Who says Vernal is so far away from population centers that it is behind the times? Well, I may have said that myself once or twice. Actually it's not being remote from population that bothers me, it's being away from the centers. Shopping centers.
The list of things you can't buy in Vernal or anywhere else in the Basin is long and growing. I hesitate to itemize here because as soon as I do, an obscure place to buy those items will be brought to my attention. Wait. That would probably be a good thing.
But back to my original point—Vernal is definitely catching up with somewhere because we now have, right here in “River City,” a modern roundabout. And according to Wikipedia, what we have here is indeed a modern roundabout, which is not the same as circular intersections or spaghetti bowls, both of which have been around for a while.
The first modern roundabout in the U. S. was built in that model city of modernity, Summerlin, Nevada, in 1990. The world's modern roundabouts are particularly common in the United Kingdom, but over half of them are in France which has over 30,000 as of 2008. We have not only caught up with Summerlin, Nevada, but France as well. Sounds like pretty good company to me.
The modern roundabout is safer than the “what's-out” circular intersection because “steps are taken to reduce the speed of traffic, such as adding additional curves on the approaches.” (Wikipedia again.)
In case you have missed Vernal's own roundabout, it is out there in the field behind the new UBATC building. I think it serves to intersect the streets of Main and 2000 West. If you like curves, and who doesn't, you will want to try it out. Just head out south on the new road next to the college.
As you pull up to the intersection, your first visual impression will not be one of curves, but rather of road signs all over the place. Good look with figuring out which ones apply to you. After all, there have to be entrance, exit, roundabout, yield, and street signs times four, plus some speed limit signs which you will want to observe because you do have to make a tight right before you can begin to circle left.
For those of you who missed France, you just keep circling until you find the right place to get off. Of course “drivers may become confused and use roundabouts improperly, especially in areas where roundabouts are uncommon.” You can, however, go around, until you think you know where you want to get off. At some turn it becomes illegal to go round and round the roundabout. I know this because a friend of mine…
If you happen to exit onto Main when you wanted 2000 West, you are on your own. You may have to drive an additional couple of miles to get your car pointed in the right direction.
There are apparently some rules of etiquette that apply to driving in roundabouts, something about which lane to drive in if you are exiting in the first half of the roundabout which is not the same lane you want to be in if you are exiting in the last half of the roundabout.
The rules I did understand are: slow down and use your turn signal when you leave the roundabout. Or I guess it can't hurt too much to drive the way most of us from Utah usually do. Just remember—what goes around, comes around.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Guys are channeled in to run the remote
My daughter keeps telling me that men can't multitask. Of course she can do about seven things at once and do them all well, while her husband is the kind of guy who wants to finish one thing before he moves on to the next.
Usually, I am inclined to agree with her.. After all she can do more things at one time than I can, which makes her an expert of some kind. She could probably run the IRS which is now saddled with more than one task and Medicare besides.
But I want to know how many guys out there are just topting out? Perhaps they insist that they can't watch the cookies in the oven and watch the kids at the same time because they don't want to. One thing I have noticed—and I'm not alone here—is that they are capable of watching more than they admit to.
To prove it, I need only hand a guy the television remote control. Suddenly he can watch up to twenty channels of television at one time. If managing that many programs at once requires two or even three remotes, he is still up to the task. A remote control in the hands of a man is actually quite something to behold.
Men mullti-channel-watch by changing the channel the instant something boring happens, like for instance, two people start to converse. Women on the other hand are tuned in to conversations. They can pick up across a crowded room what a man couldn't hear said on his own TV with the volume at ----19----, simply because they are moving up the channel list faster than the actress can say “I've been meaning to tell you something….” They can punch channel numbers faster than a good stenographer can type “all goo
d men.”
Not only do all women like to hear a good conversation, they want to tune in to only one of them at a time. (Guys, that is what they make DVR for—so o you can record the channels you aren't watching at present, and thereby allow the rest of the family to have a television experience as well.)
Of course the guys in charge of the remotes are over-the-top remote-adept because they practice a lot. In fact there isn't a prayer that another member of the family, regardless of age or gender, will ever catch up in remote skills until he has “control” of his own television. “Control” is the operative word here.
A man with a remote in his hand is a control-freak. However, give him credit; perhaps he doesn't think about control in the sense that he thinks he knows what the rest of us should watch on TV. Instead, I think he has mental images of those twenty channel's incoming signals all zinging toward him at once, and he with his little brown box is able to sort, organize and manage all of them at once, something like catching bullets with his bare hands—no, more like a Ninja fighter brandishing his sword, uh, his clicker.
Women are not wired to produce those sorts of mental images, so they surrender the remote to whomever gets the biggest kick out of controlling it, which is why they themselves never learn to use it.
My problem is that once in a great while, my remote controlling guy is out of range, which leaves me alone with a panoply of remotes that I haven't the faintest how to use. I am working on it though. I bought my own “simple-to-use, big-numbers, glow-in-the-dark universal remote. I have been trying to program it for over a week though.
So, sisters out there, in order to get the guys to watch the cookies and the kids, you are going to need two more remotes. One for the oven and one for the kids. If any of you find a way to get them programmed, remember whose idea it was.
Usually, I am inclined to agree with her.. After all she can do more things at one time than I can, which makes her an expert of some kind. She could probably run the IRS which is now saddled with more than one task and Medicare besides.
But I want to know how many guys out there are just topting out? Perhaps they insist that they can't watch the cookies in the oven and watch the kids at the same time because they don't want to. One thing I have noticed—and I'm not alone here—is that they are capable of watching more than they admit to.
