Reading the BBC news feed this morning, I came across this interesting article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_west/7471102.stm

This is about a man in the UK who was punished for putting 13 people in his Volvo S70 station wagon. The BBC video on that page talks about how “hard” this was to do (and failed to put 13 people into the car -- they only got to 10 and they were using infants and children).

All I can say is: They didn’t try hard enough.

Back in 1984, at a summer computer camp (hey, remember, I’m a nerd), we decided we wanted to go out to a movie. There were 22 of us high school kids. And only two cars.

No problem. One of our cars was a high capacity Toyota Tercel (example pictured below). Fortunately, we had the 5 door hatchback version.



We put exactly 13 people in that car and drove to the movies. 1 driver in the driver’s seat. 2 in the front passenger seat. 4 in the hatch area, 3 across the seat in the back, 2 on their laps, and one laying across the two on top of the 3 with feet out one window and head out the other window (he had the misfortune of being 6’ 2” tall). We drove very carefully the 5 miles to the theater.

So come on you guys in the UK. If we can cram 13 college students into that Tercel, the 13 in a Volvo station wagon should have been a snap, especially with all the babies and young kids you had....

Disclaimer: But of course, I wouldn’t try this today because this would obviously be a violation of local seat belt laws (which didn’t exist back in 1984).

Hooray! We had Andrew’s Birthday Party today and we survived!



Zandra made an ice cream cake (yummy!) and Andrew had some of his school friends over. I’ve posted pictures here.

Tags: Andrew

A couple of entries ago, I noted that my sister had a blog. Since then, she's made more than a few references to me that I just feel compelled to respond to. So I will. In *my* blog.

In the entry Momma' Night Musings, the question about censorship "...I realize I have passed this blog info to my big brother....hmmmm, maybe censorship is good,." Big brother says...."write what you want." I'm probably not the one you need to worry about reading your blog. There's always the future employers, etc., who will find the blog and wonder about the person they're considering hiring....there's no such thing as anonymity on the internet. Not with Google around.

In the entries Suds, Glorious Suds! and Work, glorious work!, my sister makes a reference to the recent Thomas the Tank Engine release "Mud, Glorious Mud". I'm disappointed that my sister fails to cite the correct reference to the (noun), Glorious (noun) phrase to the lyrics of "Food, Glorious Food!" from the musical Oliver! based loosely on the great work Oliver Twist by none other than the beloved Charles Dickens. However, the fact that it shows her total dedication with her kids (because everything is now referenced from the starting point of something related to her children) indicates that she is doing great as a parent. Or at least fully immersed with being a parent....

Sis also notes I probably have all the tunes memorized since I have a 6 year head start. That's actually probably not true since with a 6 year head start, I've learned to start filtering out children's music in my head. It's on, but it's more like white noise than anything else. Nothing really sinks in. Except Barney. Which is why Barney is banned in our house. Sis should learn in another few years this little trick to successfully tolerating parenthood.

As far as the question, "Was I like this to my mother? Is this payback?" Hmmm....well, we were both prone to doing things like that, so payback? Probably. I have Declan (who by the way, just broke another dish in the time it has taken me to write the last 8 lines of text - but he was trying to be helpful by throwing the dish (literally) into the sink). You have your Asha and Aisha. Oh, and your ever-so-articulate Nate.

Finally, as I've been reading my sister's blog, I'm having great fun with each entry clicking on her "Location". It appears that in her blog, what location she types in gets fed into Google Maps. It leads to some very interesting results. "Padded room" sent me to the Excalibur Hotel in Vegas of all places. Interesting what those pidgeons pecking at the keyboard come up with at Google....

Are you wishing you'd never told me about your blog yet, sis?

I love you!

Tags: Humor, Sister

Random thoughts about signs I saw today:

"100% Beef" (McDonald's BigMac Billboard). Okay, so what were they made of before? Chicken?

One that Zandra saw on a bottle of solution: "For use by professional de-germers". Versus the amateur ones?

"Area Patrolled by Military Working Dogs": Versus the Military Vacation Dogs? Military Unemployed Dogs?

Probably thinking too hard about these signs.

Hey! My sister has a blog! I'm excited. Okay, maybe *too* excited, but excited nonetheless.

http://chez-hsieh.livejournal.com/

Cool!

Happy Birthday #9 for Andrew!



Andrew holding his present - a Lego City Cargo Plane. Andrew put it together himself!

In the last few weeks, I've had to go a few places where it has been beneficial to take mass transit. I normally don't take mass transit - not because I don't believe in it, but because working from home, I don't really need to use it. And where I go, I usually don't get a chance to use it. So mass transit is not an everyday occurrence for me.

My recent trips on the MTA Light Rail and CTA "El" Trains made me realize this - they're both dollar coin friendly.



When I bought my ticket for the MTA Light rail, they only accepted cash, and I only had a $10 bill. Somewhat to my surprise, I got a pocket full of 1 dollar coins back - and variety of them to boot (examples above). Going to Chicago the next week, I still had them in my pocket, and found that they were much easier to use to buy my CTA ticket than dollar bills. If you remember the movie Chicken Little, there's a scene where Chicken Little's friend Runt of the Litter is trying to buy a soda from the machine, and having his dollar bill rejected over and over and over again. That's me using dollar bill machines.

Wonder why the rest of the US doesn't use dollar coins?