My So Called Life

To car wash or not to car wash, that is the question

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I used to wash my car. Nothing fanatical, but just every once in a while I would give it the old once over. I always felt vaguely anxious about needing a car wash, because I never really knew exactly how often I was supposed to be doing it. It sure seemed like my dad was always washing the car growing up. On the other hand, it never seemed to make much of a difference, so I didn’t completely see the point (unless I needed it to rain, har har har!)

As the years went by, I went longer and longer in between car washes, until eventually I just stopped washing the car altogether. It has now been at least 10 years since I’ve washed my car. And here’s the thing: nobody noticed.

Seriously!

I don’t have any rust, and my car doesn’t look any dirtier than anybody else’s car. In fact, the reason this came up was because my car was parked next to my mom’s which had been recently washed, and they looked almost identical as far as the dirt was concerned. You wouldn’t have been able to guess which one had been washed last week, and which one hadn’t been washed for 10 years.

I’m sure at some point I’ll get rust, etc. on my car, but then I would say, “Well, the car is 12 years old, what do you expect?” My car has not sustained any more deterioration than anybody else’s. In fact, it might have sustained less. We were talking about this at work, and other people said, “but I wash mine all the time and the tailpipe already rusted off!” Maybe my dirt actually protects my car!

So here’s the question, to wash or not to wash? If there’s no noticeable difference, why do the work? Is there something I haven’t thought about?

Boys Only!

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Sara and Evie are off camping tonight, so Ollie and I are having a “no girls allowed” night. So far that includes steaks, soccer, and dressing up like fairies.

You know, all the things you can do when women aren’t around to judge you.

A day in the life

/ Shane / Leave a comment

This is the email I sent to Sara today about how our day was going. I think it provides you with a little slice of life on a typical Friday:

from:  Shane
to:  Sara
date:  Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 2:45 PM
subject:  what a day

My oh my.

There’s tons of tie dye stuff left, you can dye to your hearts content tonight. We didn’t do any roving, and there’s that other yarn you had. I’m not so sure about the yarn we did do, so we’ll see how it comes out. I think the 3 main things are going to come out awesome though. Evie really had a good time, Ollie did too but then he got tired of it by the time we were on to socks.

There was an art festival in the park in Oak Park, so we ate lunch and then walked around there. Ollie was getting a little tired, but he had a blast in the toy store. We were there for quite a while. I was a little disappointed in their selection for kids Evie’s age. They specialize in baby toys, and then they had some science kits and stuff for older kids, but not a lot in between. Plus they’re so expensive!! There were a lot of things out of evie’s range, but I thought $25 was pretty good for a toy store! I  guess not. There wasn’t really anything that I would have pushed for her to get. There were some cool things for older kids though.

Anyway, I let Evie give them the coupon and everything and they were like, “Is this for your birthday??” and made a big deal about it. So that was nice. She was really proud and she hugged her thing all the way home. She’s working on it now (it’s like a sleeping beauty book that you put sparkly stickers on…lovely, as you can imagine).

Meanwhile, Oliver took a massive smelly dump in his underwear and I had nothing else to put on him.

The end.

Ah, a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Mr. Halbach, you talk too much

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I talk too much.

I know this, because everyone all day long likes to make jokes about how much I talk. Oh, we do have a laugh, don’t we? You guys are *so funny*! Seriously though, I know I talk too much, so I try to be self-aware about it. I make an effort not to dominate conversations, but I realize that I still do it anyway. I just can’t seem to help it. I don’t think I’m one of those people who just likes to hear himself talk, but maybe everybody thinks that, even people who just like to hear themselves talk. I just get really excited about things. When you share a story, I think of a similar story that I want to tell you. When I see something funny or interesting, I want to tell you all about it. And I don’t want to leave out any of the important details along the way because that’s what makes the story so hilarious!

The thing is, I hate being trapped by people who just keep telling you stories and don’t let you escape. I hate it! But I have to seriously consider the case that I’m unwittingly doing that to other people. Furthermore, I suspect that it might not be so much of a problem at the moment (although I don’t think I’m in any position to judge that), but I worry about what it will be like when I’m older.

In fact, I even trap myself with stories sometimes. Specifically, there are times when I really want to get off the phone, but I just can’t help but add *one last story* that you made me think of…for hours at a time. There’s always one last story.

I’ve thought to myself, “Well, if you feel like you have so much to say, why not just write more blog posts? Then you can say your fill and people don’t have to get trapped by it.” It doesn’t seem to work that way. #1, there are so many more things I have to say than I have time enough to type them, #2, I realize a lot of the things I have to say are trivial and not really worth writing down, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to say them, and #3, I have to say these things when they come up, in the context of the conversation. It would make no sense to spew them out randomly on the Internet.

I don’t know, I guess it’s like a disease that I will always have my whole life, that I will always have to be mindful of. So consider this a preemptive (or belated) apology, and please find a way to let me know if I’m doing this. Sara’s not shy about letting me know (as often as possible), but she’s not always around.

Confessions of a newly minted coffee addict

/ Shane / 3 Comments

For most of my life, I never drank coffee. My dad drinks the stuff like it was water (or not, because he’d never drink that much water), but I always thought it was vaguely gross. Sure, I’d have a super-triple-caramel-mocchaccino-ice-cream-chocolate-chip-madness from the local coffee shop now and again, but that hardly counts, right?

English: A photo of a cup of coffee. Esperanto...

Back in 2009 we got a Keurig coffee maker, and that began the long downward slide. I liked the Keurig, but eventually the economies of volume won out: our tiny model only made one cup at a time, and it just wasn’t cutting it anymore, not to mention those little k-cups were getting expensive. Combine that with Sara’s discovery and embracing of cold brewed coffee (she has forsaken regular coffee completely), the little Keurig was sent packing after a few short years in favor of a little 4 cup pot.

Fast forward another couple of months, and I started drinking coffee at work. Just a cup at 2 or so, right when the day kind of hits that afternoon lull. It wasn’t just the caffeine though, “going to get coffee” is the social equivalent of hanging out at the water cooler, where I both find out what’s going on in the world and also get some of my best design ideas. Of course, they don’t have decaff at work or any of the nice coffee I buy myself at home, so it took some getting used to. I got used to it.

De-caffeinated coffee is more expensive than regular, so I started buying some caffeinated stuff for home and mixing it in with my decaff in the morning. I also started going on the regular “ten o’clock coffee run” for a little conversation in the morning, despite the fact that I just finished my travel mug on the way in to work. Did I mention my work coffee mug is a little bigger than a regular cup? I’m still using cream and sugar, but if I didn’t have it, I could now see myself drinking a cup anyway, something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

Then, the other day I was at home and I just didn’t happen to make any coffee. That night I got a terrible caffeine-withdrawal headache, which caused me to re-examine my life. I’m an addict! How did I turn into a raving coffee lunatic? Didn’t I make an effort to remove caffeine from my life once before (wow, was that really 4 years ago)?

After the day of the headache, I vowed to cut back, maybe drink more tea instead (de-caffeinated tea of course). But I haven’t. Coffee is just too dang good! And short of bringing my own coffee to work (and who wants to be that guy?) I get what I get if I go down to the pot.

So when you see me smashing a store window to steal coffee money, just remember where I started from before I turned into a wretched coffee addict.