To prove it, I need only hand a guy the television remote control. Suddenly he can watch up to twenty channels of television at one time. If managing that many programs at once requires two or even three remotes, he is still up to the task. A remote control in the hands of a man is actually quite something to behold.
Men mullti-channel-watch by changing the channel the instant something boring happens, like for instance, two people start to converse. Women on the other hand are tuned in to conversations. They can pick up across a crowded room what a man couldn't hear said on his own TV with the volume at ----19----, simply because they are moving up the channel list faster than the actress can say “I've been meaning to tell you something….” They can punch channel numbers faster than a good stenographer can type “all goo
d men.”
Not only do all women like to hear a good conversation, they want to tune in to only one of them at a time. (Guys, that is what they make DVR for—so o you can record the channels you aren't watching at present, and thereby allow the rest of the family to have a television experience as well.)
Of course the guys in charge of the remotes are over-the-top remote-adept because they practice a lot. In fact there isn't a prayer that another member of the family, regardless of age or gender, will ever catch up in remote skills until he has “control” of his own television. “Control” is the operative word here.
A man with a remote in his hand is a control-freak. However, give him credit; perhaps he doesn't think about control in the sense that he thinks he knows what the rest of us should watch on TV. Instead, I think he has mental images of those twenty channel's incoming signals all zinging toward him at once, and he with his little brown box is able to sort, organize and manage all of them at once, something like catching bullets with his bare hands—no, more like a Ninja fighter brandishing his sword, uh, his clicker.
Women are not wired to produce those sorts of mental images, so they surrender the remote to whomever gets the biggest kick out of controlling it, which is why they themselves never learn to use it.
My problem is that once in a great while, my remote controlling guy is out of range, which leaves me alone with a panoply of remotes that I haven't the faintest how to use. I am working on it though. I bought my own “simple-to-use, big-numbers, glow-in-the-dark universal remote. I have been trying to program it for over a week though.
So, sisters out there, in order to get the guys to watch the cookies and the kids, you are going to need two more remotes. One for the oven and one for the kids. If any of you find a way to get them programmed, remember whose idea it was.
Who wrote that note?
No matter how advanced the world of communications has become, there seems to be a constant. The school note, at least for grade schools, is still the principal method of sharing information between teachers and parents.
I am all for written information, but the school note has its drawbacks, the main one being that there is no way for the teacher to know whether the parent actually saw the school note. In fact, there is no way for the parent to know that there actually was a note.
Do you know how many ways there are for a child to lose a note on the way home from school, or even between the classroom and the car? Do you think that a child can even remember whether there was a note?
I remember when notes were pinned to the child's shirt or jacket. That was okay if the child didn't climb any trees on the way home, or take off his jacket, or find a large dog to pet. (Dogs have an affinity for school papers whether they are on their way to school or from it.)
The preferred method of transporting notes these days, I think, is to put notes in the child's backpack or folder, which may be slightly more effective than using carrier pigeon. Who knows?
Not only is there a communication gap when notes don't get from school to home and back again, but there is also a gap when one or the other of the parties doesn't write what they mean or has forgotten what they learned in school, including how to spell, thereby leaving some notes open to multiple translations.
Here are a few of the kind that children bring to school that I have read online. You can decide for yourself whether they were written by a parent of a student.
“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip. “
“Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the runs.” At least this parent knows what he doesn't know.
“Dear School: Please exscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”
Speaking of excuses, sometimes the notes coming home from school have some issues with spelling and grammar as well. which is to say the least, inexcusable. And then, there is the content of some of the notes themselves which leads parents to wonder “who is thinking what at that school?”
A friend of my daughter's got a note from school last week informing her that this last Wednesday was school picture day and that the photographer's backdrop for the pictures was going to be green, so the children should wear any color but green for their pictures. My friend's little girl cried for two days because she wasn't going to be able to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.
Now I'll be the first to admit that St. Patrick's Day is about the biggest non-holiday there is, but there aren't any other appreciable holidays in the month of March, and who knows what holiday a kid is going to appreciate.
Another mother I know was presented with a two-paragraph note from school that went something like this:
“There have been a few cases of head lice among some students at our school. Please carefully observe patterns of cleanliness at home and don't allow your children to share personal items so that we may be able to minimize the chances of an outbreak at our school.”
The second paragraph of the same note reminded parents that the following day was “pillow and pajama day” and that the children could participate by wearing their pajamas and bringing their pillows to school.
I am all for written information, but the school note has its drawbacks, the main one being that there is no way for the teacher to know whether the parent actually saw the school note. In fact, there is no way for the parent to know that there actually was a note.
Do you know how many ways there are for a child to lose a note on the way home from school, or even between the classroom and the car? Do you think that a child can even remember whether there was a note?
I remember when notes were pinned to the child's shirt or jacket. That was okay if the child didn't climb any trees on the way home, or take off his jacket, or find a large dog to pet. (Dogs have an affinity for school papers whether they are on their way to school or from it.)
The preferred method of transporting notes these days, I think, is to put notes in the child's backpack or folder, which may be slightly more effective than using carrier pigeon. Who knows?
Not only is there a communication gap when notes don't get from school to home and back again, but there is also a gap when one or the other of the parties doesn't write what they mean or has forgotten what they learned in school, including how to spell, thereby leaving some notes open to multiple translations.
Here are a few of the kind that children bring to school that I have read online. You can decide for yourself whether they were written by a parent of a student.
“Please excuse Roland from P.E. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip. “
“Please excuse Pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the runs.” At least this parent knows what he doesn't know.
“Dear School: Please exscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.”
