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Unless you live in the lowermost states in the US, then you are familiar with the term “Snow Day”. (In Florida, kids get out for “Hurricane Days” – this seems like far more fun than the paltry ‘snow days’ I got as a kid.) Sadly, Snow Days almost no longer exist for adults, which takes a lot of the fun out of snow. There’s also the issue that adults understand about cold. (Cold receptors are found to be missing in most children under sixteen.)

If you live in an area that gets winter snowfall, then you know that there are certain cycles to the years. Light years and heavy years maintain a reasonable pattern – for example, in my state of Tennessee we get heavier snows about once out of every three years. Apparently, us Tennesseans also develop a good case of “Wuss” during these same years.

It seems that this year’s unusual snow fall is due to an “El Nino” weather pattern. (I’m sorry, doesn’t the term “El Nino” refer to Jesus? Does this mean that Jesus is responsible for our snow? And who is “La Nina”? Because she is the responsible party for next year’s weather.) And this year has dumped a load of extra snow on us.

Let’s clarify, in Middle Tennessee we have our own definitions of “a lot of snow”. Here we usually get about two inches over the course of the ‘winter’ and we usually don’t get that all at once. Due to our inability to plow all our roads – most cities have only one plow, and this plow is usually an attachment on the front of a trash truck – we usually call snow days when we get any accumulation. And I do mean any!

When I looked on Wikipedia, they had a definition of a “Snow Day” and they graciously included a picture of buildings and cars with about eighteen inches of snow on them. They used this caption: “When cars are covered and roads are impassible, closings and cancellations are likely to occur”. I like that: ‘likely to occur’! haha! Maybe other places don’t have the bold attitude of Middle Tennessee – we close at the threat of snow! Take that Minnesota!

Our first year here, when the bus failed to show, I drove my kids in to school. I was promptly informed that the staff was all headed home to escape the coming deluge. After all, it was “already in Dixon!” Not wanting to seem as bad at local geography as I was, I said something like, “oh!” and immediately bundled my kids back home where I looked up Dixon and found it to be a good eighty miles away. My poor little LA transplant kids stood outside in full gear for an hour before giving up. Do you know how much snow we got? Yup – zero inches.

But this year has been far worse. Yes, we have actually had snow. We’ve even had what is locally known as ‘blizzard conditions’. This means there were flakes falling from the sky while at the same time wind was blowing. Nothing was sticking – that’s not a necessary condition to declare a blizzard. I’ve been asked “Oh, are you in one of those towns?” Yes, Justin, I am. I think we’ve had about 7 inches of snow. Total. I can’t be sure. No one is reporting the year-to-date high numbers. This may be because they are too scary or because no one can navigate to work to actually post the reports.

It’s true that people can’t handle the snow out here. Everyone claims they aren’t afraid, but I’ve been stuck behind too many bad, bad drivers to believe this at all. This year I am on the automatic reporting system, which means I won’t mistakenly drive my kids in on a snow day. I get a phone call that says “County Schools will be closed tomorrow due to the fact that we are wusses”. Okay, I added the part about wusses. But they have said it was due to ‘inclement weather’ and ‘extreme cold’ on different days. This amounted to some blowing flakes and a temperature of 19 degrees. I think the ‘wuss’ comment is well deserved.

Since the beginning of this year, my kids have missed more school than they have attended. I truly think the county is trying to convince us all to homeschool . . . one snow day at a time.

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Well, the 2010 Winter Olympics are underway, and that means it’s time for color commentary. As with any Olympic Games, there is just so much going on that it’s hard to keep track. There are the standard opening ceremonies, and the standard opening ceremony technical issues. The US snowboarders are wearing a uniform that looks like ripped jeans, which I personally like, and the speedskaters aren’t wearing the Colbert Nation capital “C” on their foreheads like the Sports Illustrated issue led us to believe. I think this may be due to a ruling against any kind of advertising on the uniforms. No, the advertising must stay in commercial time and places where it is sanctioned by the IOC. (That’s International Olympic Committee, for those of you not up on your mid-winter three letter acronyms (or TLAs, as we like to call them.))

