House of Swank

An Observation

Little Rock, Arkansas, has renamed a stretch of one of it's downtown streets after President Clinton.   His museum and library are at one end of the stretch.

We went down to President Clinton Avenue last night after the baseball game, and it seems to be the center of Little Rock's nightlife, with plenty of bars filled with twenty-something year old females.

Sweetie and I were pondering if this was the street selected to bear his name because it is where he spent most of his time while Governor of Arkansas.

A Sense of Place

Sweetie and I are vacating in the Ozarks right now.  We flew to Little Rock through O'Hare, and due to delays our 1 hour layover turned into a 2.5 hour layover.  For a spell there was a woman sitting next to me who was traveling from Kansas to Indiana with her mother to visit some Amish friends.  She started talking to me because I was knitting, and soon she decided we were fast friends.

The talk drifted to sports when she learned that Sweetie and I were traveling to see baseball games.  She instantly started asking questions about the Final Four.  Which is not baseball, but now I'm not so sure if she knew that or not.

She claimed to be a football fan.  She has been to NFL games, she has a (grown) son who used to play and taught her how to watch the game.  She seems to be someone who actually follows the sport.

And when she learned we were from Vancouver, Washington (after the whole Vancouver BC vs. Vancouver, Washington, thing which I'm not sure she understands yet), she suggested that we must be Redskins fans.

Huh?  Nope, Seahawks fans in our part of the world.  And a bizarre concentration of Packers fans.  Not so much the Redskins.

This woman, who had to be in her fifties or sixties, who is a football fan, thought that the Washington Redskins were in Washington State until she met me in an airport in Chicago. 

In Which Theoretical People Scare Me

Today I completed the steps necessary to get my Type II license.  Which means that I'm legally allowed to drive high school students to debate meets.  Which is a very important step in Sweetie keeping his sanity and safety in check while debate coach at his school.  The hours a debate coach must keep are quite ridiculous at times, and the driving to and from make the ridiculous a bit frightening at times.  Now he can just be along for the ride and leave the driving to me.

In order to obtain the license I had to:

1. Show first aid certification
2. Provide documentation from the DMV that shows my driving record is clear.
3. Take a 40 question video-based test (produced circa 1980-something) to show my defensive driving skills.

The test was one of those where you are shown a scenario on the screen, where the camera is basically in the driver's seat of your car, and asked, in multiple choice format how you would respond.  5 points if you pick the best answer, 3 points for second best, 1 point for third best, 0 points if you get it completely wrong - although, really, there are some that if you get wrong they should rescind all driving privileges from you immediately.

In one question someone cut you off, or did something equally annoying, and one of the available options was "express your disappointment at the other driver with a rude gesture."  Which, although it may be true in many cases, anyone worth their weight should know it's not the CORRECT thing to do.  Especially with impressionable youth in the car.

The one that really got me, though, was when we were heading down a curvy mountain highway at 40 mph and the brakes start to go out.  One of the options, I kid you not, was to abandon the vehicle immediately before it can pick up more speed.

I hope and pray I never meet anyone who would think that's an appropriate answer.

Also, major props to the folks at the district who are forced to listen to this video however many times a year as people are taking the test.  While fielding calls from parents concerned because their high school student thinks she may have seen a condom on the bus yesterday afternoon.  I especially enjoyed it when we got to the question that indicated I was driving past a place where I knew intoxicants could be obtained (fancy term for liquor store, I believe) and the question asked what I should be doing.... one of the people in the office suggested "Pull into the parking lot and pick up a little something."  Thankfully, that was not one of the answer choices available.  I believe I was to be looking out for drunk drivers or pedestrians.

Free With Purchase

We had our home inspection today.

As expected, there are some things we will want to have evaluated by a specialist, some things we will want repaired, and some things we'll want to keep an eye on and potentially change later.  And the laundry sink doesn't leak, which apparently is exceptionally rare.

But despite all of the things that went just as expected, there is still one thing that has me baffled, and I don't know that my bafflement will ever be assuaged.

There is a pile of tires and rims sitting in our attic.

This is not an attic that doubles as storage space.  The only access is through a hole in the garage.  So it's not a case of someone just not cleaning out all the storage thoroughly.

And now, I'm trying to figure out a scenario in which a human being says,  "Gosh, I've got these tires and rims, what should I do with them?  I KNOW!  I'll throw them into the attic!"

I did not go into the attic with the inspector, but he took a photo of them to show me.  I'm hoping they make it into his final report, and am intensely curious as to what his recommendation will be.

The irrational side of my brain thinks that the previous owners were crooks who trafficked in stolen cars and kept all the parts stashed in the attic where no one could find them.

This is the part of me that, at the age of ten, decided that the car circling the Safeway parking lot was the getaway car for some grocery store robbers that were going to take hostages and injure my parents, so my best friend and I would be stranded in the back of the station wagon in the parking lot forever.  And then, later that night, while sleeping in the trailer parked in the driveway decided that we heard a ticking bomb and had to sleep inside the house.

So, yeah, sometimes I can get a bit irrational. 

But seriously, tires in the attic?

Although after typing that last sentence I now want to write a white-trash rip-off of VC Andrews.  Which, yeah, she wrote about white trash to begin with, but seriously, would that not be a cool rip-off of Flowers in the Attic?  OK, officially rambling, time to sign out.

