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I had a misunderstanding with a member of the county sheriff’s office.

I was driving home, on a straight section of road, and I could see police lights flashing near the upcoming intersection. I was about a half mile away, so I couldn’t tell if it was before or after the intersection. And it was the last intersection before my driveway.

As I approached and slowed down for whatever incident the officer was handling, I saw the police car was before the intersection, as was a downed tree. The tree had fallen across just over half the road – the lane I was travelling in.

So I slowed and then stopped. Here is an artist’s rendering of the scene as viewed from above:

There were no other vehicles around. The police car’s lights were flashing, but no officer was visible.

As you can see from the drawing, and as I could see from the driver’s seat of my vehicle, there was room to go around the tree. And the officer had left room between the police car and the tree. And the police car was in the oncoming lane, leaving me room to drive normally after I passed the tree. The drawing does not show that there is a ditch on my side of the road but not the other side.

I sat for several seconds, wondering what to do. If the police car had not been there, I would’ve swerved around the tree without much thought. My first thought was the officer was directing traffic. But there was no officer and no traffic. My other thought was that the officer was sitting there to warn people of the hazard in the road. I decided that was the case and proceeded around the tree. Better that than a 4 mile detour that wasn’t really needed.

As I was going around the tree, the officer opened the police car door and got out, approaching my vehicle. I stopped and rolled down my window.

The exchange went like this:
Her: “What are you doing?”
Me: “Heading home.”
Her: “You live around here?”
Me: “Yes, straight down this road, over the next hill.”
Her: “I didn’t want you to go around that tree.”
Me: “Oh, sorry.”
Her: “The branches could have punctured your tires.”
Me: “I thought there was room to go around…”
Her: “I was blocking the road until the tree crew got here.”
At this point, a fire truck pulls up. Seriously, the timing was great.
Her: “Here they are. Now be careful, there’s a ditch right there.”
Me: “Okay, thanks.”

Then she turned to head to the fire truck and I drove off home.

You may have read the conversation in your head with certain voices or tones of voices. For the officer, re-read it and this time use a voice that’s a cross between wondering and apologizing. She was not harsh at all.

My first thought after leaving was “if you’re going to block the road, then block the road.” or, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, “if you have to tell people that you are blocking the road, then you are not blocking the road.”

By her actions, her words, and her tone, my conclusion is that she is new to the area. In general, people who live on dirt roads, or drive on them much, are not very concerned about sticks or ditches. Those are everyday occurrences. But she was genuinely worried about them.

That would explain why she parked in a way that was not blocking the road – she didn’t want to get close to the ditch. And she didn’t park near the tree – thus leaving me room to go around – because she was afraid of the branches. Maybe afraid is too strong a word. But she was at least overly cautious.

And I do believe that she thought she was blocking the road. But she was assuming that other people thought as she did about branches and ditches. She thought she didn’t leave room for other cars because she wouldn’t get that close to those hazards.

Maybe she’s a rookie? Maybe she has a softer personality? Whatever it is, she needs to learn to be more direct as an officer. When she says “I didn’t want you to do that”, is that a statement of regret or something that I’m supposed to interpret to mean something else? An officer should give commands, especially in traffic situations. Ambiguity leads to confusion.

I’ve noticed the same thing with my mom growing up and with my wife and with other moms. Instead of telling one of the kids to set the table, she will say “Will someone set the table?” to no one in particular. It seems that women like to communicate indirectly. And this lady in particular was not a type-A personality.

Dear police officers, if you want people to do something in particular, make it obvious and communicate clearly and directly.

People have associated Bill Belichick’s apprentice as someone else – usually Tom Brady. But I thought the hoodie and the scowl make Michael Phelps the more likely candidate.

Here’s a tip for you if you are having problems with another guest at the hotel: complain to the management, not to the guest.

The story:

We were at a hotel, on the second floor, and it was bedtime. The kids were doing a lot of running around while getting ready. There may have been some jumping off the beds too. I went to grab something from the lobby and when I got back to the room a stranger was right behind me, trying to get my attention. I thought he was going to tell me I dropped something, but he told me we were being too loud.

I replied the kids were getting in bed and it would be very quiet. He was not satisfied with that answer and proceeded to tell me very sternly that we needed to keep it down, way down, because he had a 6 year old. I thought about telling him that we have a 5 year old, so we win, but I just reiterated that we would keep it down and then he left and I closed the door.