Speaking of excuses, sometimes the notes coming home from school have some issues with spelling and grammar as well. which is to say the least, inexcusable. And then, there is the content of some of the notes themselves which leads parents to wonder “who is thinking what at that school?”
A friend of my daughter's got a note from school last week informing her that this last Wednesday was school picture day and that the photographer's backdrop for the pictures was going to be green, so the children should wear any color but green for their pictures. My friend's little girl cried for two days because she wasn't going to be able to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.
Now I'll be the first to admit that St. Patrick's Day is about the biggest non-holiday there is, but there aren't any other appreciable holidays in the month of March, and who knows what holiday a kid is going to appreciate.
Another mother I know was presented with a two-paragraph note from school that went something like this:
“There have been a few cases of head lice among some students at our school. Please carefully observe patterns of cleanliness at home and don't allow your children to share personal items so that we may be able to minimize the chances of an outbreak at our school.”
The second paragraph of the same note reminded parents that the following day was “pillow and pajama day” and that the children could participate by wearing their pajamas and bringing their pillows to school.
March Madness with Bertha
Back when I was in junior high school, right here in Vernal, Utah, before the feminist movement and the passage of Title IX, girls played a game of basketball that was supposed to be consistent with their abilities, or lack thereof.
In case I am the only one who remembers that now-retired (thankfully) period in sports history, I am going to tell you how that game worked. The premise was that girls weren't strong or durable enough to play a game that required them to run the full length of a basketball court for 18 minutes without keeling over. At least, that is what my coach told me.
So they came up with a sort of half-court game where the players were either forwards or they were guards and neither of them could cross the half court line. The guards played defense They weren't allowed to score, not even if they had a good half-court shot. They had to pass the ball to the forwards who did all of the scoring.
It wasn't going to be very fair for there to be three forwards and only two guards (you know like “they got numbers”) all the time. Nor was it going to work for there to be three guards and only two forwards (sort of like never-ending double-teaming). So they added another player to the team so there could be three of each, which made it all warm and fuzzy for all the girls all the time.
I just about choked when my coach told me that we were going to play “girls' “ basketball. I grew up in a family of mostly boys who played the real game of basketball. Then when she told me I was going to be a guard, I had my first argument with a coach. I didn't really want to play a game of basketball and never shoot the ball.
You think I am making this up, don't you? No, I'm not; I played that game. I was a guard. I even traveled to other schools to play games against other girls. They were low-scoring affairs. But that was okay. The score of the first collegiate basketball game for girls was 5-4. True, each basket was worth one point, but still…. That game was played was in 1896. (No I didn't play in that game.)
In an effort to preserve goodwill, minimize competition and prevent any one player from taking over a game, (in other words to make it more suitable for what was the prevailing notion of girls' constitutions) the court was divided into three zones, and a team consisted of nine girls, three girls per team per zone. All of the girls had to stay in their zones and no one could dribble more than three times. (Like they would have room to dribble any more than that.)
So sixty years later when I played, the game hadn't changed much. We still played in zones, and we still had dribbling limits. Our games were low-scoring—not because we were girls and were unable to shoot, jump, run or pass the ball, but because they wouldn't let us do any of those things too much. Playing three-on-three basketball with only three dribbles before passing doesn't generate much offense. Besides, we were busy counting. And, oh yeah, also because they put all of the tall, long-armed girls on defense.
I don't know how the rest of the female world played that game, but it didn't take us too long to realize that the best strategy was to control the half-court line. We played a sort of 2-1 zone defense. One guard protected the basket, and the other two just held position on the line and didn't let the ball cross it.
We just patrolled the border, so to speak, and batted the ball back to the other end of the court whenever it came within reach. All we had to do was outreach the forwards. Any kind of a pass up and over the 2-guards could usually be controlled by a taller 1-guard. This strategy also maximized the importance of the guards which we thought was only fair.
No wonder the scores resembled those of soccer games and the play was more like keep-away. In case you haven't noticed, there is no equivalent to the NBA in keep-away. They just wouldn't have the fan-base.
I'm not sure when they began to allow women to play the same game men do. Probably some time just shortly after my illustrious career as line guard ended. And maybe they were playing that game in the rest of the world; I have never figured that out.
But, you know the game's inventors were partly right in their assessment of women and basketball. I just watched a girls' college playoff game, and you know what? Women can't jump. I think they are inclined to apologize when they foul an opponent, too.
In case I am the only one who remembers that now-retired (thankfully) period in sports history, I am going to tell you how that game worked. The premise was that girls weren't strong or durable enough to play a game that required them to run the full length of a basketball court for 18 minutes without keeling over. At least, that is what my coach told me.
So they came up with a sort of half-court game where the players were either forwards or they were guards and neither of them could cross the half court line. The guards played defense They weren't allowed to score, not even if they had a good half-court shot. They had to pass the ball to the forwards who did all of the scoring.
It wasn't going to be very fair for there to be three forwards and only two guards (you know like “they got numbers”) all the time. Nor was it going to work for there to be three guards and only two forwards (sort of like never-ending double-teaming). So they added another player to the team so there could be three of each, which made it all warm and fuzzy for all the girls all the time.
I just about choked when my coach told me that we were going to play “girls' “ basketball. I grew up in a family of mostly boys who played the real game of basketball. Then when she told me I was going to be a guard, I had my first argument with a coach. I didn't really want to play a game of basketball and never shoot the ball.
You think I am making this up, don't you? No, I'm not; I played that game. I was a guard. I even traveled to other schools to play games against other girls. They were low-scoring affairs. But that was okay. The score of the first collegiate basketball game for girls was 5-4. True, each basket was worth one point, but still…. That game was played was in 1896. (No I didn't play in that game.)
