1 Adult and 1 Kid please.

Every year I get older and every year I wonder when I will become an "adult".  Not the legal version but the our dads and grandpas version of adult.

I am 31 and I don't shake hands yet.  Job interviews aside, when I see a friend that I haven't seen for awhile, it's more of a

then a

When does that stop?  When do I say, " Hey Justin, how is everything?"  vs "What's up J?  What's been going on?"

Trust me when I say that the greeting is not over the top and lame, it is just how we have been talking forever.  It feels natural. 

My kids are still pretty young and that probably helps.  I know it would have been weird to see my dad do this when he saw his friends.  But times have changed right?  I don't know.  Have times really changed or is that something old people say to make what they do not seem so old.  If boy 1 observes me doing the above when he is 13, will he say "Cool" or will he be embarrassed by his un-hip dad trying to be cool?

I'm sure he will be embarrassed no matter what but is it still ok?  I say yes.  I say times have changed and shaking hands is simply a professional thing and not a casual thing.  It would be easier if people knew how to shake hands.

Why is it when you shake somebody's hand and the squeeze your hand and nearly break it, people are like, "Wow, what a strong handshake!"  I usually say something like, " Hey, Andre, stop squeezing my hand so tight."  It is not impressive to me.  Just shake my hand and be done with it.

The tight squeeze never happens in my "hip" handshake.  It's not because you can't squeeze hard but because people who do it are more laid back.

I have a million more reasons on why I'm not an adult but I'll stop for now.  I will say this.  30 is not the new 20, 40 is not the new 30, 50 is not the new 40 and 60 is not the new 50.  We all wish we were 25 plain and simple.  I am 31 and I think of it like this, at least 31 is not the new 41 and so on.  If I had a disease that made me never older then 22, my kid would still be embarrassed by me in his teen to 20 years. 

All of us who are older that 25 are convinced that we were cooler then today's kids and we know it.  I just can't prove it.

Kindergarden now? I need a drink but so does he.

Boy 1 is turning 5 this May.  I don't really need a drink, I only drink beer.  When your a beer drinker, you don't have those cool "get me a scotch" moments.  But I digress.

My wife Norma and I have the tough decision of sending boy 1 to kindergarden this coming Sept or holding him til Sept 2011.  It seems like an easy decision.  Is he ready?  Probably.  Would he be more ready next year.  Maybe.

If it is such an easy decision, why am I having so much trouble with it.

Obviously, I want him to go as early as possible for many reasons.  He has a blast at preschool and I think he would have a blast at kindergarden.  However, think about this.  If we send him this year, he would be 5 all school year and would turn 6 right at the end of kindergarden.  If you do the math, that means he would turn 16 at the end of his sophomore year and turn 18 at the end of his senior year of high school.  More importantly, he would turn 21 at the end of his junior year of college. 

This seems very trivial to the untrained person and who knows if he will even go to college.  I hope he does but who knows.  Norma has a July birthday and her parents sent her early, I have a November birthday so it wasn't an issue.  When Norma and I were in college together, I turned 21 so I could go to the bars with my friends.  But Norma had to wait til the end of that same year and missed out on so many things.  She was a younger 21 then all of our friends.

BUT, if her parents had held her back and let her be 21 when all of her friends were then she would have been in a different class, gone to college at a different time and been a year behind me in school, we probably would not have met or got married and we wouldn't have had 3 wonderful children together.

The point being, we are not deciding if boy 1 is ready for kindergarden, we are deciding when he can drive, who his friends will be, who he will marry, and what kind of kids he will have. 

That is a much heavier decision, don't you think?

I just keep thinking about Norma.  My beautiful wife.  My reason for everything.  What if she was a year behind me in school.  No L Section, no convertible, no City of Angels, no no kiss, no wedding when we were too young, no boy 1, no boy 2, and no girl.

What if?

I still think we will hold him a year so he is more ready and its always better to be older in your class vs being the youngest, but doesn't that blow your mind?

Idiots On My Left, Morons On My Right

Why are the people who run this country, just as stupid as the people who vote for them?

They are supposed to be more smarter then us.

When did being a public servant become a full time million dollar job? Do people realize that these jobs were supposed to be second to their real jobs? Lawyers, farmers, teachers, business owners and on and on. Now we have life-time, professional politicians that start when they are 16. If you got fed up with how things are run in your state and decided to do something about it, what do you do? You can write your rep or complain to your friends but that is about it.

I prefer to complain to a friend. Or a stranger. It makes me feel smarter.

Earlier this week, we all got the privilege to watch our president give a 13 minute speech. If you missed it, it was the one where all the 3rd graders that look like old men stretch out that 13 minute speech to 2+ hours. The clapping, the head shaking, the nodding, the over clapping, the standing, the sitting, the crying, the whining, the messy pants, the changing, the nap time...sorry, I thought I was watching the daycare class. It is so sad to me that this is how it is. Don't get me wrong, I am passionate about what I believe. But don't mistake your congressmans passion for wanting to do the right thing.

They are all trying to make an impact and all trying to make a name for themselves so they can move up eventually.

Public Servant. Public Servant. PUBLIC SERVANT.

The simple truth is this: our government is too big.

How does it get smaller? Good question. I don't think it does.

If your company was to hold a vote on whether to lay off half the workers, how would you vote? You would vote to keep your job. What if the company was guaranteed to get stronger and more efficient if the jobs were cut in half? Would you vote to fire yourself? I would like to think I would, but I might not.

This is essentially what we are asking our govt to do. Trust me when I say - they are not going to vote themselves out.

Here are a couple of stories about our govt that sum up everything that is wrong with it.

1. On January 28th, 2002, Attourney General John Ashcroft admitted to spending over $8000 dollars of taxpayer money to cover the Statue of Justice because of the statues bare breasts. Not real breasts - Statue breasts. I realize that $8000 is a drop in the bucket to the govt but it is not to me.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/valentine.asp

2. The US govt spent over $25 MILLION advertising the new $20 bill. If I'm not mistaken, there is no competition for the new $20. Just change it. It's not like we would have turned it down.

Don't worry about the money, there is nothing you can do about it.

If you are tired of this, just elect someone else, wait... oh yeah, the next is the same as the last.

-norm

Hi. I am not a blogger. I am not writer. I do not like reality TV.



I am a normal man.



There will be no theme to these postings. Just ideas that are in my head involving things that need to be said. Also some things that don't need to be said but, I will say them anyway.



I have been meaning to start this page for a long time but I kept putting it off.



Why?



Because I'm normal.



-norm