Words that give you trouble

As a kid I mis-spelled the word "friend", and since that day, I have always struggled to write the word. I also mis-pronounce certain words - "envelope" and "root", but today Pickles told me that in her high school the dread word in "popcorn" was organism. Apparently, there was a virus that affected her class causing kids to "accidentally" say orgasm. Apparently this flooded into her college career when she accidentally said "orgasm" three times in a row in her Philosophy class when she meant to say organism. Amazingly, only a handful of kids in this class responded with laughter - suggesting either that Pickles often suffered from horrible verbal diarrhea or that no one was paying attention. Either way, that's too bad because Pickles is great fun and full of verbal slip ups that are well worth listening to.

Today we (Pickles and I) drove to Kearney. This is the most rural town that Pickles has ever visited. Ever. One time she stopped in a random Missouri town at a carnival that had a lot of fish (per her). She was amazed that many rural towns do not have grocery stores. She had never considered why small towns don't generate the demand to support a local grocery store. Interestingly, she also commented that the conference that we were at seemed to have a disproportionate stressing of farmer's markets as a solution to this problem.

Lastly, she had a brilliant idea regarding a new thing necessary for the Omaha market - an indoor climbing wall. I am going to try to convince her to continue exploring this possibility. I think it could be successful - but I'd be interesting in understanding the demographics that use these walls in Phoenix and other places.

Rooting for your home country

I don't know about you, but I have friends that root for countries other than the United States in events - despite being born and bred Americans. I can sort of understand why an immigrant might root for the country of his or her booth, but a natural born citizen really has no excuse. So NBCs have no excuse but to root for the Yanks in the World Cup, Olympics or other international competitions.

However, when dealing with a naturalized citizen, I kind of think its expected and totally acceptable if this person roots for the country of their birth as long as they know where their bread is buttered. If you are an American, you cannot root against the US...just for someone else. So, I say she can sing O, Canada...

Limiting Re-agents

The 3631 Family's limiting re-agent is MOQ school pants size 8 or bigger. James simply cannot wear anything smaller - but if given the opportunity, he will absolutely try. James is trying to popularize floods - or possibly women's 3/4 pants for men. He has gone to school with pants that when he sits - allow you to see his knees. Its a bit ridiculous.

The second re-agent is Cheryl's scrubs. However, it rarely occurs that James has worn his pants out sooner than Cheryl's scrubs - but in certain situations, such as last weekend's four day vacation - the other can occur. So we have to stay pretty on top of the laundry at the 3631 homestead.

On the Winter Olympics

So, I have a couple of things to say about the Winter Olympics.

First, I think that it is ridiculous that despite watching figure skating for more than two full evenings of viewership, I still could not begin to describe the scoring. More importantly, how is it possible that people train literally to the expense of everything for their entire lives - some times 20 straight years. And yet, when it comes to the Olympic finals, the key is essentially to look happy, not fall and have a nice backstory. That's a ridiculous sport.

Second, I find snowboard cross to be a particularly compelling sport. I have no idea whether it is hard or not, if its fun or not, but I love the direct competition in the race. I also love that the people seem to have fun while participating and that it appears that while the people are all from Vermont or BC, they seem to be regular people that have excelled over time - not sacrificed their life before they could make a real decision. 10 year old girls should not be making lifelong decisions about spending 14 hours, 7 days a week working towards something. So, I like it a lot more than skating. As Pickles said, so what do you do after you have sacrificed your whole life and not won...oops.

Finally, I have watched portions of virtually every Olympics since 1980. And, I find that my fondest memories are from odd ones - Seoul, Barcelona and Sarajevo. Why, I have no idea. I remember watching the downhill in a snowstorm in Sarajevo while playing on the orange shag carpet in Timmerman's basement when I was 8. I remember the cobblestone and the architectural pictures of Barcelona. I can't tell you a single moment from the sports in 1992 - just discovering the existence of a Catalonian distaste for Spaniards. I simply had no idea and found the cultural parts of this Olympics to be awesome. Thus, I still strongly desire to visit Barcelona. Lastly, I remember Seoul. I remember Ben Johnson failing his drug test and Greg Louganis having HIV and hitting his head on the board.