In an effort to preserve goodwill, minimize competition and prevent any one player from taking over a game, (in other words to make it more suitable for what was the prevailing notion of girls' constitutions) the court was divided into three zones, and a team consisted of nine girls, three girls per team per zone. All of the girls had to stay in their zones and no one could dribble more than three times. (Like they would have room to dribble any more than that.)
So sixty years later when I played, the game hadn't changed much. We still played in zones, and we still had dribbling limits. Our games were low-scoring—not because we were girls and were unable to shoot, jump, run or pass the ball, but because they wouldn't let us do any of those things too much. Playing three-on-three basketball with only three dribbles before passing doesn't generate much offense. Besides, we were busy counting. And, oh yeah, also because they put all of the tall, long-armed girls on defense.
I don't know how the rest of the female world played that game, but it didn't take us too long to realize that the best strategy was to control the half-court line. We played a sort of 2-1 zone defense. One guard protected the basket, and the other two just held position on the line and didn't let the ball cross it.
We just patrolled the border, so to speak, and batted the ball back to the other end of the court whenever it came within reach. All we had to do was outreach the forwards. Any kind of a pass up and over the 2-guards could usually be controlled by a taller 1-guard. This strategy also maximized the importance of the guards which we thought was only fair.
No wonder the scores resembled those of soccer games and the play was more like keep-away. In case you haven't noticed, there is no equivalent to the NBA in keep-away. They just wouldn't have the fan-base.
I'm not sure when they began to allow women to play the same game men do. Probably some time just shortly after my illustrious career as line guard ended. And maybe they were playing that game in the rest of the world; I have never figured that out.
But, you know the game's inventors were partly right in their assessment of women and basketball. I just watched a girls' college playoff game, and you know what? Women can't jump. I think they are inclined to apologize when they foul an opponent, too.
Oscars make us happy
It's a good thing they have the Academy Awards every year. I think that just that one event probably is a huge shot in the arm for the economy, at least in California where they could use the whole battery of shots.
Just think of what a venture in capitalism the production is. Aside from the actual movie industry which is a fairly good example of supply-and-demand economics and generates a lot of capital which goes who knows where, there is the actual event which puts a whole panoply of businesses to work.
I don't know whether they realize it, but the Hollywood libs are heavily involved in big business which makes them very rich, in spite of their share-the-wealth mentalities. They just want to qualify who is doing the sharing—anyone but them. Did you ever notice who they actually target when they do a save-the-world fund raiser for whomever in the world? They give their time, of which they have little to spare; we give our money which is scarce also. So it all works out, right? Fairness all around.
Okay, that is as political as I get, but just think of all the businesses who have a stake in the Oscars. There are the news media, the designers and manufacturers of everything from sets to clothing, producers, the food providers, the lodging and transportation sectors, the accessories designers and retailers and the florists, the speech and script writers, the hair stylists and the makeup artists, and the surgeons, not to mention the people who actually make the Oscar statue itself.
I have not intended to leave anyone out, but I have a very narrow perspective on the whole event, not having watched an entire broadcast ever and only going to the movies about once a year. I know, I am not really qualified to express an opinion, which is not the same as not having one.
But without the Academy Awards, how would we know what to wear for the rest of the year, how to do our hair and makeup, and which movies to avoid?
You have to give credit to the Motion Picture Industry for being a bit traditional (non-progressive) in the format of their awards presentations. I know it seems like it during the ceremonies, but they really don't give Oscars to everyone who competes. Just to the winners. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see participation certificates handed out all around, which would be a good way of injecting peace and harmony into all of that excessive and raw competition.
The whole event is all about competition. Who looks the best? Who has the most famous escort? Who paid the most for a dress? Who has most expensive jewelry? Who gave the best speech? It's no wonder all of the players need therapists and pharmaceuticals.
So my sister asked me who I was dressed as. Well, not Oscar and not the Mad Hatter. At the moment, it is something like Little Orphan Annie, or Little House on the Prairie at bedtime.
Just think of what a venture in capitalism the production is. Aside from the actual movie industry which is a fairly good example of supply-and-demand economics and generates a lot of capital which goes who knows where, there is the actual event which puts a whole panoply of businesses to work.
I don't know whether they realize it, but the Hollywood libs are heavily involved in big business which makes them very rich, in spite of their share-the-wealth mentalities. They just want to qualify who is doing the sharing—anyone but them. Did you ever notice who they actually target when they do a save-the-world fund raiser for whomever in the world? They give their time, of which they have little to spare; we give our money which is scarce also. So it all works out, right? Fairness all around.
Okay, that is as political as I get, but just think of all the businesses who have a stake in the Oscars. There are the news media, the designers and manufacturers of everything from sets to clothing, producers, the food providers, the lodging and transportation sectors, the accessories designers and retailers and the florists, the speech and script writers, the hair stylists and the makeup artists, and the surgeons, not to mention the people who actually make the Oscar statue itself.
I have not intended to leave anyone out, but I have a very narrow perspective on the whole event, not having watched an entire broadcast ever and only going to the movies about once a year. I know, I am not really qualified to express an opinion, which is not the same as not having one.
But without the Academy Awards, how would we know what to wear for the rest of the year, how to do our hair and makeup, and which movies to avoid?
You have to give credit to the Motion Picture Industry for being a bit traditional (non-progressive) in the format of their awards presentations. I know it seems like it during the ceremonies, but they really don't give Oscars to everyone who competes. Just to the winners. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see participation certificates handed out all around, which would be a good way of injecting peace and harmony into all of that excessive and raw competition.