That was 9PM.

The kids walked very quietly to their beds and everything was calm probably before the guy even got back to his room.

It was a very awkward encounter, and the awkwardness continued into the next morning. Would I run into him then? What if he ended up in line next to me at the hotel’s continental breakfast? Should I ignore him? Ask how his night was?

I think they left early – must’ve had a long day of driving ahead of them or something. Or he was smiling at breakfast so I didn’t recognize him. Either way, I didn’t run into grumpy man the next day.

But all that could have been avoided. He should have called the front desk and complained. The front desk then would have called us and asked us to be quiet. The end result would have been the same, but all the confrontation and awkwardness would have been avoided. Because the front desk would not mention who was complaining, I wouldn’t have been able to look for them at breakfast.

And the complainer is lucky that I’m a calm person. What if he confronted someone who had a temper and was already having a bad day? Things could have gone badly.

Please, hotel guests, go through official channels whenever possible and do not confront other guests directly.

Normally after a business trip I give a full recap of what happened. Not the working details, but the travelling details. This time I won’t give all the details – just a few highlights.

1. Just about everyone in Germany can speak English. My American co-worker and I were stopped and asked something by random Germans who thought we were locals. When we replied “English please?”, they asked the question in English. The question had to do with the location of some establishment, so we were of no help anyway. But in general, asking for English will not phase anyone.

2. On the flight over, there was a small boy who either is, or will be, a fan of roller coasters. There were a number of dips during the descent/approach to landing. Each time, he would laugh and laugh, I’m presuming because of the way it made his tummy feel to suddenly drop. It was much better than the standard kid-who-cries-during-descent. Not that I get mad at crying kids, I’m just saying laughter is a pleasant change of pace.

3. Every restaurant has pork. Most have many varieties of pork. Very few have any chicken. This is the opposite of America. At first we were glad to see something called “Schinken” on the menu. But do you know what Schinken is? Not chicken … it’s ham.

Poison Ivy:

No wait, that was a small box elder tree.

This is poison ivy:

As you can see, those two plants are hard to tell apart.

My philosophy is “better safe than sorry” so I pull out anything that resembles poison ivy.

This kills two birds with one stone, as I don’t like box elder trees anyway. They don’t cause a rash, but they’re just annoying in general.

So kill the plant – whether it’s poison ivy or box elder I’m glad to be rid of it.

I have an update to an old post about the trichotomy of features. This one pertains to technology.

I was thinking of any number of social media networks, but it could also apply to a smart phone app, or an internet-connected thermostat, or the remote start feature of your car. It seemed broad enough that I just called it “technology”.

It was prompted by the political discussions of liberty versus freedom in light of national security events. But the same concept extends to devices too.

For example, the fancy new thermostats can be controlled via a smart phone app. That feature is useful, but now your furnace can be controlled by someone in another country. So your security has gone down.

Or a social network that wants to give people freedom to interact, so it opens up its API. To protect people’s security, it doesn’t gather personal information from its users. Now it is not very useful, because it’s the information such as birthdays that enhances the usefulness of social networks.

As a parent, I sometimes find that kids respond better to certain things than others.

For instance, if you want them to leave what they’re doing and come to you, you could try saying “Come here”.

But his response time may vary depending on his mood and how interesting he thinks whatever you have for him is.

If you want an instant reaction and have the kids right by your side immediately, try saying aloud but not directly to him: “Cool! Look what I found!”

Of course, you had better have something worth showing. Otherwise you’ll be the parent who cried wolf and they’ll ignore you.

Similarly, no boy can resist going to see what it is when someone says “Ewwww! Gross!” So keep that phrase handy, possibly when you want them to clean something.

The last phrase works best on younger boys, say about ages 4 to 7. It is “On your mark, get set, go!” For example, it is time for dinner and they are not showing much interest in making their way to the kitchen. Go to them, challenge them to a race to the kitchen, then say the magic phrase. I find it’s best to start saying it before they can finish their answer to the challenge. If you can get to the word “Go!” before they have completely processed the request, they can’t help but compete.

Any other good phrases that help get your kids’ attention?

Of course, if your kids are ignoring all your normal commands and requests, you have deeper problems than some fun phrases can fix.