Windows XP... Really?
22 February 2016 • by bob • Humor, Computers
This was an advertisement on Facebook today - seriously? Asking people to "upgrade" to Windows XP? That's like asking smart phone users to upgrade to rotary dial.
Too Cool for School
01 February 2016 • by bob • Family, Humor
I just re-discovered this story: my son was a senior in high school when he flew to San Francisco on a choir trip. And even though his flight was leaving Seattle around the same time as a flight which I was taking somewhere else, he didn't want to ride to the airport with me. His exact words were, "I'd rather go with people that I can talk to." (This is a teenage way of saying that I was just not cool enough to be part of his entourage.)
However, after I had arrived at the airport and was calmly waiting for my flight to depart, my wife called to tell me that our son realized when he arrived at the airport that he had left his boarding pass and all of his money for the trip at home. I called my son, who informed me that he had already picked up a new boarding pass from the airline, but he didn't have a way to get the money from home. Feeling sorry for him and ignoring his earlier diss about the ride, I agreed to drop by an ATM and pick up some cash to give my son at his gate, which was in a different terminal of the SEATAC airport.
After finding the nearest ATM and withdrawing the requisite funds, I headed off to catch the airport tram to the terminal where my son was waiting for me. I was already en-route to his location when a thought suddenly dawned on me: why in the world was I hand-carrying the cash all the way to his gate, when he was the one who had forgotten everything?
Once that notion had registered completely in my mind, I called my son and told him to walk to the tram station in his terminal and meet me there. As the tram pulled into the stop near his gate, I saw my son and one of his friends waiting patiently for me to arrive. I hopped off the tram, gave my son the cash, took a quick photo of him, and then hopped back on the tram before the doors were able to close - mission accomplished.
In the end I may have saved the day, but I still wasn't cool enough to give my son a ride to the airport.
Technology in the Home
21 January 2016 • by bob • Family, Computers, Humor
Finally a book comes out that would have helped my children understand part of their childhood.. 
Happy New Year
06 January 2016 • by bob • Humor
One of my favorite post-holiday traditions is reading Dave Barry's annual recap of the previous year's news events...
Dave Barry's 2015 Year in Review |
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It Was All Fun And Games...
16 December 2015 • by bob • Humor
Yup, it was all fun and games until this happened...
Christmas in the UK
02 December 2015 • by bob • Humor, Travel
OK, I will admit - we followed a few of these traditions at our house... I'm not saying which ones, though. 
How to Have a British Christmas
Anglophenia Ep 20
Anglophenia Ep 20
Thought for the Day (2015-11-30)
30 November 2015 • by bob • Humor
From Coleman Cox (in 1922):
"Never dispute the woman who says she has a model husband. Webster's Dictionary says a model is a small imitation of the real thing."
The Power of Positive Thinking
25 November 2015 • by Bob • Ponderings
I saw a would-be motivational poster today with the following quote from Norman Vincent Peale: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
I don't mean to be nitpicky, but if you fall short of the moon, you're still going to be light years away from the stars, although you can ardently admire them as you burn up on re-entry.
But if you really miss the moon, and by that I mean hideously overshooting your intended target to an exponential degree, your long-dead corpse might one day make it to the stars, although that will still be thousands of years after you choked to death due to lack of oxygen.
UPDATE 01/20/22:
I recently had the opportunity to weigh in once again on this failed attempt at motivational thought, and the following text was my updated version.
I have often seen the statement that you should shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you'll land among the stars. However, have you ever considered what that actually means? If by some quirk of poor navigational skills you manage to miss the relative safety of the moon, then you're doomed to a miserable existence; drifting terrified and helpless through the cold expanse of empty space as you journey across millions of light years on your way to the nearest star, at which point your lifeless corpse will be incinerated as it descends into a chaotic maelstrom of burning gases and thermonuclear radiation.
Cool Towns Around The World
12 November 2015 • by bob • Travel, Humor
I'm not sure what it is, but there's something cool about the street names in this tiny town outside of Eindhoven in the Netherlands... I can't quite put my finger on it...