So what happened?  Why are we not sticking to electronic options exclusively instead of printing out physical copies of everything.  I don’t fully know the answer, but I do know that most companies still rely on a physical storage of information.

Perhaps it is the fact that hard drives fail, a painful experience most of us have had at one point or another.  Digital data can be lost.  Secure online accounts sound great until there is another big hacking breach publicized in the news.  Email delivery of monthly statements is not always something you can rely on to avoid late payments on a credit card or loan payment.  There are a number of insecurities we all harbor, and our protection is to stick to the old fashioned postal delivery of our reminders.  The reality, granted in my opinion, is that we feed our lack of personal organization by sticking to getting things delivered by mail.

Nearly every financial institution offers options to go paperless with your statements and regular communication; some even offer incentives for you to do it because of the cost savings it provides them.  If email delivery is an issue, consider changing your email to a good free service such as Gmail.  Google can offer a high reception success on your email along with super spam filtering due to sheer number of subscribers they monitor for problems.  Plus, with Gmail you get nearly 3GB of storage that is automatically backed up for you.  You are not going to lose those important emails with a solid service.

Concerned that you may not remember to pay those bills without a physical reminder?  First off, consider checking your email at least once a day if you don’t already.  It’s a good thing to stay in communication with people, plus with the regular habit you can insure you will see important missives quickly.

Second, consider paying bills right when they come in.  I know, we all like to squeeze out every day of interest we can by holding our money into our account until the last possible moment.  Come on, I have thought like that too, but the reality here is that we are just procrastinators that like to cover ourselves with believing we are sound financial thinkers.  If you pay bills right off, you never have to remember the due date with a growing anxiety of missing it.  If your finances are tight this may be a difficult transition to make; but, once done, it is no different than your normal routine, just moved up in the month.

Finally, if you are really bad about remembering things – as I am – use electronic reminders.  If you use a mobile phone use the built in task list or calendar option to put in date/time reminders to do important tasks.  If you are not that electronically savvy, carry a small date book and get good and looking at it regularly to see what important things need to get done on any given day.

Really going paperless is not a matter of security, privacy or availability.  Going paperless is a matter of breaking our current habits and establishing new, better ones.

My weekend efforts led me to a little life epiphany.  It was not a new point, but one that I was faced with again as I have in the past.  Hopefully I will learn this lesson a little better this go around.

While I was doing the edging, I realized part way through that I had neglected to put the hose away first, therefore it crossed my path in several places as I worked my way around the yard. Rather than put down the edger and simply put the hose away, I did what most of us do, which is to just kick it out of the way as I came across it. I hope I am not the only one that takes that lazy approach to things. I’ll end up having to put the hose away later anyway, but to stop what I am doing at that moment and take care of it seems like a burden. In the big picture, I am actually relegating myself to more work, but it doesn’t seem like that at the moment of course.

All this background leads me to my point. As I kick at the hose to move it out of the way, one spot moves a little, but most of the hose ignores my prod. I kick at it in another place, only to have my original kick get negated as the hose in that spot moves back into its original place. As I mentally curse this result, I continue to kick until the hose moves enough for my needs, also calling on Murphy and his blasted law. Things always seem to work against me, move into exactly the wrong spot, and so on.

I stepped back in this situation and laugh a bit at myself. With my rational mind prevailing, I really had Newton to blame. No, it wasn’t gravity in this instance, but the laws of Physics were working just as they always do. I was creating a simple wave with my kick, resulting in the movement of the hose as it was. We all know that you can’t push a rope, or a hose in this instance. Pulling the hose is far more productive. That doesn’t stop us from trying to push that hose of course. Are we just that stubborn, or do we typically act before analyzing a situation for the best way to approach it.

How many times do we curse Murphy when something falls and breaks, of course, when in reality we set up the situation by not looking at all the factors involved and the likely outcome based on some simple Physics. I know that I often get the visual and mental blinders on when I am caught up in my business of the day, failing to look in a wider view at every situation in order to handle it in a better way. I compare this to a basketball point guard or football quarterback. Those with wider court or field vision, or the ability to see the developing situations on the whole are far more successful than those that hone in on their preferred end to the play.

So with this situation, though I tend to blame Murphy and plead for those blasted situations to quit happening to me; I try to step back and see where I set up that little “destiny” to take place and change my actions in the future.

I give this topic more of a positive spin over at WGS today, telling of an old technique I learned once about jumping out of bed that I am trying to implement again.  Here, I am just going to complain a little!