The whole event is all about competition. Who looks the best? Who has the most famous escort? Who paid the most for a dress? Who has most expensive jewelry? Who gave the best speech? It's no wonder all of the players need therapists and pharmaceuticals.
So my sister asked me who I was dressed as. Well, not Oscar and not the Mad Hatter. At the moment, it is something like Little Orphan Annie, or Little House on the Prairie at bedtime.
Pinewood Derby—chapter two
In case you didn't remember or didn't care, Bertha wrote about the experience of making a Pinewood Derby car a couple of weeks ago. Well, she is going to get a little more “mileage” out of the subject. It got better as it went along.
I started on my car early enough, but it still took two weeks to get it finished, and we were doing the last minute things the day of the race. It is kind of like an art project. You never know when it is finished. But it got “finished” just in time to race it.
The delay was caused in part by the fact that my real car, the Grocery Getter, was experiencing some difficulties of its own while we were building the race car. It couldn't seem to make it up the hill to home without sputtering, and missing, and I do live quite a long way up the hill.
Mr. B. began to give the problem due recognition when it was his turn to drive the car over the weekend. He came home with renewed interest in fixing it. Since I had already been driving the car for a few weeks with the same problem, I gave it no more attention than I usually did. Consequently, the Grocery Getter with its problems was on Mr. B.'s mind while the Pinewood Derby car was on mine.
So with that background given and that stage set, here are a couple of our more interesting exchanges:
Me: Are you going to work on my car today?
Mr. B. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I hope I don't have to put a catalytic converter on it.
Me: I don't think it needs anything that fancy. Just a rusty air cleaner is all it needs, other than one of those flashing lights on the top. (I was trying to build a quasi-faithful replica of Tow Mater)
Mr. B.: What are you talking about? It already has an air cleaner which I already checked once. That isn't what it needs.
Me: Well where is the catalytic converter going to go? And what will it do? Take the place of the weights?
We finally established that Tow Mater did indeed need a rusty air cleaner, but we were still wondering about the needs of the Grocery Getter.
A couple of days later, Mr. B. switched roles on me. He sent me to the box store to find some parts for my car.
“You're sending me to buy a winch? I thought you didn't like to buy parts there. You usually make me go to the parts store to get them.
“I don't think you are going to find a winch at the parts store.”
“Well, what do we need that for anyway? I don't think I can find one at the box store.”
“Yes you can. Just go in the toy department and look for a little tow truck. We'll use the winch from it.”
The word “toy” was what finally got us looking for the same part in the same parts manual.
On the day of the big race, there were still some finishing touches to apply to Tow Mater. Mr. B. was going to add the flashers and the lead weights for me. So early in the morning, I woke my son up and asked for his help.
“Will you bring my car down to me when you come to town? Dad still has to drill the holes in it.”
“What? What is he drilling holes for?”
Now my son and his dad don't always agree on the proper methods for reapiring an ailing vehicle. In fact, quite often they each wonder what on earth the other is doing. But it certainly got my son's attention when he thought that his dad might, at that very moment, be trying to find his drill and his bits in order to drill holes somewhere in the Grocery Getter.
I started on my car early enough, but it still took two weeks to get it finished, and we were doing the last minute things the day of the race. It is kind of like an art project. You never know when it is finished. But it got “finished” just in time to race it.
The delay was caused in part by the fact that my real car, the Grocery Getter, was experiencing some difficulties of its own while we were building the race car. It couldn't seem to make it up the hill to home without sputtering, and missing, and I do live quite a long way up the hill.
Mr. B. began to give the problem due recognition when it was his turn to drive the car over the weekend. He came home with renewed interest in fixing it. Since I had already been driving the car for a few weeks with the same problem, I gave it no more attention than I usually did. Consequently, the Grocery Getter with its problems was on Mr. B.'s mind while the Pinewood Derby car was on mine.
So with that background given and that stage set, here are a couple of our more interesting exchanges:
Me: Are you going to work on my car today?
Mr. B. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I hope I don't have to put a catalytic converter on it.
Me: I don't think it needs anything that fancy. Just a rusty air cleaner is all it needs, other than one of those flashing lights on the top. (I was trying to build a quasi-faithful replica of Tow Mater)
Mr. B.: What are you talking about? It already has an air cleaner which I already checked once. That isn't what it needs.
Me: Well where is the catalytic converter going to go? And what will it do? Take the place of the weights?
We finally established that Tow Mater did indeed need a rusty air cleaner, but we were still wondering about the needs of the Grocery Getter.
A couple of days later, Mr. B. switched roles on me. He sent me to the box store to find some parts for my car.
“You're sending me to buy a winch? I thought you didn't like to buy parts there. You usually make me go to the parts store to get them.
“I don't think you are going to find a winch at the parts store.”
“Well, what do we need that for anyway? I don't think I can find one at the box store.”
“Yes you can. Just go in the toy department and look for a little tow truck. We'll use the winch from it.”
The word “toy” was what finally got us looking for the same part in the same parts manual.
On the day of the big race, there were still some finishing touches to apply to Tow Mater. Mr. B. was going to add the flashers and the lead weights for me. So early in the morning, I woke my son up and asked for his help.
“Will you bring my car down to me when you come to town? Dad still has to drill the holes in it.”
“What? What is he drilling holes for?”
Now my son and his dad don't always agree on the proper methods for reapiring an ailing vehicle. In fact, quite often they each wonder what on earth the other is doing. But it certainly got my son's attention when he thought that his dad might, at that very moment, be trying to find his drill and his bits in order to drill holes somewhere in the Grocery Getter.
