I'm not as hardcore as Ben

There is a motorcycle racer named Ben Spies.  His mom was interviewed for a British bike magazine and she told a couple of stories involving crashes.  In the first story, Ben's teammate was killed in a crash during a race.  Ben told his mom that he knew what she was thinking and that as much as it would hurt him to cause that kind of pain to his family it would hurt him more if he had to quit racing.

The second story involved him crashing and leaving half his ass on the track. Literally.  Banged up enough where he told his mom while in the ER that he knew what she was thinking, not to say it, and that he needed support to get back to racing.

Clearly I'm not a racer.  I do have a love for riding, though.  I can tell you about those moments when everything fell into place and me and my bike were like one.  On the gas, brake, lean in, roll into it, back on the gas, like one motion.  I can tell you about the times I had the crap scared out of me getting into a corner too hot, having a bad line, or coming around the bend to find a big ass rock right in my path.  I'll tell you about all those things some other time when I can do a little more explaining and bench racing.

Right now, I can only tell you I miss it.

Listen to your kids

I think a lot of people think this parenting thing is a one way street: kids, bask in the glory of my awesomeness and do as I say (but may be not as I do.)  Truth is, that's a sure way to miss out on some really good ideas.  Take learning a language, for example.

You, Miss Over-Achiever, are working on your third language.  Third language!  Shit, I have a hard enough time with English.  Seeing you dive into French, I thought, "wow, I should learn another language."  Japanese has fascinated me since we hosted exchange students when I was a kid.  Half an hour on a teach yourself site and I quickly started thinking of a new course.

I had three years of Latin in junior high and two years of Spanish in high school.  I can remember very little of the former and some slang and swear words in the latter.  Swearing is fun, so Spanish it is.  Oh, and it's probably more practical.  If I ever make it to Argentina I'll be able to communicate, which is infinitely more likely than me attending a church service conducted in a dead language.

So, thanks, kiddo.  You've inspired me to abandon my monolinguistic ways.  I don't think I'll be catching up to you, but that's cool.  You can translate Chris and Lolo's Facebook updates for me.

Let me get my umbrella, because I see a shitstorm coming

I really like driving.  I really like riding a motorcycle.  So I thought I would share a few things about both that I really like.  I'll try to fit 'I really like' in as much as possible, too.

Road trips are awesome.  Not the drive to Vegas kind, that's all about getting from A to B, because B is where the alcohol is.  The kind I'm talking about is where you go from place to place and enjoy the stuff on the way.  The trip Tash and I took is my favorite.  Up the coast to San Francisco with a stop in Solvang on the way, then across the state to Lake Tahoe, down to Yosemite, over to Las Vegas, across the Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon, and then Phoenix.  Tough to top that one.

The other car trip was with my Pops and your uncle to Washington.  It was about 24 hours of almost straight-through driving (violating the 'enjoy stuff along the way' part of a good road trip) and we encountered high winds, rain, and snow, but it was still good to be doing it together.  Your uncle had been stationed in Washington and his stuff (read: motorcycle and a few boxes) were at Pops, so we decided we would get a UHaul trailer to haul it up there, driving in shifts.  Then we could check out Whidbey Island, Seattle, and whatever else.  I'll never forget waking up in the backseat to find out we were parked at a gas station in Oregon because they had worn themselves out trying to drive through Grant's Pass in a snow storm at night.

The best bike trip was to the West Coast Hawk Rally in 2005.  My friend's brother had a bed and breakfast in Point Reyes, north of San Francisco.  I decided to ride up on Friday and back on Sunday.  With the riding we did as a group on Saturday, I put in about 1200 miles that weekend.  Going up the coast Friday, I had a stop for lunch in Santa Barbara, dinner at an In-n-Out somewhere along the 101 south of the Bay Area, rode through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then into the pitch black night where by chance I ran into the rally returning from dinner.  Saturday riding was through some of the best parts of California, but was cut short by a bad crash (not me this time.)  Sunday riding home was brutal, taking the shorter route down I-5 through the blistering heat of the Central Valley.  Had to stop every hundred miles to get off the bike and off my bum.  Probably the worst single ride ever, but still pretty awesome.