Yes, I am going to complain about that evil Snooze Button that every alarm clock includes.  I would venture to say that no other invention has done more to ruin the productivity and on time factor of humankind than the ability to put off getting out of bed with just a simple push of a button.  Generally alarms allow you 10 minutes of continued bliss with by just reaching out and slapping that big button of delay.  Some are shorter, but 10 minutes is the norm.

What is with that design too?  You know we all use the snooze way too much when alarm clocks generally are designed now such that the snooze button is by far the largest feature on the entire device.  Most often this button is placed right at the top so you can simply roll over, and in your blind stupor slap around until you hit the clock and stop that incessant sound that is attempting to pull you out of la la land.  No doubt you have woken up on many a day to find it is much later than you thought because you hit that snooze two or three times without even consciously being aware of what you were doing.

Alarm clocks need to include the ability to disable that snooze button, forcing us to actually wake up enough to realize what we are doing.  Perhaps they could require us to tap it with a pattern of some kind to require a level of consciousness.  “Shave and a haircut” would do.  I have taken to actually putting my clock across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn it off; yet, even then I crawl back into bed and try to quickly get back into REM.  With a one year old child in the house, I do have some real motivation to get that alarm clock turned off quick.  If I let it go, she is woken up too and the entire morning takes on additional complexity.
We all know that extra 10 minutes (per snooze) is most definitely not quality sleep time.  Once we are broken out of the deep sleep cycle, we are simply trying to prolong the inevitable start of the new day.  You are not going to warm up to the day any better by slowly waking up.  Face reality and set the alarm for when you really need to get up, and do it.  You will get more quality sleep out of it than the perpetual snooze cycle.

Yet, like any other addiction, trying to break from this snooze crack is harder than it sounds.  I am a deep sleeper that can do amazing things without ever breaking into consciousness.  As a kid I could sleep walk with the best of them.  I can carry on entire conversations in my sleep.  It scares me to think of what secrets my wife could pull out of me if she were to abuse this ability.  Good thing I don’t keep many secrets!  Turning off the alarm and tricking myself into continuing to slumber is something my subconscious has done on many an occasion.  Thus the across the room technique mentioned before.  I even have to vary the location of the alarm on days that I know I have to get up for a specific appointment and can’t get away with a little tardiness.

So, as the title suggestions, I submit that the snooze button is a creation of the devil.  It is not inspired as an invention to better humankind, rather to bring us down into lazy habits and poor starts to our day.  One more example of how we can procrastinate even the smallest of things, just getting out of bed.  So it is time to kick that habit.  Out with the snooze and in with maximizing my actual sleep time.  How about you?

Now I know this is not the case for everyone, and I realize that I am on the computer far more every day than many people, but they are becoming more and more in the workforce like me. Whatever job you may do, we are seemingly always pressed for time or late for an appointment. As we rush through our day, are we simply and too much of a hurry to enjoy the journey?

This morning I found a link to a Washington Post article that discussed an experiment they made it speaks to this very fact. The Post engaged in a world renowned violinist to play in the halls of a busy subway terminal in downtown Washington, DC. They speculated and asked others to speculate on what the results would be, whether people would stop and listen or hurry on their way. They went so far as to install a hidden camera to record the results as complex, beautiful music was played on a $3.5 million violin. Would the busybodies of that morning have their minds and souls pricked to the point that they would take a moment out of their busy day and rush to get to work to listen and appreciate this rare moment they were being presented with?

Now keep in mind the location they chose for their experiment was one that feeds into our nation’s capital, so likely the majority of the travelers that morning represent government workers; integral minds playing a role in running the systems that control our nation. These are people we would hope are better than the average at intellectual capacity, and therefore have a sense of life’s finer things and beauty. At least that is what I think.

Now of course I predisposed you to the outcome of this situation with my title to this article. With over a thousand people passing by during the 45 minute experiment, only a small handful chose to stop and listen even for a few minutes, and even fewer through a dollar or two into his open case which was presented for donations part of the experiment.

So I ask you, and myself, is this a sad commentary on the way we are treating our typical day in much of our lives? Are we in such a rush to accomplish things and is our need to be to her destination on time so important that we missed the small opportunities to appreciate the beauty around us? Do we let the drudgery of a daily routine turn us into robots such that we are unable to let the right side of our brain remain open and available? It is not every day that we have a virtuoso on the corner playing a complex musical solo, but there are many things that happen all around us that if it would stop and take a moment to enjoy them our lives would be enriched by that small break in our day.