Putting money where the mouth is
One advantage to being my age is that I have already passed through most of the phases of life that people have to go through.
Childhood diseases, my own and my kids', are behind me. I have lived through the sleepless years, when I had babies. And I have lived through the teenage years. My own were not nearly so hard on me as my kids' were.
Altogether, I have launched seven children into their teenage years, prepared or otherwise. They all made their first trip to the DMV. They all went to prom once or twice. They all went to a few concerts. And we have been to see the orthodontist approximately 353 times.
The concerts and prom I could handle, and I could cope with most of the other milestones associated with the teenage years. I still clench my teeth when I think about the orthodontics chapter of my life, though.
This is what kind of luck I had: the first three kids all had too many teeth for their mouths, or more precisely, teeth too big to fit in there. (Grandma called those kind of teeth butter paddles.)
When the fourth child came, I thought I had it made. She had actual spaces between her baby teeth. For her first six years, I thought I was going to get $2,500 ahead in life thanks to this child's big mouth. Not a chance. Her permanent teeth were tiny little chiclets which didn't begin to fill up all that space. Grandma didn't know what to call them. Besides that, some of them were missing. Just not there and never were.
In those days my car could find it's own way to the orthodontist's office. I knew which magazines he subscribed to and how often he redecorated. His receptionist was on a first-name basis with my dog, the only member of the family with straight teeth.
I think we missed something like twenty appointments during my time in the the orthodontic years, but my percentages were pretty good. And the orthodontist didn't complain. We were his bread and butter. In fact he probably had me to thank for that boat in his garage, and when he saw mouths five through seven he probably saw luxury cars and European vacations. Cruise tickets traded for tin grins.
For the privilege of living with teenagers who wouldn't smile, wouldn't eat in public and avoided half of the foods available for human consumption, I paid that kind of money. And those are only some of the disadvantages.
After the patient passes through the brace phase, he moves into the retainer phase of orthodontic treatment. Retainers are something designed to help keep teeth straight when the braces come off. You pay a lot for them and then keep them on the bathroom counter where they function as room decor, except for when you keep them in a pocket or on the floor beside the bed. The last two places serve to keep the retainer new as it will have to be replaced if it is sat upon, washed in the washing machine, or stepped upon. Furthermore, you simply cannot display a broken retainer on the bathroom counter.
I know where you should keep a retainer, but who am I? I only paid for them. Should I have taken the retainers to work or school or wherever the mouth in question was? Well, I couldn't tell whose was whose. How could I give a retainer to a teenager who already had one in his mouth? But don't doubt my commitment. I have been known to beg the school lunch ladies for permission to go through the garbage in hopes of finding a retainer that might have been scraped off a tray.
I used to wish that the Granola movement would gain enough ground that naturally occurring teeth placement would be more desirable than artificial alignment. But no, the movement got a little bit lost when it came to physical appearances.
I'm not sure I would want to be launching teenagers these days. Too many things could be out of alignment. However, if I were to be text messaging my kids about the location of their retainers, my reminders might look like this: :-)$$) ?
Childhood diseases, my own and my kids', are behind me. I have lived through the sleepless years, when I had babies. And I have lived through the teenage years. My own were not nearly so hard on me as my kids' were.
Altogether, I have launched seven children into their teenage years, prepared or otherwise. They all made their first trip to the DMV. They all went to prom once or twice. They all went to a few concerts. And we have been to see the orthodontist approximately 353 times.
The concerts and prom I could handle, and I could cope with most of the other milestones associated with the teenage years. I still clench my teeth when I think about the orthodontics chapter of my life, though.
This is what kind of luck I had: the first three kids all had too many teeth for their mouths, or more precisely, teeth too big to fit in there. (Grandma called those kind of teeth butter paddles.)
When the fourth child came, I thought I had it made. She had actual spaces between her baby teeth. For her first six years, I thought I was going to get $2,500 ahead in life thanks to this child's big mouth. Not a chance. Her permanent teeth were tiny little chiclets which didn't begin to fill up all that space. Grandma didn't know what to call them. Besides that, some of them were missing. Just not there and never were.
In those days my car could find it's own way to the orthodontist's office. I knew which magazines he subscribed to and how often he redecorated. His receptionist was on a first-name basis with my dog, the only member of the family with straight teeth.
I think we missed something like twenty appointments during my time in the the orthodontic years, but my percentages were pretty good. And the orthodontist didn't complain. We were his bread and butter. In fact he probably had me to thank for that boat in his garage, and when he saw mouths five through seven he probably saw luxury cars and European vacations. Cruise tickets traded for tin grins.
For the privilege of living with teenagers who wouldn't smile, wouldn't eat in public and avoided half of the foods available for human consumption, I paid that kind of money. And those are only some of the disadvantages.
After the patient passes through the brace phase, he moves into the retainer phase of orthodontic treatment. Retainers are something designed to help keep teeth straight when the braces come off. You pay a lot for them and then keep them on the bathroom counter where they function as room decor, except for when you keep them in a pocket or on the floor beside the bed. The last two places serve to keep the retainer new as it will have to be replaced if it is sat upon, washed in the washing machine, or stepped upon. Furthermore, you simply cannot display a broken retainer on the bathroom counter.
I know where you should keep a retainer, but who am I? I only paid for them. Should I have taken the retainers to work or school or wherever the mouth in question was? Well, I couldn't tell whose was whose. How could I give a retainer to a teenager who already had one in his mouth? But don't doubt my commitment. I have been known to beg the school lunch ladies for permission to go through the garbage in hopes of finding a retainer that might have been scraped off a tray.
