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There was a lot of snow-related happenings this weekend:

• The roof of the Minneapolis Metrodome collapsed, forcing a rescheduling of the NFL game that was to be held there.
• As of last night, which is several hours before the buses would start running, the local TV channel was reporting 81 schools / school districts were closed for Monday.
• I got to try my new snowthrower!

No pictures of the snowthrower in action, but it works. After I tested it on our driveway, I took a quick stroll (20 mph winds and below-freezing temperatures do not allow for leisurely strolls) down the driveway and took some pictures.

Our road – looks a lot like last year’s winter weather photo

Neighbor’s pine trees

Our apple tree

Nothing spectacular to report – no downed power lines or damaged buildings here. Just enjoying the scenery and preparing for the slow commute to work this morning.

It’s that time of year again. Frost covers the ground in the mornings before the sun melts it away. The trees have lost all their leaves. Fall is officially on its way out.

That means it’s time to enroll in the annual employee benefit selection.

Every year, around this same time, I get to choose my insurance levels (medical PPO or HMO? short- or long-term disability? vision? dental? etc.) I usually just verify that they remembered my selections from last year and call it good.

This year though, there was a EULA. I had to agree to some terms before I could enroll.

I, of course, couldn’t help but find two things wrong with the “agreement”.

First, here is the agreement (click for the full-size version):

First Wrong Thing

It says “I have reviewed my 2011 annual enrollment materials and have completed my 2011 elections online.”

Reviewed my enrollment materials – okay, no problem, I agree.

Have completed my 2011 elections online – problem. This was on the web page that was going to let me start the 2011 elections online. How am I supposed to agree that I have completed the elections before I can start the elections?

I don’t even know what they could have intended.

Other Wrong Thing

The perspective. The voice. The point of view. Whatever it is, let’s make it consistent.

Am I doing the agreeing? Or are you?

I agree that I understand…
or
I agree that you understand…

I counted 10 paragraphs/statements in the agreement. There are 6 that call me “You” and 4 that call me “I”.

Just pick a pronoun for the employee and stick with it.

That’s all for now, unless you see something else in there.

Here’s another hypothetical situation for you to ponder.

Wife, working in the kitchen with a toddler clinging to her leg and crying, to husband: “If you want to eat dinner, please come get your son.”

Quiz:
What should the husband’s response be?
A. No thanks, I’m not hungry.
B. He looks fine to me.
C. Sure, I’ll be right there.

Answer:
If you need me to tell you the answer, you are not ready to be married.

Some of you may recall last week’s post about the bid for tree removal.

We were going to have a tree felled because it was

• dead,
• leaning over the garage,
• and almost scraping the power lines

If it fell, it would have crushed one end of the garage (where all my tools are, and storage boxes – no cars are in the garage) and knocked out the power (leaving live power lines on my yard). That’s why we wanted to hire professionals, and that’s why it was going to be a few hundred dollars (what with the bucket truck and all).

Here’s how it looked before (a few years ago, but you get the idea):

(more…)

On the back of the The Railway Children book that I read was a list of books. I always like seeing lists of books, especially classics. This book had a good list because the book (and therefore the list) was several decades old.

The series is titled Children’s Illustrated Classics Series and is intended For Younger Readers. This series was published by J.M. Dent in London.

So if you’re searching for what a well-read child should read, here’s a start:

My goal is to read at least one book during the summer vacation. I made it through three. Well, more like two and a half. And if blogs were books…

Anyway, here are the three books:

The Wedding

My wife recommended I read “The Wedding” by Nicolas Sparks.

Once I started reading it, I became worried. The book is about a couple who had been married for 29 years and the relationship had grown lifeless. Not actively bad, but not really good either. Did she recommend that I read it because she thought we were that way? Did she think I was like Wilson and just went about my business, leaving romance and relationship by the wayside?

I thought maybe I should work on communicating with her and maybe I should ask her if that’s what she thought. But, on second thought, I decided that she probably just enjoyed a nice story and figured I would enjoy it too. So I read it. And enjoyed it.

I didn’t find out until after I finished the book that it was the sequel to “The Notebook”. From what I’ve heard, people found “The Notebook” to be a little too depressing, so Nicolas Sparks had to write this one and make it uplifting. Yes, “The Wedding” starts out describing the problems with their marriage, but it ends well.

It was a good book. Go ahead and read it, unless you’re boycotting Nicolas Sparks books.

No, I have not read (nor watched) “The Notebook”.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag

I also read “The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag” by Allen Bradley.

That one is the sequel to “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie”, which I preferred over this one (henceforth known as TWTSTHB).

They were both good, but TWTSTHB was a little darker and the themes were a little heavier. Flavia solves the murder-mystery, but the storyline took a sad turn and never recovered. Yes, all the main characters are fine and healthy and all – it’s the storyline, the subject matter, that never recovered. I was reading this book to be entertained, and it is written well, but it uses subjects that I do not find as entertaining as other people perhaps do.

The Railway Children

After the vacations were all done, my wife got a book on tape CD from the library. It happened to be “The Railway Children” by E. Nesbit.

I ended up hearing about half the story – hear a few chapters, miss a couple, hear a couple, miss one, etc. By the time we had to return the audio book to the library, I was interested in the book. So my thoughtful wife checked out the actual book from the library just for me to read.

I liked the book. It is geared more toward children, but I just read it to myself and enjoyed it nonetheless. I don’t know that I would have finished it in time if I had to read it aloud to the kids though.

Wife: Which one of these dresses do you like better?
Husband: That one.
Wife: Why?
Husband: The other one has an empire waist, and I’m not a fan of the empire waist.
Wife, possibly glaring: My wedding dress had an empire waist…

Quiz:
What should the husband say next?
A. Oh, hey, look at the time! I gotta go to my (insert excuse here).
B. It did? All I remember is how beautiful you looked that day.
C. Umm…
D. (nothing, just back away slowly and leave the room)

Answer:
There is no right answer, of course.

The aforementioned conversation might have been hypothetical. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. No husbands were harmed in the making of this blog post.