Perhaps I’m waxing too philosophical at the point being made by this experiment provided by the Post, but I feel in reading this article I have had a small light bulb turn on my mind. Though it is difficult to measure these little things and enrich our lives, is what makes us who we are. That is hard to understand when getting the next project on or earning that extra dollar is much easier for us to measure and it affects us in a more outward way. But why is it that we work so hard? Is it not to provide the time and means to enjoy ourselves? We work so hard to accrue vacation days and the money to go on vacation and to splurge on those trips were gadgets or other things that bring us enjoyment.

Give the article a read, and one of the videos at least and see if it makes you stop and think like it did for me. If perhaps we were to focus just a little more on those little enjoyments we can get each and every day, perhaps we would be better, happier people for it. At least that’s my thought for the day, and that might to try and make that thought stick from this point forward.

Link: www.washingtonpost.com

How many times do we use phrases like that out of habit when they don’t really apply. The most common I hear is “How you doin?” when you first start talking with someone. Bank tellers, cashiers and other people you really don’t know really don’t care how you are doing, but this is the first thing that gets said. Usually the response is “fine” or “great” and then you ask them back how they are. Pleasantries aside you get down to the intended conversation. Do we say these things really to be pleasant, or simply out of sheer habit? I have a friend who’s dad has made it his personal joke to respond to this common question with “terrible,” “just awful” or something similar to catch people off guard.

I don’t watch a lot of TV these days, at least not general TV for the sake of just watching. When I do, I like to catch a few particular shows if they happen to be on. I hate reality shows in general, I find no desire to watch people argue about things that really don’t matter and basically put on a strange act to try and garner the most camera time in their 15 minutes of fame. There are a few that I enjoy though that I don’t know if they really fall under “reality shows” but the generally get typed as that. They are the shows that actually do something good with their funding, like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and the car shows like Overhaulin’ and Trick My Truck.

It is on the last show mentioned, Trick My Truck, that the shop owner gives a corny little speech at the end about how they are happy to have helped the trucker by making his truck something special. At the end of his speech, he always uses his signature sign off, “We’ll be seein’ ya.” Some writer obviously decided the show needed that endearing little phrase at the end to tie them all together. I prefer to use the opportunity to jump ahead 30 seconds on my DVR if I happen to have some show time in memory from pausing earlier, which I usually end up doing because of the common kid-based interruptions.

To give him credit, in this case he is actually referring to to him and his “crew” when he says “we’ll” so the phrase actually works. What made me laugh this morning is when an individual uses the phrase. It was just two guys chatting outside the convenience store that had obviously bumped in to each other when filling up or grabbing a fountain drink. I happened to be walking buy when the “We’ll be seein’ ya” popped out and they parted ways. I laughed inside and actually thought about looking around and behind him and asking, “where are the other people?” I know, petty and not all that funny, which is why I actually didn’t do it.

Brian Regan, the comedian I have mentioned several times on this site has a great bit about the “you too” misuse. In his joke he talks about a taxi driver wishing him a nice flight and a waiter wishing him a nice meal, and how his habitual response of “you too” just not fitting those kind of situations. I crack myself up when I incorrectly say something completely of habit because I think back to this joke. Isn’t it a lot like when young kids make that oh so embarrassing
mistake of calling their teacher “mom” for the first time?

We are creatures of habit, and our speech is laden with little idiosyncrasies like this. What are your some of your favorites?

What is it with me really?  It’s not like I have nothing to do each day and I am trying to fill my time.  I have a family of 4 kids, need I say more?   Yet, with plenty of normal obligations to deal with, I find myself taking on new projects practically whenever asked.  Even worse, even when I know I just can’t give any more time to a project, I hang on and just don’t let it go.  I am sure there has to be some pschobabble named condition that gives a title to this.

I recently returned from a very fun trip to Las Vegas taking some photos at a series of concerts.  Photography is my favorite of the hobbies, and it works out that often I can get paying jobs or some fabulous trade arrangements to go along with it.  This is what I would consider a good use of my time, so I pursue most any opportunity I can find when it comes to photo work.  When I make enough money with it, I then justify getting a new lens or other new equipment.

As I have stated in several other posts, I am an entrepreneur at heart, and much of my career has been spent performing various project-based jobs to earn my living.  Because of this, I continue to take on projects here and there to earn some extra money, mainly to fuel my expensive hobbies of course but also to do some little extras around the house.  This year we would really like to put a deck on the back of our house, and let me tell you the materials for that are not cheap.  So, with this goal in mind I have rationalized taking on a couple of projects to earn some money.