Regardless, there’s still plenty to do. Anyone playing the Apolo Ohno drinking game could get hammered. Drink when they say his name, chug when they show his life story, and make everyone else chug when they warp the story for their news. Already, they have showed the interview where Apolo says that the fact that the Olympics is in Vancouver was a factor in his decision to return. Bob Costas later said it was “the reason he’s back.” Yeah, that’s not what he said. Also, they talk about how he left the sport, partied, got endorsements, won Dancing with the Stars (which I thankfully missed.) Then Good Ole Bob talks about Ohno’s continuous and unflagging devotion to his training. (Um, as a journalist(ish) shouldn’t Mr. Costas know the meaning of words like ‘continuous’ and ‘unflagging’. I’m thinking of sending him a pocket dictionary for his birthday.) None of this seems to be Ohno’s fault, including the fact that 19-year-old American JR Celski has been heartily dissed. Three times Ohno’s Silver was announced with no mention of Celski’s Bronze. I think it’s because Bob and his cronies all have their faces pulled too tight. Perhaps facelifts were one of the IOCs new rules?

But best of all, at the very beginning of this Olympics, is the Pairs Figure Skating competition. Figure Skating has been in the Olympics for just over a hundred years – get this, it started in the Summer Olympics before there even was a winter version – so I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon. But we have to ask: is it even a sport? When there’s an overall tie in figure skating, the medal goes to the skater with the highest ‘artistic’ marks, and therefore lower ‘technical’ marks. Doesn’t that mean that figure skating has declared itself more an ‘art’ than a ‘sport’? And let’s be honest, even the torn-jeans-looking ski pants worn by the US snowboarders are a real uniform. Figure skaters wear ‘costumes’. Costumes are for theater, athletes wear uniforms – not that I want to go toepick to toepick with any of those figure skaters guys. I don’t want to go up against any male ballerinas either (are they ballerinos?), that doesn’t make them a sport.

Still, the commentary alone is worth watching, whether it’s a real sport or not. The performances have been less than stellar and the announcers have been scrambling to find things to say.

Given that, these great gems have come out of figure skating:
*Horrified Gasp* when a girl was nearly dropped from a lift. It came from behind in our 7-1 surround sound. Awesome!

“In the long program, the skaters can get tired, and you can see that here.”

“What separates them from greatness is their lack of elegance.” Ack!

Yes, the pairs figure skating has been fun. There have been no great performances. Even though the US Figure Skating Association deems artistic merit a major portion of the ‘sport’, there has been little to no art in this Olympics so far. Add to that, the IOC has dictated some weird things: 1) extra points for grabbing your skate. The skaters look like they are afraid the blades will fall off. 2) turns in very bizarre positions – look we are a tree! Now we are a spinning lump with arms flailing! 3) paired turns that go on so long you get bored, and should really get up and get a beer, they’ll still be turning when you get back! The IOC has also seemed to deem that the long program music is limited to bad eighties songs.

Yes, the Chinese showed up dressed as Spaniards and the Canadians came as clowns. And the medals went to the skaters who seemed to understand that they should land their jumps using their feet rather than their butts!

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When I was a toddler, parents put kids in playpens to keep them from getting into things. While the contraptions themselves have been redesigned and are now squishier and easier to assemble, they are basically the same thing. Yet, call it a ‘playpen’ and you will be subjected to rude stares and shocked ‘how-could-you?’ faces. No! We no longer ‘pen’ our children. Or we do still pen them, but we call it a ‘play-yard’ and it’s all okay.

There’s more to this parental terminology – like the famous “we don’t believe in spanking” phrase. I always wondered about this one. Do these people believe that spanking doesn’t exist? I assume they mean they don’t believe they should do it to their kids. So they put their kids in the corner. No, wait. They would never do that. They put their kids in the corner, but call it ‘time out’. Yes, that makes it good.

I’m waiting for when these kids grow up and play in professional sports. The coach calls a time out and all the pro athletes cross their arms, huff and pout about why they are being punished.

There’s more to it than just the names we assign. It’s in the way parents talk to their kids, too. For some reason, we think it means more or works better if we don’t say ‘be quiet’ but say ‘use your inside voice’. Really, it means nothing if you don’t at some time say to the kid ‘go on. Use your outside voice.’