And completely different from a car trip.  Plenty of time to be in your own head, feel the temperature drop when you ride through a dip, smell the garlic as you approach Gilroy, have a little fun riding big sweepers after droning on the long straight stretches of highway, all of that stuff.

Where's the shitstorm?  I hope you get to do all those things, including a bike trip.  Not my trips of course, your own with your own destinations and your own places in between.  Those kinds of experiences can't be bought.

If you start thinking you're a great driver

If you start thinking you're a great driver, you'll probably wreck your car in the near future.  Knowing your limits and always working on your skills will help you keep your ego in check.

Your uncle and I both managed to do really well at the basic motorcycle skills course.  We took it at different times, but we both crashed after passing the test.  He crashed right in front of the school, one of the instructors helped him pick up his bike.  I crashed playing Ricky Racer in Reche Canyon and broke my wrist.  I don't know about your uncle, but I was feeling pretty full of myself when I scored the highest on the riding test and the instructors said that they would feel good about riding with me.  Not sure how I got my helmet on after that.

I've had lots of drivers training and driven lots of miles.  I still make a serious effort each time I get in the car to pay attention and concentrate on what I'm doing.  There have been a few accidents in those miles and more than one can be chalked up to not being alert.

Learning to drive is frustrating

It is especially frustrating when your dad is in the passenger seat saying things like, 'you took that turn too fast' and 'you need to turn faster.'  Believe me, I know.

When I learned to drive (yeah, here we go, 'back when I was a kid'), I had to take a semester of driver's ed, six lessons with an instructor, and something like 40 hours driving with a parent.  The experiences were boring, boring, and super frustrating, respectively.  First time out with my dad I was moving the wheel left and right while driving straight, just like Tom Slick.  He said something along the lines of 'what the hell are you doing? Knock that off.'  Then I'm pretty sure in the same outing I blew a red light.  And drove too close to the gutter ('don't drive there, that's where all the crap is.')  Tailgated, too, I'm sure.  All within about 10 minutes.  Thirty-nine hours and fifty minutes to go.

We both survived it and looking back, I think Pops was remarkably patient and showed a fair bit of restraint.  He later taught me to drive a stick shift in his big Ford truck, which turned out to be pretty easy.  At least it was compared to the one attempt with my mom who had freaked out, convinced I was going to burn up the clutch.  Anyway, I hope I'm doing as good a job as my dad did and that you aren't getting too pissed off.

Backing up

Don't think too much about it.  If you want to turn the car back of the car left, turn the wheel left.  If you want it to go right, yep, turn right.  Use the mirrors and practice using just the side mirrors.  And for the love of Pete, go slow.

So you are a licensed driver now.

Prepare for a massive amount of unsolicited advice.

First, a recap of some of the expert tips already dispensed:

• Drive like everyone else is on the phone, texting, doing eye make up, anything but paying attention.
• Watch other drivers in their mirrors, the way they drift within their lanes, and even the rare indicator to figure out where they are about to go.
• Check your mirrors often for cars creeping into your blind spot, motorcyclists, and cops.
• Keep some space around you, then you'll have somewhere to go if things go badly in front of you.

There's a lot more to come, I just have to think about it.  After awhile it becomes second nature so don't get worked up about remembering it all.

Not much lately

Sorry about that.  I've been preoccupied with work and figuring out what I want to do when I grow up.  Besides, I haven't thought of much to say and didn't see much point in proving that.

Now that the half marathon is in the books and I'm feeling pretty good, it's time to think about what's next.  Knowing that I don't have all the time in the world is making me think that I had better get a move on with some things I've been thinking about doing or they might never get done.

Time to get back into the photography scene and time to start training for that marathon.  The next surgery is going to put a kink in both, but I think I can be back in shape by the fall.

