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There are normally two times of the year that promote wistfulness: the beginning of school and Christmas.

The beginning of school is a nostalgic time because I am not in school anymore. It reminds me of all the good parts about the end of August / start of September: cross-country camp, band camp, shopping for school supplies, shopping for clothes, new football season, etc.

But I am not involved in those things anymore, other than watching football on TV. That’s not the same, though, as being in the marching band at the game, going through the pre-game drill, playing for the tunnel through which the players run, etc. The same with cross-country and all the other school activities – the “back to school” days reminds me that part of my life is past and makes me sentimental. I’ll get to go through those days again, in a different sense, once my kids are old enough to be involved in those things. Right now, with kindergarten, there’s not much as far as extra-curricular activities.

And Christmas is obvious – the nostalgia evoked by traditions, family gatherings, and the end of a calendar year make one reflect on what happened or was done during that year. The non-obvious trigger for the wow-where-did-the-year-go wistful thinking is the summer solstice. June 21st or so – the longest day of the year.

Starting in January, I begin reminding myself (subconsciously) that the days are getting longer and that reinforces the thought that the year is starting and there are oh so many things that we can do this year. I know it really starts several days earlier around December 21st, but Christmas takes priority.

Then after June 21st, the days start getting shorter. They’re still long enough so that it doesn’t really matter, but it’s the thought that counts. You know the days are getting shorter, that means the year is waning.

They should move the summer solstice, or maybe move the calendar months. Really, the longest day of the year should be in the middle of July, so that the longest days of the year are evenly distributed throughout the whole summer. Or maybe even better, move the longest day of the year to be at the end of August, so that the days start decreasing in length once school starts.

Hmm…then the warmest days of the year would be during school. Cross-country would not be fun at all because it would be during the hot season. The wool marching band uniforms would be even worse.

Never mind.

“He made the moon for the seasons;The sun knows the place of its setting.”
– Psalm 104:19

I had my first experience with government-run health care, and I am very unimpressed. No, worse than that – I am worried that anyone wants to expand this level of service.

Our oldest child will be starting kindergarten this fall. One of the state’s requirements for children starting school is that they have a vision test on record with the school.

“Not to worry,” says the local county government, “we provide free vision screenings for any county resident.” I thought that was fine, so my wife called the county to schedule an appointment.

A little background information first:

This was last week, in the first half of June. We registered our child for kindergarten back in April or so. The school district said that he was penciled in but would not be officially registered until we provided the results of the vision screening. The students are assigned to teachers in mid August, and school starts right after Labor Day, in early September.

So the county health division was glad to sign up our child for a free vision screening, but the first opening they had was August 24th, only two weeks before school started. What good is that, if I want my child to be registered before the classes are setup?

I didn’t want to wait that long. I wanted to get everything set and out of the way. And I’m sure the school district wouldn’t want us to wait that long. They need to plan the classroom sizes and move teachers around if there are too few or too many students. They don’t want kids registering at the very last minute, after they have setup all the classrooms.

We called the doctor’s office. “Yes,” they said, “we offer vision screening. It should be covered by insurance, so it should be free to you.” Oh, and they could get us an appointment next week, while it is still June.

So we setup an appointment with the privately-run doctor’s office and will pay for it with our private insurance. I’m glad we have the private insurance and don’t need to use the free already-paid-for-by-my-taxes government services.

The government health department might be fine for those who really need it, but if you do use them, you need to be very prepared and schedule your appointments well before you normally would since they are so slow.

For a non-emergency situation like a vision test, it’s not that big a deal. What if there were an medical problem that needed attention? I would hope that the government service could act quickly enough to help. But so far, in both this country and others, government is big and slow. That’s fine for regulations and taxes and stuff, but not good for medical care.

“We waited for peace, but no good came;For a time of healing, but behold, terror!”
– Jeremiah 8:15

Being the nit-picky-about-some-aspects-of-English person that I am, I immediately found fault with the sticker on a shirt that my wife bought me.

The first points are fine; it is the last point that contributes to the deterioration of the English language. “No Tag Comfort”

What if I want tag comfort? I think most people do. I want a shirt that sells itself as having “Lots of Tag Comfort”.

It should have been “No-Tag Comfort” or “The Comfort of No Tag” or even just “No Tag”

“I have heard many such things; Sorry comforters are you all.”
– Job 16:2

The June 2009 edition of my IEEE magazine arrived, and it had interviews with the candidates running for election for president of the organization. The interview contained various questions. About half were related to engineering, and the other half were get-to-know-the-person questions, such as “What is your favorite movie?” The one that piqued my interest was “If you were stranded on an island, what one thing you would want to have with you?”

