Things Your Baby Will Bring to the Table - Guest Post by Rob Shepherd

Rob Shepherd is one of my internet twins. Sometimes I read his posts aloud...before he's posted them.

He's a blogger, pastor, husband and father of twins, which is why I'm honored he would write a guest post for me while Jana and I are trying to figure out how to be parents for the first time (P.S. - if you have some extra sleep, please feel free to email it to me).

I wrote a guest post for him a while back. If you haven't read it yet and would like to laugh at me in my absence, click these four words after you read Rob's list of things your baby will bring to the table.

You're up, Rob...

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Being a dad of five month old twins, I think that I can write with great authority about what your baby is going to bring to the table. Now when I write 'table', I mean things they are going to be good at when they are first born.

• Pooping. Babies are great at this. The first couple of poos look like they ate straight oil in the womb. It’s gross.  One benefit of all this pooping is that you can blame all of your funky smells on them and no one will question it.
• Crying. I don’t know if your kid will be as gifted as mine, but my kids were gifted criers when they were first born. They would cry in the middle of the night on a consistent basis.  They also would wait to cry until we sat down to eat, watch a TV show, or try to sleep ourselves. Good luck with that.
• Sleep. They sleep a lot. For our first week of parenting my wife and I looked at each other and said, “parenting is easy.” Those jokers sleep a lot. It’s like you have a little coma victim who wakes up to eat only to fall back to sleep when they are done. We thought parenting was easy, but then week two happened and their crying outweighed their sleeping.
• Sneezing. Babies apparently don’t have nose hairs so they sneeze pretty often. Don’t worry they aren’t getting sick. They just sneeze a lot.
• Rolling their eyes up into their head. My daughter did this more than my son but it freaked us out every time. It’s like they don’t have full control of their eyes and those things roll all around the back of their head.
• Getting out of swaddles. Now the first week they slept so much they did not bust out of their swaddles. Come week two my kids became escape artists and would get out of the most tightly swaddled swaddle.

The truth is that if your kid is like my kids, they won’t bring a lot to the table for the first few weeks. They cost you money, sleep, and will probably cause you to tell your wife “what were we thinking.” Even though they don’t bring a lot to the table you will feel a love for them that you cannot describe. They haven’t done anything to deserve your love but you will love them with all your heart. It reminds me of how God must feel about us. I don’t bring a lot to the table. God doesn’t love me because of anything that I do. He loves me because He’s my father.

1 John 3:1a - “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!”

What else do babies bring to the table?

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Good Admins Behaving Badly - Guest Post by Chad Jones

It's been several years since this happened, but I remember it like yesterday: our Helpdesk staff was going to be in all day training, and a coworker and I were voluntold to man the call center.

Now, I was no stranger to the call center--having run (a one man) one in a previous position.

"Help desk, can I help it? Er, how can I help you? Your Microsoft Word won't do what? Let me dispatch a tech."

I have to say: that part--the dispatching--was fun. Instead of being dispatched, I was the dispatcher, and I dispatched with abandon!

"Your printer is jammed? [I could tell you how to clear it--nah!] Let me send a tech."

"Ok, I'll unlock your account. I'm not supposed to. You're welcome."

Now, as fun as making working for other people was, that was nowhere near the highlight of my day. That came when I went on break.

What you need to understand is that it was around the holidays, and consequently a number of staff were on vacation. And with work still needing to be done, a number of temps were brought in to do that work.

Including in the director's office.

Which is where I pretended to be calling from when I called the helpdesk. (Please imagine me with an Indian accent).

"Hehlo? Is is dis de halpdask? I am temporary wuhrker in director office. De cards woan deal."

"Excuse me? What? Yes, this is the helpdesk. What did you say your problem was?"

"De cards--dey woan deal. Dey tell me to practice duh drag an drohp."

"What cards, sir? Can you tell me which application you're having a problem with?"

"Soll-ee-tahre--de cards woan deal."

"You're playing Solitaire? What's your name?"

"Vijay Singh. I am temporahry wurhker in director office."

"Hold on, please." She puts me on hold (all the while not knowing it's me, and obviously, I found this all out later).

"Hey, Susan (the supervisor), this guy says he's playing Solitaire. I thought we didn't allow games on office PCs?"

"Where's he at?"

"Says the director's office."

"What's his name?"

"Vijay Singh."

At this point Susan, who was a golfer, burst out laughing.

