Last Monday marked two years since Stephanie and I got hitched, an event which was well-documented on this site and others.  Those of you who are fans of The Office are no doubt familiar with the Dwight Schrute bobble head.  Well in honor of our second anniversary, my wife had a bobble-head Kip constructed.  You will see the results below, I think it’s pretty cool, although the bobble-head doesn’t have the I-sit-behind-a-computer-all-day physique of yours truly.  But I don’t think I’d want a realistic representation of my waistline sitting on my desk all day anyway.  Other than the eye color, I think it’s pretty spot-on, at least insofar as that is possible on a bobble head.

It’s me.  I’m the bobble-head. Yes!

I haven’t made a blog post in a while.. I guess I’ve been busy at work and I haven’t really been inspired to write anything.  To help keep something fresh on the site, I’ll share some interesting canine survival instincts I have noticed when taking our dog out:

1.  When she is sniffing around exploring, and sticks her head up to sniff the air (as opposed to following a scent on the ground), she will always face directly into the wind.  This makes sense, as that is where she’d be most likely to find a scent of something to hunt (or avoid).

2.  When she is pooping, she always faces downwind.  I’m guessing this instinct allows her to see any predators that might have been alerted to her presence by the new scent.  In addition, she often (but not always) sniffs into the wind (see observation #1) first, which means she has to do a 180 just before pooping.

A new senator from Iowa, eager to make America a better place to live, is shocked to find out that everyone on Capital Hill is bored out of their minds, and no one pays attention to anything!

Well, I paraphrased a little.  He was embarrassed when some kids came to see how our nation’s laws were made, and found out it involves many games of Solitaire.  The most interesting (shocking? sad?) part is a quote at the end of the article:

Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, R-Marion, a 21-year Statehouse veteran and occasional video gamer, shrugged off Heckroth’s advice.

“Freshmen are always shocked by what goes on. Next year he won’t even mention it. He’ll probably be playing games,” Lundby said.

I guess this is what a 90% incumbency rate will do.

I had a dream last night where I went to someone’s house, which was about a hundred feet from the ocean, and he said he couldn’t sleep the night before.  Then he pulled out a giant brown manta ray, that had a “wingspan” (I’m sure marine biologists have a better term) of something like fifteen or twenty feet.  The guy said “I think I need to stop sleeping with this thing under my pillow.  Can you take it back to the ocean?”  Meanwhile, the ray was flailing about uncontrollably.  So I agree, and somehow carry this thing over my head to the ocean.  But with about ten feet to go I tripped over a log and fell forward, my face planted into a nest of killer bees (who apparently live in the sand at the beach? I never knew..).  Then I started flailing about uncontrollably.  The last thing I remember is the ray managing to flop the last little bit of the way into the ocean.

I wonder what it all means.

There is an intricate social interaction that occurs when walking down a long corridor, such as a hallway at an office building, where architecture allows you to see someone from a greater distance than volume levels appropriate for polite conversation would permit conversing.  As a result, when you see someone you know on the other end, you realize that eventually you must acknowledge him with some form of greeting.  But at this distance, you’d have to shout “HELLO!!” across the building to do so, which would make you look rude.  So you continue walking, looking at the floor or wall or something—anything to avoid staring at him for thirty consecutive seconds.

Now it’s on.  You have chosen your destiny for the next half-minute, and it will involve a hallway hello.  Sure, you could duck into a row of cubicles, and pretend that was your intended destination until the person passes.  But what if there are people in those cubicles?  They will be all “what are you doing here?”  Unless you are good at making up answers to such questions on the fly, your best course of action is probably to continue walking down the hallway.

Before you know it, you are at last in speaking range.  At this point you look towards the other party, wait for him to look at you (which he is expected to do!), then say something like “Hey, [passerby’s name]” or “Hey how’re you?”   Next, if you are dealing with a civilized individual, you can expect to hear “Hey, [your name]”, or just simply “Hey.”  Note:  do not tell the other party how you are doing, even if he asks; he is asking merely out of politeness.  Finally, any eye contact is immediately broken until you have passed said person.

Whew, that was close.  But now you’ve successfully executed a hallway hello.  That makes you a real people person.  That’s why they pay you the big bucks.  And doggone-it, people like you.

PS: I was surprised that spellcheck didn’t have a problem with “how’re”