Starting with the end in mind

As I was putting dirty rags in the laundry machine, Allison passed by.

I said: “I’m going to wash these, ok?”

To which she replied: “Sure.  You know that’s the dryer right?"

Oops.

New type of hair brush

This is not the instrument I used this morning to brush my teeth.

It is the instrument I used this morning to brush my hair, after my comb was nowhere to be found.  I had to use a toothbrush (from the travel bag they gave me in the airplane) to brush my hair as I was tight on time to go downstairs to do a keynote, participate in a panel, and be interviewed on film. (my hair didn't look any worse than usual, which is not saying much).

The next day I realized that I did have my comb after all.  I had put it in the wrong compartment.

Ooops, I'll be right back

When keynote to over 200 people yesterday, I told them we would do an activity that involved my reading a passage to them.  I gave them instructions on what to do, and when I looked for the passage, I didn't have it on me.  There they were waiting for me to start reading.

I said "Hold on" and I walked off stage to my bag and searched for the piece of paper, while the stage was empty and people didn't know what to do.  Luckily I found it, came back, and reflected on my mistake as a teachable moment.

Later I learned from my pro wife that in that situation I could have asked them to talk to their neighbor, which would have been a lot smoother.

Lesson learned: bring with me on stage the passage I want to read to them...

Mother & daughter spice up travel

Yesterday, while passing through security at JFK airport to fly to Denver for Lauren's bridal shower, Fran realized that her license expires 6/17.  Her flight back is on 6/18.  So she may get stranded in Denver (more time to plan the wedding onsite!)

Here's the text Allison, her sister, and aunt got (along with Allison's replies) :

You can almost hear the tone of frustration in Allison's replies.  I could hear it in stereo.

The next day, Allison left home to fly to Denver.  About 20 minutes later, once she was at the airport, I got the following text (from a good Samaritan, whom Allison asked for help)

Mother and daughter sure know how to make travel more interesting, and they have a peculiar way to engage the rest of us in it.

Are those your socks?

"Are those your socks on the street?", asked my wife, as we approached our car after attending the San Jose Earthquakes soccer game.  Yep.

Lamp replacement

Our home came with two new lamps, stored in the laundry room, just like the one that was installed in my office ceiling.

This lamp is not found anywhere else in the house, so I assumed that when the light bulbs go out, one has to replace the whole lamp piece with all three light bulbs in it, and that's why there are extra lamps stored.

A while back, one of the light bulbs went out, but I ignore it to avoid the trouble of figuring out what to do.

About a month ago another one of the light bulbs went out, and the third one became very, very dim, almost out.

So today I took out one of the boxes to figure out how to replace the whole thing.  It looked complicated.

So I waited for Allison to get home to run my plan by her and for her to know what I was doing in case she had to drive me to the hospital once electrocuted.

She examined the lamp for a while, and then asked: why don't you just replace the light bulbs?

And indeed, the light bulbs are replaceable.  No need to replace the lamp.

She also realized that the third light bulb is not almost out.  The light switch was dimmed to almost zero.

Paused video

After my weekly bootcamp workout, I stopped at home to eat a little protein before running some errands. I ate in the kitchen, quickly, while watching some videos on my phone.  I finished eating, got in the car, exited the garage, closed the garage door, and then realized that my phone was not in my pocket.  So I opened the garage door, paused the video I was still watching, and went into the house to look for my phone.  When I walked into the kitchen I realized the phone was not there and that it was already in the car, since I had paused the video that was still playing in it before going into the house to look for the same device.

Car won't start

SMS text from my friend Manny:


"Walked to the parking lot, unlocked car, got in, wouldn't turn on, looked around, realized I was in the wrong car."

His wife Diana then suggested he send me that story, as well as the time "he walked into the wrong apartment."

Immigration free-for-all

We arrived at the Dominican Republic, went through immigration, then customs, and met our driver right outside the airport.  He said it was a good time to go to the bathroom as we had an hour drive ahead of us.  I went to the bathroom and when I came out, my wife wasn't there, only the driver and our suitcases.  He explained that Allison had realized she was missing her purse (and everything in the purse, including her passport), and ran into the airport to look for it.

A few minutes later Allison came out with the purse and explanations.  She recounted that before originally coming out of the airport, when we were waiting for our suitcases to come out, she had asked where the bathroom was, and they told her it was back before immigration, but that she could just walk around immigration and then come back also around without needing to talk to any immigration officer.  She did so, but she left her purse.  So once again she walked all over the airport, walking in and out of immigration without talking to anyone, and finally found her purse where she had left it.  It was an all-around free-for-all.