I used to wish that the Granola movement would gain enough ground that naturally occurring teeth placement would be more desirable than artificial alignment. But no, the movement got a little bit lost when it came to physical appearances.
I'm not sure I would want to be launching teenagers these days. Too many things could be out of alignment. However, if I were to be text messaging my kids about the location of their retainers, my reminders might look like this: :-)$$) ?
It's Pinewood Derby time!
Once in a while, someone comes up with an activity that is so good that it is simply repeated until it becomes a classic. When it is that good, sooner or later it is going to spread to other platforms. Next week I get to compete in one of those great all-American cultural events, the Pinewood Derby. By the way, the first Pinewood Derby was held in 1953.
I have a box of Derby parts right here on the counter. I suppose it will take some creative force to turn those wheels, axles, and block of wood into a racing machine. I further suppose that creativity is one ingredient. However, the main element is speed.
If you have built more than one Pinewood Derby car, you have begun to realize that there is more involved than sanding, painting and pressing on the wheels. To get the picture, you have to understand that this event usually involves men, boys and wheels, a combination that is going to produce a compulsion to engineer the fastest car—on earth.
Boys are born with the ability to run, chase one another, ride bikes, scooters and skate boards and they never tire of doing it. When they become men, they find that running and bike-riding are a bit tiring after all, so they turn to buying or building cars that will accomplish the same thing with less effort. Sort of.
I suspect that Detroit has a complement of engineers who were Cub Scouts in their youth because they would then have been exposed early on to the kind of grit and determination that is required to compete in the world of building cars, of whatever kind.
At any rate, this is serious business. A reading of the Pinewood Derby Times (I'm not kidding), along with some other high-tech websites, can keep one up on the “sport.” I had already heard about the innovation of digital electronic tracks. I just recently learned about the latest remake of the wheels.
I don't know whether they were designed for maximum velocity or increased gas mileage, but their arrival on the racing scene apparently made quite a stir. In fact, when they were released, they could be purchased separately in case buyers were unable to find a car kit with the newer wheel package. The word on the street is that an axle change is in the works as well.
There is a thriving after-market parts business as well. In fact you can buy kits with a finished body. You just apply the wheels. However, you could do that with the standard issue BSA kit and do just as well, I understand from The Times. Apparently aerodynamics has little to do with it. It is the polishing of the axles and weighting of the cars that gives them the competitive edge.
Unveiling your own revolutionary and successful model car depends on planning and secrecy. If you have the design of the decade, you don't want someone else having it as well. So men and boys plan and scheme in cluttered shops. They melt lead ingots in tuna fish cans, weigh their cars on postage scales, mix paints on plastic lids and dream of trophies. (I honestly don't know how these cars pass EPA standards what with lead and paint in the same sentence.)
When they meet on the streets, men casually ask one another, “So how's your car coming? You got a good model this year? “
“Naw, I don't think the wheels will stay on.” This is derby talk for what the engineer really means which is something like “Just you wait. We are going to kick your trash this year. You will eat our dust.”
I tried to think of a funny story about Pinewood Derby racing, but there aren't any. I may have one or two to tell after the girls, moms and grandmoms compete in a couple of weeks; but like I said, this is serious business. A lost race can only be remedied by doing better the next year. But a whole year of ignominy is hard to bear. It's a good thing that Mr. B. and I are in this together. If the wheels fall off, we can console one another while we wait for the next Derby.
I have a box of Derby parts right here on the counter. I suppose it will take some creative force to turn those wheels, axles, and block of wood into a racing machine. I further suppose that creativity is one ingredient. However, the main element is speed.
If you have built more than one Pinewood Derby car, you have begun to realize that there is more involved than sanding, painting and pressing on the wheels. To get the picture, you have to understand that this event usually involves men, boys and wheels, a combination that is going to produce a compulsion to engineer the fastest car—on earth.
Boys are born with the ability to run, chase one another, ride bikes, scooters and skate boards and they never tire of doing it. When they become men, they find that running and bike-riding are a bit tiring after all, so they turn to buying or building cars that will accomplish the same thing with less effort. Sort of.
I suspect that Detroit has a complement of engineers who were Cub Scouts in their youth because they would then have been exposed early on to the kind of grit and determination that is required to compete in the world of building cars, of whatever kind.
At any rate, this is serious business. A reading of the Pinewood Derby Times (I'm not kidding), along with some other high-tech websites, can keep one up on the “sport.” I had already heard about the innovation of digital electronic tracks. I just recently learned about the latest remake of the wheels.
I don't know whether they were designed for maximum velocity or increased gas mileage, but their arrival on the racing scene apparently made quite a stir. In fact, when they were released, they could be purchased separately in case buyers were unable to find a car kit with the newer wheel package. The word on the street is that an axle change is in the works as well.
There is a thriving after-market parts business as well. In fact you can buy kits with a finished body. You just apply the wheels. However, you could do that with the standard issue BSA kit and do just as well, I understand from The Times. Apparently aerodynamics has little to do with it. It is the polishing of the axles and weighting of the cars that gives them the competitive edge.
Unveiling your own revolutionary and successful model car depends on planning and secrecy. If you have the design of the decade, you don't want someone else having it as well. So men and boys plan and scheme in cluttered shops. They melt lead ingots in tuna fish cans, weigh their cars on postage scales, mix paints on plastic lids and dream of trophies. (I honestly don't know how these cars pass EPA standards what with lead and paint in the same sentence.)
