Driving Etiquette (Part 2) – The City

1. Don’t honk ’cause you’re mad.  The horn is meant to get the attention of other vehicles in potentially hazardous situations in order to prevent harm to yourself or others.  It is not meant as a way to express your anger and frustration.  But I will allow that if someone hasn’t noticed that the light has changed green or something like that, it is appropriate to give a brief honk to alert the driver.

2. Respect pedestrians.  Not only is it the law in most cases, but it just makes sense.  There’s no happy endings when cars and people collide.  I’m not saying that pedestrians should be able to get away with anything.  I just know that cars ignore them a lot.  And I think it’s good manners to be on the lookout for people in the streets and to give them the go-ahead to cross the street or whatever.  But, I would also concede that sometimes I think it might be worth it for one of those drunk, mad-dashing, late-night bar-goers to get a little nudge from a not-too-fast-moving vehicle to teach them a lesson for their stupidity.

3. I feel I should flip the previous point around for the sake of this list even though pedestrians aren’t drivers.  They interact with drivers and are a common source of frustration for me.  So, as a pedestrian, Don’t act like the world should stop for you.  Just because the law often protects pedestrians doesn’t mean you can be a jack-ass.  Cross at crosswalks.  Cross elsewhere at your own risk.  When cars stop for you when they don’t have to, show your appreciation – a little wave of the hand, nod of the head, whatever.

4. Your tricked out POS doesn’t impress me.  When I’m at home or going to the store or whatever else around town there are a few things I don’t want to want to have to deal with.  I don’t want to hear your car.  That goes for those little rice rockets that sound like angry bees and for those lifted pick-ups with muffler kits (aka, no muffler).  I also don’t want to hear your stereo pumping Soulja Boy or Britney Spears or your latest techno mix.  Do me and your eardrums a favor and turn it down!  And finally, I don’t want to hear you peeling out on my street in your ’88 Civic with the way-too-large spoiler.  Save the brake-stands for the high school parking lot, the only place that that was ever cool outside of an actual race track.

5. Turn on your signal light before you start braking to turn.  When you brake to turn without signaling first you seem like a crazy person to whoever is behind you.  ”Why the heck is buddy slowing down?!” is what they ask themselves (ie. what I ask MYself).  Brake, signal – wrong.  Signal, brake – right. :)

6.  No rolling stops at busy 4-way stops.  We all know that you get to go in the order you stop.  Rolling stops mess up the whole freaking process.  Someone’s slowly rolling towards and through the intersection and meanwhile everyone else is wondering if he’s actually going to stop or if he’s going to keep on moving.  This makes what should be a very simple and efficient traffic task needlessly complicated.  And while we’re on the subject, there are also the people who, at 4-way stops, stop 20 feet behind the stop line and then go through the intersection as if that was a good enough stop.  No.  It wasn’t.  I’m there thinking that you’ve got another 20 feet and a stop before you go cruising through the intersection.  4-way stops should not be that complicated.

I Need Support!

Haha.  Just kidding.

Seriously though, I need your support.  I just committed to something very difficult this afternoon and I’m gonna need people to be keeping tabs on me about it.  

So here it is… I signed up for the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon!!  

I have just over 3 months to train for it.  I figure I’m at a pretty decent starting point.  I’ve generally been running two or three times a week since I moved here.  It’s still pretty intimidating but I think I can pull it off.  I’ve been reading up on how to train and they say one of the most important things you can do is to tell people about it so that they can support you through the training and help keep you motivated.  

So that is where all of my faithful readers come in.  Training is going to be hard, not to mention the actual marathon and there are going to be times when I don’t feel like running or whatever.  I need all of you to ask me how training is going whenever (if ever) we talk and make me feel guilty if I’m slacking.  I mean it.  I really want to pull this off.  It’s on my bucket list, I have to do it.

In addition to signing up today, training officially started today.  I’m working with a training schedule I found on marathonrookie.com, a site recommended to me by my cousin Kira (shout out!).  My run today was a little more exciting than usual knowing that it was the beginning of my marathon training.  So that’s that.  Wish me luck and don’t let me give up!

Driving Etiquette (Part I) – Freeway

If you know me you know that I don’t get angry easily.  And when I get frustrated or irritated I can usually keep it from surfacing for the sake of keeping the peace.  But there a couple of rare situations that have the power to get me a little worked up, one of which is driving in traffic.  I typically love driving and I consider myself a pretty good driver.  Cross country trips are sort of relaxing for me.  But the thing with driving is that you usually have to share the road with a lot of other people, many of whom don’t necessarily share my attitude about driving.  This is definitely true in Southern California.  I’m not claiming that drivers here are worse than anywhere else, only that there are many, many of them.

