First, a joke:

How many ADD kids does it take to change a lightbulb?

I don’t know, how many.

Hey, let’s go ride bikes!

I don’t think that’s exactly how it went when I first heard the joke but it’s pretty darn similar. Anyway…over the weekend we went bike shopping for David. I already have a bike (Specialized Hardrock - similar to this picture), and have had one for about 10 years now. For the better part of those 10 years it’s either been sitting in a closet or hanging in the garage waiting for someone to do something with it.

I think I rode it exactly two times after I first bought it, and then never rode it again. Not because I can’t, or because I don’t like to, I just lost the motivation.

A month or so ago, David pulled it down from the garage hook, filled the tires with air, and took it for a test spin around the block. But then again it got hung back up and wasn’t talked about - until last Friday.

We’ve been trying to come up with some active things we can do together, to lose weight, that doesn’t require the gym. I can’t stand going to the gym and David has been paying for a membership for the last year without ever going. We needed to find something we could do right from the house. So I said, “why don’t we go out on Saturday morning and head over to the bike shop and buy you a bike?”

And thus the idea was born. We went to East Sac Bikes first, because we’d never been there and they seemed to have a wide selection of bikes. A wide selection of $600 bikes is more like it. We were in the store for less than 5 minutes before I was pestering David to leave. Then off we went to Target. Target had a pretty good selection of men’s mountain bikes, and after test driving 3 of them along the aisle, we found a very nice one.

David is now the proud owner of a Schwinn Clearcreek, and it’s a pretty sassy looking bike as you can see here.

So we’ve gone on three rides already, and we’re going to try to keep the momentum up and see how much weight we can lose. So far it’s been a lot of fun riding around town, but we’re working up to longer rides and tougher rides. I’ll let you all know how it goes, and how much my waist line shrinks!

Cheers!

As most of you know I’m terribly fond of words and language. Rachelle knows this, and she gave me a Forgotten English Page-A-Day Calendar way back at the beginning of the year.

I am pleased to share with you the calendar footnote for June 25, because I think it’s topical and an interesting concept that is still practiced today in Neopaganism.

Guid Nychburris,

a fair whose name meant “good neighbors” was held in late June in Dumfries, Scotland. Its medieval origin is steeped in a tradition of helping quarreling citizens reconcile their differences. John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland (1791) alluded to this gathering as a venue for another friendly custom: “At that fair, it was the custom for the unmarried persons to choose a companion with whom they were to live till that time next year. This was called handfasting. If they were pleased they continued together for life. If not, they separated and were free to make another choice.”

Let’s talk about the upsides:

• Imagine how this could solve many of our societal marriage challenges (and I’m not referring to gay marriage - I’m referring to divorce rates, sham marriages, Las Vegas marriages, 24 hour annulments, Pam Anderson’s marriages, domestic violence, etc.).
• It’s basically like a trial marriage…you have a boyfriend/girlfriend for a year, live together, see how it all works out, and then openly and honestly determine if it’s for the long-term. If not, no hard feelings, just move on to the next hottie in town.
• Many relationships fail after people move in together, because that’s when you’re really put to the test of being able to tolerate another person in your space. This handfasting process would give you the test, and if you fail, you’ve only got to wait until the next festival to try again until you pass.
• Handfasting provides the ability to have same gender coupling, or even multi-partner coupling for those who wish to have more than two people in their family (reference) - very progressive

So what are the downsides?

• You’ve got to wait a year, even if you know after a few days, or a month, that it’s not going to be a long term relationship.
• If you fool around on your chosen handfaster, that’s likely not going to bode well the next time you go to the party :-).
• Constant moving! I don’t know about you, but I hate moving. I don’t even like moving offices at work. Boxing up your life every year and moving to someone else’s house, or having them move into yours would be disastrous if it’s only for a year. Bring on the U-Haul.

