Fun in the Van - #1 Son

Word of the Day

Gamovation - The tendency to play a game, more frequently involving car racing, and physically move the way the car is moving on the television screen.

HTP and I were discussing our return trip to The Lake this morning. We do a lot of discussing at this time of year. I suppose you could call it pre-planning. Today we were going over the "What If" scenarios. What if we had to take a smaller car to The Lake this year instead of our Gator? I told HTP that taking a smaller car this year was out of the question. We NEED to take the Gator. I started my To Do and Packing List and my Packing List is rather long. I keep telling myself that I'll cut down on the things that I NEED to bring to The Lake but.... Besides, I've got a child rocker that I want to bring to Ms. En. Family heirloom. I'm not sure how we're going to manage getting it packed into the Gator but I don't even want to think about how it'll fit into the Chevy...because...it just won't fit. It's not huge but there's no getting around the fact that it's a piece of furniture with an awkward rocker shape. It is a rocker afterall. They tend to be shaped like rockers.

After that "What If" was discussed and decided upon (We're taking the Gator!), we moved onto more nebulous "What If"s. I've always felt that "What If" discussions were kind of pointless. My brother was famous for his "What If" scenarios. Only, my brother's "What If" scenarios usually started with the words, "Wouldn't it be cool if..." These words usually came out of his mouth on the longer road trips that we used to take with our family when we were growing up. Vacations. Trips to The Lake. We'd be driving a long a winding narrow mountain road and my brother would pipe up with, "Wouldn't it be cool if this huge rock fell and.... " He'd start with that one and my Dad would stop him before my brother could think up anything more dire to "Wouldn't it be cool if..." "Wouldn't it be cool if a bear came into the camp while we're sleeping?" "Wouldn't it be cool if it rained really hard and we had to build a raft because of the floods?" "Wouldn't it be cool if lightning struck the cabin?" "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" I don't recall all the "Wouldn't it be cool if"s. I may be exaggerating a bit as well. Maybe. I do recall a lot of "Wouldn't it be cool if"s coming out of his mouth and my Dad and Mom hushing him up with, "No. That wouldn't be cool and besides, it would never happen." I'm pretty sure that my folks were just about as fond of "What If" scenarios as me.

I don't recall that my own children ever entertained me and HTP with such "Wouldn't it be cool if..." scenarios when we took those long road trips cross country on vacation or to The Lake. We didn't play the Alphabet game too often or Road Bingo like we did when my folks tried to keep us occupied in the car on such trips. My children were of a different generation. My children were a part of the "TV in the car with VCR" generation. There wasn't too much time for them to think up, much less vocalize, "Wouldn't it be cool if..." scenarios. This may not have been all that wonderful. I mean, #1 Son can't remember seeing Old Faithful when we visited Yellowstone Park, but he hasn't forgotten the VCR tapes that he watched in the van on the way to Yellowstone. He doesn't even remember our trip to Disneyland, Washington D.C., the Oregon caves or any of those trips. Even though we showed him the pictures. My daughters still remember the trip to the Red Woods and the centipedes. However, for the most part, I think they'll never forget the "in the van" part of our road trips. I did keep them busy "in the van" and they did seem to enjoy themselves. And

I don't think I ever heard the dreaded, "Are we there yet?" every five to ten minutes like my sister, my brother and me used to entertain my folks with as they drove cross country. I don't think I'll EVER forget driving across South Dakota (or was it North Dakota?) in the middle of summer with the temperature outside hitting 106°F, no air-conditioning in the car and the seats in our station wagon were vinyl. Textured vinyl. I still remember the color of the seats in that car and the pattern that pressed itself into my legs during those long road trips where I had to sit in the middle because I was the youngest and my sister and brother would make me keep my feet on the hump and not on either of "their" sides of the car. I don't think I'll ever forget the time we drove by a sea of brown dry grass and how we all admired a small oasis of lush green in that sea. Well...all of us but my brother. It was hard for him to tell the green from the brown. Poor Willie. My brother is color blind. After that one incident we all tortured him with imaginary green oasis' for the rest of the vacation. Such fun.

Anyway, to get back to where I was before my mind wandered off into a whole other pathway, I refuse to think about "What If" scenarios at this point. I'm a firm believer in "We'll cross that bridge when and if we need to cross it."

Murphyism of the Day

Montgomery's Law of the 404 Error

The more you need a particular Web site, the more likely it no longer exists on the server.

Old Grey's Corollaries

Your computer will continue to stubbornly give you a 404 Error even though you know for a fact that the Web site still exists.

Even though you continually receive a 404 Error, you will continue to try and access the Web site despite a problem with the servers.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.

- Gary Zukav