Mild Amusement

On this latest trip, I saw six states, two countries, and one U.S. district, but I only took a total of 3 flights from start to finish. As you can probably imagine, there was a good amount of driving involved. And one of the interesting things that happen when you spend that much time in a car is that music quickly comes to play a role in the trip. I mean, you can be the best of friends, but it is very, very hard to keep a conversation going for that long. So, inevitably, someone turns on a radio or music player, and suddenly you're discovering all of these little quirks. For example, you might discover that your travel companion likes country music more than you do. I generally don't dislike any genre of music outright, but I wouldn't call myself a fan of country music by any means. There are a few songs here and there that make an appearance on my iPod, but that's about it. Also, there was plenty of music that I just flat out didn't recognize. I'm hardly a c...

One of the things you can never quite account for when you travel is the weather at your destination. I'd been planning on going on this trip for a few months, so I had no way of predicting that it would rain. Check that; I couldn't have predicted that it would rain a whole freaking lot during my trip. Put it this way: one of the local news stations was throwing around the word "historic levels" to describe the rains and the subsequent flooding. Now, I had checked the weather report before I left (I try to be responsible now and again), so I knew that I was in store for some rain. However, I like to travel light. I have never once taken an umbrella with me, so I figured that this was no time to start. Instead, I packed a light jacket that does a pretty good job of being impermeable and a baseball cap. Between those two items, I figured that I could survive a few drops of water. For the most part, this plan worked out well. I saw a few summer storms, the kind that ...

Remember how I said that I had an interesting experience after having dinner in Windsor? After that happened, I said I'd be a little more wary of entering Canada for a single meal. Well, apparently I wasn't wary enough. The next day after our initial adventure, we ended up in a place called Port Huron at about 2PM. We had to be in Detroit the next morning for a flight, but other than that, there were no real restrictions on our schedule. Now, this town is called "Port" something for a reason; it sits right next to one of the Great Lakes. That means that it's awfully close to Canada. If you were to drive over, say, a nearby bridge, you'd need your passport. We both happened to have our passports on our persons. So, we figured we'd explore a little farther inland than the night before. We weren't planning on staying long, and we even figured we'd be back before dinner. That would save us any headaches at the border, we figured. Consulting a map,...

I like to travel a little bit, it's my way of being adventurous. It's not like I'm looking for the biggest adrenaline rush I can find, I just happen to be a curious person. I like exploring, and I like seeing things that I don't see back home. All in all, leaving my little comfort zone behind seems like a good way to do this. As a result, though, I end up on a bunch of side trips. Once I end up at my destination, there's always some other place to see or thing to try. However, I have quickly learned that this is not the norm. That's all well and good, except for sometimes I have to explain myself. Some of those (some)times, I get to explain it to immigration and customs officials. This is all sorts of fun, let me tell you. This last time, I was in Detroit and my friend and I decided to hop over to Ontario to grab dinner. It was close by, we had never been, and we had time for it. All in all, we figured, "why not?" So we drove over and had dinner th...

I have a quirky personality, so I hear all sort of random commentary about me. I've written about this a couple of times before (exhibit A and B ), but it's been a while, so the comments have added up. As always, these are actual conversations that I have had with people. "You'd be an awesome team lead, if you don't get fired" Apparently this is how some people react when I suggest we should be allowed to give out dunce hats at work. I figure that in most cases, the actual social shaming would be a worse punishment than a stern talk from a supervisor. Say someone goes out of his way to be lazy. He would be awarded the dunce hat, and the social stigma would encourage him to avoid this behavior. Win-win. The person with whom I was talking agreed with the idea, but suggested that I was slightly crazy for suggesting it in the first place. Great, thanks. "You're good at writing. That surprised her because you're an engineer" I don't t...

I've been playing a lot more basketball lately. I've always liked to play, but my nagging injuries seem to be disappearing, so I can push my legs a little bit more. Also, I recently stopped for a few weeks, and my jump shot seemed to magically disappear. Vowing that I didn't want this to happen again, I figured I'd make it out to the courts more frequently. Even if my usual basketball crew doesn't show up, I'll just go shoot around for a bit. It's decent exercise, and I like doing it. However, that means that I don't have to go to the centrally located courts that my basketball friends prefer. If they're not around, I'm free to frequent some of the other courts closer to my house. So I do. As I've realized, these particular courts seem to attract much more interesting characters. I'm not there to gawk, but my basketball adventures have suddenly gotten a lot more interesting. Heck, sometimes the adventures come to me. Last time I was t...

A while back, I noted that I've seen at least one really smart kid pass through my mom's day care. As of now, that list is up to three kids. I've always said that it's actions that prove whether a kid is smart or not. All little kids parrot what they hear around them. If they use big words, it just means someone around them knows the big words. If they find ways to accomplish things that you think are impossible for them, though, that's all them. And since little kids are constantly trying to do things that they shouldn't be doing, that means the real test is in what kind of mischief they get up to. So, gather 'round, because this is a tale of mischief. There are a pair of twin one year old boys that really like to climb on stuff. It's not like this is a new phenomenon, either; they've always liked to climb on stuff. Luckily for us, they just didn't have the physical capacity for the longest time. Their legs couldn't reach high enough, a...