So in this series of posts I will dispense some advice on sharing the road with others that I feel would make everyone’s daily drive a little more bearable.  If not, it will at least make my drive a little more bearable. :)

ON THE FREEWAY

1. Accelerate appropriately on on-ramps.  The purpose of the on-ramp to the freeway is to allow you to reach freeway speed by the time you merge onto the freeway.  Please take this into account and accelerate accordingly.

2. If you are not traveling fast enough to pass the cars in the lane to your right, you should be in the lane to your right.  On any multi-lane freeway each lane has its purpose.  The far right lane is for entering and exiting the freeway and for slower traffic.  The far left lane is for faster traffic and passing.  Any lanes in between are for the traffic in between the fastest and the slowest.

3. USE YOUR SIGNAL. You would be surprised how much easier it is to get around the road if people know where you intend to go.  Not to mention it is much, much safer.

4. RESPECT THE SIGNAL.  Getting where you want to go on the road is hard enough without people ignoring you when you signal your intentions.  And if you’re not paying attention to others you have no right to get upset when someone ignores you. So when you see someone who is traveling a reasonable speed signal that they wish to enter your lane, let them in or get out of their way.

5. No sight-seeing.  That includes pretty scenery, collision scenes, police cars and other emergency vehicles, hot chicks, hot cars, hot chicks in hot cars, and so on.  When one car slows down to see why the cop car’s lights are on it causes the cars behind it to slow down.  Those slower-moving cars then decide to move to the faster moving lanes to their side which in turn causes those lanes to slow down and so on, slowing down the entire freeway.  In heavy traffic this becomes a nightmare.  Just keep moving, okay.

6. No tail-gating.  If you find yourself tail-gating the car in front of you, you need to pass it or slow down and make some space until it is safe to pass.

“Socking” isn’t just for Archie

So, this must be one of those Canadian/American cultural differences, or at least Canadian/Southern Californian.  At my work (with high school-aged foster kids) I’ve noticed that when the kids want to say they’re going to hit or punch someone they use the word “sock.”  ie. “I’m gonna sock you!”  

Now maybe it’s just me but I never used that term as a teenager and I don’t use it now.  The only time I had heard it used before was in my Archie comics.  I thought it was a term belonging to the 50s and 60s.  But apparently it is alive and thriving within the teenaged Southern Californian community.

And did you know that “sock” has several other definitions that I’ve never heard of before.  Take a look at this and tell me if you’re familiar with any of them (other than the obvious, of course).  *The following is taken from Dictionary.com.

 

sock

1    [sok] Show IPA Pronunciation  

–noun, plural socks or, for 1, also sox. 

1.	a short stocking usually reaching to the calf or just above the ankle.

2.	a lightweight shoe worn by ancient Greek and Roman comic actors.

3.	comic writing for the theater; comedy or comic drama.Compare buskin (def. 4).

4.	Furniture. a raised vertical area of a club or pad foot.

—Idiom

5.	knock one’s or the socks off. knock (def. 29).

Origin: 
bef. 900; ME socke, OE socc ≪ L soccus slipper

sock

2    [sok] Show IPA Pronunciation  
Slang.

–verb (used with object) 

1.	to strike or hit hard.

–noun

2.	a hard blow.

3.	a very successful show, performance, actor, etc.: The show was a sock.

–adjective

4.	extremely successful: a sock performance.

—Verb phrases

5.	sock away, to put into savings or reserve.

6.	sock in, to close or ground because of adverse weather conditions: The airport was socked in.

Origin: 
1690–1700; orig. uncert.

Peter’s Man Crushes

For those of you who don’t know, a Man Crush is when a heterosexual male experiences a deep admiration for another male.  This attraction/admiration may be due to a variety of factors.  There is nothing wrong with a man crush.  I would say most guys have at least one, even if they won’t admit it.

The following are my man crushes, with brief explanations.  As I was compiling this list I realized that there were certain recurring traits in all of my man crushes, so I decided to categorize them and present them in that way.  My man crushes all meet most, if not all, of the following criteria: Canadian, musical/athletic, humanitarian, good looking, stylish, and gets hot chicks.  If they lack one category they compensate for it with an exceptional rating in another category.

After reading this list of mine, feel free to share your own man crushes.  I may add some more in the future.  You never know.

