One Man's Hobby

Well, hello there.

I am behind schedule. More on that in a bit.

It's been a day. A weird day.

Work was one of those non-descript days where you're not sure where the time went. There was a meeting I didn't need to be at, several I canceled, and my family joined me for lunch. Lori and I spent much of the lunch disagreeing about the value of coupons. I say that they are an evil form of marketing, advertising that tries to get you to buy things you didn't know you wanted. If I were more environmentally friendly, I would say they were a waste of trees, too. And since nothing is free, I say companies that produce or accept coupons charge more for their products in order to recoup the costs for designing, printing, accepting, processing, mailing, processing, sending checks, etc., etc., etc., and that I'd rather they just charge less. Of course, in many stores (but surprisingly not Wal*Mart) companies also pay for shelf placement, so you're paying for that, too. This all started because someone on Facebook had said they loved coupons and seeing the discount at the bottom of the receipt. Well, I said they should just charge less and then I followed up with a little bit longer argument as the conversation went on against coupons. To the point where her husband came on and I think was getting all bent out of shape saying I was criticizing her. I wasn't, I explained. But then later after Lori and I had our discussion, I went back and deleted my posts. It took our conversation for me to figure out the problem.

She's a stay-at-home mom with four children. I figured that there was better uses of her time. But ultimately that wasn't the point (even though no one explained it to me), I think the point was that she derived value from the exercise of couponing. There was a little thrill in the successful savings and it wasn't a waste of time, because it was a hobby. And goodness knows I have plenty of time-wasting hobbies that others would consider absolute wastes of time that don't even end up saving my family money at the end of the day. So I could see the point about how this person felt criticized. Unfortunate. Not my attempt. This is why it's better when I don't say anything to anyone. Then they don't get upset with me.

Left work early because Rachel had to have three teeth pulled. This has been bugging me for a long time. Well, it turned out to be a nearly non-issue. She came back afterwords completely coherent (well, mumbling around wads of gauze and numbed lips and gums, but not loopy or anything) and seemingly happy and ready to eat applesauce and some soft lukewarm pasta. The next time she's awake, though, the medication will have worn off. I hope it's not terrible for her. I learned something new today. Baby teeth are really long and only have a single root, unlike adult teeth with their multiple roots. Must be why they come out so easily, or why she wasn't more traumatized by the experience.

After Lori left I played with Ben in the living room for awhile. And by playing I mean I sat against a couch while he climbed all over me. I suspect I was occasionally asleep. They both went to bed quickly and easily and then I didn't do anything useful after that. I figure that's OK, I'm home from work tomorrow with no real plans or reason, other than I don't take really long vacations and I have a lot of vacation rolled over and I receive a lot each year. So I'll take a week in August and a week in early December, but that still leaves me with a lot left.

Weather today was absolutely insane. We had nearly everything. Squalls, windstorms, pounding rain, soft rain, gray-like-night clouds and bright sun, blue skies and steam off the roads as it evaporated. All intermixed. So weird. Oh, and hail. As I was driving home in it, I realized I must have never driven in hail before. Snow, plenty of times, but I had no memory of the experience I had today driving in hail. Nothing super-fancy, just out of the ordinary.

And now, even though I did nothing, I'm late. I've been watching Lori play Family Feud on Facebook and the Fast Money thing seemed interesting. Apparently most of the game isn't like that part, and apparently I'm really bad at the game in general.

So now I'm exercising and we'll get to watch FlashForward and not sure what else. We just finished watching the rest of the Thursday shows in the past 2-3 days so they're all still fresh. Except 30 Rock, we saw that it was a To Be Continued so we didn't even start it. And not sure if Lori will want to stay up or not, since it's not a vacation day for her.

Or if I'll want to either. Very tired. Very hungry.