I’m weird.

Here are some things that I’ve done or seen the last few days and wonder who else does them.

- The power was out for about an hour. I must have flipped light switches a hundred times. I also tried to turn on the TV and thought I’d check my e-mail. I just finished reading a book that involves the loss of electricity (amongst other things)….we better hope that we don’t lose power long term. I think we might be surprised how dependent we are. 

One Second After

- I was hungry yesterday and not finding anything to eat I must have opened and closed the refrigerator about 5 or 6 times. Did I think that something different was somehow going to appear?

- I go walking every morning and I hate running into the other walkers / runners / dog walkers. I can never remember the proper greeting. There is one guy who never says hi back. I keep forgetting just to walk by him. There is the dog walking lady that always wants me to pet her dog. The Japanese couple who will only exchange nods. I have to bring a cheat sheet with me.

- I’ll throw Jen under the bus today too. If you have something in your cart that you no longer want what do you do? Take it back to where it belongs? or do what Jen does…put it on whatever shelf is nearby. I will walk the entire length of the store to take it back. I feel like if I put it on some random shelf someone is going to see me or catch me. I see things in the wrong place all the time in the store, so other people must do it too.

Ok. Enough of my goofiness today.

Legos!!

lego

Fava beans and a nice chianti

I was sitting here at my desk after getting off a work call and I started feeling weird…like something was wrong. It took me about 10 seconds to realize that it was the silence. It’s NEVER quiet in my house. The first thing people ask me about working from home is, “How do you manage with having everyone else around?” My answer is: The only time I notice there are people around is when they are gone. Good thing huh?

I decided to update this blog and the only idea I had was to sift through the pictures on my phone. I forget that I snap pictures for the purposes of writing about them later. Here are a couple.

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To me this doesn’t evoke the word “Butter”. To me this comes out as BUTT R Cream. Like an ointment you would put on your butt. I didn’t say they were good pictures now did I?

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What is this? There was no way I was going to be spotted (haha) holding this can reviewing the contents. I was embarrassed enough just taking the picture. I’m not even going to google it in case a medical journal plops a big old picture of the possible affliction. I don’t need that in my computer history either. Hard to explain.

IMAG0117

This is just a cute one of Sam. He likes it when he finds someone shorter than him, even if it is a fake maître d'

Father’s day 2010

You know what I’m really lousy with? Greeting cards. At some point today, when the mail gets to Orion, my Dad is going to realize this also. Ask my mom. I get all proud and excited when I can get a card to coincide with the event that it is for. I don’t know why this is. Sorry dad.

I AM lucky that I have established this blog over time now and it can convey my Father’s day message better than a card. First? Last years message still stands.

Father's Day 2009 post

As I walked my 5,000 steps this morning I was trying to think what I could write today, that my mom would read to Larry, and have it take the place of a well written, witty, or sappy Hallmark card. I figured it out…nothing. I’m lucky in so many ways, but one of the luckiest things is that I’ve had almost 44 years of being with my dad. We have played softball together, water skied together, fished, done crosswords, mowed the lawn, built Pinewood derby cars, the list goes on. There are plenty of people in the world that would give everything they had to have more time to spend with their dad. I’m lucky. I may not get to hang out with Larry today or tomorrow, but I WILL get to talk to him, wish him happy Father’s day, and tell him I love him. Thanks for being a great Dad. Sorry about the card. August 16th is right around the corner isn’t it?

Radio star? That’s nuthin’

While I’m sitting around pondering the meaning of things this morning I’ll let you in on another of my profound philosophies.

It’s not their fault.

I was wandering around Best Buy on Friday and like most middle aged men I was enthralled with just about everything there was in that place. I also noticed that I had to pull Sam away from just about every display and model of phone, TV, MP3 player, video game console, heck even the fans. Yeah, this one.

Fan

After doing this for what seemed like the 500th time it occurred to me that a complaint I had about “today’s kids” wasn’t really that valid. I think we’ve screwed up. The reason why I played outside with my friends, flew kites, built forts and rode my bike all the time is that if I didn’t it was boring. I didn’t have 400 channels of cartoons, internet, and 3 different consoles of video games. Oh wait…we had video games here is what baseball looked like.

Atari

I don’t blame them. I would rather play a racing game on a 50” television screen wile the latest tunes blasted from the connected stereo. That sounds like fun and it would have kept me off my bike for hours. Seriously…here is what a driving game on your TV looks like now.

Racing

The Cub scouts have a “gaming badge” now. Maybe they should just teleconference the next campout, and everyone can pull up a screen with a camp fire on it and tell scary stories like “The time the power went off!!” and about “Old Crazy Dial up Joe”. Ok…I’m done. I’ll fix it and let you know how it works. Don’t hold your breath.

