Creating stories ~

Growing up there was always a question about what somebody's story was. My parents would comment on people and say "what a shame". They would wonder out loud why somebody would act the way that they did.

They would come up with explanations and more questions. When we were driving somewhere and somebody pulled out in front of my dad, he would say bad words and call them an idiot. In a nice way, but still.

As I was growing up I asked questions and got answers. A lot of times the answer was I don't know and then maybe it's this that or the other. Or they would tell the history of the person and explain that that's just the way they were.

After learning all of that growing up as an adult I would tell myself stories about the people around me. I would pick up little clues here and there and then expand on them in my head. If somebody was mean to me, I would explain it away because they didn't know any better or they had a rough life or whatever.

If somebody cut me off in traffic, they were in a hurry or they were stupid or worse. Because I was surrounded by the victim mentality, it was easy to think of myself as a victim also. Those stories were lots of fun because it was always my fault because I wasn't strong enough or fast enough or good enough or rich enough or whatever.

I had to work shift work and so I couldn't do this that and the other for my kids so that made me a bad father. I had to fight against those urges and tendencies. That fight typically came out as anger and frustration.

Because I would explain what was driving my decisions and nobody would understand. Including my family. They didn't know about the stories in my head. And about what I had convinced myself was probably true.

In the past few years I've slowed down and Started to unlearn some of those things. I Still battle the stories. But I tend to say "no we don't know that" and do my best to put it aside until I have more facts or observations. Approaching a situation openly and with curiousity is a challenge, but I'm learning to do that more and more. I don't like being taken advantage of and so it's hard for me to lower down my defenses.

But I'm working on it.

Rubberband Man ~

One of my favorite songs of all time is Rubber Band Man by The Spinners. I remember hearing it and thinking it was so cool and I never could hear it enough because it was on the radio and after it was played it wasn't a hot hit so you didn't hear it again for quite some time. But I remember enjoying it every time it came on.

I never did buy the CD because I couldn't find it and I had other interests that I wanted the CDs more. But when streaming services started playing songs and I was looking for something different to listen to I could added that to the mix and it was awesome.

Now I have that song in my mix of jams and convertible-top-down music. It's always fun when that song comes on because I enjoy the beat and I enjoy the funny story in the song. I have yet to hear a remix or a use of that song in a modern song.

There's probably some out there but it's probably not anything that I would run across and what I listen to normally. If you want to listen to The Spinners version check it out on YouTube at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSMVflSBKx8

A simple timer ~

When we bought our stove we were so excited because it was a convection oven and a glass top and it had all the digital stuff and it did not connect to the network or internet. We didn't really see a need to pay extra money for that and that's worked out well.

One thing we didn't check was the timer on it. It's got a way to program it to come on at a certain time and end at a certain time. You can set it up to do different things but the timer on it when the time runs out only rings once and then it just stops.

You don't know if it's ever gone off if he weren't in the room with it. That's led to several burnt pizzas and biscuits and dishes that would have been better if they hadn't been cooked so long. I finally gave in and found a digital timer battery operated to add to our stove setup.

It has a strong magnet on the back so it'll stick to the metal and we keep it right there on the face of the stove ready to go at any time. When we set it it counts down and when it gets to zero it does not stop buzzing and beeping until we go and turn it off which is what we need.

I like to using my watch or my phone as a timer and that worked just fine but if there was something cooking and Sue or my wife was the one who needed to get it out that didn't work so well. Or if I had to leave before whatever was cooking was done that didn't work so well.

My wife actually likes this timer and is excited that it does not stop because that way she doesn't forget to pull stuff out of the oven. I'm excited because it's a simple solution that works. Woohoo!

Installed serpentine belt ~

I have a truck. It's a 2008 Dodge Ram 1500 that I bought a couple of years ago. It's the first truck I've ever owned and it's a lot of fun!

When I bought the truck I knew that I would have some issues with it because it was 15+ years old. It had almost 200,000 on it when I bought but had a new engine with less than 30,000 miles on it that had been recently installed.

I love driving the truck because it's big and makes me feel like I can do real stuff. I used it to tow my son's car to his place 6 hours away, which was awesome. In the past this would have been a big production or even an impossibility, but since I owned a truck it was as simple as renting the dolly from a U-Haul place, getting the car's front end on the dolly, and dragging it down the road. It was exciting!