So, when I watch the Olympics in Vancouver. I'll probably remember the luging death and the problems with the execution. This is horrible and unfortunate - but I think it reflects a new found realization of event execution. In addition, name a sport in the Summer Olympics that people regularly die doing. Luge, skeleton, skiing, snowboarding are all dangerous. People get horribly injured doing these things - not from outside influence (cyclists and cars for example) - but by simply failing to perform - world class athletes die. This is not just drunk people doing stupid things - this is world class people performing at the highest level and not just having an accident - but horrible ones that cause death.

Club Trillion

I was not aware that the last man on the bench at Ohio State had a blog. So, my knowledge of said blog was lacking. Thus, I had to spend some time reading through it.

Here are my thoughts. First, I thought it was reasonably adequate. Not laugh out loud, fall of your chair funny - but consistently humourous. The section that I read appeared to be about NCAA compliance. I found his insight to be consistent with my own opinions on compliance and NCAA rules. I think that we have over-regulated college athletics.

Three things should be paramount. Kids get an education. Sports remain sacrosanct - no gambling, no illegal inducement, etc. Time is left for kids to be college students - and all that entails. Thus, I think giving kids a slight payment based on athletics revenues, or jersey sales, or something of the sort - is perfectly justified. However, like anything, the devil is in the details. My biggest anger at life is the way that our society, the NCAA, even schools have basically shifted ethical responsibility to compliance. We did everything by the rules, so if you managed to do bad things its not our fault. How bout we stop trying to regulate morality and instead create frameworks and push for stronger, better behavior. For example, if a kid on your team's mother dies and he can't afford the plane ticket, the coach should be able to pay for that kid to get home for the funeral. Coaches make a lot of money and they care deeply about their players; this is not an entitlement or inducement, this is simply good social policy. But, compliance and rules are written that say that's illegal. That's just poor regulation and then standing behind the letter of the law because you know the spirit of the law is completely against you.

Ubiquitous Internet

With all of the availability of the internet, I, too, find that I utilize the internet for many more functions today than even a couple of years ago - and certainly more than when I was a kid. But that's because there was no internet to speak of when I was Mary's age. Yahoo! was not a company when I started college. Netscape went public in 1995. Google in 2001. And, I still remember my introduction to online porn in my junior year of college...I was flabbergasted. I am not saying that I was an early adopter of any particular technology - but I am not a late adopter or someone that abhors the advent of new things. So, I'd say my experience was relatively mainstream.

So, when my sister who has grown up with uniquitous technology starts talking about how she has started to utilize it for everything - I sort of chuckle and remember the dark times...the times before I spent more than 6 hours of every day in front of a screen - TV, computer, mobile device, etc.

However, since I started working with technology companies, I spend a lot more time reading about the changing face of technology. And, I find that I am particularly excited for the time when there is a single device - like an iPad on steroids - that ties everything together - phone, tv, book, internet, Microsoft office suite, calendar, grocery list. More than anything, I am hoping for this because I have become the annoying guy that looks at his phone every time it buzzes. I have become the annoying guy that watches fifteen Tivo'd shows because he can. And, I have become the annoying guy that gets frustrated over the little things - because unlike my devices - real life is not generally totally under my control. So, I get mad at my kids because they do not follow a pausable schedule. And, I get frustrated at work because people don't understand why I am right and they are wrong. And most of all I find that my wife and I merely trade verbal texts of information when we see each other because we have our own screen to occupy our thoughts.

I am not calling for a ban on technology. I think it is useful and good. However, I would say that if you've only shifted your technology use to include weather rather than to include interaction...than you're probably still doing okay.