Drivers in the rain

Another note about our vacation. We drove home in the rain and my wife and I were amazed at how many drivers didn't turn their lights on when the visibility was so bad. Not that you couldn't see without your lights on. The problem was that it was harder to see the cars without their lights on. I wish I had a picture to show. I thought about grabbing a picture of cars in the rain from the Internet but it wouldn't mean anything. Besides, all the pictures I could find showed all the cars with their headlights on.

I don't know if the light-less drivers were just lazy or were responding to some misguided idea of saving energy - "turn the lights off when they are not needed." Well, the lights were needed! Surely they saw how hard it was to see cars with no lights because they were in the situation themselves. It seems that the worst drivers were the ones without their lights on, too. Isn't that always the way? It's the double whammy of the bad drivers speeding and getting to you faster than they should and being without their lights making it harder to see them coming. It almost doubles the chance of an accident.

I think a lot of people drive with the idea that everyone else will look out for them. This is similar to the people who talk on their cell phones while driving (don't get me started!). It's all just another case of not really caring about other people. One way of loving your neighbor is helping them when they've gotten in trouble (as in the original story of the Good Samaritan) but another way of loving your neighbor is to help them keep out of trouble in the first place. Surely it's better to not have an accident than to have to stop and help after an accident. At least, that's the way I see it.

Back from our vacation

We were at Santa's Village from June 21 through June 23. We were going to stay one more day but it started to rain the afternoon of the 23rd and it looked like it was going to continue into the next day. So, we left after lunch on Thursday, June 23. We thought we'd get home about 6 PM but we didn't count on getting stuck in an 11 mile traffic jam going through Boston. We spent about an hour getting through the city and got home around 7 PM. At least it was still light and the rain had let up as we got home. No matter where I've been, it is always good to get home. And there is nothing like sleeping in your own bed.

We enjoy going to Santa's Village at this time of the year because it's not crowded. In many ways, it seems like they opened the park just for us. Because there are so few customers and we go multiple days, the ride operators and the people who run the concessions got to know us. It's such a friendly place. But the thing I like the most is how relaxed it is. No one is rushing to get in front of you and everyone (customers included) is helpful and pleasant. It's good to be home but it's also nice to have a relaxing place to go when we're not home.

Taking a closer look at a picture

The picture to the right is a photo from about seven years ago when our son Evan was seven years old and our daughter Emma was only one. There is no record of how old my wife Cindy was at this time! I've looked at this picture scores of times but there is something about it I didn't notice until a few days ago.

We'd only had our daughter about a year when this picture was taken. She took a longer time than normal to learn to crawl and walk because the girls in the orphanage didn't get much chance to exercise and were often bundled up in clothing to keep them warm which made it difficult for them to move. So, we had to work with her a lot to get her muscles in tone so she could get around on her own. She was nine months old when we first got her and when she first started to sit up, we always had to prop pillows around her or she wouldn't fall over.

In this picture, we'd gone to the beach to feed the birds. Besides being fun and getting us all out in the fresh air, it was a good reason for Emma to get some more exercise to help with her walking. Cindy was trying to reach some of the birds that didn't seem to be getting anything and she was putting some extra effort to throw the food farther leading to her acrobatic position. And after all these years, I noticed Emma's position in the picture. It's a mirror image of my wife's position within the limits of what Emma was capable at that time. My wife worked with Emma so much and Emma was so used to following my wife's movements that even when we didn't notice, Emma tried to emulate her movements. The poor little thing was doing her best to do what her mommy did. Or is she trying to perform some Tai Chi? Click on the picture and you'll see a larger version so you can see Emma's position more clearly

It's so easy to take pictures with digital cameras that we take hundreds of pictures just because there is no cost for film and it's easy to store them. But it's not easy to go through all your pictures to truly appreciate what you've got. I hope this will be a lesson to me to spend a little more time looking at the content of the pictures I've taken.

A year with my scooter

It's been a year since I made my first post about my motor scooter. I've ridden about 3,800 miles on it in that time and I have to say that it's been one of the best things I've ever bought. It's cheaper to own and operate than a car and it doesn't take up room in our driveway. It fits nicely in our shed. But I won't be riding it much this week because we're on vacation. There are still some things you need a car (or a van) for!