Market Research

I got tagged for a market research questionnaire on my way into Safeco Field yesterday.  The young woman administering the questions had a lovely spiel on how it would only take five minutes, and it would be so easy, and all kinds of reasons why I should do it.  She didn't need to bother, for as soon as she caught my attention I noticed she was carrying a bag of Mariner's Gift Cards in addition to her questionnaires, so I was a willing participant.

The questions seemed to focus on opinions related to sponsorship of facilities such as stadiums and theaters, and your opinions about such sponsors.  Then, specifically related to Safeco Field.  Basically, do I think the world of Safeco because they sponsor the stadium, and am I going to buy insurance from them as a result? 

The gift card had a sticker acknowledging Safeco on the back of the card.

My first thought after completing the questions was that the naming rights deal would be coming due soon, and Safeco was deciding if it would be worth its while to continue.  If the sample size were me, they would not be continuing.  Because as favorably as I may view a company who does a naming rights deal, I know it's not totally out of the good of their hearts, I've got a low opinion of Safeco outside of the stadium deal, and I'm not now and won't be ever buying insurance from them in the foreseeable future.

However, with a bit of online snooping I learned we're still 12 years away from the question coming up.  Which makes sense, as eight years is short for a major league naming rights deal.  So now I'm REALLY curious as to why Safeco bribed me to answer questions about them today.

Sweetie suggested that Safeco give up the naming rights, and Rainier Beer take over.  That would rock too many ways for me to count.  Think of the tie-ins that could be made with Rainier pounders?  And the chant from the old commercials "Raiiiiiiiiiiiiii-neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer" could definitely be adapted into some sort of chant for the home team.  And there's precedent, because they used to own the team and the stadium back in the day.  Although it would make driving past the old brewery, that is now headquarters to Tully's Coffee, even more depressing.  And then I'd start to remember the Oly brewery down in Olympia.  And THEN I'd think back to the Henry's brewery in Portland.  And then I'd bemoan the fact that back in the day even the cheap beer in the Northwest was good beer, and now it's all been bought out by the big guys, and that would make me sad.  And then I'd need to drown my sorrows with another pounder, so I guess it could all work out in the end after all.

But really, why was Safeco quizzing me today?

Textbook Etiquette

While we're on the subject of old college textbooks:

One of my regrets in life (not a big regret, not anything I'm going to go back and change) is the fact that I never took a hard science class in college.  Didn't need to for a Bachelor of Science, apparently.

I WANTED to take physics.  But by the time I got around to thinking about it I no longer needed a science course to graduate.  I contemplated taking it as an elective during my final couple of years of college, but the prime rule of college electives was: Must fit into the required course schedule without difficulty.  And given that a) Between classroom and lab time you were on the hook for six hours of class a week and b) some of those six hours of class would be on a Friday it just never worked out for me*.

Wait, it gets worse.

After I'd graduated college I thought about taking Physics at a local community college.  Just for fun.  But it had to be Physics with Calculus.  Because Physics without Calculus would be a waste of my time.  Except I hadn't taken any Calculus since my freshman year of college - over five years before the idea of taking Physics crossed my mind - and couldn't remember a lick of it.

This is where we get to the heart of the story.  Because my boss and friend at the time was a math guy.  And, as a math guy, he had Calculus textbooks just floating around his apartment.  So he gave me one, to brush up on my Calculus before I went to take that Physics class. 

Except it's 11 years later, and I haven't taken that Physics class yet.  Haven't cracked the Calculus book since about 1997.  (Yes, I did look at it a few times.  Laugh away)

Haven't been in touch with the friend who gave it to me since around 2001.  So do I try to track it down and give it back to him?  Or is anyone interested in an old Calculus textbook?  I'm sure it's a good one.  Two for the price of one if you want a Management textbook as well.

*  One of the big pluses to Oregon State's business program, at least back in my day, was the fact that all upper level courses were four credit courses and, therefore, met twice a week for two hours per session (with the exception of Finance, which was required, and perhaps one or two others which were not required of me so I disregarded).  This meant that you EITHER had class Tuesday/Thursday OR Monday/Wednesday, and, depending on your other courses that term, could EASILY have Fridays off, so you could start your drinking on Thursday nights, which was usually the night the Business Professors would make guest appearances at the local bars, because it was mostly the business students out drinking then.  Not that I ever drank in college (Hi Mom!) but, you know, I heard rumors and stuff.

Boob Tube

Can someone please tell me what the obsession is with the boobs of women who've been on The Amazing Race?  I know a LOT of you who find this site via a search engine are landing here because you are doing a search about that. 

And what is it specifically about Yolanda's boobs?  She was on two seasons ago, and still THOSE are the boobs, above all other boobs, that people want to find.

Thing That Make You Go Ewwwww......

Who's bright idea at Wendy's was it to use a song about masturbation to advertise a chicken sandwich that is slathered in some sort of sauce.  I've heard all sorts of nasty stories about fast food in the past, but I may never be able to drive past a Wendy's again without being ill.

Pick a Pie

If you had your choice would you prefer pumpkin or pecan pie with Thanksgiving dinner?

If it makes a difference, apple pie will also be available.

Decision will be made Tuesday evening when it's time to go grocery shopping.

Really?

She's running for Governor?  That's the equivalent of Star Jones or Rosie O'Donnell running for President.

Thank God I'm not moving back to Oregon.