Holiday wrap-up

The holidays are over, or at least the real holidays are over. This means I've been off work for a bit, gotten some presents, stuffed myself with cookies and candy and had some type of illness.

The sickness is freshest in my mind, having just come off a two day bout of a stomach virus. The night before last I was eating Gumbo from Shane's, and at 2 that morning I was in the restroom, and again at 3,4,5, etc. until Sunday afternoon when my body called off the mandatory evacuation. Since it's so close to the holidays, I have to be positive and think that it really is a blessing in disguise as my caloric intake turned to colonic output and balanced out the cookies and candy from the previous days.

On a related note, getting old is a wonderful thing. I had conflicting medications and ailments for the first time. My shoulder was hurting like the dickens from tossing and turning all night because of the stomach problems, but I couldn't take the pain meds for my shoulder because of the effect it has on my stomach. If I were well enough, I would probably have spent my Sunday yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

As for the few days of holidays preceding the sickness, things are becoming more routine for the younger Simpson household. Katie and I are getting used to sharing our once consolidated family holiday time and are getting comfortable in our respective duties.

Christmas Eve - Church, Extended Family Gift Exchange (K-family)
Christmas - Gifts at K's family AM, lunch/gifts with my parents, Burford family PM
Day after Christmas - Katie's dad's family, Katie's Grandma's house - afternoon++
TBD - Christmas with my grandparents in Dallas (this weekend sometime)

Katie and I tried to make this Christmas a smaller one, but I don't think we really achieved that though. Her family is large enough that if you were to only spend $5 per person per gift, you'd still be looking at a sum the size of a detroit automaker bailout. However, two good things did come of the lack of self control:

1) I bought Katie a new couch and loveseat. Technically not a Christmas present, but horseshoes and handgrenades... and all that. We'll finally have seating (permanent furniture) for more than 4 people at a time in our living room.
2) Katie bought me an iphone - Had to wait until After Christmas here due to AT&T playing Ebineezer Scrooge in this year's Christmas Carol - can you give a sister four or five days on the subsidy eligibility for Christmas' sake?

Overall, this year was much less stressful than the last two, mostly, as I said, because of the calm of a holiday pattern Katie and I are falling into. We had our share of gift giving quandary's and holiday snafu's, but things are much better when you have a plan and nuptial agreement.

Pocket-sized notebooks

For anyone trying to find a good Christmas present for their scatter-brained, busy or perhaps entrepreneurially spirited gift recipient, please consider buying a pocket-sized spiral notebook. I, myself, had a few of these notebooks, one of which made it with me for the better part of three years. I wrote business ideas there, both the lame and the feasible, created to-do lists, grocery lists, reminders, etc. It was a nice thing to have, considering I was used to carrying a pen at all times in my front pocket.

I was reminded of this earlier this week when I found my old trust green spiraled notebook in my office. It was crumpled from being sat on and folded over its spirals so frequently - 200 pounds of manchild was not kind to it over the years. I glanced at the first few pages, and was surprised by how long I'd had the notebook - almost 4 years.

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The entries (each dated at the beginning of a thought) started in early 2005 with business ideas and reminders. "Look into Aiwa MP3CD player for Accord. Wash Car. Kamikaze fantasy football - players draft a team, whoever has the most players with injuries at the end of the season wins." I'm not claiming they were great ideas, but they were ideas... and entertaining to go back and read.

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I showed my wife a few of the ones I thought she might remember. The first was a note made in July of 2005 when Katie and I went to Austin, where I proposed to her. On our last day, I'd made a note of all the things we'd seen there so I wouldn't forget them (which happens to me by the time I get back from a trip). We'd forgotten a good bit of the things we'd seen and done there. On that same trip, we sketched out a preliminary list of the people we wanted to invite to our wedding over dinner at Cheddar's.

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Several pages later, there was a list of songs that I'd asked Katie to write down for me to find for her to make a CD... that was when we'd just gotten Dish Network and discovered Sirius radio on the upper channels in our first apartment. The last item of significance was the sales number to the Legacy subdivision from the first trip we took out to North Bossier to see their model house. We eventually built my house out there (that was my house, the current house is Katie's house, and I get the next one as well... we have a system here people).

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Looking back it was a good thing to have. Sure, I had lots of meaningless grocery lists, bad business ideas, and plans I never did get accomplished, but it sure was nice to at least be able to look back and reconstruct some of the more memorable moments of the last few years... similar to the function this blog performs.

