Who set the clock on my stove?

So on Thursday we had in Las Vegas terms, a heavy thunderstorm. Holy cow, almost 0.25 inches of rain? How did we survive (much sarcasm intended).

The important part of this story is that on Wednesday, the battery on my uninterrupted power supply for my computer died after many years of faithful service. That almost requires in the life of a geek that you lose power or have some sort of power related incident. It is almost required.

So on Thursday during the scary thunderstorm, (again much sarcasm intended) the power went out for a few minutes. This required me to restart my primary computer once the electricity returned and be slightly annoyed at the few things in my house that do not reset themselves and their clocks. The stove, microwave and coffee maker were blinking at me in a we are too low tech to fix ourselves kind of way.

I am pretty lazy and don't really depend on the stove, microwave or coffee maker to tell me what time it is so I was in no rush to set the clocks on these devices. No big deal, I would fix the blinking light issue later when I felt like it. Saturday evening is when I felt like fixing this if only to rid my home of blinking lights.

I looked at the clock on the stove and tried to remember how you go about setting the clock. I checked at my watch and realized that the stove was displaying the same time and was no longer blinking. Odd. Not sure how that happened. I turned to the coffee maker to correct it's blinking issue only to see that it too was displaying the correct time and no longer blinking. Only the microwave seemed to be in the I don't know what time it is blinking stage.

Now I am starting to be a little concerned. I did not set the clock on the stove or coffee maker. When did they magically fix themselves and why is the microwave not playing along with this freak me out moment?

So the question is, who or what set the clock on my stove? There was no one in the house but Huggy Bear and me. Unless my goofy Pomeranian has suddenly learned how to jump up on the counter and adjust the clock settings on kitchen appliances, something odd is going on in my house. Again, why was the microwave not playing along? I am pretty sure something is messing with me. I am starting to suspect the microwave. It knows I don't really care for what it does to my food or plastic containers. I think it is retaliating in the only way a microwave can fight. Convincing the other kitchen appliances to make me think I am losing my mind. I'm on to you Mr. Microwave, this fight is just getting started!

You may want to check in on me every few days, worried that kitchen appliances are conspiring against you has got to me some kind of warning sign. May just be the result of too much time alone with a Pomeranian.

Home

Those who know me, or are foolish enough to ask, I am proud to tell you I was born in Auburn, Alabama, or technically, Opelika since that was where the hospital was during the time my parents attended Auburn University. Because of this, I gladly list this response for who knows how many Internet sites that ask me my hometown, regardless of the fact that in the grand scope of things, my time in that place was just a brief starting point.

I could list LA (that would be Lower Alabama) or Birmingham as my hometown. I do have many ties to those areas. I could even refer to my hometown as places I have spent an important part of my life. But that would not be true.

My home has always been and will continue to be, whatever house my Mom lives in. Not whatever goofy place I need to live for career or family reasons. It does not matter what city, state or even country. My Mom’s house is Home to me even if I have never lived there. That is how my folks have always offered it to me. Their house is home.

That being said, I am lucky enough to be going “Home” to St. Petersburg, Florida for a few weeks in August to spend a little time with those nice folks who raised me and visit my wonderful Grandma. Officially, my trip home will be to cat sit and house sit while my folks enjoy a much-deserved vacation they have wanted to experience for some time. As much fun as it is to hang out with the cat (she is pretty goofy and entertaining), the chance to have a little one-on-one time with my Grandma (my second favorite lady in the world, after Mom of course) is what I am looking forward to the most.

That is right. I am going to Florida and am not at all interested in going to the beach, fishing or working on my tan. I am just so happy I get to visit, and hopefully, dine with, my Grandma and for at least a small part of the trip, my Mom. Life is good and I am so happy to be going “home”. Not the place where I was born, but the place where my Mom & Dad live and so does my heart.

Home

Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz

Today I was having a little difficulty with the tiny aliens who live in my tummy. They were fighting in a manner that was causing me some discomfort. They are pretty mean little dudes and regardless of my diet seem to find the need to do battle with my digestive system on a regular basis. So when the old lady who lives with me (otherwise known as the wife) suggested that she had to go to the store and could pick up something for me. I thought Alka Seltzer would be a good solution to this particular problem.

So when she returned from the store and as I was opening the box I commented (revealing my age to anyone reading this) that I remembered when Alka Seltzer was sold in glass tubes. She asked if I was going take one or two tablets. I explained that only she would take one tablet. That the advertisement was not plop fizz but plop plop fizz fizz for a reason. That was the recommended dose.

