Tag: Personal

Several types lately, people have said that our son’s name, Aiden, is very popular. While this may be true in some people’s small sphere of knowledge, facts don’t seem to back that up (at least not this year). The Social Security Administration’s website lists popular baby names for each year. For 2006 (the last year data is available), Aiden isn’t in the top ten. Certain baby websites put Aiden in the top of the list. What can be the cause of this discrepancy? My theory is that the people that visit these websites are of a particular socioeconomic background and therefore the list doesn’t reflect the general population. Now that children must have Social Security numbers to be claimed as a deduction on taxes, the SSA basically has all the data on the names and I trust them as a source.

We’ll see what happens when the 2007 data goes out next mother’s day.

I finally figured out what causes traffic; drum roll, please…stupid people! Did you really expect some profound reason? Last week when we were driving back from Santa Barbara, there were a few patches of slowing. As we passed the slow areas, I kept looking for a reason why. There was no reason the traffic slowed. It’s a good thing I don’t commute as I’d probably rip all my hair out.

Today my wife was grilling some chicken for dinner when she yelled to me that the chicken was on fire. I walked over from my chore of planting a tree and sprayed some water on it from a squirt bottle. When that failed, I turned off the burners and sprayed more water on it. I fired up the grill after the fire was out and went back to my task. My wife then called again a few minutes later and said the grill was on fire. This time, I ran over and tried to put it out with a squirt bottle, but that was fruitless. My wife told me to get a hose to put it out (she was more put together than I was to think of what to do). I ran and got the hose which happened to have a fire hose type nozzle on it and I put out the fire by dousing the grill with water. My major concern was that if the propane tank got too hot, it could explode.

Luckily since I used water to put out the fire, my wife salvaged dinner and finished the cooking in the oven; it was quite tasty despite the fire. After we looked back on the fire, my wife pointed out that it was a grease fire and she expected me to use a dry chemical fire extinguisher. I didn’t even think about using a fire extinguisher, so we’re lucky that my wife managed to remain calm under pressure and tell me what to do.

I think I’ll stick to my day job and let the professionals put out the real fires.

Last Saturday, we left for the airport at around 5:15 am to catch a flight to Oakland (to surprise my mother-in-law for her birthday) and as we’re driving down I-15, I noticed some “road hazards” (cars that were going slower than 60 mph in a 65 mph zone), so I moved over a lane to the left. Up ahead, I saw flashing yellow light and just thought it was CalTrans doing some work. As we got closer, I started seeing debris on the road and what appeared to be a burned out car in the far right lane. There were no CHP cars around or anything, except a private ambulance that had its lights on (the yellow I saw before). (I now know it was a private ambulance because it was a Type II ambulance and San Diego Fire/Resuce uses Type III ambulances. I managed to only run over a small piece of debris and we kept moving. Looking back on this, I’m surprised it didn’t turn into a huge disaster. The “road hazards” I mentioned above were right on target to slam into this mess. However, I couldn’t find any reference to this accident in the online versions of the San Diego Union Tribune or mentioned on any of the Web sites for the television stations.

I keep thinking back to have bad an accident this could have been and feel quite lucky.

Yesterday, I went to pick up some takeout and after waiting a bit and hearing them call “Jack” a few times, the cashier called me up and gave me my food. Hmmm, last time I checked, my name wasn’t Jack. I paid by credit card and showed the cashier my driver’s license to verify the name on the credit card and she entered my name as Jack. Scott, Jack, what’s the difference?

Several weeks ago our dishwasher stopped functioning properly; the door to release the soap stopped opening during the cycle. After this happened a number of times, I decided to take a look. I don’t have a problem calling a repairman, but the last time we called an appliance repairman, I felt like an idiot. Our stove had an auto-igniter and it kept clicking in order to re-light when it was already lit. The repairman took a look, asked if I had a file and filed the tips of the igniters. Uhh, I could have done that myself.

So back to the story. I took apart the front of the dishwasher, fiddled with some plastic and thought I was good. Nope. Still didn’t work during the cycle. I tried again, but this time took off the front panel to work on it and made some more adjustments. No luck, again (it worked when I tested it by hand). So I got out a zip tie (one of those plastic thingies) and used it to make a connection tighter. The guts of the front of the dishwasher are all plastic, so after time, it starts to wear. Low and behold, this time it work. Knock on wood, it has been functional for a couple of weeks now. Who knew that a little piece of plastic could fix such a complicated appliance!

The other night, my wife and I went to downtown San Diego for dinner and to goto a dueling piano bar (we left the little one with my parents). Parking, of course, is a nightmare, and after driving around for a little bit (my wife said I wasn’t aggressive enough in finding parking), I saw a spot in a yellow zone and zipped into it. I couldn’t recall what the regulations are regarding yellow zones after 6 pm, so I pulled out an iPhone and searched. I found a few references to parking in yellow zones and then stumbled upon a document from the city. With the information in my hand, I was sure that I could park in the yellow zone. We had one of the best parking spots in downtown; I’ll have to remember that for next time.