A phrase that started up about ten years ago, and totally drives me bonkers, is “Use your words.” Whoever thought this up should sleep poorly at night – I’m coming for you! Parents will look at a whining or crying kid and just say this phrase over and over. While the idea is fine, that’s as far as it gets. Nurses everywhere know that it’s medically inappropriate to tell an agitated patient to ‘relax’ or ‘calm down’, because it actually makes them worse. Think about the last time you were upset and someone said this to you. Chances are, you yelled back “I am calm!” See? It doesn’t work. And “use your words” has the same problem. I’d have a lot of respect for a little kid if he responded to this phrase with “Okay – bite me!”

One of the newest of these bad parenting phrases is the term “Bad Choices”. Why is that man in prison? He made bad choices.

Does this really help any kid? I understand that we need to talk to kids about decision making, but does throwing a catch-phrase at them solve the problem? A good friend of mine has two kids about eight years apart. When the second arrived, they all talked to him in normal tones of voice, except for the older brother, who cooed and spoke baby yammer to the new infant. My friend pointed out that, if the baby was smart at all, he was going to wonder what was wrong with his older brother.

There’s something to be said for that point of view. Though most kids don’t have adult vocabulary, neither do a lot of adults! Why talk to them in a way that talks down? Any decently intelligent kid is going to pick up on this. You’d never talk to another grown-up this way.

Imagine this: you are at work and you have to talk to an employee about his performance. You say to him, “well, you made bad choices.” When he stares at you gape-mouthed, remind him to “use your words.” Then when he does find his words, and calls you any manner of names, just smile and say “inside voice, please.”

With the behavior we see in most kids these days, clearly this new ‘parent speak’ isn’t even close to working. Maybe we need to step it up a notch.

The other day I was in the car with my kids and a squirrel darted in front of me. Then he did that stupid squirrel thing where, halfway across the road, he switched direction and went back. I swerved. The dumb critter changed direction one more time, putting him square under my tire. I felt bad. I really tried to avoid him. But it was too late. So I decided to give his life meaning. Maybe others could learn from his mistakes. When my kids asked if we had hit the squirrel, I said “Yes. He made bad choices.”

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Let’s start with a little history – the term “vegetarian” may not come from the word ‘vegetable’. Some say it’s from the Hindu term for ‘to enlighten’. I think this may be a typo, perhaps they meant ‘to lighten’. Look, I’m a proud omnivore, and here’s why.

First, you vegetarians need to get together and make a freakin’ decision. Do you eat fish and chicken or not? According to Websters, Random House, Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft (hey, it’s what I had on hand), the term means ‘eats no meat, fish or fowl.’ Yeah, they all say ‘no fish or fowl’ – so don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian, then say, ‘but I eat fish’.

Also, that ‘fish and birds are okay’ thing isn’t right. It’s flat out discrimination. Even if you are a vegetarian, you know or are one of those people who think it’s not okay to hurt the animals. So why is it okay to hurt the birdies and the swimmy things? Because they aren’t as cute?

Humans have this problem where we seem to think cute things are closer to God. That’s BS. Didn’t God make the ugly things, too? I don’t recall any points in the Bible where it says it’s okay to eat the ugly things, or any point where any of the disciples said “But I can’t eat it, it’s sooo cute.”

Another bad argument is that fish and birds have little, tiny brains. Are you saying it’s okay to eat the stupid things? Because I know some people with little, tiny brains.

Some say fish and birds don’t feel pain the way we do. So, because they aren’t like us, it’s okay to eat them? Maybe they do feel pain. We can’t hear what dogs hear. We don’t see heat, like snakes. We can’t even feel the chemicals when plants communicate. There’s a lot out there that humans can’t sense. Just because we don’t hear the broccoli scream as it’s ripped from the ground, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel pain. (And if you’ve ever seen a baby broccoli, you know. Man, are they cute!)

