Braces and phones

I got my bands (the metal pieces around 6 of my 8 molars) off today. The remaining brackets (the pieces cemented to the front of my remaining teeth) will be coming off on April 15th. Yay! My mouth already feels so liberated! The bands were a constant presence to my tongue. And having that metal gone is GREAT.

While I was cooling my heels in the waiting room I formulated this entry. There were two parent/guardians waiting on opposite sides of the room for their children to finish with their appointments. Each adult was on their cell phone conducting business. But they each handled their business VERY differently. The father kept his tone quiet and finished his call quickly. The mother was LOUD and had her work physically spread all over a couple chairs and a table (laptop and files). She mixed personal chit-chat in with her business discussion and even commented to the effect of “Oh you should see how loud and messy I’m being!”

It made me wonder if there are is any code-of-conduct for cell phone use. If found the Ten Commandments of Cell Phones and thought it was worth a gander. To summarize:

1. Thou shalt not subject defenseless others to cell phone conversations. When people cannot escape the banality of your conversation, such as on the bus, in a cab, on a grounded airplane, or at the dinner table, you should spare them. People around you should have the option of not listening. If they don't, you shouldn't be babbling.

2. Thou shalt not set thy ringer to play La Cucaracha every time thy phone rings. Or Beethoven's Fifth, or the Bee Gees, or any other annoying melody. Is it not enough that phones go off every other second? Now we have to listen to synthesized nonsense?

3. Thou shalt turn thy cell phone off during public performances. I'm not even sure this one needs to be said, but given the repeated violations of this heretofore unwritten law, I felt compelled to include it.

4. Thou shalt not wear more than two wireless devices on thy belt. This hasn't become a big problem yet. But with plenty of techno-jockeys sporting pagers and phones, Batman-esque utility belts are sure to follow. Let's nip this one in the bud.

5. Thou shalt not dial while driving. In all seriousness, this madness has to stop. There are enough people in the world who have problems mastering vehicles and phones individually. Put them together and we have a serious health hazard on our hands.

6. Thou shalt not wear thy earpiece when thou art not on thy phone. This is not unlike being on the phone and carrying on another conversation with someone who is physically in your presence. No one knows if you are here or there. Very disturbing.

7. Thou shalt not speak louder on thy cell phone than thou would on any other phone. These things have incredibly sensitive microphones, and it's gotten to the point where I can tell if someone is calling me from a cell because of the way they are talking, not how it sounds. If your signal cuts out, speaking louder won't help, unless the person is actually within earshot.

8. Thou shalt not grow too attached to thy cell phone. For obvious reasons, a dependency on constant communication is not healthy. At work, go nuts. At home, give it a rest.

9. Thou shalt not attempt to impress with thy cell phone. Not only is using a cell phone no longer impressive in any way (unless it's one of those really cool new phones with the space age design), when it is used for that reason, said user can be immediately identified as a neophyte and a poseur.

10. Thou shalt not slam thy cell phone down on a restaurant table just in case it rings. This is not the Old West, and you are not a gunslinger sitting down to a game of poker in the saloon. Could you please be a little less conspicuous? If it rings, you'll hear it just as well if it's in your coat pocket or clipped on your belt.

Before computers...

The network at work slowly started going down yesterday. One computer went down in the morning, another in the afternoon, and then this morning when we got in the rest of them were down. It kinda seemed like a horror movie written for IT nerds. It took IT a couple hours to figure it out this morning but by 10 am we were back on line. (In the mean time we spent our time identifying our skull collection... yayI'm putting my biology degree to use!)

But the degree to which I was useless totally unnerved me. I was dead in the water- couldn't access email, couldn't access my files... couldn't play on the internet! So, here I am at home wondering what was life like before computers? I do remember the old floppy disks that had number crunchers and math blasters, but I never did any work on them. So, here's a few "life before computers" pages- thanks to Google.

1. Do you remember when OR Life before computers
2. Grace's Place exhibit shows the evolution of type technology
3. REFLECTIONS ON EARLY COMPUTERS

Maybe the questions should be "what was life like before Google?"

A warm spring weekend

Weekends like these make winters bearable. Today it got to 67 degrees! Okay, I know today wasn't part of the weekend, but I took today off of work because it's Chris's spring break week. We basked in the sunshine and took McClane to the dog park yesterday and for a nice long walk today.

It's REI dividend time- one of my favorite times of the year. This year instead of buying clothes, I used mine towards a new backpack for the dog. (He destroyed his petco bag.) He carries his own poo bags, treats and frisbees. (During the summer he carries my snacks and water too!)

McClane tries out his new pack- and eyeballs the popcorn in Chris's hand.

McClane gets spiffy

Chris took McClane in to get his nails trimmed today. He also opted for some additional grooming. Apparently, McClane's vocal and physical protests could be heard through out the store! I was greeted by McClane and his "kerchief" after work today:

I also tried out uploading a video today...

Snow boogers

I learned something new about snow this weekend. If you get too much snow packed in your wheel wells (which isn't hard to do after a 8" snow event and when temps stick in the teens) it can affect your car's performance. The steering wheel of my car started to vibrate so violently I could hardly hold on to it when I hit highway speeds yesterday!

But my wonderful boyfriend scraped out the wheel wells for me this morning and everything was back to normal!

And here I thought I knew everything there was to know about Minnesota winters! =)