Lucky for me she understood this and did not further this conversation.

Score one for me.

May never happen again.

Learning to live again

For most of my adult life I was more interested in my career than what I ate or drank. I lived on coffee, coke, cigarettes and maybe one meal a day. If you asked any of my co-workers what I did for lunch, it would get you the same answer every time. A Coke and a smoke.

I lived for my passion, my career, broadcast television. I started as a late night master control operator and camera man. I worked my way up over the years to General Manager of a television station I helped put on air. Total bliss for someone of my mentality.

I had reached all of my goals. Lucky me. Yes, I am very lucky man.

I then left that world at the request of my daughter to become something I never planned for. Dedicated grandfather to my new reason for living.

None of this was supposed to happen.

I was born with heart problems that only due the efforts of my parents and the American Heart Association (please donate) was I able to recover from. Still I had only a limited life expectancy. At some point I would simply wear out my heart and it would be over. No one mentioned that future developments might change this outcome. I lived my life expecting the end would come at anytime. My focus on career showed my disregard for any other outcome. I was doing what I wanted, expecting it to end at any time. Selfish, I know this but not knowing how else to proceed, what could I do?

Then the end came. In August 2008 I suffered congestive heart failure. Organs failed and shut down. Energy went away. Life as I knew it stopped. The efforts of some talented doctors and support of family and a couple amazing friends extended my life beyond where I had planned. Now I had to rebuild my daily routine to follow their desires for me to live beyond my expectations.

Again I am a very lucky man and I know this.

IMG_1852

IMG_1852, originally uploaded by leemcaliley.

Dang, how did they know what I had planned for the day? I think anyone who gets a hang glider up this trail should be allowed to use it.

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IMG_2020, originally uploaded by leemcaliley.

Bees working this flower on the Fletcher Canyon trail on Mt. Charleston.

4th of July 2009

4th of July photos
4th of July 2009 in Las Vegas, NV
My Neighbors put on a heck of a show! Do click the link to see all the nice photos from this adventure.

Sister Suzanne’s Birthday

Today is my sister Suzanne's birthday so I thought I might tell a little story about her.
Little sisters are generally pretty good to their older brothers but on more than one occasion mine went above and beyond.

Once, in particular, was when I was living in New Mexico and I had a motorcycle accident. I had ridden mine off a cliff, breaking my back, several ribs, and my collarbone. I was in pretty bad shape and Suzanne came out to take care of me. She was only about 15 at the time and I am sure my mother is the one who sent her, but she did not have to but came anyway.

I had just got out of the hospital and could move around but was in pain and wearing multiple contraptions to keep my back straight while it healed. Getting dressed was not possible as well as other inconveniences so Suzanne was there to help me get dressed, feed me and help me get around. She even went to work with me each day and helped me do my job. At the time that involved editing commercial reels and directing the news. I could not have done my job at the time without her help. Thankfully she is very smart and picked up quickly what I was trying to do and assisted me better than many of the people who get paid to do this kind of work. Since I had been away from work while I was in the hospital it was important to be able to work and earn my paycheck. I am sure that if not for her help I may have lost that job. And let us not forget the getting me dressed and fed part. I know I would have lost that job if I came to work hungry and in my underwear.

It was only a couple weeks of her life that she spent looking after me, but if not for her I know my recovery would have taken much longer. On my list of kind things people have done for me, this one still is very high on that list. Not only did she help me get better, she made the process a lot of fun too. We always have a great time and that was just the medicine needed to help me the most. She gave me happy memories of what could have been a painful point in my life.

Is it the cape or is it the fancy pantyhose?

Image by Fonzie's cousin via FlickrAre you one of those people who think that it's Superman's cape that allows him to fly? I tend to differ from the norm since I think it's the fancy pantyhose (tights). After all, Batman has a cape but he can't fly. I think it's special pantyhose that all the superheroes get from a special superhero store. The color of which determines which superpowers you get. My reason, all the superheroes always wear fancy pantyhose but not all of them wear capes. It is thoughts like this that have caused me grief on more than one occasion, for example.

When I was about five years old, I was out in the backyard playing with my friends. We were playing with a kids archery set. The kind with a little bow and arrows that have little rubber suction cups on the end. As children are prone to do, we got bored and started shooting the arrows straight up into the air. This led to several arrows landing on the roof of our house. It just happened that someone had left a ladder leaning against the house and I headed for the roof to retrieve the lost arrows. Once I had retrieved the arrows I found myself unable to get down from the roof. It could have been that someone knocked down the ladder or most likely it was my lifelong problem of getting back off the roof and down the ladder.