When you take into account that there is a growing body of evidence that plants do feel things, you realize there’s nothing left to eat but dirt . . . well, and astronaut ice cream (that stuff has to be completely synthetic!) And that’s a problem.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m on board with the ‘save the cute things’ campaign. When my cat catches a mouse or rabbit, I try to free the little critter. The problem is, they have a prey mentality. They won’t run. I’m holding back the cat, trying desperately to shoo the bunny/mouseling away and it won’t move. It just looks at me like “It’s okay if the cat eats me. It’s my time. Don’t worry, I have a lot of brothers and sisters.”

There’s another big issue in favor of consuming meat: health. Lot’s of folks actually become vegetarian for their health, but that only works depending on where you started. Let’s be honest, if you were eating a lot of McDs, then a diet of pure concrete is going to be healthier.
The health problem with vegetarianism is that it’s really hard to get all the proteins you need without meat. Our biology dictates it. We need amino acids (i.e. protein) in order to build our own proteins, and without meat you are limited to nuts, beans, beans, beans, beans and beans. Actually, there are protein powders, too. Because, let’s face it, if you eat all those beans you’re gonna smell so bad even the cute fuzzy creatures won’t want to be around you.

While I agree that the way we treat many of our food animals isn’t humane, abstaining from meat isn’t the way to change things. (Lots of us are protesting McDonalds by not eating there and look how well that’s working!) The passive thing only worked for Ghandi, and that’s because he actively sought attention for what he was doing. So eat some protein! It will give you energy to get up and really fight for cute, fuzzy creatures everywhere. If anyone asks why you eat meat, tell them God gave you pointy teeth for exactly that reason.

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When I say bunny, you say . . . playboy. Oooh – you have a dirty mind.

Okay, there are a ton of things you might have said there. Cute, cuddly Easter bunnies. Bugs bunny. Peter Rabbit. Jessica Rabbit. Beach bunnies, ski bunnies, buckle bunnies, you name it. Some are even furry animals. But I bet when I started with ‘bunny’ you didn’t think ‘biofuel’.

Yup, it’s the latest trend: burning bunnies for fuel.

Biofuel is a term used for things we burn or package for any kind of heat or energy source that comes from an animal or plant (i.e. non-petroleum or fossil) source. Usually this includes inedible organic trash like watermelon rinds and paper type products. Now that term is getting expanded to include cute fuzzy things.

Okay – let’s clarify here – no one I heard of is actually throwing live baby bunnies into a fire. But if you look up the articles, a large number are accompanied by a picture of two to five baby bunnies, perfectly alive and cute looking. *shudder*

This practice of burning bunnies is occurring mostly in Sweden. Apparently, Stockholm has borrowed a page from Australia and gotten themselves a severe rabbit problem. Over there, the creatures aren’t considered an Easter gift, but rather a vermin. (Do note that rabbits aren’t rodents. They are lagomorphs – an entirely separate order from mice, rats and opossums. Even beavers and porcupines are rodents – but not bunnies. The first part: ‘lago’ is Greek for ‘hare’ – but the ‘morph’ part sounds suspicious and maybe even sinister . . .)

What’s happening is that the rabbits are being shot or in some cases frozen to death, then transformed into some kind of cheap fuel chip or liquid that can be used for heating. While this sounds cruel and excessive, maybe it isn’t.

The rabbits are pests. Regardless of whether they are burned, the Swedes are going to shoot them on their own properties. In fact, freezing them to death is considered a humane method. Hypothermia makes you get cold, then just happy and sleepy – at least in humans. It seems the only real downside is that you don’t ever wake up. A vet once told me this was the nicest way to put down some baby rats I found in my porch closet at my apartment building. I scooped up the cute little suckers and relayed all this to my landlady. She can have the ratscicles in her freezer, thank you.

Conversion of already dead rabbits to fuel may be just a good use of an already dead animal – and one that the good people of Sweden don’t feel too kindly towards. In fact, thinking of rabbits as cute pets isn’t even universal in the US. Many Americans hunt and eat rabbits or even breed them for meat. So, if you are going to roast them for food, it’s only a small step further to leave them on the fire a bit longer and call them a heat source. (Oh, get over it. I bet you didn’t feel that bad when I said I made the landlady freeze the rats. You know, in some places they eat cats and dogs. Yeah, chew on that.)

