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Wow, when I thought it was crazy for the weather swings the other day…the past two days have been almost weirder!

Monday, it reached over 80° here in Tulsa; this morning, its snowing again and a nice, brisk 28°. This is crazy!

Here in Oklahoma, you come to expect crazy weather changes. It’s just something that you accept after living here a while. Today was no exception.
Yesterday morning it was 62° when I left for work…today it snowed 3 inches at my house.
<sarcasm>I love it here…</sarcasm>

There’s something that’s aggravated me for quite some time. It’s the simple fact that people, for the most part, don’t use their blinkers when they drive. When I’ve traveled anywhere in the US, it’s been my discovery that this problem is not just localized to my area, but I just see so much of it that it drives me crazy.

Apparently in New Mexico its the same.

So what’s up with this phenomenon? Why don’t you (the drivers out there) think that its important to use the blinker? I mean the blinker lever is like 2 inches from your left hand (if its on the steering wheel) so why is it so difficult to reach that lever? If its inconvenient to click that little thing up or down, just think of how inconvenient and rude it is for the drivers just behind you that just see you swerving. A little blinker action might just let us know where you’re planning on going…and in the long run cause less accidents.

This brings me to my 2nd point, I think here in Oklahoma, with all the problems that drivers here have, we should (as a State) require a driving test every-other driver’s license renewal. Other states do this and its in those states that in my experience have much less an issue with my argument of blinkers. We don’t require new drivers to go through driver’s education and its quite apparent that very few even care about it.

My city’s inhabitants are so selfish, in more ways than one, but I’m specifically referring to driving. Everyone here is only out for themselves while on the road. You signal that you need to get over, and everyone for the next 20 cars in the other lane speed ahead not allowing you to change lanes. I can’t figure this out. Why are we such selfish drivers? Does everyone here have pent up road rage aggression? I think so…

I won! I actually won.

Going into last night’s NFL game, I thought for sure I had locked 2nd place…quite nicely even. My opponent still had two players left to play both of which usually scored in the teens. This alone would have beat me.

But then, A. Peterson and the Vikings Defense sucked out loud causing my Fantasy Football adversary to buckle and left me the victor of the last game of the season!

Now I can gloat all year long about who’s the freakin’ man. Oh, and did I mention, I had the Coach Rating of 1 all year long coupled with a schedule difficulty of 2! Get some!

I just wish I had some sort of “bling” to wear to show off my Champion status.

This year’s Ice Storm has sucked…and I mean sucked big time. There were at one time almost 800,000 customers in Oklahoma without power. In December, that’s not a good thing.

We’ve been without power since sometime around 2am Monday morning. Since the in-laws have a gas generator, we’ve been staying in their house where the furnace is running at a good 71°.

Working at a hospital proves difficult in these times too because a lot of businesses are closed down due to their own lack of power therefore their work force is at home taking care of business. The hospital never closes and we have our own quite complex power generator backup system so we’re still expected to be at work shining brightly.
I’d really like to be home during the day, cleaning up the house, fixing little problems that this ice storm has caused but alas I sit at work from sun up, to sun down.
One thing this whole experience has taught me is to always carry a lighter in your pocket. Never know when you might need to light a candle.

With this whole power outage experience it seems quite odd to me that we’d actually have people out there who are lighting up their Christmas lights, as if to say “Screw you guys…I’ve got POWER!” This just doesn’t set well with me. With heaps of people without power, you actually have the audacity to not only enjoy your heat, but to gloat about it by “Clark Griswold’ing” your neighborhood.

Are you a Republican voter who is undecided as to which 2008 presidential candidate you are going to support in the primaries? You’re not alone. A mid-November poll of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire showed that 56% were still undecided!

Maybe this will help: Pick a Republican, a quick interactive candidate picker that I whipped up.

TxFx.net

This is very interesting to me. The site touts:

“Which Republican Presidential candidate best espouses your views? Choose your criteria on the left, and the candidates who don’t fit will fade away.”

Nice. As a registered Independent, a bit more conservative than liberal, my obvious choice lies in a Republican candidate. The Dems don’t have any, in my opinion, good choices for rep’n the country for the next 4 years.

On this Thanksgiving holiday, when we sit with family and friends to express gratitude for the things we have in life, I will think of Randy Pausch. If you haven’t heard his name yet, you should have. On the afternoon of Sept. 18 the Carnegie-Mellon University professor walked into a packed auditorium on the Pittsburgh campus and delivered his "last lecture."

It was a doozy.

Pausch spoke with the theatrics of a showman, the wit of a master comic, and the eloquence of a statesman. He recalled his own childhood dreams, his life’s goal to enable the dreams of others, and the lessons he learned and wanted to share over the 46 years of his life. Pausch is a handsome man, with a full head of black hair, bushy eyebrows, and a remarkable sense of humor. Of all the lectures this computer science prof had delivered during years in classrooms, this one was especially poignant and urgent. He began simply enough by quoting his father who always told him that when there is an elephant in the room you introduce it.

So Pausch pulled up on an overhead screen a trio of CAT scans that showed the 10 tumors in his liver and spoke about his doctors’ prognosis that he had three to six months of good health left. "That is what it is," he said simply. "We can’t change it. We cannot change the cards we are dealt—just how we play the hand."

[ Business Week ]

This has gotten me thinking lately. Since recently my father passed from Leukemia, obviously this story touches me. We’ve got to make sure we live life to the fullest every single day. We’ve got to make sure we don’t burn bridges that might not ever have the opportunity to get rebuilt. Most of all, we must truly, deeply, spiritually; give thanks daily to the Creator and cherish the time you get to have with family. This life is the only life you have, don’t waste it by harboring ill feelings or by not expressing your true feelings.

I really don’t like conflict. I don’t necessarily avoid it like the plague, but I do not enjoy having conflict in my life. Whether it be personal or professional, and for the most part, I just wish everyone could always get along.

Margaret Mason at 43 Folders talks about it and has gotten inspiration from the “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz.

1. Be impeccable with your word.

Words have immeasurable power, so use them with care. Say only what you mean, and remember your opinion isn’t fact. Silence is better than saying something you’ll regret.

2. Don’t take anything personally.

Here I’ll quote the book, “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.” That guy honking at you just spilled scalding coffee all over his lap, the boss screaming at you is going through a divorce. Their stuff has nothing to do with your stuff, and assuming you’re the root cause of someone’s behavior is not only self-centered, it’s also a big waste of energy.

3. Don’t make assumptions.

You can spend hours generating theories about why someone did something, or you can just ask. When someone lashes or does something unexpected, save time by seeking clarification.

4. Do your best.

Do the best you can with the conflict in front of you, and you won’t need to waste brain power on self-judgements or regrets.

I see where she’s going with this and these are definitely things I need to keep in the forefront of my mind during daily dealings with people.