So I am standing on the roof enjoying the view and trying to figure out how to get down when my "friends" go and tell my mother that I am on the roof. My mom comes out to see what the problem is and just happened to be holding a flyswatter at the time. Not a good sign to a five-year-old. She proceeded to use my full name while ordering me down from the roof. When your mom yells something along the lines of "your full name here" get your butt down from there right now! You have no choice but to comply. Having watched a few too many episodes of Superman and having no prior knowledge that this was a bad idea, I said OK and jumped off the roof. You can imagine my surprise when instead of floating down to the ground in slow motion like they do on TV, I landed with a thud on the concrete patio breaking my leg in the process. Confused and in a considerable amount of pain, I could not understand what had happened. All my TV heroes jumped off stuff all the time and they never got hurt. Since I knew that my TV wouldn't lie to me the only explanation was that maybe I wasn't a superhero after all. Well, I had plenty of time to think this through while laying around with my leg in a cast. I was pretty sure that I was still a superhero, I just hadn't been given my superhero outfit yet. Once I got some of those fancy pantyhose this would never happen again.

The Second Funniest Thing I Saw While Visiting Florida

Image via Wikipedia
While driving around during our visit to Florida, I was looking out the window taking in the scenery. Which for me meant picking out the restaurants I wanted to visit. I was carefully adding to this mental list when I saw it. The second funniest thing I saw while visiting Florida. A "Rent To Own Tire And Wheel" store. I had never seen a rent to own tire and wheel store before and the only thing I could think was, who would rent automobile tires?

I could understand the need to rent a car, a boat, golf clubs or any number of items you might need to use on a less than permanent basis. I have had reason to rent cars, surfboards, and even a washing machine at some time or another myself. However, I can not picture the circumstances that would cause me to consider renting tires. How would that even work? When you decide you don't need the tires anymore and return them, how do you get your car home? The whole idea was hard to comprehend.

After struggling for days to understand I think I finally figured it out. Now keep in mind this is only a theory and has not yet been proven. I think that this business is a secret government operation to draw out, identify and tag stupid people. You know, kind of like animal researchers do with wildlife. They catch them, tag them for identification and then monitor their movements. Same thing here except instead of wildlife, it's stupid people. What a great plan and it even pays for itself from the tire rentals. It's so simple, just open one these stores and wait for the stupid people to wander in. Rent them some tires and now you have their name and address, and even know what they look like. You might even get a picture. Catalog all this information and then distribute to all the smart people so we know who to avoid. They could even give them all the same brand of a tire so that the rest of us might more easily identify them while driving. At least that is what I hope is going on, otherwise, somebody is wasting a perfectly good opportunity to monitor stupid people in their natural environment.

So, what was the number one funniest thing I saw during my visit to Florida? That would have to be Christmas Eve when my sister Suzanne and her entire family show up wearing matching black pants, red shirts, and Santa Claus hats. It was something right out of one of those sappy Christmas specials on TV. Without a doubt, the funniest thing I saw during the whole trip.

Traveling To Florida, Part 2

Image via Wikipedia
The drive from Nebraska to Florida actually quite nice, but since I tend to ramble on lets jump to the end.

About the time we were coming to the Florida state line, my Dad called to ask where we were. It turned out that my sister Leigh Ann and her son were only a few miles ahead of us and Dad thought I should call them and get them to stop long enough for us to catch them. He suggested that they could follow me the rest of the way. Fine with me, since I had good reason to take the lead, which I will get to in a moment.

A few cell phone calls and a stop at the wrong location later, we managed to meet up and continue our journey with me leading the way. We still had about 250 miles to go and I was well past ready to be there already, so non-stop was my plan and I was sticking to it. With less than 15 miles to go my wife informed me that she had needed to use a rest room for some time and was I going to stop soon or not! I was so close to our destination that no, I had not planned to stop. As I tried to make my case the cell phone rang. It was my sister wanting to know if we were going to stop soon, she wanted to stop for a bathroom break. I was outnumbered and overruled so asking why nobody said anything sooner was not going help, but I did it anyway. Potty break for everybody!