The big issue here is that it pushes our buttons. Most of us think that cute fuzzy things are closer to God. And some of us even have bunnies as pets (I have three!). Once we connect bunnies to pets we start thinking about throwing Fido on the fire on a cold night and that’s it: the line has been crossed. There’s another line here, too. Most of us don’t have an issue with making something useful of something that’s already dead. It’s that we fear the Swedes will start hunting the rabbits specifically for a fuel source, and that’s when we have trouble. But again, no one would shed a tear for a rat or a spider used to heat a house.

Ultimately, we have been using bunnies for warmth for a long time. And, let’s face it, burning a bunny may keep you warm for a few hours, but (PETA aside) a rabbit fur coat will keep you warm for years!

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Two things that taste great together. Just kidding. But really, bridges and beer have more in common than you might guess.

In both cases, it’s really easy to lose count of how many you had. On a whim, I decided to count how many bridges there are on my drive home from work. (No, I didn’t have any beer. And luckily, unlike beer, bridges don’t actually make you lose count as you go.) I was incredibly surprised – on my twenty-two mile trip I passed over a whopping 27 bridges. They are freakin’ everywhere!

Now, I did have a little wiggle room here – let me explain. I have already admitted to living a bit out in the boonies. But, scientifically, this is good. It shows that the crazy high number of bridges I passed wasn’t because I was in – or out – of the city. I passed through dense city, suburb and boonie areas and all were roughly equivalent in the amount of bridges. (Yes, I counted and did the averages. So sue me, I’m a geek.)

Another thing that beer and bridges have in common is expiration dates. As only a few beers print them on the bottle, most of the time you are left guessing. I have yet to see an expiration date stamped on the side of a bridge. And, like beer, many bridges are good for a while past their expiration dates – but that all depends on how you keep them.

Mind you, things that don’t do bridges any favors are water and salt. So unless you are in the Mojave, you don’t have prime bridge lifespan conditions. But no big, right? Not so. Many US bridges are way past their prime.

New York recently identified 93 bridges that are in seriously bad condition, more than a few of those are major thoroughfares. This isn’t just New York, it seems to be common in most states. There are concerns that the DOT is overloaded with other, non-bridge work – this is obvious if you have driven in LA and been concerned about breaking an axel in that pothole on the freeway. Luckily, you probably aren’t going to achieve any real speed on an LA freeway, so you can see the big potholes before you hit them and do your best to avoid them. The same DOT problems are obvious in Kentucky. Even without the twin disasters of earthquakes and a plague of single-rider cars, Middle America has car-swallowing road problems, too – often in the form of sinkholes. Without all the other traffic to slow you down, you will hit those and drop in. Who knew LA traffic was a health benefit?

Just like the seasons (heating and cooling cycles endemic to North America!), small earthquakes are a stress to bridges. Though most of us associate earthquakes with California, the US is riddled with them. New York City is built on a series of fault lines. The Appalachian and Rocky Mountains were formed by biggies, and though they haven’t been doing major damage for a long time, folks will tell you the ground shakes every once in a while, big enough to feel it.

All this adds up to stress on bridges – bridges that I was shocked to see I passed over at a rate of significantly greater than one per mile. And within two-hundred feet of starting my journey, I realized that counting the bridges I went over, wasn’t enough – I needed the ones I went under, too. That added another twenty-two to the tally.

Since I didn’t have any huge chunks of concrete fall on my car during my drive, I assume the chances are that these bridges are probably pretty okay, right? No, I’m actually more worried about the ones I go over – the ones where I can’t see the structure and won’t get any real warning that something is wrong before they collapse. So I checked out the websites for a lot of states’ DOTs and they are all hopped up on shiny, pretty pictures of scenic bridges and slick new super trains. So the old, standard bridges that I have been using way more than I realized must be in good shape, right? Nope! Right there on a lot of bridge sites are notes that your state DOT isn’t responsible for a lot of your bridges. Maybe they are too busy making drawings of bullet trains?

But I’m sure those scientists raising a stink about bridges past their expiration dates are just full of it, right? I mean, I have to drive into work in a bit, and that means forty-nine bridges to pass. Youch!

I’m sure if I start drinking beer now, I might just feel better about it by then.

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