I’m sure there are many more upsides and downsides, but I’m interested in what YOU think about this interesting festival…

* Image from Wikipedia

This weekend we were treated to the births of hundreds of Praying Mantis’. We have egg sacks all over the back yard, but this was the first time we had actually seen the birthing process in progress.

Starting at about mid-morning, the mantis’ burst forth from their birthing chamber and took over the cabana. Here you can see the ones that stuck around near their home for the past several months.

While it may look like there are a lot of little critters coming out of that small egg container - this isn’t even the half of it. All across the beam of the cabana we counted approximately 120 new baby mantis’. Within about 4 hours, they had all but scattered and only a few remained close to home.

This morning, there isn’t a single mantis inside the cabana. They made their way to the various plants around the yard, climbing up on the grape vines, sneaking their way underneath the basil and rosemary, and generally hanging upside down under any leaf they can find.

We’re very excited to see what happens with them this year - last year we had quite a number of large and beautiful creatures in the yard. As you can see here, the male and female are in the midst of creating a new batch of kids…

Isn’t nature magnificent

Let’s all bow our heads in prayer.

Some days ago, I was embroiled in an interesting conversation with a coworker about the stress and life-sucking that goes on because of work and life distractions. I was also noticing the volume of grey hair I’m developing above my ears. It might have been that which concerned me more than the other stuff, but regardless, it prompted a question, which I’ll get to in a moment.

In the last six months I have gone from having 3-5 grey hairs above my ears to over 20. Ok, maybe 30.

Six months! Granted, there have been some very stressful situations at work, but come on. I’m really not that old, and yet there they are…and they aren’t from age, they are 100% confirmed, from stress. I’ve had them tested. But that’s not the point. The point is, the thought that occurred was, could I sue for damages because my life has been sucked away from me not unlike the Pit of Despair scene in The Princess Bride? And if I could, how much is a year of life worth?

What is the value of one year of your life?

It’s got to be more than your annual salary, because that’s just an artificial valuation of your contributions (hopefully) based on measurements, statistics, averages, and other nonsensical stuff. Even if you determined an hourly rate of your life and multiplied it by the number of hours in a typical year (1 year = 8765.81277 hours) would that still really give you the true value of you living for a year?

How would you value the influence you have on others, or the changes you make that might cause something to happen a year from now that would never have happened had you not done the original thing? And realistically, COULD you even put a value on all the possible outcomes? Unlikely. So really what it comes down to is what would a jury of your peers award you for damages.

That’s where the numbers become fun. You can get billions of dollars from tobacco companies because you failed to heed the warnings about smoking (or the nasty smell that your friends constantly complained about). You can get millions upon millions in wrongful death lawsuits. So let’s say an entire life lost is worth, let’s find a recent one in the news, $25 million (that’s the supposed estimate for John Ritter).

If you average 85 years, that works out to about $294,117.65 a year. I think we know there are a heck of a lot of people who make more than that in their annual salary. Should those people be valued more than a famous actor who made us laugh and smile for so many years? Should those of us with significantly lower salaries or job glamour be devalued? Is there something like an adjustable rate mortgage on a year of your life than can wax and wane based on your annual accomplishments? If you influenced more people this year, are you worth more?

It’s completely philosophical I suppose, and I’m not really interested in finding THE answer…but I am interested in what YOU think the value of one year of your life is, and why.

I was having a chat with one of our social media managers at work, and started thinking about the overwhelming number of ways we communicate with one another.

In days of old, you had to get up out of your chair, leave your house, and walk down the street to talk with someone who wasn’t right next to you. But today, that’s all changed.

• Telephone
• Mobile Phone
• Email
• Text Messaging
• Instant Messaging
• Blogging
• Discussion Forums
• Chat programs
• Quick-Hit sites like Twitter*
• Status Updates on sites like Facebook* / myspace.com* / etc.
• Verbal (face to face)

And the list is probably double this if I had time to think about it. Oh, and verbal is last on the list for a purpose. These days you usually resort to verbal when none of the others works or is fast enough. Sad.

