Celebrating the obscure

saab-engine

…In this case, Saab.

A loyal reader told how she appreciates that I celebrate obscure aspects of life in this blog. (Thanks for appreciating that, Johanna!) It’s true – I enjoy noticing and highlighting the oblique aspects of life that many others either don’t care about or gloss over.

While one sister and her family were visiting recently, we had to take them up to the mountains, to celebrate an aspect of Colorado that is not obscure – our beautiful mountains.

We chose a day trip to Copper Mountain, because their chair lifts run for free in the summer. That gave all of us an easy way to quickly enjoy incredible views. Two of our party were under four, so the lack of a long hike was a major benefit to them!

After we returned to the resort, I enjoyed savoring an obscure aspect of the automotive kingdom – Saabs. The company held its national convention at Copper that weekend. We got to see more Saabs in one place than is normally possible (outside of Sweden). Many came from their US headquarters in Michigan.

My favorite was an ancient station wagon. It so clean that you could eat a meal off the air cleaner cover. Though it was very small, there were three rows of seats. My fantasy machine kicked into gear – I thought how perfect it would be for our family car. But my logical side said that it really doesn’t get much better fuel economy than our Honda minivan. And I’d have to develop a close personal relationship with a Saab mechanic to keep that baby on the road.

Maybe when I get to heaven, I’ll be driving a prehistoric Saab.

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A bridge too far

hubby-hubby

Ben & Jerry’s just introduced this new flavor – Hubby Hubby.

Normally I’m for freedoms, but I can’t really go along with this particular celebration of that particular freedom.

Just from a marketing standpoint, I think they’re making a mistake – they may alienate some of their client base. (Then again, militant members of the GLBT community may make it a best-seller.)

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It’s sad when a good tool gets corrupted

twitter-spam

One morning recently I went into my Twitter account and discovered that there were about 20 new spam followers. I spent about 3 minutes blocking them – 3 minutes that I would have enjoyed spending in almost any other way.

Twitter is a great tool. It’s sad that the people behind these “people” don’t have anything better to do with their time. I’m sure they make money out of it somehow, like many spammers do.

I’d be truly happy if all spammers were locked in a room with each other for a month – and their punishment would be to spam each other until their fingers wore out.

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Time and changes

stamp-container

As time goes by, things change. We all know that – it’s a basic fact of life. But we don’t always accept it in our deep-down inner-selves. Somehow we expect things to remain the same. Relationships, our children, our home, our life. Even if it’s not a pleasing thing, when it changes, some of us get upset. Some people thrive on change and others hate it. You’re probably somewhere in the middle.

Anyhow, remember lick-em postage stamps? As we were clearing out my mom’s stuff, I came across this little stamp case – good for holding about 10 stamps in a compact secure way in your purse or (probably not) pocket.

In that case, change was good. Adhesive-backed stamps are superior in every way I can think of.

What coming change in your life is one you hate? Love?

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I realized that era is over

passport-pix

I went to our little safe to get my birth certificate. (I needed it for some business relating to my mom’s recent death.)

Low and behold, there was an envelope containing two little extra passport photos. I love Ben’s photo. He must have been all of 8 years old. And it was fun to see my goatee. (Missing in action, about four years ago. My kids want me to grow it back.)

When we lived abroad, we always needed extra passport photos. When you’re an alien in other countries, you are required to prove your identity over and over – to many different governmental agencies. The complexity of bureaucracy does not relate to how “modern” a country is. In fact, normally the more modern a country is, the less the bureaucracy. (Maybe that’s a lesson for developing countries!)

So anyway, it’s good to be back home.

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Grow where you’re planted

grow-where-planted

Sometimes life is hard. We wish for more. More water, more sun, more fun, more life. But sometimes if we just dig a little deeper, we can see that there are enough resources to survive – and even thrive.

This is a concept you’ve heard before, but I’m just reminding you – and me.

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Snow Leopard

snow-l

Yes, all you Mac users out there, Snow Leopard is available Friday.

The most significant reason to upgrade is that if you have an Intel Mac, it will run faster (or at least that’s what they say).

If you buy it from Amazon, via these links, yours truly will get a few pennies commission: Single User ($29), Family Pack (5 licenses for $49). Thanks!

Even if you’re not an early adopter (my friend Dave is not), buy it anyway. Wait a few months and then install. By then the bugs will have been worked out.

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Dying for a drink

dying-for-a-drink

I was amused at this sculpture that lies (sleeps?) in downtown Denver.

The man is lying face down, sipping from the pool he is doing push-ups in.

Happy Monday. Go grab a drink of water – but don’t die doing so.

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