Don't wait too long, kiddo.  You might never get around to it.

Some professors

suck.

I had a calculus professor that was from another country.  That's not what made him suck.  What made him suck was that he had a heavy accent, spoke very softly, and faced the white board for almost the entire quarter.  I'm sure that he was a brilliant mathematician, but not so hot on the teaching.

Of course, I was dumb and should have switched classes right after the first meeting.  But no, I gave up half way through and failed miserably.  Retaking it the next quarter was not fun.

Sometimes you don't have much choice and you have to make the most of the situation.  Even if that means just getting a C and getting the hell out of there.  When you aren't stuck, don't stick around.  You're paying for that education so you should get the best that you can get.

Go Big.

Yep, if you're going to go, go big.

It's been a quick eight months since I crashed big.  I felt like I had to do something big to show I was better.  Not just better as in well, but better than before.  One of the guys at work mentioned that he was training for a half marathon.  I happened to have just started running again.

Last year, my resolution was to run a marathon.  Like most resolutions it didn't happen.  Now I had the drive to work for it and a support group to keep on track with training.

I adapted the eight week training program Drew and his wife were following to prep for the run.  A few runs during the week then increasing the distance by a mile and a half each Saturday.  That worked up through week five, 8.3 miles.  Then I got sick with something nasty that killed week six, which should have been 9.5 miles.  No big deal, I used to run that regularly before I wrecked.  Then crappy weather killed the weekday runs of week seven.  So two weeks of not running and I had to do 11 miles, farther than I had ever run.

Shit.

Sometimes you have to do something just to prove to yourself you can do it.  There are lots of things were the outcome depends on whether you believe you can do it or not.  Running is definitely that kind of mind game.  It's probably not rational, but knowing that I could do 11 miles meant that 13 was well within reach.  Still feeling a little crappy, I ran eleven and some change a bit slow and ugly.

Week eight of the program was to get to 12.5 miles, but that went out the window.  I decided on a good solid 8 to get that form back.  With that and knowing I could go the distance, well, believing I could go the distance, I was ready.

So I ran it and it was good.  I met the goals of finishing and running the whole damn thing.  Then I had a beer and it was over.  That's the trouble with hitting your goal, what to do after you get there.

I'm thinking another couple of halfs and then a full, but I have to get this crap taken out of my back first.  The rods are poking me in the shoulders and I'm over it.  There's the next goal, run a full marathon titanium-free.

Keep submitting your work, a lot of it will get rejected by idiots that wouldn't know a good submission if it had a Pulitzer attached to it.  But sometimes you'll get in, like the one I saw in print today.  Pretty cool.

Learn your craft

I overheard a professor telling a student a story the other day.  He had been playing at some music conference and a student asked him to help him get some really good ideas out of his head and into the world.  So the prof tells him to play what he's got.  After the student is done he says, 'You can't play your horn, learn to play it and the ideas will come out.'  That sounds harsh, but it's probably the best advice that student could have gotten.

If you don't know what your tools can do, then you can't use them to fully express your ideas.  I mean tools in the broadest sense possible, like if you are a writer than language is your tool, if you're a photographer the camera is your tool.

Learning your craft might seem tedious, but once you have it down you are free to use it, abuse it, disregard it, do whatever that gets your idea out because you know the rules and you can consciously decide how to apply them.

Guess I better go learn the scales.  Again.

By request

So the fun has begun, hey?  Work, school, activities and only 24 hours in a day.  You asked for a little advice on how to get through it all without keeling over so here it is:

Coffee.

Naps.

Not in that order, naps definitely have priority.  When you can't take a nap, drink coffee.  Scope out a few places that aren't too far from where you need to be that can be used for a quick sleep.  Twenty minutes is awesome, thirty even better.  That's not enough time to really get homework done, but it can be the recharge your brain needs to get through the next appointment.

My favorite spots were the fourth floor of the library, the grass between the Art and Administration buildings (shade and a slight slope made for a comfortable impromptu bed), and the student lounge.  Hell, you live on campus so you could probably duck back to your room for a kip.