OK, now as to why I wanted to be in the lead car heading to the folks house. My mom had told us that sleeping quarters were first to come first serve. The unlucky contestant in this game of Home for the Holiday's would be sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the den. Having only a vague description of this "inflatable mattress", I pictured spending several days of trying to sleep on something that might also serve as a swimming pool floatation device. I wanted a real bed and was determined to arrive first. As it turned out, the "inflatable mattress" was much nicer than expected. Even if it may or may not have been purchased from a television infomercial. The big surprise came when my generously accommodating parents offered to give up their room and sleep in the den on the air mattress. Darn, I was so looking forward to making fun of the loser in this race and my folks go and do something nice.

Traveling to Florida

Image by calebism via FlickrI am not a big fan of airlines, with their lack of set prices, bad food, and the need to take me sometimes several places I don't want to go before delivering me to my destination. So whenever possible I travel by car. If time permits and it has been long enough between trips to forget the details of the last mind-numbing day long drive to visit family or friends. Once I start driving, I rarely stop until I reach my destination. For my Christmas trip to Florida, time was available and I planned on staying for more than a couple of days, so driving seemed the way to go. The fact that a round trip drive to Florida was nearly 3500 miles was somehow blocked from my thought process.

When you travel by airplane, you pack carefully and efficiently. Everything you might need will have to be carried in one or two bags. When you travel by car, especially one with a good size trunk, it seems that all reason regarding packing goes out the window. This became very clear as both my wife and I wandered from room to room in our house gathering as many of our household possessions as we could stuff into the car. Anyone who might have been watching our countless trips from house to car with armloads of bags, boxes and assorted shiny objects may have guessed that we were moving, not just loading the car for a vacation. It was my desire to be able to actually see out of the rear window of the car that prevented us from loading any more. After all, it is better to be prepared than find yourself miles from home without that pair of socks I haven't worn in four years or enough dog food to feed Ted the Wonder Fuzzball for three months.

With the car loaded, and after Ted has found the best place to stand for his viewing pleasure. Let the vacation begin, we have a long way to go, miles to drive and we ain't stopping except for food, fuel, and letting Ted add to his list of places where he watered the bushes.

Fighting Mr. Virus

Image via WikipediaHave I mentioned lately that I hate computer virus's and those who are evil enough to create such things?

Today when I went to check my e-mail, as the messages began to download from the mail server my anti-virus software began to sound alarms and display warnings that a message contained some nasty virus or another and would I like to delete it? Well, yes that would be a good idea. Unfortunately, that did not seem to be good enough for Mr. Anti-Virus software, it claimed that the in-box folder had been infected and the only solution was to delete it as well. Since I really hate it when somebody else opens a virus infected e-mail and unleashes it on others such as myself, I went with the safest approach and let Mr. Anti-Virus software do its thing. Problem solved right? Not exactly, this happened no less than eight times today. Each time I lost my whole in-box and all the messages that had not yet been read or replied to. Since my e-mail program checks for new mail every few minutes I kept getting hit with a new virus infected message before I had finished reading what had come in since the last attack.

Keep in mind that this was as the messages were downloading from the server, before I had the chance to look at the messages or foolishly open some stupid attachment. I think that Mr. Anti-Virus software may have been over reacting just a little bit, but with some of the poorly written and evil virus's that are currently running around I could not take a chance on losing more than just my in-box full of messages.

So it any of you nice folks have been kind enough to send me a message or joke in the past day or so, I seem to have lost them in my quest to remain virus free. If you would be so kind as to send them again I would be most grateful, and if any of you happen to come across one of those morons who write and send out virus's, if they somehow came up missing, I will gladly tell the police that you were at my house the whole time.

Florida For The Holiday's

As the holidays began to approach, my mom began to ask if I was going to come to visit for Christmas. Well, I already had planned my recent trip to Las Vegas, so a trip to Florida in December seemed like a bit much to pull off, so I was noncommittal but did like the idea of spending Christmas with the folks.

During a call to mom a couple of weeks later, she mentioned that my sisters were thinking of going to Florida for Christmas and it sure would be nice if everybody could come. Well, my sister, Suzanne lives in Southern California and sister Leigh Ann lives in  Alabama, so if they were going to go, then it would be nice to see them and it has been a long time since we all spent Christmas together.

On the next phone call, I was told that both my sisters were definitely going to Florida for Christmas and were making plane reservations or other travel arrangements right away. Well, if my sisters were going to find a way to go to Florida and since I certainly did not want to be the selfish, ungrateful sibling who could not make the trip, I committed to going to Florida for the holidays. All of us in the same house at Christmas would be great fun!