Anywho, Katie and I were shopping tonight and having a hard time finding gifts for people who are always hard to shop for, so I thought I'd post a suggestion for the few people that read the blog that maybe someone who is hard to shop for would appreciate having a little notepad to put in their back pocket. Oh, and it's kinda useless unless that person normally has a pen.

Genes, why do you taunt me so?

Photo by: ElDave

While it's hard to fault my genes for handing me my devilishly handsome good looks and intelligence, I have a few rogue genes. These genes love bacon, beer, and westerns. They make me laugh at fart jokes, the three stooges and goodness knows I love a good beer commercial. I hold them responsible for enjoying sports, even the fantasy kind, and for the urge to use random power tools when completely unnecessary. They're generally a bad influence on my otherwise healthy genes and lately, true to form, they've been trying to convince me to get a truck... an american built truck... one with four doors... and that I should tell my wife! MY WIFE, for goodness sake!

Like a fool, I normally listen. I eat bacon by the hog, play in more fantasy leagues than I can shake a stick at and will laugh until I cry when presented with Dumb and Dumber's diarrhea scene. The truck is no different, I fell prey to the influence my man genes and the cursed testosterone they wield. I even told my wife of my desire for truck-y goodness. Metaphorically speaking, she murdered the idea and spit on its grave.

She has what I like to call evil woman genes. She loves soaps, a good cry, froo froo things, Grey's Anatomy, My Fair Lady, Loofahs, "quality time together" and she laughs a little too hard on America's Funniest Videos when a man is hit in the crotch. She doesn't like trucks, man chairs, westerns, sports, underwear on the floor, flatulence...you see where I'm headed with this. All of god's wonderful creations - they do nothing for her. How can I reason with insanity?

Undeterred, I've been secretly (now, not so secretly) perusing the internet, keeping up with current truck prices... should she fall mentally ill and decide that truck and I shall become one. GM trucks are cheap by historical standards... and for good reason. However, look at the following ad.

How can I ignore that? We're talking $11,000 off for Chevy's and Fords. I can't ignore it. Instead, I'm biding my time. One day, random large truck, you will be mine. I will craft a plan involving soaps, bribery, blackmail and sweet talking.

I know little of this world

Detroit Automaker Bailout - Who the... What the... Wha?

Photo by: The Sagamore Journal

I don't like to talk politics here on the blog... but as these thoughts are running through my head, and the blog is mine I've gotta take some liberty here and subject everyone to more talk about the auto bailouts. However, I can assure you that my thoughts are rational (even if you don't agree with them), that they are not influenced by lobbyist dollars or advertising dollars, and that they will be fairly brief.

Allow me to rank the top ten problems with the Big Three in order of severity and the influence of their role in this problem:

1-6) Bad Management
7) Credit Crunch
8) Bad Product
9) UAW (United Auto Workers) Union
10) Bad PR

Unlike most people looking at the situation, I don't see the UAW as the main problem here. They're the easiest ones to villify, because you can easily see the difference between the ~$75/hour figure UAW workers make and Toyota's $48/hour figure, figures that have been thrown around too much in recent days. Note, however, that the $75/hour rate is not their hourly pay, but pay + benefits + all former retiree benefit costs divided by the number of current employees... and remember that someone in the big three agreed to those contracts and has known of the pension problem for decades.

As for the products, I don't know what the design process at the "big three" is, but for the most part, it's broken. 50% of their cars should never have been made - Dodge: Avenger, Caliber, Journey, Dakota, Nitro. Jeep: Trash 'em all except the wrangler and Grand Cherokee. Pontiac: Too late, but pretty. Chrysler: Don't even get me started. Ford and Chevy have done a decent job at limiting the metal waste, but have obviously focused attention on refining SUV's and Trucks above sedans and compact cars. Oh, and I have to admit (as I've referenced in the past) that I am an 80 year old trapped in a 27 year old body, because I love Buicks... forgive me.

So, don't tell me it's all the dirty UAW and for goodness sake (Ben Stein, Rush, et al.) don't tell me that American car companies are still putting out great product, but that it's that dern credit crunch that's the real problem here. I've rented or taken a ride in plenty of recent American cars and they're lacking (though trucks/SUVs are generally nice). Not only are they poorly designed and often unreliable, but they're priced above their better designed and more reliable competitors... who still manage to turn a profit on that lower price. How can a bailout fix that?