Study at night with friends, you'll keep each other awake and on task (as long as the Game Cube stays off.)

Avoid energy drinks because they suck.  You'll be feeling great and then it wears off and you crash.  Hard.  Same with cigarettes, only they make you smell, too.

When things really get rough, just remember that you'll have plenty of time to sleep when you're dead.

Face to face

It's too easy to send a text or an email to someone when you need something. Sometimes you have to do it, like when you need a paper trail to cover your ass. Otherwise, just go talk in person or at least on the phone. You'll develop better relationships faster and truth be told, those relationships are how things get done.

Positive Reinforcement

I don't think I'm being cynical when I say that most jobs consist of dealing with other people's problems. That's just how it goes and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, it can be depressing to only hear negative crap day in and day out. When you get good service from someone, tell them. Sincerely tell them, not like facetiously tell them, especially if it is someone you work with often. I'm not saying you should butter people up. I am saying that a little courtesy and thoughtfulness will help someone remember why it is they started doing whatever it is they are doing and maybe forget the jerk that was yelling at them over some self-inflicted problem a few minutes ago.

I keep seeing students do the same stupid thing

When it comes time to register for classes, which you did today I hope, you need to have multiple schedules at the ready. When I had to register for classes, it had to be done over the phone. On the scheduled date, hundreds of others would be trying to register at the same time. Once you got into the automated system, you had to get your classes or you may not be able to get back in later to do it. It's a huge pain in the ass, especially when you have to keep work schedules in mind, but it pays off in spades to have valid options available at your fingertips.

Don't have one or two second choice classes, have a whole schedule ready. You won't get locked into classes until your senior year and you can cross that bridge when you come to it. For now, don't rely on luck, sympathy stories, or charm. No one has any sympathy right now because every student has a sad story to get that one class they need. And the crappy cut backs on classes and sections situation isn't going to get any better any time soon.

If all else fails, try bribing the secretaries with doughnuts.

Tedious work counts

Everyone wants to do the new and exciting stuff. Some other suck can do the grunt work, right? Yeah, that's great except that rarely does anyone volunteer to be the suck or is dumb enough to get stuck with it twice. And yet the work is still there to do, so just suck it up and do it. Put on some music[1] you can zone out to and plow through it. It'll get done--eventually--you'll feel some sense of accomplishment, and it can be a nice change of pace.

[1] I recommend Deftones, A Perfect Circle, and Eskimo Joe. At least that's worked for today's drudgery.

Take care of yourself

So I thought I was doing pretty good with the whole keeping healthy thing. My weight is good, I don't eat crap, and I get in some exercise. For various reasons, I had to get a physical recently and the doctor didn't seem too concerned about my general health. Woohoo, instant validation of my reasoning to stay away from the doctor's office--namely "I'm healthy, I don't need to go see that guy." Then he told me to get blood drawn for cholesterol.

Dammit if it wasn't high. I guess high cholesterol runs in families and, you guessed it, runs in ours. Yeah, you're welcome.

Eat the best you can given the food services situation, exercise regularly, do modern jazz dance, and get a physical once in a while. That's my plan, except for the jazz dance, so that I can hang around and irritate my kids 'til I'm 103 (to paraphrase Jiminy Cricket.)

Getting fired

I mentioned getting fired as one of those times where you might be in serious trouble. If you've got bills to pay and suddenly no way to pay them, then you are most certainly in trouble. Otherwise, it might not be so bad.

I can count on one hand the number of places I've worked. Lots of positions, few employers. The second job I had I got fired from. It was a mix of principal and dumbness, which is kinda funny. The boss at the golf course would have a meeting once a month and insist that we be there without pay. I grumbled the first couple times, then finally argued with him about it. He didn't budge so I didn't go to the next meeting, for which I wasn't put on the schedule for the next week. The next month, I just forgot and when I remembered it was too late to worry about it.