Roller bag disapparate

My habit in airports is that whenever I get up to move from one place to another, I count the things I have with me, to make sure I have everything I'm supposed to have. I'm usually good about it, but today I was not, and all of a sudden I realized I didn't have my suitcase!  I don't know why I didn't count my things. Maybe it has to do with how little I slept last night (3:40).  Or maybe it was because I was thinking of an emotional deeper learning moment I had this afternoon.  Or maybe it was that I saw someone from the conference that I then went to say hi to. But the truth is that when I lined up for my Southwest flight, I realized I didn't have my suitcase.  I only had my backpack. Then I went on a rapid tour of the bathroom and gates where I had been sitting, but I was unsuccessful.  I had to get in the flight without my luggage. :(  I hope it appears.

Part of the reason I needed to get on the flight was that back home I was meeting Lauren's boyfriend Nick for the first time.  So I made an accurate first impression landing without any luggage.

Lost & Found number I was told to call later.

UPDATE: I called the airport that evening and they didn't have my suitcase.  I called again the next day and they did have it.  They shipped it to me with an odd, new, well-deserved luggage tag.  :)

I kid you not

I kid you not.  This all happened today:

I came home from a business lunch and the dog was nowhere to be found.  I had left her and Allison both at home and neither was home.  I knew Allison was at work and Rosie was supposed to be home.

I looked for Rosie all over the house (last time she was locked in the closet) and she wasn't home.  I saw that our front porch fence was open (no idea how it got that way).  So I called Allison and she came home and then we spent 45 minutes looking for the dog in the neighborhood like maniacs.  Luckily the garbage man had seen her with a family in a complex and so we could focus our yelling Rosie's name in just one neighborhood and minimized our chances of being arrested or beat up for making a ruckus.  Eventually, after about 20 minutes of walking and yelling, a family heard us and came out saying they had our dog.  Mission accomplished.

A little while later Allison said she was going back to work and left.  A couple minutes later she came back asking whether she could take my car because her car had a flattish tire.  From prior experience, I agreed with hesitancy.

Five hours later, Allison walked into our home and said: "Hi...   Oh no!   I left your car at work!"  (out of habit, she walked home and didn't drive back).

She parked my car at her work garage with a day parking pass.  I hope it's not towed in the morning, as the day pass expires at midnight.

I'm going to sleep now in fear of what else might happen if I don't.

UPDATE: Lauren later mentioned she pictured this story in The Onion with these headlines:

San Jose dog reunited with the family she wishes she had. "It was a glorious 45 minutes," choked Rosie.

San Jose dog breaks out of Japantown condo. Found boarding a bus back to Denton, TX. Where her owners seemed to have "left their minds."

Excuse me, professor

A professor was sitting down in the student union, eating, when an undergrad called her attention and said:

"Excuse me. You have pepperoni on your hair."

That professor was my wife.

Who is the pet?

Rosie staying inside, where it's warm and dry, watching Allison pick up her poops.

When I play electrician

Last night we noticed that the power outlets in the master bathroom weren't working. I went to the electrical box in the garage to fix it and when I came back it wasn't fixed, and much worse, all the lights and power outlets in our three bedrooms were dead. We're dark.  Calling an electrician.

Miracle keynote

Wow, what absentmindedness today!  One of those days.

I dropped off Fran & Rich at the airport and then clicked on my phone calendar appointment for my GPS o take me to the address where I was giving a keynote that afternoon.  It surprised me that it was in Dallas, as I thought it was near the airport, but I went with it.  I searched for a Chipotle near the hotel where I was going, had lunch there, and then headed to the hotel.

When I got to the hotel, I asked Guest Services where this event was and they didn't have record of it, so I emailed the organizers to ask the name of the room and sat down to work in the lobby.  An hour later, I got emails and calls from the organizers saying the event is not in Dallas, it was in Grapevine, 30 minutes away (and near the airport).  They had changed it and notified me and I recall seeing that notification but I must not have updated my calendar...

So I went to Grapevine, which took me 45 minutes with some traffic, got there, parked the car, and realized I had locked the car with my keys in it.  Luckily I had my backpack and sports jacket with me outside the car, so I had what I needed to deliver the keynote.

I went upstairs and was setting up and couldn't find my clicker as it was not in its usual place (which, believe it or not, is very unusual).  My host didn't have one either and was going to start asking around but then I found it in my backpack lose where it shouldn't be.