The answers that the three candidates gave were these:

• A solar-powered iPhone with lots of books stored in memory
• A solar-powered laptop with Internet access
• A Crocodile Dundee-size knife

(Note: I assume he meant a knife that is the same size as the knife that Crocodile Dundee had, not a knife that is the same size as Crocodile Dundee himself.)

After reading the third answer, I thought the first two sounded like cheating. How many qualifiers can you add to an item and still have it count as only one item?

I pondered for a little while and decided on my answer, should I ever be asked what is the one item I would want with me on a deserted island.

• A fully-furnished house

I suppose I could embellish it a little: a fully-furnished, solar-powered house with working water and sewer. But I like the simplicity of my original answer.

Ah yes, the long-awaited digital TV deadline is here – June 12, 2009. Although Congress does have about 30 more minutes to act to delay it again, I think they won’t bother.

A few months ago, people were concerned for the 7 million viewers who had not updated their TVs yet, and thus would lose their all-important TV viewing rights. Now, there are still over 2 million people who do not have the capability to watch digital TV (as they have only the analog receiver) and who will therefore not be able to watch TV tomorrow.

These 2 million people include the same poor, elderly, and minorities who were in the 7 million group. Why is Congress not fighting for these people anymore? Have they slipped through the cracks? Does the federal government have a disaster-preparedness plan for June 13, when all these people will be TV-less?

On a somewhat related note: I wonder how many people will check the old analog stations tomorrow just to see if they have really stopped transmitting…

We received a mass mailing from our health insurance company. Okay, we did not receive it – it was addressed to my wife. But it wasn’t a letter; it was a large brochure/folded-postcard-type thingy that anyone could read.

It was a generic announcement that said “If a baby could be in your future” then you should call their program, as they can answer questions and make sure that the mom and baby are off to a good start, health-care wise. Enroll in our free program, it said, and get this information and that information and access to such-and-such, etc.

What caught my attention was the disclaimer.

For those who can’t read the text: it says “This information has been sent to all female plan members in your age group in order to make them aware of the program. By sending this mailing, we are not implying that you are pregnant or intend to become pregnant.”

I know pregnancy is a discreet subject. If you think someone might be pregnant, you don’t usually start on that topic. But I think this disclaimer goes a little overboard. Why do the people at the health insurance company think they need this footnote?

Maybe they had too many complaints from women who definitely did not want to be pregnant and wanted to make sure they knew that as well. But this is a tiny disclaimer that would not likely be noticed by those who would take the whole flyer the wrong way anyway.

Maybe they did have some legal action against them, and this legal-looking disclaimer might be a good way of thwarting other future legal actions.

Maybe they had some calls from irate husbands, demanding “What do you know that I don’t?” or something. But I think that’s not likely.

I know – I’ll complain that they didn’t send me a flyer too! After all, their program “offers helpful tips for dads”. I’m a dad – why wasn’t I notified of this program that can offer me helpful tips? Why are they discriminating against me? Just because of my gender? I demand equal treatment! I demand equal rights!

No, I don’t really want to be included in female-specific mailings. I just thought I would worry a few corporate policy and disclaimer producers over there for fun.

“One of the lawyers said to Him in reply, ‘Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.’ ”
– Luke 11:45

We spent some time in a touristy area last weekend, and it had an arcade. The kids enjoyed going through the arcade and playing some of the games, especially skeeball. We spent maybe $2-$4 total.

One of the games token-eating options, no matter what arcade, anywhere in the world, is always the bunch-of-tokens-in-a-pile-being-pushed-by-something game (apparently known as a “coin pusher” game). Here are some examples.

I’m always tempted to try those games because those coins are so precariously positioned that some of them just have to fall. But I know, from the couple of times long ago that I tried it, that it’s just a trap and chances are very good that the coin that I add will have no effect on the coins at the end – the ones that look like they are about to fall into the tray for me to grab.

For some reason, I thought about that today as I was trying to put a bottle back in the refrigerator. There is room at the back of the fridge, but I want to add the bottle to the front of the fridge since it’s a hassle to try to maneuver the bottle around everything that’s already in the fridge. I put the bottle at the front of the shelf and push, but nothing moves to the back of the fridge like I want. Instead, a couple of things move sideways and something falls over.

Just like the coin-pusher games (no matter how many coins you add to the back, no coins ever get pushed off the front), no matter how many items you put at the front of the fridge, the existing items never fill the back of the fridge.

Note: this applies only to the shelf that has the miscellaneous smaller items (hot sauce, water bottle, mayonnaise, A1 sauce, child’s drink from yesterday that he wanted to save but will never finish, ketchup, salsa, taco cause, soy sauce, Parmesan cheese, etc.) – our bottom shelf with the milk jugs and large items does not have this problem.

“He who tills his land will have plenty of food,But he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.”
– Proverbs 28:19