Next day, the boss was waiting for me to show up. He said basically that that was twice and I was done. When I brought up the whole lack of pay thing, he said that we could have talked about it. Well, we already had and he was choosing to ignore that bit. So that was that. I felt pretty crappy about getting canned, even if it was a shitty job. Took about a month of constant looking to get another job, but I did and that was that.

Have a valentine

It's Valentine's Day, so give your friends a valentine. It's nice to get one and it's even better to give one.

Just make sure you're only giving Hershey kisses to your boyfriend.

Tabasco makes everything better

In my brief and unremarkable time in the reserves, I did manage to learn a few things. How to drive a Vietnam War-era five ton truck, that was a good one. Um, the wonderful world of petroleum supply. Ooh, how to improvise a gasket from a manila folder. Hmm, let's see...oh yeah, that diesel doesn't make a very good paint thinner, but if the paint sucks to begin with it doesn't matter much.

The best, absolutely most useful thing I learned during that time by far was the Miracle of Tabasco. See, sometimes we would be out doing some training and for whatever reason, someone would decide that instead of trucking actual food to the training site we would have MREs. MRE stands for 'Meal Ready to Eat,' but was more like 'Meal Rejected by Everyone.' They weren't completely without merit, because they had little packets of treats. Usually gum, matches, toilet paper (although that must have been a joke, because if you were eating MREs you weren't going to need toilet paper any time soon), and a little, tiny bottle of Tabasco.

Tabasco made Chicken a la King into Chicken a la Awesome. It turned some truly foul, cold, mushy meals into palatable stuff. I'm not saying it was something you'd order at a restaurant, but at least you could eat it. The trick was to collect all the unused bottles you could so you had a stockpile in case you got stuck with something really bad, like Green Eggs and Ham. The Dreaded Green Eggs and Ham. That was the unluckiest pick of the draw, unless you knew the secret way to eat it. I don't even remember what the real name of that bit of nastiness was, but it had something approximating a ham omelette and included two very dry crackers and a packet of 'cheese.' The secret was to mix the cheese and every bottle of Tabasco into the packet of Green Eggs and Ham, then spread it on a cracker. The worst of the MREs was transformed into the best. Tabasco, in sufficient quantities, could overcome the worst that the Army could come up with. That's saying something.

There are other hot sauces that are almost as good, Tapatio for one. But Tabasco will always be the King when it comes to salvaging nasty food.

Happy dance

I've already told you this, but it's important enough for me to tell you again in front of the whole world (wide web, anyway.) Every year that goes by without you being a mama, I do a happy dance. When you get in to your late twenties, early thirties, I won't be dancing anymore. But in the meantime, I consider each baby-less year a little victory.

I was ridiculously stupidly young when you were born. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change a thing because then I wouldn't have you around to listen to my terrible jokes. But. I would not recommend the teen parenthood path to anyone, nor would I recommend the just young parenthood path. Go do some stuff before you have kids. Get your career started, travel, finish your studies, whatever. It's all a million times harder once you've got anklebiters of your own. And more expensive. Holy crap, kids are expensive.

Be smart, be careful, and stay away from boys. They're nothing but trouble. Oh, and they smell, too.

If you join the army

Do it for the right reasons and do it smart. I sure as hell didn't. Here's how bad I screwed it up.

I had vague feelings about wanting to do something for my country (damned 'Profiles in Courage') and knew that the GI Bill could get me through college. When the recruiter came around, I thought I would hear what he had to say. First mistake, recruiters are there to get you to sign up so treat them like used car salesmen. Then when it sounded good, I thought 'ok, the reserves wouldn't be so bad and they'll give me a promotion based on my college credit.' Mistakes two and three: don't go in enlisted, be an officer; get any promises in writing. Then, because apparently I was on a roll with the bad decisions, I picked a job based on how long the training was so I could get back in time for the fall quarter. Mistake four: pick a job you want to do and will be useful once you get out. Some guy was being offered a shot at helicopter pilot school and a warrant officer position when I was picking my job. I thought, 'damn, I would jump at that' and didn't. Truck driving is great if you want to be a truck driver, I should have gone for flight school.