When they meet on the streets, men casually ask one another, “So how's your car coming? You got a good model this year? “
“Naw, I don't think the wheels will stay on.” This is derby talk for what the engineer really means which is something like “Just you wait. We are going to kick your trash this year. You will eat our dust.”
I tried to think of a funny story about Pinewood Derby racing, but there aren't any. I may have one or two to tell after the girls, moms and grandmoms compete in a couple of weeks; but like I said, this is serious business. A lost race can only be remedied by doing better the next year. But a whole year of ignominy is hard to bear. It's a good thing that Mr. B. and I are in this together. If the wheels fall off, we can console one another while we wait for the next Derby.
Passwords do deny access
If you think that a password is something Gandalf or forty thieves speak to the face of a stone wall in an effort to open up secret doors to mysterious caverns, you are having serious reality issues.
If you think that a password is a series of letters/numbers which when typed into the password space on an internet site will result in the immediate opening of websites for your use and entertainment, you are probably full-on schizophrenic. To your credit, if you are thinking in those terms, you may be allowed to use your name and “geek” in the same paragraph, but being geeky has nothing to do with it.
Typing any combination of letters/numbers invariably returns the same message, “the password you entered is incorrect,” followed by the line (in happy blue type), “forget your password?” You will also be reminded that your password is case sensitive which means that you will have to be in tight control of your caps lock key.
“Who me? Of course I didn't forget my password.” A second more carefully typed entry will return the same message 99 percent of the time. Occasionally, if you hold your mouth right, the Entry Nazi will let you in.
A third try works about half the time. If by the third try you are still on the outside, you may have to concede that you did forget your password. To remedy that situation, you probably begin to sift through all of your password possibilities.
Entering passwords in not only a test of your memory, but your persistence also. “Let's see, for internet shopping sites, I always use the name and age of my third grandchild. Or wait, was it my shoe size, or my hat size? Was that backward or forward? I'll try my hat size, 7-&-3-4.”
“No, I didn't think so. Okay I'll look it up.”
At this point you consult your cryptic sticky note collection which is inconveniently stuck to the bottom of your keyboard. Unfortunately the note you need is a little too cryptic or msising. The rest are the kind of notes that any kindergartner could use to rob your bank account and buy you a couple of high-tech Lego sets. Under your keyboard will be the second place he will look for your passwords, too.
If you are trying to get innto one of those high profile, high-security websites, like a bank site, by guessing the password, you are going to be in trouble. Three strikes and you are out on those sites. You will be getting a phone call to warn you that someone is trying to hack into your bank account. You will be feeling incredibly silly when you have to admit that it was only you.
If you think that using your own passwords is tricky, just wait until someone e-mails you a locked text file, which feat he will be able to accomplish without any real intent on his part. Try figuring out someone else's passwords. Maybe it's the name of his dog.
“S-P-O-T. T-R-E-Y. Okay, I'll call him.” Joe, this file is locked. What's the password?”
“What password? You need a password? How come you need a password? Try S-P-O-T.”
How do I know all this? I listen a lot. And I forget my passwords a lot. And no, they are not stuck to the bottom of my keyboard. They are stuck in the first place my grandkids would look.
One thing is in our favor though. Most people are too busy trying to remember their own passwords to want to work on ours.
If you think that a password is a series of letters/numbers which when typed into the password space on an internet site will result in the immediate opening of websites for your use and entertainment, you are probably full-on schizophrenic. To your credit, if you are thinking in those terms, you may be allowed to use your name and “geek” in the same paragraph, but being geeky has nothing to do with it.
Typing any combination of letters/numbers invariably returns the same message, “the password you entered is incorrect,” followed by the line (in happy blue type), “forget your password?” You will also be reminded that your password is case sensitive which means that you will have to be in tight control of your caps lock key.
“Who me? Of course I didn't forget my password.” A second more carefully typed entry will return the same message 99 percent of the time. Occasionally, if you hold your mouth right, the Entry Nazi will let you in.
A third try works about half the time. If by the third try you are still on the outside, you may have to concede that you did forget your password. To remedy that situation, you probably begin to sift through all of your password possibilities.
Entering passwords in not only a test of your memory, but your persistence also. “Let's see, for internet shopping sites, I always use the name and age of my third grandchild. Or wait, was it my shoe size, or my hat size? Was that backward or forward? I'll try my hat size, 7-&-3-4.”
“No, I didn't think so. Okay I'll look it up.”
At this point you consult your cryptic sticky note collection which is inconveniently stuck to the bottom of your keyboard. Unfortunately the note you need is a little too cryptic or msising. The rest are the kind of notes that any kindergartner could use to rob your bank account and buy you a couple of high-tech Lego sets. Under your keyboard will be the second place he will look for your passwords, too.
If you are trying to get innto one of those high profile, high-security websites, like a bank site, by guessing the password, you are going to be in trouble. Three strikes and you are out on those sites. You will be getting a phone call to warn you that someone is trying to hack into your bank account. You will be feeling incredibly silly when you have to admit that it was only you.
If you think that using your own passwords is tricky, just wait until someone e-mails you a locked text file, which feat he will be able to accomplish without any real intent on his part. Try figuring out someone else's passwords. Maybe it's the name of his dog.
“S-P-O-T. T-R-E-Y. Okay, I'll call him.” Joe, this file is locked. What's the password?”
“What password? You need a password? How come you need a password? Try S-P-O-T.”
How do I know all this? I listen a lot. And I forget my passwords a lot. And no, they are not stuck to the bottom of my keyboard. They are stuck in the first place my grandkids would look.
One thing is in our favor though. Most people are too busy trying to remember their own passwords to want to work on ours.
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