All was fine and dandy, and everybody was happy until .... my sisters and I began to call each other to talk about the trip. Each phone call between us seemed to go the same way. "I am so glad we are all going to be together for Christmas! I really can't afford to go to Florida right now but when I heard that everybody else was going, I did not want to miss out on the fun or be the bad child who would not go." Well, we may all be morons but it did not take long to figure out what had happened. We had been scammed, played off each other by our very own parents to get us all to go to Florida for the holidays. Each of us had received the same phone call informing us that the other two children were coming and how it sure would be nice if we all came. I am not sure who the mastermind of this plan was, but I'm putting my money on dear old Dad, it seems to fit with his style. I don't know who was the first of us to figure out what was going on but will credit it to Leigh Ann. She said that when she confronted Pop with the accusation he did not deny it and let out an evil little laugh.

So the whole family will be together for the holiday's, but some form of retaliation must be done for the blatant manipulation from those nice people I call my parents. We are still working on a plan but so far the best we have come up with is to go and eat all their food and leave the house messy when we go.

My Seafood Feast

Living in a small town in the middle of Nebraska has a few benefits, but if you have ever lived someplace with a few more things to offer you can find yourself shall we say hungry for something else. Well, that is exactly the problem, I am hungry for some decent food! In my town, you can get a great steak but outside of that unless Pizza Hut is your idea of fine dining you are out of luck. So my little vacation to Las Vegas was a big thrill for me in several ways. Yes, I got to visit with family, but the chance to eat some good food was what kept me awake for the 18 or so hours it took to drive. 

Las Vegas may be in the middle of the desert but they go to great lengths to accommodate millions of visitors with anything they want and that includes some great food. I ate large quantities of great food in several fine restaurants and even a couple of fast food joints that are not available in my area. The highlight of my eating binge was the night my stepson Dave and nephew Kevin took me out for seafood! 

Raw fresh oysters are a favorite of mine and Dave had found out which casino the "Oyster Man" was working at, so off we went. This casino was having a seafood buffet that included fresh oysters, crab, shrimp, several types of fish and other assorted seafood selections. I was in heaven and quickly filled a plate and ran back to my seat to enjoy. At the table next to us was a nice couple who seemed as thrilled as I was at the selection of goodies. On my second trip to the buffet, I was standing next to the man from that table as we both were deciding where to start next. This man was a foot taller than me and was easily twice my size, he commented that he would try and leave a little food for me. I took this as a challenge and told him I thought I could keep up with him. This got him to laughing so hard that I was able to get a head start on the oysters before he noticed I was gone. When he got back to his table he was so busy laughing and pointing me out to his wife that I was able to finish and get back to the buffet for visit number three just ahead of him. I managed to match his plate for plate for some time, but to be honest he was piling more stuff on his plate than I was. After many visits to the buffet, I had eaten all that I could handle and went over to acknowledge my defeat to the big man. He was working on a large plate of crab legs and was very entertained by my effort. He told me I was a worthy opponent but better luck next time. Yes I was defeated, but full and happy, and there WILL be a next time.

Making Fun Of The Son In Law

On my little trip to Las Vegas, I got to spend some time with my son in law. The 10 or so days I was there was the most time I had ever spent with the guy. In fact, this visit may have included more days around him than all of my previous time with him combined. It's not that I don't like my son in law, but just that he lives far away and my trips are normally short and focus more on my daughter than her husband. So far I like Ryan and as long as he keeps my daughter and granddaughter happy and healthy I will let him live. He was very polite and generous to me and my wife while we were visiting, as he should have been keeping in mind my protective nature towards my girls (wife, daughter & granddaughter).

The entertaining part of our visit, at least to me, was that my son in law is very into his new daughter and tries to do as much as possible to care for her. I know that sounds like a good thing, but in his overly ambitious effort to be as helpful and nurturing to his daughter as possible, he was asking for some serious trouble. Poor Ryan had failed to notice that the house also contained a new mother and grandmother who were in full on mommy and grandma mode respectively. The worst of which is a grandma who has to go home far away in a few days.

Being older and wiser and having lived with these women for some time I played it safe and held my granddaughter when she was handed to me, looked after her when asked, feed her when requested, but otherwise kept safely out of the mommy and grandma's way. Ryan, on the other hand, was taking his daddy role seriously and on several occasions walked right into the danger zone. Well, he is young and loves his daughter so I could only watch as he set himself up for the verbal abuse dished out to him after both mommy and grandma had reached their limits. Some things must be learned first hand.

