“What player would be the most annoyed on Valentines Day?”

Game night with my friends led to the above question during a round of Imaginiff.  We’ve been trying to have a regular get-together and it usually revolves around some combination of Cranium, Taboo, and what other board games we can come up.  In Imaginiff, each player picks the player they think the question most corresponds to and if you have the same answer as the majority, you score a point.  4 “Shawns” and 3 “Christinas” later, the above question illustrated the commonly held belief that I’m not a romantic.

I made a comment to Christina that despite what everyone thinks, I am certainly one of the more considerate “significant others” out there.  She didn’t disagree but made the comment that I’m probably the least romantic person — not she has a problem with that — and am not one to, for example, give flowers unsolicited.  I reminded her that I had done that at least once but I just didn’t want to spoil her.  :)

I continued that I just don’t want to give a gift without a reason.  Christina pointedly told me that being romantic means doing EXACTLY THAT: Giving gifts for no reason.  To which I responded: Doing things without reason leads to anarchy.  

Oh, and I won the game of Imagiff.

Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut…

– Cady, Mean Girls

It seems to me that Halloween is less and less a holiday for kids.  While I personally am not the biggest fan of dressing up (probably due to my lack of creativity) it seems that Halloween parties for adults is a growing trend.  A trip to one of those temporary Halloween stores in the mall a few weeks ago seemed to reaffirm my impression.  A good 75% of the store was devoted to costumes for adults, with the vast majority of those being for girls looking to “slut” it up.  Not that I’m complaining…

Rained out of our camping trip to Douthat State Park, my in-laws and I met up with the Coopers down in Charlottesville for dinner & game night.  There weren’t many complaints about missing out on the camping and we even played a full game of Trivial Pursuit, boys vs. girls.  Quick: What are the eastern-most and western-most states?  The ladies missed that one though they gave us a pretty good game overall.  There were several out-of-thin-air answers from them that kept the game close.  Our victory was aided by a distraction in the form of Fred…

Fred in baseball uniform

We got home fairly early on Sunday and Christina squeezed in as much anxious worrying as she could — Today was her first day at her new job.  On a day when the economy blew up, it’s quite reassuring to have two incomes again!

Like many urban localities, Fairfax County requires dog owners to cleanup after their dog in public areas. When you have a lot of dog owners in close proximity, you almost have to have a statute about cleaning up or otherwise it would be a minefield out there. Bagging their dogs poop isn’t exactly how most people envision dog ownership but it’s a small price to pay for the general good. Unless of course, you are one of my neighbors who bags it up… and then leaves the bags on the ground!

I guess if you wrap them in plastic, it really turns them into little dog presents for the neighbors to walk on.  In addition to completely missing the point about keeping the public areas clear, my neighbor is now helping destroy the environment by leaving plastic bags out.  Well done!

This weekend, I helped my sister Amye move down in Richmond.  She moved into a good-sized house though she seemed to have enough furniture for 3 or 4 houses.  I pity her for having to get it all straight.  We didn’t get it all unloaded until about 9pm Saturday night and, by that point, no one was particularly interested in helping to get it organized.  I have a feeling her boyfriend is going to be sore for several days (as I am) and my 8-month pregnant sister probably isn’t going to be moving too much furniture for awhile.

I was supposed to repeat the process next month to help my other sister but unfortunately, Erin moved up her move out date to one of my otherwise busy weekends.  My mom is about to have whiplash as she goes from a house of 5.5 girls to just herself in just 2 weeks.

I had been following the availability of the iPhones online the past few weeks to try and gage at what point they would be widely available.  In addition, Christina and I had sporadically been stopping by the Apple Stores in the area to see what sort of lines were still forming to get an iPhone.  The demand has been phenomenal but I started to get the feeling that the number of people willing to wait in line was starting to slack off a bit while Apple was still able to replenish the stock each day.  So I decided to swing by an Apple Store during my lunch hour last Friday.

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I recently worked on a document that was to be published and needed a pretty thorough editorial review before I could publish it.  Not having an editorial staff on-hand, I sent it off as a first draft to several friends and family members.  I felt a little more confident when the “early” reviews came in as they all affirmed that I was in good shape.  A couple had one or two tiny recommendations but even my mother-in-law thought it was solid.

I’m a fairly critical person, in general, and of no one more so than myself.  I’m constantly striving for self-improvement and, often erroneously, assume all others are as well.  I tend to keep most criticism to myself but when asked, I generally try to provide constructive criticism to help people out.  I genuinely enjoy helping people out with my observations.  Occasionally, I’m sure my criticism comes out even when I don’t intend it to be as such — I’m sure Christina would agree with that.

Reaffirming what I knew already, my mom sent me her suggestions on my work.  I most certainly got both my critical nature and desire to be helpful from her as I glanced through the several pages worth of suggestions that she had for me!  Unsatisfied, she then sent me a rewritten alternative version.  Let the writer beware (when he asks his mom for help!)

Married life is an adjustment — especially when you marry an “opposite”. I’ve always been very independent minded and I enjoy having a fair amount of time alone. Living as a bachelor the past several years was all around a great time for me. Eventually, times change and now I’ve been married for 9 months. This past weekend I wore several hats in my new role as a married man.

Friday was a throwback to my bachelor days. I played Gears online with several of my friends and, if I may say so, I was on fire. I hadn’t played in about 6 weeks (before Europe) but I was a force that night. Always a great way to boost your self-esteem when your friends are swearing at you because “you won’t die”.

Saturday was a day for my newest role: Hanging out with other couples night. These times are the newest and oddest of my many roles. Angela & Jason came over with their two kids and we had a couples night. While we have several other couples we hang out with, Angela & Jason are the only ones with kids (yet) and thus the most jarring to my system. While the previous night I had been splattering my friends into gibblets of alien flesh and blood, Saturday consisted of a dinner party, looking at photos of our Europe trip, laughing at their kids antics, and some wholesome Wii Fit and BoomBlox thrown in. A very marked contrast but still it was great to see them.

Sunday was Fathers Day and mostly took on the role of “family” day. Christina and I did a few things around the house and then went out for Fathers Day with her family. While I had plenty of family days back when I was still a bachelor, having all your in-laws living between 2 and 30 minutes away has led to a dramatic increase in family events. Fortunately, I like my in-laws.

Later that evening, some of Christina’s best friends came over for movie night. However, as is typically the case, the 400+ movies we have were somehow insufficient and we ended up watching some recorded TV. Christina’s friends are always entertaining simply because they are so very different than most of my friends. By the way, if you’re looking for a show that you’ve probably never seen, try and catch “Pushing Daisies” — it’s very different and rather good.

This weekend turned out to be a microcosm of my new life. Marriage has certainly made things much more complicated but not necessarily in a bad way — That’s still up for debate…

 Today was a pretty nasty day outside.  Very cold, rainy, icy, and treacherous.   As has become all too common, our kindly mail person left our mailbox open.   Annoying if you have a mailbox that opens on the side - which we don’t.  Ours opens from the top like all the mailboxes in our townhouse division so all the rain and ice comes right on in if you leave the top open.  The mail today was literally iced into the box and ripped as I pulled it out.  Not only do they the top open on a regular basis, but they only pick up our outgoing mail about 1/3 of the time.  Usually, they just throw the incoming mail in the box on top of the outgoing mail.  What can you do though?  I think there’s a way to report issues but do I really want to anger the person who delivers my mail?   

I tend to walk to Subway for lunch at least 4 days a week. It’s just a short walk from the office and it’s relatively cheap and healthy. When you go during the busy time of day, you’re bound to hear or see something interesting. Today was no different.

Subway, like most restaurants that prepare food for you, has a nice glass barrier so that you can see what they’re doing. Additionally, they wear nice little plastic gloves so they don’t spread anything *extra* into your food that perhaps you don’t want — like dirt or some sort of fungus causing rotting limbs, bleeding from the ears, hallucinations, whatever. I don’t know if the glass and the gloves make a big difference but I think it’s a nice touch that at least lets me pretend my limbs won’t be rotting off anytime soon.

That glass barrier, however, is no defense against "them". These are the people who when they want lettuce on their sandwich, feel that saying "lettuce" is too much of a challenge. Instead, they strain to lean over the glass and point to the lettuce from point-blank range. "This green stuff that I’m fondling with my fingertips? That’s what I want." Do they assume that the people who work at Subway and put lettuce on ~99% of all the sandwiches that come through there do not know the name of "lettuce"? You also get the dangling arms people who assume the glass barrier is simply an arm rest. They then proceed to walk down the counter, dangling their arms over the glass…

Regardless, I would just like to thank all of these people who are kind enough to share their fungal infections with the rest of us. That glass barrier shouldn’t be an obstacle for you - you’re obviously on a mission to make my ears bleed.