Now my evenings are full with things to get done and deadlines loom.  I never learn.  I do think I thrive on being busy though, so maybe this is a good thing.  What would I do with my life if I wasn’t busy?  Probably spend more time on my hobbies, so better to keep me working! I just try to keep a decent balance in life; hopefully I do ok at it.  My wife is too kind to indulge me, but she is great that way.  Very lucky for me.

As my kids get older, though, my available time is quickly slipping away.  We have already experienced some of the “summer of fun” times where we have kids needing to be at different sporting events at the same time, piano practice conflicting with cub scouts, and things like that.  It is only going to get worse.  I either need to stay up later or accept fewer projects…there goes my beauty sleep!  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

This is dangerous to admit publicly, so noone out there take advantage of me for having revealed my weakness.  Wave some money in front of me, and generally I’ll come ready to work.  I’m getting better these days though.  I don’t know if I can attribute it to a stronger will or not enough motivation to stay up all night getting that extra work done.  Back in the early days of my career I would get on a project and sleep would become a burden until the project was done.  Now sleep generally wins and deadlines can shift.  Man I’m getting old darn it!

Of course it isn’t always about money either.  I volunteer and accept too many projects for church all the time.  Because of my technical abilities I find myself creating DVDs for our youth groups and showing up for any project I am asked.  How can you not do these things though when asked?  It’s tough saying no.

I’ll continue doing this all my life,  I already know I will.  I guess I just need to continue finding better ways to manage my time and survive on less sleep.  Of course I find myself able to accomplish much more when I turn off the boob tube.  It’s amazing how much time is wasted when you grab that remote and subject yourself to a few hours of brain-turned-off time.  I did a little of that last night, and now I am kicking myself at having wasted the time and gained nothing.

I really don’t know how to wrap up this particular post other than to say I guess admitting I have a problem is the first step in solving it, right?  Yeah, it’s a problem…now back to work on that next project deadline!

I have wanted to write about this for some time, but what has brought the subject fresh in my mind again these days is my 7 turning 8 year old son. Lately he has entered a strong faze of needing to find someone to blame for everything he views as wrong in his little world. He has a strong view of the way things should be in his mind, and whenever something doesn’t fit that view he has a bit of a meltdown. I realize it is a phase for him that he has to work through, but I’m telling you that if he doesn’t work through it soon I may strangle him. Not literally of course, but he is definitely trying the little bit of patience I am capable of.

His level of placing blame knows no bounds. He stubbed his toe the other day and started screaming about how his sister was to blame because she left out a toy that he was avoiding and therefore kicked the couch. My wife packed his school backpack and that ruined his morning; the next she didn’t pack it for him and that equally ruined his day. Getting picked from an weekend after school program my wife went into the classroom to get him – a big no-no that embarrassed him – left him screaming how his life was now ruined. Of course there is the ever popular not being able to find an article of clothing because his room had been cleaned when he was way (egads!) and that just can’t happen. The list of examples could go on and on these days, but you get the picture. Completely unreasonable, and completely something you deal with when raising kids.

Problem is, some people never grow out of this stage of needing to place blame on someone else for their own created situations. I think our overloaded civil court system is a direct result of this problem. Sure, there are legitimate claims that need to be handled in a legal arena to force others to be responsibility for their actions, but there so many frivolous lawsuits of people trying to find others to be found responsibility for something that it is hard often to know the difference.

Take for example the now infamous hot coffee lawsuits where someone spilled their beverage obtained through the (McDonald’s) drive-through, was burned and now was suing said establishment for untold millions of dollars because the coffee was too hot. Uh, let’s see, aren’t you purchasing this beverage with the expectation that it would be hot? Wouldn’t any reasonable person expect if they spilled such a drink on them that it would in fact burn you? Why would your lack of coordination become the liability of the restaurant who sold you the product? Why does this lawsuit even get allowed in the system?

Finding a person or entity to blame and make financially responsible for damage done is perhaps the most abused aspect of our court system. There is money to be made, often through settlements simply to avoid the time, expense and potential negative publicity associated with a full lawsuit. People know this, and unfortunately a lot of people knowingly use the system to their advantage for this very reason. There are many, though, that simply go through such a routine simply because they don’t want ot admit that their own actions or perhaps stupidity had led to their unfortunately circumstances, so they go to any lengths to get the blame placed somewhere else.