Saving money using the scooter is great, of course, but another aspect to it is the fun I have riding it to and from work. I ride it around town doing small chores, too. It's nice to think I don't have to waste a gallon of gas every time I run to the store to pick up one small item. I actually look forward to running to the post office or the hardware store for little things, now. I hope to be getting helmets for the rest of my family so that, maybe, one of them can come with me on these little jaunts.

I look forward to many more years of using my scooter. It's been very reliable and easy to maintain so far. Of course, now that the warranty period is over, I may find that things will start to go wrong. I'll be sure to write about them (and their solutions) as I run into them. But, for now, everything is great.

A good Father's Day

I had a very good Father's Day yesterday. And it was more like Father's Weekend because we went out to dinner, at our favorite restaurant The Olive Garden, on Saturday. Their prices have certainly gone up over the years but there is so much food that we end up getting two meals out of a visit.

On Sunday, I got cards, some nice short-sleeved shirts, wool socks (for my walks in the woods when my feet may get wet), a chocolate cake and a special Gumby t-shirt. We love Gumby and have a huge DVD collection of the early shows. We haven't watched them for a while and getting the Gumby shirt was a good excuse to watch some of them again.

The weather was beautiful all week-end so we were finally able to get our garden ready and plant our vegetables. We'll never be mistaken for farmers but it is a lot of fun to watch the plants grow. And nothing tastes as good as vegetables you raise yourself and eat fresh.

I'm the most fortunate man in the world. I had to wait until I was 42 to get married and until I was 44 to be a dad but it was worth the wait. I've got two wonderful children who are willing to overlook my faults and a terrific wife who makes it easy for me to be a dad.

Our company is 30 years old today

Today, our company celebrated its 30th anniversary with a nice, catered buffet, a few words from our two founders (they were married when they formed the company) and a few more words from the current company president. Both of our founders are retired from the company now (one still lives locally and the other one is living in Hawaii and had to join us via a video hook-up) and we rarely get to see them anymore. When the company first started it was just a husband and wife business. He designed and built the electronics and she answered the phones, did the books and dealt with all the government (local, state and federal) involved with running a company. They eventually hired someone to build the circuit boards who could do a better job of it and could build them faster. They worked in the barn behind their house and only needed a small portion of it for their "offices". The rest was for storage and where they kept their chickens.

Another of the jobs of our founder was to call up magazines and try to write reviews and informational articles about their products. He wanted to make the company sound like it was well established and capable of making a good, well-designed products. But he told us the story that one day, when he was on the phone, the chickens started to act up and got excited about something and were making a lot of noise. So, he kept trying to talk as much as he could so the editor on the other end of the phone wouldn't hear all the clucking and noise. He must have sounded rude not letting the editor say much. But it worked, they were able to get nice write-ups in the magazines about their products.

I didn't join until 1988 when the company had about ten people working for it. The chickens were gone when I started and the barn had been cleaned up (a little bit). Now we're a company of over 130 people and we're in our third building having outgrown the first two. I still learn something new every day.

Magic windshield wipers

At one time, I had a car (a 1976 Mercury Capri II, the picture is from Wikipedia, mine was white) that not only had regular windshield wipers and intermittent wipers but also had a switch on the floor that you could push that would cause the wipers to make one pass over the windshield. I didn't think too much about it after a while. I just used it for those times when the regular wipers and intermittent wipers were just too fast for a light mist or rain that started and stopped often. I hate the sound wipers make when they rub over a not-quite-wet-enough windshield. This way I could keep my hands on the wheel (especially in the tricky conditions of a wet road) and wipe when I needed to improve the view.

One day I was giving a friend a ride and it was one of those days when the rain came in fits and starts. I was absent-mindedly hitting the wiper switch on the floor when I needed it. After a while, my friend said, "That's amazing. I've never seen a wiper that could do that." He thought something was sensing the degree of wetness of the windshield and triggering a pass of the wipers. Or maybe he thought something could sense that you couldn't see clearly through the windshield. Well, yes. That something was me.

I guess I could have played a joke on him and acted as if it was all automatic. But I couldn't make fun of him that way. I told him the truth that I was doing it. I'm just not a very fun person.

I was reminded of this story from a short post on Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing blog - Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. They had more fun with their situation.