Raine Maida

• Canadian – Yes.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes.  Musical.  Lead singer of well-known Canadian band Our Lady Peace and also has a successful solo career.  Our Lady Peace has won 4 Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent to the Grammy’s) and been nominated 25 times.
• Humanitarian – Yes.  Is involved with Warchild Canada and the Make Poverty History campaign among others.
• Good Looking – Yes.
• Stylish – Yes.
• Gets hot chicks – Yes.  Married Canadian singer/song-writer Chantal Kreviazuk in 1999.
• Other Comments – Raine has been a personal idol of mine since I went to my first Our Lady Peace concert in 2000.  And I have met Raine in person, and he is a really good guy.

Bono

• Canadian – No.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes.  Musical.  Lead singer of a little band you may have heard of, U2 by name.  Has won 22 Grammy Awards.
• Humanitarian – You better believe it.  He co-founded the organization DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa), he is a common participant in benefit concerts, he co-founded the ONE campaign against poverty and Product Red.  He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times and he has been named Times Person of the Year.  He is the only person to have been nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Good Looking – Sort of.
• Stylish – Yes.  The sunglasses he wears have become iconic.  He is a co-founder of EDUN Apparel Ltd.
• Gets hot chicks – Yes.  Married Ali Stewart in 1982.

Justin Timberlake

• Canadian – No.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes.  Musical.  Member of popular boy band ‘N Sync.  And later brought sexy back as a solo artist.  Has won 6 Grammy Awards.
• Humanitarian – Yes.  Has been involved in the ONE campaign and is a spokesperson for the Shriners Hospitals for Children among other things.
• Good Looking – Yes.
• Stylish – Yes.  Co-founded the William Rast clothing line.  Brought sexy back.
• Gets hots chicks – Yes, including Britney Spears, Alyssa Milano, Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, and Jessica Biel.

 

 

 

Michael Buble

• Canadian – Yes.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes.  Musical.  Such a crooner.  Wooes the ladies with his amazing voice.  I wish I could sing like him.  Has won 6 Juno Awards and 1 Grammy.
• Humanitarian – Nothing of note, but his voice could probably cure malaria.
• Good-Looking – Yes.
• Stylish – Yes.  It’s tough to be a jazz musician and not have some style.
• Gets hot chicks – Yes.  Recently dated Emily Blunt.  But for now he seems to be enjoying the single life.

 

 

Josh Groban

• Canadian – No.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes. Musical.  Quite a singer.  Sings classical/pop music.  Very powerful voice.  I wish I could sing like him.
• Humanitarian – Has performed in many benefit concerts.  He established the Josh Groban Foundation to help children in need through education, healthcare and the arts.  He was an official ambassador for Nelson Mandela’s Project 46664.  He has participated in many other fund raising activities. 
• Good-Looking – Girls think so.
• Stylish – Yes.  He’s a classy guy.
• Gets hot chicks – dated actress/model January Jones for a couple of years.  Works for me.

David Beckham

• Canadian – No.  But I don’t even care.  David Beckham transcends nationality.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes.  Athletic.  International soccer superstar (he’s been called the most famous athlete in the world).
• Humanitarian – Yes.  Supporter of UNICEF, spokesman for Malaria No More, has participated in charity soccer clinics.
• Good-Looking – Hell yes.
• Stylish – Hell yes.
• Gets hot chicks – Another hell yes.  Married Victoria Adams (aka Posh Spice) in 1999.

 

 

 

George Stroumboulopoulos

• Canadian – Yes.
• Musical/Athletic – Yes.  Musical.  He is a former VJ for the MuchMusic music video channel in Canada.  I spent many an hour with George on MuchMusic when I was younger.  He is very passionate about music and his passion is contagious.  Not only that but he is very knowledgeable about music, past and present.
• Humanitarian – Yes.  He is a supporter of the Make Poverty History campaign and WarChild Canada.  He hosted the “HipHop4Africa” Mandela Children’s Fund Canada and CapAids benefit concert in 2006.  He has been involved with many other humanitarian organizations.  He hosts a late night talk show called The Hour that deals with humanitarian and political issues as often as it deals with humorous issues.
• Good-Looking – Yes.  In a hip, serious kinda way.
• Stylish – Yes.  And he gets to wear his casual styles, including his Adidas Allstars, on The Hour while he interviews high profile people like Bono, Jean Chretien and so on.  He’s real.
• Gets hot chicks – Not sure.  He keeps his love life very low profile, which makes me respect him even more.  He does wear a wedding band.

My good friend Randal reminded me of another man crush of mine, Anderson Cooper.  I just haven’t seen as much of him lately so I forgot to include him.  But he is a very worthy addition to this list.  He’s not Canadian and he’s not known for his musical or athletic ability but he makes up for it with his humanitarian journalism and his hair.