Last mistake (or first mistake): think hard about what you want to do and why you want to do it. I got disillusioned pretty quickly with the mindless sweeping of the motor pool and driving the aging diesel out of Humvees.

I think the military is a good option for some people, especially if they can stay off painting and barnacle scraping positions. For others with a 'can do for the country' bent, do AmeriCorps or Peace Corps or some local organization. There are lots of options and some of them might even pay you.

Just don't end up sweeping the motor pool.

Nine lives

With two close calls, I am choosing to believe that I have nine lives to cash in and not three strikes before I'm out. See, I had a pretty bad wreck when you were little. The kind involving multiple cars, stuck doors and fire. I got out of that one with bruises, whiplash, some singed hair, and a head trip that lasted for quite awhile. "What if I had gone for McDonald's instead of El Pollo Loco? What if I had been in a faster line at the store?" What if, what if, what if.

"What if" doesn't get you anywhere. What happened happened and there aren't any parallel universes to explore the other possibilities in. You deal with what happened, otherwise you just get yourself in a tizzy. I do, anyway.

So this other close call was, of course, the bike wreck. No head trip this time, I've already done that. However, it was a bit of a wake up call. You don't know when things are going to go pear-shaped, but you can bet that they will at some stage. Don't let it mess with your head, before or after.

Way I figure, I can have things go badly once every ten years and still make 100. Ha, see what you have to look forward to?

In search of what?

I just read some Kerouac and some other beatnik dude that liked to get wasted and wander. So then I think, 'I'll read something lighter, maybe a travel book. A motorcycle travel book!" Turns out one of my favorite bike journalists has collected his articles and put them in a book. Freakin' awesome! Except that it turns out that he's another dude that likes to get wasted and wander. So...hm. What do you make of that?

Well, I reckon that if you are having issues and you decide the best course of action is to head for Tierra del Fuego and a bottle, you are looking to escape some questions because you certainly are not looking for answers. Just deal with your crap, then head to Peru for fun.

Oh, and if you want to know why binge drinking is bad then read the last half of "Big Sur." What a mess.

It's the little things

Heh, I had a Bush song in my head.

You know what's going to trip you up? The little things. Because something gets in your way that is really insignificant, but annoying, and distracts you from what you should be doing. Pretty soon, you've wasted the evening and now have even less time to finish that paper.

Some people set time limits, as in "if I can't fix it in five minutes, I'm done with it," while others try to ignore it. You have to work out what's best for you. I'm horrible at it, so don't ask me.

Stay on task

I have gotten really bad at staying focused. Not that I was much good at it before, but now I'm hopeless. So, what to do? I read something somewhere about some Zen monks that did one thing at a time until it was done, then moved on to the next thing. These guys would tend to the garden when it was time to garden and when it was time to eat they would cook the food, do the dishes, then sit down to eat.

That's pretty hard to do when you are expected to multitask, but it really makes sense to focus on doing the task at hand. Try telling that to the boss, though. So I'm trying to adopt a method that includes a to do list, working on the first item until I can't go any farther with it for whatever reason, then moving on to the second item, etc. Kinda like working in series, then switching to parallel when the circuit craps out.

Of course, with my feeble brain I need to keep note of where I left off on the last task.

Getting in trouble

I didn't get in trouble much because I was an ok kid and I hated getting in trouble. You, my dear, are much the same. The problem with that is that little trouble seems like Big Trouble because you haven't had enough of it to know the difference. If you're not getting fired or locked up, it's probably not that big of a deal.

Don't interfere

Gah! People getting up in your business is the most annoying thing ever. Don't be one of those people. There is a huge, huge, HUGE, difference between offering help and being a pest by getting in the middle of things. Think about it this way: if something is so jacked up and complicated that you think maybe you should jump in and do something, ask yourself if adding another person to mix is going to make things even more complicated. Yeah, three people fiddling is going to be harder to sort out than two.

