Evie’s sake, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it. As it turned out, I was something of a natural! I never fell a single time, and after the first time around the rink I was passing people, skating around people, doing triple lutzes, etc.

Nobody was more surprised about that than I was. I don’t know if it was just because I was trying it for the first time as an adult, or if it is because one time I had this awesome dream about ice skating and when I woke up I knew I could totally ice skate.

Even Sara ended up skating. She wasn’t even going to come, originally. After Oliver woke up from his nap, she ended up coming over to take some pictures. Finally, she ended up borrowing Ron’s skates, and we took a turn around the ice! I was really glad about that, it was a lot of fun. A mom even commented how nice it was to go skating with your sweetheart. Awww! And even despite that comment, I think Sara had a good time.

Now I’m kind of jazzed to go again. We live close to a skating rink that only costs $6 for skate rental (no charge for skating), so we’ve kind of been wasting the opportunity. Evie didn’t like it at first, but she went around a few times anyway and was disappointed when it was time to go home. Her two favorite parts were 1) the hot chocolate, and 2) in an attempt to make her laugh to keep her from getting frustrated, I called her “scissor legs” which she found endlessly hilarious.

The other big highlights of the weekend were teaching Evie how to play and then actually playing a rousing game of sardines around the house, and the most elaborate game of Wizard of Oz I could imagine. There were costumes and scene changes. Since my mom more or less knows the movie line by line, it was very specific. I have a bad feeling we will be reproducing this one for a long time to come (and with Evie, that means doing everything EXACTLY THE SAME as the first time).

So it was the worst weekend in a long time, in terms of bad things happening. But when I look back on the weekend, I only remember it being a good weekend! Not too shabby!

How the Boxcar Children led me to the Zombie Apocalypse

/ Shane / 1 Comment

When I was little, I loved the book The Boxcar Children. I’m talking the original book here, not the 700 books that came later in the series, where they were solving mysteries and fighting Nazis and what have you.

There was something I just loved about these kids living in this boxcar, making a go of it. They’d scavenge things from the junkyard and modify them to make their life a little more comfortable. I remember how it blew my mind when they made a little refrigerator by putting their milk in a little cave under the creek. It was awesome. I loved it.

For me, the zombie apocalypse is like a modern day Boxcar Children. It’s the ultimate you’re-on-your-own scenario. It’s imagining how you could adapt things to a different use. How you could carve out your own little comfortable castle in the middle of the chaos. It’s the ultimate exercise in self-sufficiency.

In fact, I think they should redo the whole book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies style. The children hiding out in their boxcar while the zombies groan outside, scratching out a living until Mr. Henry comes and whisks them away to his island compound.

This would fit so perfectly, that I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t the original intention of the book. It was originally published in 1924, so zombie books probably weren’t quite so common back then. But even as a kid, I could read between the lines.

Boxcar fortress. Zombies. Think about it.

When I was a Younger Lad

/ Shane / 2 Comments

When I was but a younger lad,
Much time was spent, much fun was had,
I wasn’t grown, not yet a dad,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.

When I was a lad of twenty and two,
I’ll tell you now what I would do,
I’d watch football the whole day through,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.

When breakfast time it came to eat,
Pop-tarts and diet coke, so sweet,
Potato chips, my day’s complete,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.

When I was young I slept ’till noon,
To my alarm I was immune,
I wish I could repeat this soon,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.

This is, like, the end

/ Shane / 8 Comments

I have a bit of a problem. I can’t stop saying like.

This is not a new problem. I don’t know exactly when it started, but it hasn’t been less than 8 years or so. It has been going on for so long, and it is so ingrained in my speech, that I don’t even notice myself saying it. And it’s not the first time that I’ve tried to quit either. Refraining from saying it seems like an *impossible* task.

Now let me just say that nearly all of my uses of the word like do serve a purpose. I did start off by saying them intentionally. I can usually justify it’s usage. (I was sure I wrote a blog post defending my usage of the word like, but I couldn’t find it. I even knew the title! But it turns out it was actually Meg who wrote the post, with inputs from me, which you can read on her blog here.) So I don’t really object to the word per say. It’s more just the frequency and the fact that I don’t notice my use of it that bothers me.

But the big problem is that Evie has now picked up the habit. As disturbing as it is to hear myself using like with such frequency, it is 100 times more disturbing to hear her do it.

So I’m trying to quit, but it is not going well. Sara is pointing out every time I use the word. It is absolutely maddening!! I’m hoping that it drives me crazy enough that I will actually think about saying like BEFORE I say it (and before I kill her). Right now I’m to the stage where I notice it after I say it, when it’s too late to do anything about it.

One idea I had was to substitute something else instead of the word like. I decided on ‘for all intents and purposes’. For example, “It’s like the pot holders don’t even fit.” becomes, “For all intents and purposes, the pot holders don’t fit.” Simple right?

Sara even authorized me to substitute ‘fricken’. Although that would not be a great habit either, she maintains it would be fricken less annoying.

Pontiac, we the American people owe you an apology

/ Shane / 4 Comments

The other day, Sara and I were looking at the car in front of us. At first I didn’t really think anything about it. Then I noticed that it was a Pontiac Aztek.

This was the dreaded Aztek. One of the 50 worst cars of all time. Nay, one of the 50 worst INVENTIONS of all time! The Telegraph rated it as the #1 ugliest car of all time. And here I was looking right at it, and I didn’t even really notice.

I think this is due to the rise of the “crossover” vehicle, the cross between a car and an SUV. The interesting thing is that the Aztec was out from 2001 – 2005, and crossover vehicles got big in 2006. Coincidence? Or did the Aztek pave the way for the crossovers? Could it have been ahead of its time?

The thing is, I remember the Aztek as being SO UGLY. But it’s not anymore. Now when I look at it, I just see a regular old car. For example:

Pontiac Aztek

Ford Edge

Yeah, they’re different, but they’re not THAT different (I just pulled the Ford Edge out of a hat, I didn’t try to find one that was specifically similar to the Aztek. I’m sure I could have found a closer example if I would have spent time on it.) And crossovers account for about 22% of all vehicle sales (it was hard to find a good, solid number on that. The one I found was from GM).

So I think it’s time to admit we were all wrong, and Pontiac was right. I guess it really wasn’t THAT ugly. Sorry about making you the object of public ridicule and eventually putting you out of business. I guess it’s small consolation now, but you were right about crossovers after all.

-The American People