Anderson Cooper

• Canadian – No.
• Musical/Athletic – No.  At least, that’s not what he’s known for.
• Humanitarian – Yes.  His journalism is often focused on international and humanitarian issues.  He hosted the documentary Planet In Peril.  He has also won many international honors for his journalism.  He is a very socially conscious person and I look up to him for the work he does.
• Good-looking – Yes.
• Stylish – Yes.  I don’t know how he does it, but he could be in the middle of an artillery strike in Iraq or in the middle of a hurricane and he would still look great and his hair would be perfect.
• Gets hot chicks – This category holds little weight with Anderson.  He is conspicuously single and widely rumored to be gay.  But I’m sure Anderson could get anyone he wanted of either sex.
• Other comments – You probably don’t know this but Anderson is the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.  I greatly respect the fact that he doesn’t seem to use his heritage to grab attention, in fact, he goes out of his way to avoid the kind of attention that his mother sought.

Role Models?

Earlier this week I heard a couple of kids speaking about their role models and what I heard got me thinking.  There’s not really any unifying thread to these incidents or a single moral to this post but what I heard just made me think and made me concerned a little bit about the role models available to the youth of our nation.

So the first incident… you may have heard about Michael Phelps’s pot-smoking photo op this last week.  Well, the incident came up in conversation at work one day.  If you don’t know, I work with teenage foster kids.  So one of my coworkers mentions the Phelps incident within earshot of one of the kids.  The kid hears this and immediately pipes up and says that that’s impossible, that Michael Phelps would never do drugs.  The conviction with which this teen defended Phelps’s innocence struck me.  It reminded me how impressionable youth can be and how they can have tunnel vision when it comes to their heroes.

For me, hearing that Michael Phelps smokes pot wasn’t all that shocking.  It doesn’t erase the fact that he had to be enormously disciplined to become a record-breaking olympian.  Despite the pot, Michael Phelps still is, in many ways, an excellent role model.  But when every school across America teaches that drugs are bad and that Michael Phelps is someone to emulate, it creates some confusing contradictions for the up and coming generation.  It’s sobering how impedimentary a picture with a bong can be to the healthy moral development of our children.  What it makes me think about role models is that in teaching our children we need to clearly demarcate the difference between right and wrong, emphasize the fallibility of humans (especially famous ones) and make sure that we don’t mistakenly leave the moral education of our children in the hands of celebrities.

The other incident was part of an episode of the Tyra Banks Show (my cousin watches it and I happened to be in the room during this one, I swear!).  Tyra’s guest was a 15 year old girl who wanted to get married to her 18 year old boyfriend, was already living with her boyfriend in her mom’s house, having sex twice a day and taking internet fertility drugs to get pregnant and was totally clueless about real life and parenthood.  So at one point during the interview Tyra asks this girl who her idols are.  This girl replies that her idol is… Jamie Lynn Spears.  Wonderful.  And why is she her idol?  Because she got pregnant at 16.  To be fair, I don’t know much about Jamie Lynn, apparently she’s an accomplished children’s TV actress.  I don’t really have any follow up thoughts to this one, I just thought it was ridiculous.  Thankfully, this 15 year old girl is not your typical teenager and hopefully her peers have better selection criteria for their role models.

So like I said, there’s not really a unifying theme behind these examples other than role models.  They just both got me thinking at the same time and get to share a post.  But I was also thinking about trying to get some reader participation in response to this post.  One thing that I got to thinking while I was writing this was whether I ever became disillusioned with any of my childhood heroes because of something stupid they did.  I’m sure there are several, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of any while I was writing this.

As a child I had my geeky heroes like Marie Curie and Thomas Edison, but I also had my cool heroes like Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Hulk Hogan and Indiana Jones.  But none of them did anything (that I can remember) to ruin their image in my mind.  So what I want to know is: Who were your childhood heroes?  Did you ever do any crazy things trying to imitate them?  Did you ever become disillusioned with any of them?  If I think of any more of my own I’ll add them.

Who Is This Maren Anyway?

Okay, it was kind of amusing trying to keep the references to my girlfriend vague.  I’m not ashamed or anything (and she knows that), I just like being a little mysterious.  But enough people have asked me about it that I figure I should just let the cat out of the bag.  *drum roll*  I’m dating a girl named Maren Romney!

Maren is just great.  We are really comfortable with each other, she thinks I’m funny, she’s super fun, she’s got a hot body, she thinks I have a hot body.  We like to do things.  We like to cuddle and go for walks on the beach and sometimes we’ll just stare into each other’s eyes for long periods of time.  You know, that sort of stuff.  ;)

So I hope this satiates the masses.  Until next time, peace.