The common link between all of these items is #1, bad management... they agreed to the UAW contract, approved the shoddy cars, and ignored changing circumstances (gas prices and impending economic woes alike). As long as these people are running the companies, and as long as the corporate structure remains intact, the problems will continue. A corporate bailout will not solve their problems.

I'm all for helping the auto workers and workers in related fields, but don't show me a donkey and tell me that with enough money someone can transform it into a Clydesdale. The facts just don't point to being able to turn a poor performer into a profitable car company simply by throwing money at the problem and creating a car czar. Radical change (structured bankruptcy, maybe?) is necessary.

Frozen Shoulder at 27?

Photo by: District 47

So, this summer Taylor and Katie and I played softball in a church softball league for Katie Mac's church. After each game, my shoulder would hurt and I'd try to stretch it out before each game, but reliably it was always tender for a while after a game. Softball season ended a few months ago and everything was still fine... I could reach above my head (as seen in the wii fit photos on my flickr page) and was still flexible.

One day two months or so ago, my dog was in the kitchen (sniffing around for scraps while Katie and I were cooking) and I reached down to swat him on the behind to get him out of the kitchen (he doesn't respond well to kind requests). When I swung my arm, I got a shooting pain in my shoulder... like being stabbed. It was the first time I'd had shoulder pain that severe. Over the next few weeks, I'd feel the same pain during routine activities and sometimes the not so routine (like swatting a mosquito).

I put up with the pain because it seemed like it was just a result of pulling a muscle or some such business... or possibly having a weak shoulder, I don't really know. Anywho, I started throwing the ball underhanded with pluto every day. I limited my dog and mosquito swatting, etc., but could still move my shoulder freely. Some time two weeks ago or so I noticed that I couldn't lift my arm above my head, or reach around to grab my belt to loop it to the other side and other every day activities were a bit more difficult/painful. So, I waited it out for a week or so to see that it wasn't some temporary swelling due to my regular old shoulder problems and on Friday, went to the doctor who diagnosed me with frozen shoulder.

So, now I'm supposed to be doing physical therapy a few times a week, and doing exercises at home to regain my range of motion. I also received some anti-inflammatory pills to help with the pain before or after physical therapy, I guess. They don't really do much for me... so I may crush a few up and snort them before physical therapy just to make things interesting (that's a joke, for any grandparents reading this).

I don't really have much pain (I understand it can be pretty severe) and am able to do everything I would normally do. Some things are just a bit more difficult than normal, but still doable. The only crazy thing is that normally this affects older people. 70% of "frozed up shoulderees", as I call us, are women folk and it's supposedly rare in people under 50 unless you've got some other condition such as diabetes... a condition for which I've been tested recently. It's just weird to be falling apart so soon.

I crack myself up

Anyone who went to middle school, or who watches The Office on NBC is familiar with the phrase "That's what she said". It was commonly used by males who, after hearing someone say something innocent, such as "finally we put this matter to bed" will add "that's what she said" to the end to add sexual inuendo... in an attempt to be humorous. In middle school it could be quite hilarious, and due to a delayed maturity, at 27 I still find it hilarious.

This past week I was provided with a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a "that's what she said" joke, and despite the mixed company... did so with pride.

Katie's uncle brought an organ (small, pedal operated type) back from Jefferson, Texas where it was in storage. I went to help him unload the organ from his truck and while we were getting ready to unload it, he looked at it and said "Man, that is one sweet organ...", to which I added "that's what she said!"... in company of my embarassed wife, my wife's confused little sister and my aunt.

As you can see, my hand was forced. How often do you get to make use of double entendre in conjunction with the word "organ". It was a priceless moment, in my opinion, and one that could not be passed up.

</tooting own horn>

The danger of self diagnosing on the web

The web is a wonderful thing. I provide a list of symptoms to the web and the web performs its magic and tells me exactly what's wrong with me.

Symptoms:
Fatigue
Morning Stomach Problems
Headaches
Mood Swings
Heartburn/Indigestion/Gas

Result:
I'm pregnant.

It makes sense, really. The larger than normal belly, lack of menstruation, cravings for wings, ranch and fries with sugar and salt on them. I just have to figure out a way to explain this to Katie now.