Get to know the people close to you

I'm not entirely sure where to start because, well, I should have figured this one out way sooner. We are related to some pretty cool people that have done some pretty cool things. Things that we will not ever know about because they have died and we didn't get to know them when they were here. I mean, of course we knew them, but only in the small-talk-at-Easter sort of way. Some of the really cool things my grandfather did, I didn't know about until he was being eulogized. That is just too damn late. There was a whole side to him that I didn't know much at all about, could have learned from, or could have just enjoyed hearing him tell the stories. I could have spent more time with him, but was too busy, figured there was always next time, blah blah blah. Just lame.

My grandma died when I was young, so did my other grandpa. Too young to really know them. Then I squandered the time I had with the ones that were here until just recently.

I've only mentioned family so far, but it's true of good friends as well. There were some people that I should have kept in touch with and didn't. Now it's twenty years later and I'm just now catching up. That's a long time lost.

I'm not saying you should know every last detail about everyone. There's no way I would spend more than a 'hi' on Uncle Useless. Jeez, he's only good for a lame joke at Thanksgiving and Christmas and it's at his expense. You know pretty well who is worth the effort.

Sorry if this sounds morbid, I really don't mean it to. I just want to make the point that you don't know what the future holds for you, so you have to make the most of Now and the people here with you.

Don't Wait

You don't know how long you've got or if your opportunity to do something you really want to do has a smaller window than you think. So don't wait, just do it.

Not to sound like a liquor store hat, but...

shit happens. When it does, I suggest you laugh about it.

We've been stuck in the house due to snow for, oh, five days now. There was nothing to be done about it, except shovel snow and hope that some day the sun would come out again. It finally did and boy was there a mess to clean up. Nearly four feet of snow to clear off the deck, the shed, from around and on top of the car, a path to dig from the front door to the driveway and on to the street, blah blah blah. Finally, finally, it's all done. The car won't start, battery is too low. Back to shoveling out the shed so I can get the extension cords and the battery charger. (Doesn't that sound like an awesome idea? 'Hey, I bet if I string together enough extension cords across the snow and wet ground, I can hook up the battery charger!') Hook it up without getting shocked or blowing up the car and let it charge. Because putting the charger on the wet ground sounded bad, I opened the trunk. Bad idea. The ice sheet on top of the car slides off, right on to the open hood, bending the crap out of the prop rod and wedging between the windshield and partially open hood.

Talk about ridiculous. I had to hold the hood open with my head to clear the ice out of the engine compartment, disconnect the charger, put the cover back on the battery, and try to straighten the prop rod. If the neighbors had been watching, it would have been good entertainment for them. Anyway, I got the ice cleared, removed the jacked up prop rod, and started the car. Hurray! Then laughed while I told Tash what had happened.

Actually, this is one lesson that I did learn early on. Junior high, I had a generally bad week. Then came the day where someone told the bully that I stole his clothes from his gym locker (not true), so he promptly reciprocated. Then at lunch, one of my friends had trouble opening a milk carton until, of course, it opened all at once, all over me. So there I was wearing dorky PE clothes covered in milk. And I started laughing at how ridiculous it all was.

See Don't Panic and Be Prepared.

How could I forget this?

Maybe it never occurred to me because it just came naturally, I don't know. You grew up more or less as a single child, so your if-I-go-any-farther-I'll-end-up-in-deep-shit sense is probably underdeveloped. As you know, I have two younger brothers. These clowns got into more trouble than I did not necessarily because they got into more stuff that would get them in trouble (they did), but because they didn't know when to stop. I had a pretty good sense of when to quit before my ass ended up in a sling. They didn't.