"You've been had, girl! Vijay Singh is a famous golfer! A-ha-ha!"

My coworker went to get back on the line with me, but I'd hung up.

A few minutes later, I returned to the office resume answering calls.

She said to me, "You won't believe what just happened..."

"Let me guess -  'De cards woan deal...'"

"A**hole."
And so it goes when good admins do bad.


Thank-you very much! I'll be here all week.

What pranks have you pulled at work?

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Chad lives in Arizona with his wife, Lisa, and two children. He's network admin, and all-around go-to tech guy for a company he declines to name (on account of he wants to keep working there). This time of year, he dreams of Alaska. Also, he's lived in Arizona for nearly 37 years, and had never heard of a haboob prior to this year.

He blogs at RandomlyChad, and either lives up, or down, to that moniker (depending on your point of view). You can also follow him on Twitter.
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Why I Want to Read Your Mind - Guest Post by Zechariah Brewer

Zechariah Brewer is a man. Zechariah Brewer has a plan. He also has two blogs, Life After Facebook and Love Thy Roommate, which I recently wrote a guest post for.


Take it away, ZBrew...


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I really wish I could read your mind.

Sorry, that sounded creepy.  Let’s try again.  I really wish we could read each other’s minds.  All of us, not just you and me.

I know what you’re thinking.  If we all could hear each other’s thoughts, we’d go crazy from the overload of six billion other thoughts coming from other people around the world.  First we’d go crazy, then we’d have a global thermonuclear fistfight, and then the survivors would crawl out of their holes and come up with some sort of global peace alliance, or at least an armistice.  This being because the only survivors would be those who didn’t feel like fighting, the fighting gene would be weeded out.  After a few generations, it would be second nature, and we’d wonder how we ever lived without it.

I’m pretty sure that’s how it happened in the Star Trek universe

But I do have my reasons.  Wanna hear em?  Too bad, you’re getting them anyway.

1. The service industry would run a lot smoother.  Your waitress wouldn’t get your order wrong unless she was trying.
2. Driving would be easier, especially in traffic.  Horns are good, but too indiscriminate.  There’s not much difference between the “Hey bro!” honk, the “Hey bay-bee!” honk and the “Hey stupid!” honk.  Since the last hundred years hasn’t yielded a specific “Why are you driving 35 in a 55 in your muscle car?” honk, I’d much more prefer the option to think at you.

at least until we all start using these puppies again…the radio, not the actual puppy…

3. Let’s avoid us some relationship disputes, shall we?  Not just dating/marriage relationships, but parent-child, parent-teenager, roommate, business, and….how many of us have had our parents say to us, “Maybe I should learn to read minds, then!”  Since my mom has yet to perfect that, and I assume yours hasn’t either, we can understand the need for this, right?  Right?  Right.
4. You know all that stuff I forget to do, but you remember it and hang it over my head for the rest of my life?  I could just go into your memory banks and pull up everything I’ve forgotten and you’ve held on to, all long before I admit to you that I forgot and get in a heap of trouble for it.

Worst comes to worst, we’ll probably figure out how to block others from reading our thoughts, so the whole process would just yield a worldwide Twitter stuck in our heads.  Just what this world needs…
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Zechariah Brewer has way too little to say and way too many words to say it with.  He blogs about how he’s handling Life After FaceBook as well as practical ways to Love Thy Roommate.  Maybe one day he’ll have something better to say.

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Colliding with Wisdom, Part II - Guest Post By Burrill Strong

Note from Ricky: We had the baby! This week is going to be a potpourri of guest posts from a few kind folk who knew I wouldn't have time to blog. I hope you enjoyed Burrill's post from yesterday, and that you enjoy his post for today even more. Later this week we have Knox McCoy, Zechariah Brewer, and Rob Shepherd. Chad Jones kicks it off again next week. I'll start posting again when I can. Enjoy!

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If you don't remember the lessons in Part I, go back and read the post again before I get offended and start driving in your neighborhood.

Angry Indian men are easier to handle than distraught teenage girls

Does this one really need explanation? Well...yeah, it probably does.

For some bizarre reason my parents continued to let me drive their minivan; naturally, I repaid them by getting in another accident with it. I’m that cool.

At the corner of Crazy Busy Main Road and Quiet Residential Street in Ann Arbor, one homeowner thought it would be a superb idea to plant hedges along the sidewalk. As I discovered when I was trying to turn onto Crazy Busy Main Road, it was, in fact, a lousy idea: because of the hedges, I couldn't see approaching traffic unless I actually pulled into the road. Like the suave gentleman I am, I pulled out right in front of a teenage girl who was just learning to drive. Here’s the sequence of events summed up in five words:

Screech

crash

sob

sob

sob.

I spent the next half hour wondering what on earth I could say to a distraught teenage girl whose first car accident I’d just caused. I ended up talking to the understandably miffed but dry-eyed driving instructor.

Both vehicles suffered minor damage. On the bright side, the obstructive hedges suffered drastic trimming.

That road sign you’re seeing might have been purchased by somebody you know

More specifically, it might have been purchased by that person’s insurance company.

One extraordinarily snowy evening I was on an extraordinarily snowy -- and, fortunately, extraordinarily empty -- highway when my vehicle caught a large clump of snow. Hello, spin cycle! I wasn't cool enough to pull a 360, but I did pull a 270, ending with my front wheels in the ditch and my rear wheels on the shoulder. When I got my bearings, I realized my rear bumper had taken out one of the posts of an exit sign.

Months later, my insurance company called to inform me the state had filed a claim for the damage to the sign. Months after that, a new sign appeared. Though the state of Michigan might disagree, I still consider it my sign.

Oh, and that was my parents’ minivan. AGAIN.

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name

And sometimes that’s the site of an accident.

Solve for x:

6:15am + (barely freezing temperatures + light rain) + a highway entrance ramp designed to create havoc = x

If you’re having trouble with that inconceivably complex problem, you can see the answer here.

Amidst the chaos caused by the ice (ice, baby), a police officer approached me and asked for my license so she could take down my information. (I thought she might be signing me up to receive money-saving special offers and exciting new product information from the police department. Boy, was I wrong.) When she glanced at my license and saw my last name, she cheerfully exclaimed that she’d gone to high school with my older brother.

I ended up sitting in the back of her police car, but don’t worry: she didn’t arrest me. She just took pity on me because I was shivering. I guess she decided I had the right to remain warm. You can read every last little detail of that morning here.

That was the last accident-based lesson I learned. I think I might have left out an accident or two, but I’m not sure. Seriously. In any case, I hope I've learned my lessons.

Have you learned any valuable lessons from car accidents?

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Colliding with Wisdom, Part I - Guest Post By Burrill Strong

I recently made the final payment on my car loan. If you've ever paid off a car loan, you know making that final payment provides a sense of relief much like that of having a bear trap removed from your ankle after you spent five and a half years sending piles of money to the bear trap every month.

This occasion is notable for another reason: I’ve now gone five and a half years without staging my own impromptu demolition derby on the roads of Michigan. Prior to this magical stretch, my driving record wasn't just checkered; it was completely charred. I once even had my license suspended because the guy at the Secretary of State thought my Euphemism-Americanness was affecting my driving. A doctor decided otherwise, so I got back on the road.

Of course, unpleasant circumstances can provide valuable lessons. To celebrate both the end of my car loan and the continued drivability of my current vehicle, I’ve compiled a few important lessons my accidents taught me.

Don’t cry over spilled milk

If you’re going to cry over something, cry over that $120 ticket you just got for running into another car.

My first accident was the direct result of my taking my eyes off the road to tend to the beverage that had just tipped over, a problem that occurred because my first car didn’t have cupholders. Yes, that beverage was milk. And no, nothing in this paragraph is a joke. I would never joke about a tragic lack of cupholders.

The good news: the milk didn’t spill.

(The accident’s only noticeable lasting effect on my car was the partial license plate of my victim’s car engraved into the front of my car. That’s also not a joke. So...pretty much my entire first accident was a joke that wasn’t a joke. Ha...ha?)

See the broken-down car, be the broken-down car

If you find that broken-down car on the highway too interesting, you might join it.

I was driving on the interstate when, on the other side of the highway, I saw an eye-catching broken-down car on the other side of the highway. Since I’m not a lizard with two independent eyes, I didn't see traffic slowing down in front of me. Oops. But hey, if they didn't want them to be bumped, they wouldn’t call them bumpers, right?

Oh, and that vehicle I was driving wasn’t my car. It was my parents' minivan.

If you work hard enough, you can find a positive

Even if you have to use your imagination.

My first car met its sad demise when I ran a stop sign, causing a collision with an SUV.

The good news: it was a residential street, so it was a low-speed collision.

The bad news: the SUV hit me square in the driver-side door, bringing the door several inches closer to me.

The worse news: the impact also knocked loose a brake line. In other words, it broke my brakes. Them’s the breaks, eh?

The worser news: remember the lack of cupholders? Well, the impact also toppled a large Quizno’s cup full of Coke, soaking the front passenger seat.

The even worser news: my Bible was on the front passenger seat. I guess that made it the High Fructose Gospel.

The worsest news: the man who hit me was an angry Indian man driving his brand new, fresh-off-the-dealer-lot Buick SUV with a temporary paper license plate. I’m fairly certain he was actually driving it home from the dealer. Talk about swift depreciation!

The most worstest news: The angry Indian man didn’t have a cell phone, so he angrily asked to angrily use mine. Angrily.

When my car came to a stop, I realized I’d never again be opening my car door. Ever. When the angry Indian man approached, I also realized the drastically altered shape of my car door meant I’d never again be rolling down my window more than a couple inches. Ever. Ever ever. This led to the lone bright spot of the afternoon: to exit the vehicle, I popped out the sunroof and climbed out the top of the car like the star of some hip 1970s tv show. I felt so cool.

Well...I felt as cool as one can feel when he’s climbing out of the car he just wrecked because he ran a stop sign.

I'll never ride with Burrill. Would you?

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Guest Post Swapping, Agent Smith Edition

Today Sharideth Smith, over at A Woman's Guide to Women, and I swapped guest posts. It's like we each took a vacation day to work somewhere else. We're going to have to reevaluate how we do these things.


Read Sharideth's attempt at running my help desk, and then head on over to her site to read my Romantic Dude Scorecard. It'll save lives.


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network administrators have my pity.  they possess a level of patience i couldn't attain if i prayed for it for a 1000 years.  i really don't know how they do it.  have you read ricky's stories?!?  of course you have.  this is his blog and all.  i read it, too.  it makes me hate people even more than i already do.

ricky wants me to pretend like he has the day off at work and i have to man the IT phones.

here's how i imagine that might go.

god help us all.

*ring*

me:  what?

person who is going to try to ruin my day (pwigtttrmd):  i have an error message.

me:  i bet you do.

pwigtttrmd:  do you want to know what it says?

me:  no.

pwigtttrmd:  it says "Access Denied".

me:  you just used air quotes, didn't you?

pwigtttrmd:  what?

me:  nothing.

pwigtttrmd:  what should i do?

me:  i don't know.

pwigtttrmd:  aren't you suppose to know?

me:  i guess so.  what were you doing when you got the error message?

pwigtttrmd:  logging in.  i tried 3 times and then i got the message.

me:  did you forget your password?

pwigtttrmd:  what password?

*thud thud thud*

pwigtttrmd:  what was that noise?

me:  me banging my head on my desk.

pwigtttrmd:  what?

me:  nothing.  you've had a password every day you've logged in since you started working here, what is
it?

pwigtttrmd:  there's no need to take that tone with me.  this is clearly a problem with the computer.

me:  clearly.  what's your password?

pwigtttrmd:  fluffsnagles

me:  what?

pwigtttrmd:  fluffsnagles.  it was the name of my first set of cat slippers.

me:  there's nothing about what you just said that i understand.  how are you spelling that?

pwigtttrmd:  f l u f f s n a g l e s

me:  i've unlocked it.  try again.

pwigtttrmd:  tried it.  it didn't work.

me:  when did you successfully login last?

pwigtttrmd:  before i left for my wedding and honeymoon.

me:  has anything changed since then.

pwigtttrmd:  my name of course.

me:  what is your login name?

pwigtttrmd:  kittytoshiba

me:  that's not what i show here.  it says your login is kittycompaq.

pwigtttrmd:  that's my maiden name.  wouldn't my login automatically change when i got married?  don't computers know these things?

me:  goodbye.

what was the name of your first pair of slippers?

have you ever thought computers should just "know" something they didn't?  confess.  it's good for the soul.
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Frequently Asked Questions

What time is it?


What do you want to eat for dinner?


What do you want to watch?


How much does it cost?


What's the square root of 42?


What?


Why do I have to change my password?


Why are you so handsome?


When do we get paid?


What do you want to do?


Why do we have to work?

Where is my cell phone?

Where are we going?

Do we have to get up?

Did you hear the alarm go off?

Can you hear me now?

Did you read Ricky's blog too?




What are some questions frequently asked of you?
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