There are just too many ways to communicate, and it’s overwhelming at times. Don’t you just want to open a bottle of wine and tell everyone around you to BE QUIET?!

It’s just too much. The mind can’t handle that much information in a coherent way, and it’s likely why we have so many rampant cases of A.D.D., A.D.H.D., bi-polar disorder, and probably schizophrenia. Is it too far fetched to wonder if many of today’s mental disorders have been caused by the inundation of information we receive every second of every day? And I’m not talking about the news or the media, I’m talking about from our friends, family and coworkers too!

An article on Infoworld gives us an idea to combat the overload:

One strategy to consider is instituting information “filters.” To cope with volumes of data, e-mail filters can be used to screen out less-than-critical messages and prevent an overwhelming amount of data from being thrown at a person, Cascio says. Deleting your name from list servers is another way to limit the influx of e-mail.

Um…Hello?! That doesn’t solve the problem, it actually compounds it!

We’ve got answering machines and voice mail for our phones, we have filters and folders for email, and if you don’t want the information on a website, you don’t visit the website!

In each case we’ve implemented a method to prevent the communication from DISTURBING us. The problem is we aren’t ELIMINATING it, only delaying and compounding it.

To bring it home, it’s like TIVO. You can’t listen now, so you record it for later and then you suddenly realize Friday afternoon that you haven’t watched the last 20 episodes of the show and you have to spend your entire weekend catching up on the lives of the characters you care so deeply about!

Take my advice - open up the Now Playing list of your life, highlight the program folder, and push delete on your remote control. Then go outside with your partner/spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/lover/friend/whatever and talk to them.

Oh, and leave your darn phone in the house.

* Cell phone and brain scan image from WikiMedia Commons

Forget WWJD, WWDD, or WWOD.

I want to know What Are YOU Going To Do (WAYGTD)?

I’ve recently become tired of hearing people talk about what someone else thinks they should do, and not about what THEY want/are going to do.

So, let’s talk for just a little bit about self-empowerment and taking control of your life - because if you don’t do it yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.

I want to throw out a quick gripe about people who say that they have let God/Jesus/Deity take control of their life. After hearing sports figures talk about this during the Super Bowl, and hearing numerous American Idol contestants talking about God and how the Holy Spirit told them to audition, I have two thoughts.

Thought #1 is that this is quite ignorant, lazy, a cop-out, and apathetic, and really has nothing to do with a higher power.

Thought #2 is that I hope that these folks could say that THEY are taking control of their life because of what they have learned from their God/Jesus/Deity. There has to be some self-ownership here.

Forget about “Jesus Take the Wheel“, how about I take the wheel and he can sit next to me and we can have a chat? I’d much rather have that kind of relationship. And seriously -I don’t consider this to be me making a statement against religion, but against mindless giving-up of ownership of the self. Relationships don’t work that way - they are a partnership, not blind acquiescence.

Anyway - that’s my rant for today. It frustrates me. Frankly, I do not care what people believe in: God, Buddha, Shiva, Body Thetans, whatever, just take a little ownership in the choices you make and the way you live your life.

* Image of strength from Wikimedia Commons *

20 January, and my dearling Rachelle turns a million today.
Well not a million, just 40. Ok, not 40…she’s less than 40, but not by much.

Anyway…

Here is a photo montage covering the last 12 years of my life with Rachelle…give or take a few years. She’ll hate this I’m sure, but she never reads my blog anymore so…

Let’s start with the oldest picture of us that I could find…from 1999. Gosh I was so much thinner then…but don’t we look all cute at work.

Next up…2000 and Halloween. Don’t we look goth? Did I mention that I was also going to be in some of these pictures?

Next up…2001 and Rachelle has braces and bleached hair.

In 2002 we were completely washed out at Buca de Beppo.

2003 and she had a grand time playing dress-up for Halloween…

In 2004 we took one of my favourite pictures of the two of us.

2005 and 2006 and 2007 were a blur…

And here’s hoping for many more years of this wild and crazy woman…Love me some Rachelle…