I understood when I bought the truck that I would be learning new things with it. We've picniced in the bed of the truck, laid under the stars in the field in the bed of the truck, carried people's stuff from here to there in it, and all of that.

I also knew I'd have to learn to do some basic maintenance on it. In the past I've always shied away from working on cars because with a full-time shift work job, a wife, and four kids I would start and then not be able to finish it. We didn't have an extra vehicle just sitting around so when one broke down it had to be fixed quickly and correctly, which for me meant paying someone to do the work. I also tended to break things when I got frustrated so when I did try to repair a car it cost me more money to fix what I broke in addition to the original repair that was needed.

The kids are grown and we have an extra vehicle now. I also have much more time on my hands and can actually start and finish a project without having to lay it aside for very long once I start.

Recently my wife got in the truck to go to some friends' place for dinner. After I started the truck it sounded weird, and felt different when I started backing down the driveway. Power steering wasn't working and it just sounded and felt wrong. As I slowly backed up I noticed a long black belt laying on the ground in front of the truck. My first thought was that someone had stolen a part off the bottom of the truck and the belt had come off.

But that was not the case. The serpentine belt that transferred all the spinning to the different parts under the hood had come off. It's a "serpentine belt" and runs from the engine crankshaft to the air conditioner, alternator, water cooler, and other parts. It's all at the front of the engine.

I talked with a friend about it. He said this was normal and it was probably the tension pulley, a one-bolt job. I had no idea what that meant so I read more on the Internet and learned how to put a new belt on. It seemed pretty straight-forward so I decided to take the challenge and do it myself.

I bought the new belt and got to work. I had to jury-rig the ratchet with a length of PVC pipe to get enough leverage on the tension pulley to clamp it down in a postion where I could get the belt over the last pulley, but I figured it out. When I started the motor and everything worked it was so satisfying to see the belt doing it's thing!

I know it's a minor repair but for me this was a major accomplishment. Woohoo!

Ways of learning ~

I was thinking about the way of learning today and had a scary
thought: "They" have slowly and steadily changed the fundamential ways
that people learned in the past.
Modern technology is so amazing, and I use it to do a lot of things. Sometimes too many things. But when I slow down and do things with my hands and puzzle through things without clear step-by-step instructions I really enjoy it!

As I was sitting and thinking about this recently I wrote out a card that said:

The ways of learning:
Listen
Read
Watch

And then it struck me how modern technology has replaced these slow processes with things that are supposedly faster and better.

Take listening. People used to sit and listen to the crickets and frogs and other things around us. Now when someone talks about listening they tend to mean a podcast or a show streamed to them via an internet connection.

Reading used to be a slow process where you had to go to a book store or library, find a group of books that talked about the subject you were interested in, pick one or two of the books, then take them home and spend days/weeks/months reading them to glean the information that you wanted or needed. Now I can go on Amazon and by an ebook instantly and be reading it within minutes. I can even listen to the book if I don't want to slow down to sit and read it.

Watching used to involve sitting somewhere and gluing your eyeballs to an area to see what happens. I always think of police stakeouts or predators watching for prey. But more often than not when someone says they were watching something it was a poorly-produced show or short video that again was streamed to them via the internet.

As I work to slow things down I'm finding myself wanting to listen, read, and watch in the ways we used to do them. Not completely since I really enjoy the convenience of the internet, but I am slowing down.

Fascinating.

Still not a glad-hander ~

I'm still not a glad-hander. I'm not one of those people that walks into a room and starts shaking people's hands and saying, hey buddy, how are you? And you know, gets all happy and glad and jokey and tries to do those fancy handshakes.

I have a person that sometimes will do that with me and I don't know how to do all that fancy handshake stuff where you clasp hands and then roll them around and then do the thumb war thing and then let go and float your hand up and back.

I guess I'm not very cool, but I'm just not into glad handing and making a big deal about saying hello and then just turning to the next person and making a big deal about saying hello to them. I prefer more of a quiet "hey, how are you?".

I tend to be a "let's get down to business" kind of guy. you I can do the glad handing thing, but I'm very uncomfortable with it and I tend to need time to recover afterwards. Whatever.