Some Blog Site

Not much here today – I used up my blogging quote for the week by writing something for Ricky Anderson. Go visit his blog and read my guest post over there.

And while you’re there, be sure to browse through some other things that he has written. Oh, and leave comments too (on his other posts, not necessarily my guest post).

Today’s verse will make more sense after you’ve read the guest post.

Random things to post before the end of the year:

• I was “randomly selected” to participate in the American Community Survey (ACS). I wonder how many of the “randomly selected” households are the ones that wrote “American” for their race in the general census…?
• The checkout guy at the grocery store complained to me. In the course of general niceties, I mentioned I was getting ready for New Year’s Day. He responded with “I’m not going to have a very fun New Year’s Day.” What do you say to that? Apparently he is scheduled to work that day. Employee training should teach them to be cheerful in their interactions with people. The store-to-customer interface should be happy, not frowny.
• I’m no longer the guy who provides food and shelter for the children. I’m now the guy who has the thing that lets them play Angry Birds.
• Shame on ESPN for being selfish. In the past, I could watch various and sundry bowl games on New Year’s Day. It was football all day, and it was very good. Then a 4-letter cable network acquired the rights to the bowl games and locked them away so that the general population could not see the games. And there was much sorrow.

Now that I’m vaguely familiar with Twitter… these seem like items that would have made good tweets. Now that I have a fancy-pants phone game-and-music-playing device, I might consider using Twitter.

Or maybe not.

Happy New Year!

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: