Category: Life

Before you start reading this one, you need to know that my big brother, Bill Merrill, wrote this as a guest post. The views expressed here are not necessarily my views. But it’s certainly a fun road to go down. If you’ve read this blog very long, you already know some of the things I’d change…

On the ego continuum of “Mother Teresa to Mr. Trump,” I rank myself somewhere in the middle, but I do have occasional fantasies involving things I would mandate if I were “King of the World” and everyone would have to follow my commands. The list has evolved over the years. For example, I’ve dropped one I wished for during my apartment dweller days, now that I’m a homeowner. It was “Anyone arriving home after 11PM and making enough noise to awaken anyone else in the apartment complex will be subjected to severe punishment.”

I’m about to give you a partial list of the current “K.o.t.W.” rules, but first these notes: (1) Obviously if I had the K.o.t.W. power, I would try to establish world peace, end poverty & hunger, etc. This list involves selfish stuff I would require after those altruistic things are taken care of. (2) All matters of practicality and popularity are hereby put aside. I’m sure if most of these rules were implemented, they would lead to great disasters, chaos, and/or a mass uprising, but so be it. (3) The “severe punishment” for breaking these rules would be much worse than thirty lashes with a wet noodle, but the exact nature is left to the reader’s imagination. Be certain that it would be very dire indeed! (4) These are my rules. You can make your own if you become K.o.t.W. / Q.o.t.W. Also, any resemblance to Bill Maher’s “New Rules” is strictly coincidental.

Rules:

1. No chewing gum. This is simply because it ends up on the bottom of my shoe and sometimes in other undesirable locations (ex., under desks & tables).
2. No TV network or station (or online viewing source) will ever be allowed to repeat the same commercial within a single program or broadcast. A violation will result in the immediate loss of broadcasting rights.
3. The manufacturers of leaf blowers must redesign them to be much more quiet. Sale and ownership of noisy leaf blowers will be forbidden beginning one year after I ascend to the throne. Violators will receive extremely harsh punishment.
4. In a city where I live or am visiting, no tractor-trailer rigs will be permitted on the roads during morning and evening rush hours.
5. No recording artists or music producers will be allowed to use the sound effect of a police siren in the recordings they make. This is because if I’m driving my car and music with a siren comes on, for a moment I think it is an actual siren, and I briefly freak out.

Image credit: Southeastern Star, Creative Commons licensed via Flickr.

Our cat, Floof, sleeps whenever he feels tired, which is the vast majority of every day (and night). He doesn’t need a bed to enter kitty slumbers. In this case, a board game box was a great place to begin his nap.

I find myself looking for the perfect bed before I begin my sleep. Or the perfect situation before I dive into a big project, begin that talk with a friend I’ve been putting off or start a challenging exercise regime that I know will pay off in the long run.

May we all be more like Floof – and just dive in, even if only into the world of dreams.

We all need variety. It keeps our brains firing properly.

One area of intentional variety in my small life is my whiteboard at work. I really don’t use it as a whiteboard, but I do tape interesting things to it, in my attempt to provide some changing scenery.

I would urge you to look for areas you can change – to give your average days a little extra spice.

By the way, Don Henley is no longer on my whiteboard. The latest tenants are a band called Public Access TV.

It’s getting to be that time of the year in Colorado when you wake up in the middle of the night and think, “Is it worth the effort to pull up the extra blanket and half-wake myself up?”

I love the crisp cool evenings and warm afternoons. The leaves are just barely starting to turn. Haze from California’s wildfires seems to be dying back a little. I don’t have to wear an extra layer when riding my bicycle to work.

It’s really the best time of the year.

(And it seems like summer started just a month or so ago.)