Life

Planetarium in Austin?

/ hsoi

Austin is one of the few major cities in the US without a planetarium.

Apparently this may change.

I knew about the Austin effort, but this new Cedar Park effort could be cool. What was disappointing to read in the article was they seem to want to keep the 2 efforts distinct. I don’t know if the city can support 2 planetariums (not sure what the market is like… maybe lots of Pink Floyd laser shows to help finance it… lord knows there are enough stoners in this town), but that there didn’t sound like an effort to perhaps work together to at least ensure 1 gets built. But oh well.

Still, I’d like to see one in town. I’m no rabid star-gazer, but I remember going to planetariums as a kid on school field trips and how cool it was. It’d be cool to go to one again, and take my own kids.

This is my box

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Wife went to Costco yesterday, which means lots of cardboard boxes, which means heaven for one of our cats. This cat is obsessed with cardboard boxes.

This morning while I was walking to the kitchen, I saw one cat managed to get a box flipped over on top of her. Cardboard-obsessed cat was nearby, waiting. I flipped the box over to release trapped kitty, and within an instant of the box hitting the floor, cardboard-obsessed cat sprang into the box claiming it for herself. Upon landing in the box, her body language was such that the first thing that went through my head was:

This is my box.

There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My box is my best friend.

It is my life.

I must master it as I master my life.

My box, without me, is useless.

Without my box, I am useless.

With apologies to the US Marine Corps. 🙂

To tip or not?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Sometimes I go to a restaurant where there’s generally no service other than someone taking your order, giving you the food, and then you’re on your way. For instance, McDonald’s works this way. Obviously, there’s no tipping involved.

I’ve been to some restaurants, like BBQ joints in this area, where the service is the same: they’re behind a counter, take my order, give me the food, payment happens, and then I leave. But when I pay, at some places the credit card receipt prints with a line for a tip.

Am I supposed to tip?

Now granted, sometimes at the BBQ joints I ask them a few special things, like to cut the brisket just right, or to wrap things up in some foil and plastic bags so I don’t get drippings on the inside of my motorcycle saddlebags. That’s a little bit out of the way, so I will usually throw a buck or two into the tip jar.

But when you think about the unquestionable tipping situation in a restaurant — you have a waiter and they wait on you — someone just taking my order and handing me back my food well… that doesn’t really seem to equate. Fundamentally it’s the same service, but really the waiter does a whole lot more.

Just sitting here doing bills, reconciling statements against receipts, a few receipts came up with that and well.. I thought I’d ask and see what people thought.

And… we’re down again

/ hsoi

Just when I thought I’d be getting back in the swing…. 2 are down.

Youngest was ill with something last week but seems to be over it now. Around 3 AM his morning Daughter wakes me up.

“Daddy?”

“Huh… Yes?”

“Tummy….”

and proceeds to throw up on the side of my bed.

Joy.

And now Wife seems to have it.

Oldest and I remain on the hitlist….

Thankfully it just seems to be annoying for a few days, worst at the onset then once you throw up you’re on the road to recovery.

I can’t wait for my turn! 🙂

Your sobering thought for today

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Driving home tonight from a long day and a long weekend of training. Before I left another student that left about 20 minutes prior phoned back to say there was some big accident at the intersection of US 290 and TX-21. There’s no other way to get home than go through there so I prepared myself for a delay.

When I came upon that intersection it was shut down completely with police directing me onto US 290 West to go back to Austin. Within moments of getting onto 290 I see more lights in the distance. Eventually all traffic comes to a complete stand-still. And we sit. I don’t know the full story, but it appears there were 2 vehicular incidents (don’t know about the first, but this second was certainly a collision). They were significant incidents.

While sitting I saw one ambulance leave. A little while later, that same one returned. Another ambulance left. That’s not a good sign.

Finally after about an hour traffic started moving. Cars crawled through the area of the collision.

It was horrible.

It was violent.

You could see the skid marks all over the road. The ground is soft so you could see all the earth torn up as the truck and the other car skidded off the highway. The truck was smashed up pretty good. The other car (maybe a Honda Pilot?) was on its side, destroyed. Based upon what I saw, the only way my brain could process what happened was that it was an extremely violent event. It was just terrible.

The perspective I kept? Sure, this inconveniences me, but there are other lives truly affected tonight. I mean… maybe I got home an hour late, but at least I got to go home.

The fragility of life.

And this after spending two days in a firearms training course, which ended with a good presentation and discussion about the sober realities of gunfights. But before you take this as something bad or depressing, really it’s just a matter of perspective. At least for me, the one that experienced all of this and is making some sort of feeble attempt to convey it all to whomever reads this.

I don’t carry a gun because I want to hurt or harm people. I carry a gun because I wish to preserve life: mine, my loved ones. You see how fragile, how frail we are. How finite life is. How in an instant it can be taken from us or at least changed drastically and forever. In the end, how do you choose to live your life? If you wish to live a long and healthy one… plan and act accordingly.

It doesn’t stop things from happening, but being reminded of your mortality now and again is healthy — it helps you keep life in perspective. As Jason Becker said:

We live thinking we will never die. We die thinking we have never lived. Cut it out.

