Stream of Consciousness

I didn't get much sleep last night. I got paged at 4:00 this morning for my job. It was something really dumb, and only took 10 minutes. But I couldn't get back to sleep. I'm tired. I'm in the mood to just mindlessly type for a bit.

The guy who paged me really should have been able to figure out the problem. It's a bit like if you had your car in the shop, and the mechanic calls you to say, "Hey, I was test driving your car and the fuel light came on. What should I do?" "Um, did you check to see if the car needs gas?" "No. Do you know if it needs gas?" ... Now imagine this conversation at 4 AM. It's a good thing I'm paid well.

I've been tinkering with the look of this blog a little. The strange thing about the template I'm working from is that it doesn't have a subject line when I post. I'm gonna try just putting a title in the first line, in bold, and see how that works. Pfft. Like it matters.

Blog. What a dumb word. It seems like it should be some sort of onomatopoeia, like the sound your washing machine makes when it's unhappy. "Uh oh, the washer's blogging again." It makes you feel dumb just saying it. Blog blog blog. Kind of like when you go to Wendy's and order a Biggie sized drink. Biggie is a dumb word too. Welcome to my Biggie Blog. No, I am not drunk right now.

In this country, as in most, we drive on the right side of the road, and walk or the right side of the sidewalk. Why is it then, that almost every grocery or big retail store has their "In" doors on the left, and their "Out" doors on the right? Kroger, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Staples. Almost every place I can think of. I'm 35 years old and I still have a hitch in my step when I go into a store because it takes me a second to realize I'm going the wrong way.

Help! My blog is turning into a Larry King column! Somebody save me!

I have had ten cars in my lifetime. Three were driven off the lot new, one was leased. Most were either slightly old or very old. But here's the odd bit: I've never owned the same brand twice. The list, in approximate chronological order: Volkswagen, Chevy, Saturn, Mercedes, Mazda, Nissan, Acura, Subaru, Honda, Ford. Now granted, Chevy and Saturn are both GM, and Acura and Honda are very nearly the same thing. But still... And not a Toyota or a Chrysler in the bunch. Strange. (They've been steadily going down in cost lately too. I'm in the $1500 range now. Just think what my next car will be like!) But now as I mentally walk through my house, I realize that all of our appliances are different brands, all of our electronics are different brands... Apparently I have absolutely no brand loyalty.

My son's favorite TV shows are Dirty Jobs and Family Guy. My son is not yet 3. I think that makes me a bad parent or something. And I think it pretty much ensures that he has no chance of growing up to be a normal person. But I guess the genes he got from me already took care of that. We may have to nix his Family Guy privileges though. He doesn't miss anything, and he understands too much.

Dirty Jobs, if you haven't seen it, is actually a pretty cool show. The host goes around the country and spends a day doing some awful job cleaning sewers, inseminating cows, sweeping chimneys, collecting owl vomit, or whatever. The guy is hilarious, in a very subtle, unassuming way. The jobs aren't always dirty in a literal sense, just hard, thankless, or unappreciated. They had one the other day about drilling an oil well. Very interesting. Edson was fascinated. There's one part where they're attaching this big metal rod to the end of the previous big metal rod that's already gone down into the ground. The foreman is explaining everything to the host of the show, and there's this square part of the rod attached to the round part, and the guy says "That's called the 'kelly'". I know this seems like a random anecdote, but stick with me. A few days after watching it, E5 is outside helping Daddy, and looks at the base of the downspout, where it goes into a drain pipe underground. A square thing that turns into a round thing. He calls me over, saying, "Look dad, it's a kelly. See the kelly, dad?" I made some noise of acknowlegement, but didn't really have any idea what he was talking about until about 10 minutes later I remembered that segment and figured it all out. The kid is scary when it comes to memory.

Of course, this is the same kid that visited my Dad's house at 18 months old, and met their dog Max. Sadly, Max died of cancer the following summer. The next time E5 was up to visit E3, it was almost a year later. One of the first things he said when he walked into their house was, "Where's Max?"

Okay, so now that I've thought about it, I do have some brand loyalty. I am very loyal to one brand in the areas of crunchy peanut butter, deodorant, raisin bran, and underwear. But I think that's about it.

I think that's about it for my blogging today too. Blog blog blog...