rude

What is rude? What do you consider rude or offensive? I bring this up because an incident happened yesterday that has been bugging me since it happened. I can't let it go.

Yesterday Shanna and I went to work out at the YMCA together. The gym was busy but certainly not packed. At one point Shanna and I were working out on the leg press machine. We were taking turns and I was offering my extensive knowledge on workouts. Shanna finished her 2nd set of 10 reps and I was moving to get on when this old woman with headphones walks up, moves past us and starts changing the settings on the machine. She sits down, does her 8 or 9 reps, logs them onto her clipboard then moves on.

I was stunned. Shanna just laughed but I just stared at the old woman. I am not some kind of gym rat but I have been in various types of gyms in my life--ratty gyms, hardcore bodybuilder gyms, army gyms, upscale 'look at me' gyms, and now the YMCA. In all my life I have never seen anything like that before. If someone wanted the machine I was on they would ALWAYS ask something like, "Mind if I get a few reps in while you rest?" OR "You about done?" OR "Want to take turns?" OR they just waited in the wings till I was finished. This woman didn't offer an 'excuse me' or anything. Just walked up with the attitude that were infringing in on her personal gym space.

This incident, and so many others, remind me just how rude we are as a society. I see people throw cigarette butts out the window of their cars, smoke in front of entranceways, swear in front of my children, cut me off in traffic, etc. I could go on for days. And what about the easy ones like "please" and "thank you"?

I desperately want to say something to these people but...wouldn't that be rude?

A PSA we all need to see

I don't know if any of you are familiar with LineRider or not but I found this and was just stunned.



Line Rider 'Transcendental™' by TechDawg from TechDawg on Vimeo.

tests, tests and more tests

NOTE: I actually wrote this a few days ago and forgot about it. When I went to add photos to the sledding post I noticed it was saved as a draft and decided to post it.
I guess as a full time student I don't have enough tests in my life so I've been taking more online. Our friend Carolyn had a link to a "What Jane Austen character are you?" test and because I wanted to be silly I took it. I'm Fanny Price in case you were wondering. Another friend Erica had one about Intelligence type. Results below. What possesses us to take such silly tests? There isn't anything scientific about them whatsoever. Your score is based on the capricious whims of the writer and their understanding of whatever subject they are comparing you to; be it Jane Austen characters, Friends character, dogs, rock stars, ewoks, whatever. Yet we still take them. Again and again. I am Fannie Price, Kramer, Rocky Road Ice Cream, Han Solo, Lisa Simpson, and a Golden Retriever. I can't for the life of me figure out how any of those are connected EXCEPT through me. I would never associate Kramer and Han Solo together.
Do I feel validated as a person because if I were a dog I'd be a Golden Retriever? Am I a happy nerd because I'm Han Solo (the answer is no, I want to be a Jedi)? Why o why do we take such silly tests?
Discuss.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Over the weekend the greater Cincinnati area received quite a bit snow and we were determined to take full advantage of it. We stayed indoors and vegged like nobody's business!

The snow started on Friday and got bad enough that UC classes after 2 p.m. were cancelled. I of course had classes until 1:50 p.m. No help there. Of course I'm willing to bet that there aren't too many students registered for classes Friday afternoons. In fact, I'm willing to press my bet and say that UC doesn't offer too many Friday afternoon classes.

I rant.

The snow pretty much shut everything down. We got several inches overnight as evidenced by this picture of Shanna's car.

Now you might ask, "What were you doing outside with a camera?" And given the circumstances that is a perfectly rational question. Shanna and I figured that since this was probably the last snow of the season we should take Jacen sledding. Right by our house is French Park which has a pretty decent sledding hill. We drove on over about 9am and were the first and only ones there (saner people were at home). Now, we don't own a sled but that poses no barrier for the determined and inventive. Jacen slid down on a plastic bin, i tried (very unsuccessfully) on a plastic table cloth, and Shanna went down (and I mean DOWN) on Jacen's plastic rocking horse (which is a giraffe).

All in all we had a great time. Jacen was done after about 10 minutes and spent the rest of the time laughing at Mommy and Dad make fools of themselves.

wow that is sad!

One thing you may not know about me is that I am a huge fan of webcomics. What are webcomics you ask? Comics, as in the Sunday Comics, that are on the internet, either because they aren't big enough to make it the Sunday funnies, they don't WANT to make it in the newspaper, or some of them are too extreme for traditional print media. There are thousands of artists out there putting out comics on the internet. Most are not successful in the traditional sense (you know-money) but there are a few good ones: PVP, Order of the Stick, Looking for Group, and Darths and Droids are some of my favorites.

Now the whole point of my post was not to educate you good reader on webcomics. But I did need an intro for THIS. This is what Garfield would be without Garfield. The author has gone through and taken Garfield and his speech bubbles out and just left Jon. And it is sad really. Jon looks psychotic, depressive, and just plain weird. A sad lonely man. And yet I find it amusing and fascinating.