So we got things ready in time.  I delivered the keynote.  Believe it or not, I didn't fall or do anything silly in the middle of my talk.  Then I had dinner at the event (I walked out for a few minutes in the middle of dinner to meet the AAA car who opened my car), and when I was done with dinner I went downstairs, got in my car, and got ready to leave, before realizing I had left my backpack & computer upstairs.

Long day... I'm glad it's over.

Quiet banging

We woke up today, the day after Thanksgiving, in a hotel in East Texas, where we’ve been vacationing the last two days.

I told Allison I’d meditate for the next 20 minutes, and she said she would take our dog Rosie out to pee and poop.  So Allison and Rosie left, and I started meditating.

When they came back, Allison tried to be quiet when opening the door, to minimize disturbing my meditation.  But her key didn’t work.  She tried again, and the key kept not working.  She thought I’d get mad, as she was making so much noise, but she kept trying and the key wasn’t working.  So she decided she didn’t have another option but to start banging on the door, explaining “my key doesn't work!", "my key doesn't work!".  I wasn't coming, so she kept banging and explaining.

Then, a woman Allison had never seen, in her night gown, opened the door, clearly having been woken up.  Allison was trying to get into the wrong room.

Clothesline voodoo

I walked out to our backyard patio today and noticed two odd things:
1) the retractable clothesline was up, but it didn't have any clothes in it, and
2) there was a weird object hanging from the clothes line.

I thought the weird object must be a leaf, but it didn't look like a leaf, so I got closer and was pretty surprised... the weird object was poop, clearly from our dog Rosie.  But I was pretty sure that it hadn't been Rosie who had tied her poop to the clothesline by a hair...

I came to the only logical conclusion: someone was doing voodoo magic on us.

But no, when I told my wife about it, she got a mea culpa look.  She knew exactly why the poop was on the clothesline.  Then she proceeded to explain to me a series of actions that had led to the poop hanging from the clothesline.  It involved having clothes in one hand and clothes pins in the other and trying to unhook the clothes line and... (you get the idea, though it'll be hard to believe no matter how much she explains).

For the record, I'm not fully discarding the voodoo hypothesis, though my wife is now the prime suspect.

Secret Service close-call

Yesterday, oddly, I was at the White House for a convening on educational games.  Of course, it was very cool to be there.  We were a group of about 40 people in a conference room.

The previous night, dinner had started at 9pm, so I was dazed and confused...

At our meeting, after an initial intro, they split us up into two different groups.  My group went to a conference room on the other side of the building.  We worked there for a while, and after we were done, we came back to the larger initial conference room.  We had a little break so we had informal chats, and then we got started again as a bigger group.

About 5 minutes into that session, I realized that I didn't have my backpack.  I guessed I had left it in the conference room on the other side of the building.

I had to choose between being rude and walking out of the meeting in progress to go get my backpack, or staying there and risking triggering a security concern when someone found a backpack left by itself in a room in the White House...

After a little deliberation, I decided to be rude and go get my backpack.  As I was walked down the hallway, I saw the most senior person who was hosting us that day walking back to the bigger conference room with my backpack.  He was very kind and laughed, but said that about once a week they get notified by security that they're closing down a section of the building because someone has left a bag somewhere...  Luckily this week it wasn't me.  Saved by the host.

My backpack at the Indian Treaty Room
(not where I left it.  Here it is just posing)

  

 

This is the National Security Staff office, where I may have
ended up had they not rescued my backpack...  :)

A pleasant first impression

I was having lunch in our new home when I saw the garbage truck, so I went out to go get the garbage bins back in their place, when I saw our neighbor walking toward his garbage bins.  So we waived and I came over and introduced myself (this is the first neighbor I meet).  He was very nice.  As the conversation was going on, it crossed my mind that I may have kale in between my teeth, as often happens when I eat the salad I was eating, but I didn't mention anything

When I got back home, I noticed that indeed I did have green stuff all over my teeth. 

A pleasant first impression.

Kitchen towel

First, this:

I had come home with the towel around my waste from swimming so that the bathing suit wouldn't get the car too wet, and then I put the towel in the most logical place when I walked into the house.

Later:

me: Oh, by the way, when I was leaving for the gym I remembered you asked me not to use the white towels, but I couldn't find another one, can you give me another one?

Allison: No, I meant the nice, white towels for guests.  You can use that one.  That one is ripped and stained.

me: Oh, that one is for me and the dog, hah?

Allison: No! Rosie has her own towel.