So the fact that I found some entertainment in his getting yelled at by my girls and did nothing to prevent it, I will just consider it a perk of being the grandpa and hope I can be smart enough to avoid the same.

Getting Ready To Go To Vegas

Image via WikipediaMy wife has been in Las Vegas for the past week or so playing Grandma to our new Granddaughter. So Ted the Wonder Fuzz Ball and I have been making use of our time alone at home by doing guy stuff like sitting around in our underwear, OK so Ted still sits around in his fuzz coat but you get the picture.

We go for long walks (three times around the park), eat fast food (Ted decided French fries don't agree with him), watch TV and only do laundry when I run out of clean underwear. It has been fun, but this week we have to get ready to make the trip to Las Vegas ourselves. Ted and I both have new haircuts, I got a new pair of shoes and Ted got a new retractable leash, the underwear is in the washer as I write and the suitcase has been brought up from the basement.

Just a couple more errands to run and we will be ready for our journey. Hopefully, my 1100 mile drive with a small fuzzy dog will go well and by Friday I will be in Vegas and doing happy Grandpa stuff.

Details of Rachel

It is official, the stork has made a delivery. My daughter Caroline gave birth to the lovely Rachel a little after noon Las Vegas time. Both mother and daughter are doing fine and the proud dad is wearing out his new camera. Hopefully, they will share some of the photos soon as I am not scheduled to go to Vegas for another week or so. Anyway here are the details. Rachel is nineteen inches long and weighs in at seven pounds six ounces.

The whole family is thrilled and excited as you can understand but I still have not seen the child yet so my excitement level has not yet peaked. I tried to get one of the engineers from work to build me one of those Star Trek transporter things so I could get there sooner but he claimed to not have all the parts. So I will just have to wait a little while longer. Since I have some time before my trip I will do what any self-respecting grandpa would do. Look for some really loud toys, ones that make loud and continuous sounds that make little babies laugh and drive parents mad. After all, isn't that my job now, to do anything to make Rachel smile and laugh regardless of what her parents think?

Rachel's Birthday

Hey folks, by the time you read this I could be a Grandpa.   
As I write this note, my daughter Caroline, her husband Ryan and my wife are on the way to the hospital. Caroline and her doctor have decided that today is the day for her to have that baby. I don't know exactly how or what they intend to do to make that happen but they have a plan and they are sticking to it. 

Since I can't even watch a doctor use a syringe on TV and have been known to pass out at the sight of one in person it is probably just as well that I am over a thousand miles away from this wonderful event. The downside of being so far away is that I can not do anything except wait for the phone to ring and let me know everything went well. 

Hopefully, I will be able to provide you with the details tomorrow and when I get to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks I might even have a picture or two to share.

Ice Maker

Laziness and the desire for comfort are the true mothers of invention.

All the truly great inventions are the direct result of someone trying to make their life easier or more comfortable. The guy who invented air conditioning was just tired of being so dang hot all summer. The guy who invented heaters was just looking for a way to avoid chopping wood for the fireplace. Whoever thought of building a house was probably tired of sleeping under a tree full of birds. A bed is better than the floor, a chair is more comfortable than a rock, and we can't forget the most important invention of all, in-house plumbing. How comfortable would your life be without running water and toilets? 

Comfort and laziness inspire people to create remotes for my television so I can flip through dozens of channels, my microwave can cook a potato in a few minutes, I can have a pizza delivered to my house in 30 minutes or less. The creative and lazy people who come up with these wonders are never satisfied, they are always working to improve everything to make it better and easier to use. Laundry detergents promise to make your whites whiter, light bulbs that last longer, faster computers, safer cars, stain resistant carpet, viagra. Every day somebody somewhere is working hard to make some part of your life easier and more comfortable.

So here is my question, why does the ice maker in my refrigerator still put out quarter circle shaped pieces of frozen water that are the same shape as the sides of my glass. This makes drinking from my glass a challenge. Every time I lift my glass the liquid is blocked from my lips by these poorly designed semi-circles of ice. After all the advances in every other part of my life, why has the shape of my ice not changed to a more useful shape? You would think that by now we should have ice cubes that are cubes or at least a shape that does not impair the consumption of a cool iced beverage in your own home. Lazy people who seek the comfortable demand more from our home appliances. I would invent a better way of making ice in my own home but I guess I'm just not lazy enough to come up with a better idea.