Here's a fun example: When we were kids, summer vacations were usually hot and boring. Two of our neighbors had pools. So what do hot, bored kids do when they don't have a pool of their own? Well, they might eat Otter Pops by the box load, but sooner or later they are going into a pool. The plan was flawless. Throw ball over fence as a pretense for being in a backyard not your own. If someone yelled, obviously they were home and you were not getting in a pool. Otherwise, slip into the pool, don't stay too long, and don't attract attention. Worked perfect. Then I got a feeling that things were going to go sour pretty soon (you can only get away with something for so long) and stopped hopping the fence for a swim.

My brothers, however, thought it was a good idea to invite their friends over to swim. I watched them parade past my bedroom window, beach towels and all. And shortly after, I watched them shuffle past with heads hung and knew they had been busted. Which meant I had been busted, too, because no way were my brothers going to take the fall.

So what's the point of all this? Know when enough is enough and learn to spot people that don't know when enough is enough. You'll keep yourself out of trouble and keep others from getting you into trouble.

Cold winters suck

It has only taken me eight years to realize this, so I'm hoping that you get it quicker. Snow sucks, cold rain sucks, cold sucks period. Aim for the subtropics, people there consider the 60s to be a cold snap. And that sounds just about perfect to me.

Don't Panic

I don't think I can elaborate on 'The Hitchhiker's Guide,' I just think it is really good advice. Panicking gets you nowhere, except in a deeper mess. So if you find yourself on a spaceship with some dude with two heads and an ex-boyfriend, I promise you will be better off slowing things down and evaluating the situation rather than shouting 'What the hell is that?' and 'Why does that guy have two heads?'

Be persistent

Don't be a pain in the ass. I am definitely Not saying that. However, if you want to show that you are truly interested in something--a class, a job, a room at the cool house, writing the next Great American Blog--keep at it. Turn up once a week, put some time in daily, whatever it takes (without being a PITA). People tend to take you seriously if you are willing to invest time in something that doesn't pay off immediately.

Oh retail, you heartless soul-crushing temptress

When you need a job--which is like all the time by the way so get cracking on that--retail is not a bad option. You don't go home smelling like french fries, the hours are flexible, you get paid to swipe a piece of paper over a laser and make change. Hell, you don't even have to figure out the change, the register will tell you! Too easy, right? Right, so the pay sucks, you learn how dim the general public can be, and you spend ages thinking about how you really should be doing something better. So take the job if it is there (hey, money doesn't grow on trees), add to your flair collection and apply at Friday's. If you're going to be in the retail/service industry, go where they get fat tips. Then you can finish up all those degrees, get a job as a professor, and enjoy the huge office and teaching students that hang on your every word.

Just don't hang on to that retail/service job for too long. Ask me about ruts and why working smarter is always better than working harder sometime.

Be prepared

Have a Plan A and a Plan B. If you need a Plan C, well, you're probably already hosed. Things rarely work out the way you want them to, but if you've already thought about how things are going to go badly and what you can do anyway you will be in good shape.

How to spot bullshit 4: Motivation

This one is tough, because it requires enough experience with people to be able to read them and deduce possible reasons they may want to pull something over on you. I worked in retail for a long time (too long, dammit, but that's another topic) and got to interact with lots of people from all walks of life. Being that it was auto parts and then heavy equipment, a significant portion came from the dodgy end of the spectrum.

The most basic motivation is to dupe you into giving up more than you would have, given a normal transaction. That means the other person thinks that they are more clever than you or conversely, that you are dumber than they are. Otherwise, why bother? Don't be stupid, problem solved. Ok, that's not so helpful, so if you think something is rotten in the state of Denmark don't go along with it.

If getting one over on you is the mother of all bullshittery, then any other motivation boils down to that as well. Ask yourself, "what do they want from me that they can't just ask for?" Then you play Holmes and look for clues to tip you off to the specifics. Friday afternoon and someone stops by to chat with a manila envelope bulging at the seams? People in class sitting next to you suddenly after you aced the last exam? Dude wants to buy you a drink?

Hmm, I guess it's not that tough after all. Unless you are really playing Holmes and want to show the bullshitter that not only are you not falling for it, but that they should get back to work and finish that TPS report if they want any chance at having a weekend.