Shuffle off to Buffalo

Yesterday I noticed something as I trudged through the local Home Goods store. I was doing the “husband shuffle”. I only really noticed I was doing it when I observed another poor soul engaged in it himself. Husbands, you know how it goes. You have absolutely zero interest in being in a store and yet there you are. Your feet start to simply slide along the linoleum like you are about 90 years old. Your hearing starts to suffer since there is absolutely no items to have a real conversation about. If you don’t notice those things here is the one thing you will understand. You know exactly where the exit door to this place is and every time you start to get close to it your symptoms start to fade. There are times in these stores when you get soooo close to the exit only to be thwarted by the “cute little salt and pepper shakers”. I am not posting this because I have an answer to it, but simply as a reminder that we are in a common struggle. Maybe some of my female readers will read this and take pity on one guy and it will all be worth it. Ladies…here is a list of stores that no husband should ever be made to shuffle through.

- Duh..Home Goods

- Michaels Fabric / Craft store

- Payless shoes or any shoe store for that matter

- Sephora

- Claires / Icing / Any accessory store

Good rule of thumb? If there are chairs in the store for the sole reason of allowing a stricken husband to sit while his significant other shops? This is not store he should be in.

My local hangout

Seems I’m going to have to re-name this blog. “Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned at the grocery store” or “101 Observations from aisle 10”? I either spend too much time at Publix or it’s the only time my mind is free of other encumbrances.

Today’s observations from aisle 10.

1. I saw the funniest cell phone disaster ever tonight. Lady comes out of Publix, fumbles for her phone…proceeds to drop it. This wasn’t all that funny until she kicked it. The topper? She kicked it into the parking lot and it got run over by a car. I had to leave the scene. I had no idea if I could contain my laughter. Last I saw she was just standing there. Staring at the parking lot.

2. The postal service is mean. I saw a perfectly good looking, middle aged, fit looking guy standing in the checkout lane. They made him wear this.

Sorry if it is hard to see

carrier

3. **DISCLAIMER – For single guys only. I do not condone or consider this for myself.** – The grocery store has got to be the perfect place to meet women. Let’s think about it.

ALL women have to eat. By choosing the grocery store you are not limiting your pool of candidates.

Don’t have to pay a cover charge for the grocery store.

You can tell by their cart some very telling clues. Pay special attention to the time they spend at the pharmacy.

If you REALLY hit it off with someone from the produce section you are only steps away from flowers and candy if you want to speed things up a bit.

There are no bouncers at the grocery store. If things get out of hand it takes a lot to get kicked out of the store. BONUS – Not likely to get a drink thrown in your face.

I seriously have not tired any of the above, but since I’m sure I have a vast following of single men, 18-49, I thought I would offer this public service message.

I WILL have a nice day thank you

I figured I should write about a good customer service day since I complain a lot when I don’t like something. It started at my least favorite place…the cell phone company. Verizon has become so big that I think they are now offering oil changes at their stores. To get your cell phone switched you have to go to the “special” store, make it through the gauntlet of “special offers” from the sales people, and the get on the, you guessed it, “special list”. I happened to catch them looking the other way and escaped the first two steps, the first person I talked to put me on the list, and within 15 minutes they actually agreed with me and gave me a new phone. No signatures, no new contract. Nothing. I do suspect that they are setting me up for some future whammy. I’ll let you know. After that I was encouraged by my success and visited one of my actual favorite places, Publix. They didn’t happen to have the one thing I was looking for on the shelf and I did something I never do…I asked if there was any “in the back”. Here is how the “Is there any in the back?” question gets handled usually.

1. – Employee laughs out loud and says no.

2. – Employee realizes that this is a chance to take a 20 minute break and “goes to check”.

3. – Employee asks the manager who does one of the above for them.

4. – Employee goes into the mysterious “back” and comes back with something completely different that they have determined “might work”

I happened to ask a person who not only knew what I was looking for, but actually said “I think that truck came in yesterday, let me check”. She came back with the exact thing I asked for. I almost hugged her. I managed to hold back because I didn’t want to be the “crazy dish wash detergent guy” every time I went there. I hate to be a pessimist, but I believe in karma going both directions. Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

My new job

I have found the perfect job for me. It occurred to me tonight as I strolled through the Barnes and Noble down the road. I want to be a book reader. That’s right. A book reader. I just want to read the books. I don’t want to discuss them, edit them, correct them or anything else. I know this seems like a relatively useless job, but I’ve seen other jobs that seem just as silly. Wal-Mart greeter for instance. I’m not sure what kind of secret corporate deal that was struck to make that a job, but more power to them. The next trick is to find the proper company to pay me. For such a unique job I feel like I should also be paid pretty well. I’ll get back to you.

A proper title ruins the ending…

So the other day me and Sam were out and about and stopped at a local store to get a treat. While we were seated I noticed a young girl about 11 or 12 approach the clerk. She asked how much something was and counted her coins. She then asked how much the next smallest size was and got one of those disappointed looks on her face when she knew she didn’t have enough. The clerk suggested the smallest size that they had and the young girl smiled meekly and although disappointed, she said yes. I knew the clerk had underpriced the small version of her order so she could afford it and not walk away upset. By now you are thinking to yourself…”Hey Jon. Why not reach into your pocket and help a little kid out?” You want to know why? While I was watching this unfold with fascination I was thinking to myself, “Why is that little girl ordering a latte with an extra shot of espresso?” For those of you that instantly think that she was probably getting it for her mother or father, she proceeded to sit next to me and complain to her friend about the prices at Starbucks these days.