Off of the legal side, how about our educational system. I spent a little time working in the public school system, and my mother worked in a school district for a number of years. I can’t tell you how many times I heard parents raging on about how the school system had failed their child and it was their fault their child was an uneducated idiot. Now I won’t remove all blame from teachers as it is their job to try and reach children, but the children have a direct and much larger responsibility in the education process. Parents need to stay on top of the child’s progress (or lack thereof) and be an active participant to insuring their child gets the education and life skills they need, both in and out of school. Admittedly some kids have the personalities to make this a difficult proposition, but don’t look to place blame on the school. I firmly believe that in every school situation a child can get the education they need provided they have the motivation and support necessary in the home. All schools are not created equal, but it can be done.

As a teacher I was fortunate to have some experience going in to the situation, so I structured my class in such a way that good records were kept and kids had every opportunity possible to succeed, so failure was only of their own doing. I had a few parents of my failing students lay into me something fierce come mid-term parent-teacher conference about how I was failing their child. The tune changed when I laid out all my careful records of what their child was not doing and could have easily done to have a passing grade. In all situations the anger of the parent had obviously been created by some crafty story telling of the child before our meeting, and by the end of the visit had shifted from me back to the child. All but one of them ended up passing by the end of the term.

Don’t even get me started in politics, which is the arena where placing blame for wrongs (often artificially) and taking claim for accomplishments that may not be your own is considered part and parcel to the trade. Ugh, it disgusts me to even think about it.

How about the ever golden excuses when you get pulled over for a traffic infraction? There are entire lines of jokes surrounding the excuses people come up with to explain away or justify their speeding, running a red light, etc. It all roots back to the “my dog ate my homework” period, where are both trying to get away with on one hand and trying to shift blame on the other. “I’m late for a doctor’s appointment” is no excuse for breaking the law, and I think most cops are not only tired of hearing the lame excuses, but likely it makes them feel even more justified in writing you that ticket when you are trying to weasel out of it. My father was the king of conversations with people he had just met, something that always amazed me, especially the few times I had seen him strike up a friendly conversation with a cop that had just pulled him over. On every instance that I was present in person, he was let off of a ticket because he was friendly, respectful and honest. He didn’t try to justify his speeding, he owned up to it. Usually it was just not paying attention, and he would admit to it.

“Sorry officer, I didn’t even realize I was going over the speed limit until I saw your flashing lights. That really was not very smart of me.”

This may or may not get you off of a ticket, but his sincere and honest approach taught me a much greater lesson than had he tried to lie or manipulate his way out of it. Of course his added obvious flatter didn’t hurt his cause either: “I sure appreciate you doing your job and bringing this to the attention of people like me.” That part of the lesson wasn’t lost on me either.

One of my favorite songs pertaining to this subject is a song by Oingo Boingo called Only A Lad. I looked the lyrics up so you don’t have to find them. The short version is the song recounts the story of a boy that didn’t terrible things all his life, from a child on up to being an adult with increasing severity. All along the way there was always some excuse. He’s only a lad, he really couldn’t help it, society made him who he is. In the end we hear:

Hey there johnny you really dont fool me
You get away with murder
And you think its funny
You dont give a d*** if we live or if we die
Hey there johnny boy
I hope you fry!

Not the most pleasant of songs of course, but the message overall I agree with. You can’t always place your blame on others. Sure, society influences what we become, but society starts in the home. Later in life, it is up to use to continue with our habits and beliefs or make the choice to change. I won’t get into the nature vs nuture argument here, but I do believe in a bit of both mold us into who we are. But we are a higher intelligence, so we have the capacity to change.

I heard a quote in the context of a religious speech, but it definitely applies to life in general:

“A second truth about our accountability is to know that we are not the helpless victims of our circumstances. The world tries to tell us that the opposite is true: imperfections in our parents or our faulty genetic inheritance are presented to us as absolving us of personal responsibility. But difficult as circumstances may be, they do not relieve us of accountability for our actions or our inactions.” — Henry B. Eyring

Unfortunately, I don’t see this trend changing any time soon. With the prevailing belief that schools, community or government need to do more for us vs initiating change ourselves, we will continue down the path. But, if you want to see a change within your circle of influence, start with yourself and your family. Start to recognize when something is your own doing and deal with it. Ingrain in your children a sense of personal responsibility. Having a work ethic is another that goes along with this, but I’ll leave that for another day.