This doesn’t mean I live in fear of dying. While I don’t look forward to the event, I know that death is the only true guarantee in life; it’s only a question of when and how. Rather, it’s about ensuring you live a good and full life. Are you going to look back on your life and wish you spent more time at the office or more time with your kids? Why do you eat healthful food? because you want to be around to spend more time with your kids. Why do you exercise? so you can be around to spend more time with your kids. So, same with the gun, that is someone opted to try to take me away from them or them away from me, I will do all in my power to ensure my kids and I can continue to spend more time together.

I strive to live a full and healthy life. One just has to keep everything in perspective. This weekend provided a reminder and reinforcement of that. Some of that came in an unexpected way.

The Urban Hunt

/ hsoi

In response to my home being invaded by a duck, Rog pointed me to an article about The Urban Hunt. It’s about a man and his adventure in urban hunting: rabbit, pigeon, squirrel, duck, and so on.

It’s a good read. Well-written prose.

Hunting is ethically cleaner than buying meat at a market, in part because it is more difficult. Unlike urban progressives who shop in high-end organic grocery stores, hunters are not casual carnivores. Though often accused of being bloodthirsty, hunters simply know what blood is—what it looks like, how it smells. The division of labor is one of the good things about living in cities: Not everyone has to hunt his own food, make his own clothes, and perform his own open-heart surgery. But the luxury of urbanism lets us forget that eating is always about blood, about one thing suffering and dying so another thing can live. With every bite—whether ortolan, salmon, or chicken burrito—we swallow a mouthful of death.

An unwanted guest in my home

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Wife leaves the house last night to go do something. Just myself and the kids at home.

About 30 minutes after Wife left, I hear a muffled crash.. as if some plastic had hit the floor. Huh? That’s strange. Quick cat check and I know where they all are so it wasn’t them.

I get up to investigate.

Check the backyard in case some of the plastic lawn chairs had been blown over. No, that wasn’t it. Come to think of it, it sounded like it came from the garage.

Uh oh. But if it was a person, why didn’t I hear any noise with the garage door? Hrm.

I go to check.

Slowly open the door expecting the unexpected….

And unexpected it was.

“Hi, Sneeze.”

Big sigh of relief, then big sigh of annoyance… at myself.

Who is Sneeze? You know all those muscovy ducks that hang out at our house? Sneeze (named by the kids) is one of them. He’s like Norm from the TV show “Cheers”. My guess is as soon as Wife pulled the car out of the garage he waddled right in and got trapped. The crash? Muscovy’s are perching ducks and from the bottles on the floor it seems he failed at perching on one of the shelves.

This is ultimately my fault. The ducks have developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of the garage door going up. Many times before we go somewhere the kids will raise the garage door then go put down some seed for the ducks. So garage door sound is now associated with getting fed. The duck could be 5-6 houses down but hears our garage and it’s a quick flight over for food. At the time the ducks would never come into the garage. I don’t know why, but they seemed unsure and afraid of it. Then one day they were all standing at the open door waiting for me, Sneeze saw me with food in hand and slowly he braved into the great urban cave. I rewarded him with food. And now, he’s no longer scared of the garage. It’s just another food plot to him.

*sigh*

I did this to myself. 🙂

Something in my eye

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Today has been bittersweet for me.

I took Oldest to the dentist to get braces installed on his teeth. Braces: a rite of passage in modern teenager-life. This milestone has been achieved! Now it will be what? two or so years before they’re removed. I took a picture just before he sat down in the chair. I know when I next see him with clean teeth he’s going to look really different from this picture.

First we had to get a cleaning done. Originally he was to get that done last week but some jackass flew a plane into a building and so the roads were closed and we’d never get through. (Aside: we drove by the building today… that was crazy to see). So we got the cleaning done, then had a couple hour break, then back for the braces. During the break we had lunch then had time to kill. Some weeks ago Wife uncovered a Toys R Us gift card Oldest had received as a gift a couple years ago and still had a fair balance on it. During the break we headed over to a Toys R Us and Oldest bought some LEGO.

While walking through the store I passed the infant section. It brought back memories of infant-times and little inside jokes Wife and I share. And there I was… with Oldest. I don’t feel my age; I feel like a kid in so many ways. I still find it hard to believe I’m a father, that I have 3 kids, and that the first one of those kids came along oh so long ago. It was just yesterday I brought him home from the hospital; clichĂ© to say, I know, but the feeling is genuine. And here I am… with a teenager… my teenager, progressing through one of those teenager milestones by getting braces.

I’m happy to see him grow up. In fact, seeing how he handled himself today? I’m quite proud of him. I can see the man this boy is growing into. But seeing him grow up also makes me sad. Not that I want him to be an infant again, but knowing the day is coming when he’s going to leave the house… and damn, I’m going to miss him something awful.

Customer Service improving?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I’ve noticed that lately a lot of people are talking about good customer service experiences.

That we’re surprised to get good customer service? That’s a shame. We shouldn’t be surprised when service is good — it’s supposed to be good. That we’re surprised when service is good is testimony that customer service has generally been a horrible, painful experience.

But I wonder. With the state of the economy, that consumers are cutting back, that businesses don’t want to lose any customers and would still like to gain customers… gosh, amazing how that free market motivates improvement. Customer service is one of those key areas that either make someone loyal for life or swear to never use the product/service again. Of course, when the provider of the goods/services is the government, ever notice that on whole it’s not the best end result? What motivation do they have to improve? it’s not like their revenue will go down… no, if they lose customers they’ll just raise taxes. *sigh*

I can only hope that once times are no longer so lean that customer service won’t go back into the toilet. When times are good, still be good. When times are tough, be better.