RobNeville.net

You know, I’ve got probably 100 blog post ideas saved in a draft here. I almost never come back to them and write them.

I thought this was strange, so I decided to ask myself why?

You know what? I think the answer is that if I don’t write it when the idea strikes, it wont get written. Period. Once the idea has gone and I’ve written down the core of an idea and then left it…the love it gone. When I come back to that post title or core idea later, it feels more like an assignment, like work than it does something fun to write to about.

That really sucks because there’s a lot of good stuff in there…disjointed ideas not fully formed and birthed, waiting to be given life and shared. But if I leave it when it’s fresh and don’t run with it, it dies….usually.

This post is one of the exceptions…I had the thought and I’m typing it out as I work through my thoughts in pseudo-real-time (I mean sheesh, I’d like to think that I can think faster than I can type).

Since I vowed that this blog had but one metric for success - me enjoying it/having fun, I fear that these seeds of ideas may never see the light of day ::taps slowly plays:: ::sniff sniff::

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My 4 year-old son, Harrison, invented a new word this evening that had us crying with laughter…

The new word is

smuffle…noun = a belch that is not fully ‘vocalized’ by straightening one’s trachea during the act such that the sound of the belch is muted and muffled. Usage = that wasn’t a belch mommy, it was a smuffle.

Where does he come up with this crap?

::Oldie but goodie::

I’m driving home from work last night and I’m in the proverbial stop-and-go traffic.  I’ve left work early and I’m heading for my son’s soccer game.  It’s a beautiful Carolina fall evening - high 80’s and a slight breeze.  Naturally, I’ve got the windows zipped down in the ol’ Jeep.  I turn on the radio and listen to some tunes.  I have to keep turning the volume up and down so that I can hear the music over the wind noise.  Whenever I come to a stop, I turn it down.

Why do I turn it down?

Well a couple of reasons I guess - my stereo isn’t that good so it just sounds distorted at high volumes and besides…it’s a Jeep…things tend to rattle and vibrate too much ;).  More importantly is common courtesy.  The other drivers around me don’t necessarily want to listen to the same music I am, right?

It never fails.

I always grab the shopping cart with the screwed up wheel and I always get stuck next to rolling subwoofer.

You know what I’m talking about.  It’s the car with the THX certified stereo system that’s worth more than the car it’s rolling in.

I suppose that it make sense…if your entire net worth is tied up in your car’s audio system, you feel compelled to use it.  By use it of course I mean operating it at a volume level so that whales in the Pacific are break-dancing to the beat due to the ELF induced signals your car is pumping out. We’re lucky that Snoop-dog over ELF doesn’t incite a nuclear missile launch from some submarine halfway around the world.

Some people dream of ordinary things they might buy if they were rich…big houses, nice cars…

Me?  If I had no end of funds, I would build a car stereo to end all car stereos.

If you’ve never tried active noise cancellation headphones, let me tell you that they are nothing short of amazing.   What they do is “listen” to ambient noise and actively produce anti-waves of sound through the headphone’s speakers.  When a sound wave encounters an equal but opposite sound wave, the result is silence - they cancel each other out.  How Stuff Works has a cool explanation here.

So, I started day-dreaming of constructing a huge car stereo version of this same concept.  I would then drive around looking for these annoying jerks with their sub-sonic irritants and laugh my butt off when I create a sudden “cone of silence” and they can’t hear their “music” anymore.  They continue to turn it up in an effort to hear it until POP - they blow their speakers out. Mu-hahahahahaha

Silly, I know - but a guy can dream right?