There are oh so many other attributes that need to be acquired, but I believe a sense of personal responsibility for one’s own actions is at the root of it. Sure, we all want world peace, but I’d be happy to start off with more people taking ownership of their own actions. Perhaps a lot of other thigns would work themselves out.

Gold’s Gym, 24 Hour Fitness, and every other gym foams at the mouth for the coming of the new year because they know they will be getting a ton of new memberships signed up to go along with those resolutions. Yes, you can get a great discount if you sign up for one year in advance. And how about this great savings for two years, do I hear three? The reason is so obvious why they do this it is painful. They know that on average people will use less than three months of an annual contract. Talk about a gravy train. Sure January and maybe February will be a pain with overuse, but they can overbook all they want knowing that the rest of the year will see use far lower than capacity.

I don’t fault the gym for their business model though – it is out decision to sign up for these long contracts in the heat of our “I’m going to change” misguided moments. I just want you out of my way when I am at the gym so I CAN actually get in better shape without waiting for an available station. Go assuage your conscious somewhere else while I sweat away my pounds.

I do have to admit, though, that having all the newcomers provides some level of entertainment. I guess you could compare it to the accident waiting to happen, with me onlooking hoping to see watch it. For those that are regulars, you tend to recognize the other regulars and someone new stands out not only because of their girth. Their first day back, full of vim and vigor, hitting that exercise bike/eliptical/whatever at full power. This is your body still tricking you into thinking “you still have it.” Your muscles will give everything they have to appear and feel like you can do the exercise. Just wait, you will pay the piper. The next day as you try to roll out of bed, every joint and muscle will scream in protest. Guess what, the 2nd day is actually the worst. I know, I have been through this cycle more times than I would like to admit.

So, as we get into week 2 of January, that is when the fun begins. Now all of a sudden these newbies are fun to watch as they struggle to get any speed at the lowest setting on whatever the cardio torture device of their choice. You can see the pain registering in their eyes as they try to fake like it doesn’t. Some will push through and stick with it, but they are far in the minority. Most will plan on 5 days a week, actually muster up 3. After a few weeks it becomes 1 with a token Saturday visit to make it 2. The following week becomes “At least I drove by the gym, that counts for something, right?”

Right now I have skipped the gym 2 mornings already knowing how packed it is going to be. It is actually a deterrent for me. I will be there tomorrow though, but I am going to go at the barely tolerable hour of somewhere around 5:30 am just to miss the crowd. You see I have learned that 6 am is the preferred time of the morning version of these do-good-wannabes; and if I want a chance at a good spot in the cardio chamber, I have to beat them there. I shudder to think of what it is like at night, when most of this crowd ends up going. I am so already looking forward to February when things start to clear out and get back to normal.

Yep, the putting up of the lights.  I’m not a scrooge mind you.  I enjoy having them there during the season, just dread the time it takes to do the actual putting up.  It is one of those things that takes several hours for not all that much to show for it in the end.  And, if you really want to go gangbusters with the display, you better set aside an entire weekend and a few extra week nights thrown in there for good measure.

I have several angles to my roof line, and the tallest peak is 28 feet up there, so mine is no small task.  Now, imagine climbing up that high with snow and ice on the shingles – not gonna happen.  I have done it in the past, like an idiot, and come very close numerous times to taking the fast way down.  Who knows how many times my ladder was on the brink of sliding out on its own way to leave me dangling on high.  It is a real problem, in fact there are articles every year about the injuries and deaths that occur with zealous people (typically men) try to hang the lights in the worst of conditions.

I am a procrastinator, I admit it and I try to stop doing it continually.  This year I succeeded on at least this one thing.  So, as it snows outside today for the first big storm of the year I sit at my computer and happily report that my lights are up and I welcome the weather.  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

At what point does a person ever think that it is ok to use a phone while sitting on the can?  Of all my pet peeves, this is one of my most recent, and yet strongest.  In the era before cell phones, I think most people, especially men, understood the rule that you just didn’t talk to other people in the bathroom, it’s the rule.  So what made it ok to bring in an outside conversation?

Here at work, people from an office over tend to use our facilities, and I’m surprised at the number of them that try to hold business conversations while in the stall.  Lucky for them I’m one of those kind people that ever so gently informs them of their mistake.  Actually, I tend to try and be as loud as I can to make sure the person on the other end of the line realizes that they are talking in the bathroom.  Just doing my part to help society.