“put on your sweater, don’t you know its summer” – volunteer at the desk of the local ymca.

after more than a week of grey skies and cold temperatures here in the bay area my chances of moving the family out of the hot and sticky southeast look pretty slim.

a friend told me he had never heard someone complain about the weather in california – if he had a weeks worth of free time my wife would be happy to change that for him.

i’m not the kind of person who admires strangers or celebrities, but as with most rules there is usually an exception, and my exception to this rule is jon stewart.

so, if ever he is found to be involved in some heinous scandal, like so many other prominent personalities have been, please don’t tell me…

when we drove out of california in to nevada we told the kids, it was after all their first time in nevada.

we took a short hike on the tahoe rim trail and returned to the car.

a few minutes later when we told the kids we crossed the border back to california, logan made the astute observation:

“nevada sure is a small state”

i feel for plants the way some people feel for their pets. so when i saw this sign on the building across the alley:

i had to walk around til i found the plant in need of assistance.

yet, in spite of appreciating their help, the best part of this story was the ideas tossed about in our office for what a sign in our window could say in response…

i have come to the conclusion that my kids are not consistently ignoring me, they simply can’t hear me.

the reason they can’t hear me is that their brains apparently have mastered talking and listening simultaneously and since they never stop talking, it prohibits them from hearing me…

on a recent garbled cell phone call with my aunt, she said:

“i didn’t hear what you just said, but i’m sure it was funny.”

someone, who obviously knows me well…

motorists in california are extremely generous to pedestrians in cross walks, and yesterday on my way home from work that deference paid off for the motorist. they were zipping up to an intersection and looked to be planning on rolling right through when they saw me approaching the cross walk and then came to an abrupt stop.

they couldn’t see to their left what was clear in front of me, a police car waiting for someone to ignore the stop sign.

after i crossed i joked with the officer that i though i just saved that guy a ticket and he responded

“i won’t have long to wait for the next one”

before he even completed his sentence another car rolled through the intersection without coming to a complete stop. because the officer had been talking with me he mostly missed it but then made a gesture implying “see what i mean”.

i joked around with the officer a while longer and left the conversation feeling better than before.

i’ve had more than my share of interaction with police officers both on the positive, and less positive side of things. when i’ve called them out, or met with them at community events i’ve always enjoyed them and felt good about the services they provide.

on the other side of the table, say one of the many times i’ve been stopped by an officer to discuss some questionable aspect of my driving style i have never thought “what a great guy”.

i’ll admit to potentially being in error on a few of these occasions. but unfortunately my sample size has been large so i can tell you that i have tried every approach imaginable short of crying and i have on all but one instance encountered a total jerk (i got a citation on that one instance too so that is not what influenced me).

so i hope the officer who undoubtedly stopped the next car after i walked away from the intersection brought out his children’s tour of the police car attitude while he was passing out the ticket.