Music at Work

I love listening to music, and I usually have my headphones on most of the day while working.  Last week, I ran across this article about listening to music in the workplace.  As long as people wear headphones, and there isn’t a safety issue involved, I don’t have any problem with people listening to music while working.  The article mentions that sometimes people get annoyed when the person listening to the music starts drumming on the desk or sings along with the music.  I might be guilty of that occasionally, but believe me, when it happens, I’m not even aware I’m doing it.  I would hope that my co-workers would tell me when I’m doing this so I can make sure I put an end to it.  (Sorry Brent.)

On a side note, it annoys me when people refer to all MP3 players as iPods.  Is iPod the next Kleenex or Band-aid?  You know there are people who own something other than the iPod and are quite happy with those alternative products.  The model I have is on a clearance sale right now as the next generation model is developed.  This is an excellent deal, and I’d recommend it to people who aren’t caught up by the iPod image/coolness factor.  You wouldn’t believe how many people I saw with the trademark white earbuds walking around downtown Chicago this weekend.  They were everywhere.

What is your opinion on listening to music at work?  Cast a vote and/or sound off with a comment.

Does it bother you when people listen to music at work?
	Yes, it makes me want to go postal!
	No, it's a great idea.
	Sometimes, it depends on how I'm feeling that day.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Quick Thoughts 3/27

• I’m back from a fun weekend in Chi-town.  Toll roads really do annoy me, and I was really caught off-guard by how expensive they are now.  I think they have doubled the rates.  The three tolls I had to pay each direction were $1.00, $1.90, and $.80.  There never used to be anything on that route over $.95.  Also it annoyed me that they didn’t post the price anywhere except on the booth itself, so I didn’t have time to get my money in order.  The very first toll over the Wisconsin-Illinois border was under construction too, and it took over 20 minutes to get through it.  Very frustrating. 
• The Final Four is set, and has to be the most unlikely quartet of teams I’ve ever seen.  Apparently Tim McKenna knew what he was doing because he actually picked all four teams correctly in the Yahoo! pick ‘em pool.  I can’t find the exact number of participants in the Yahoo! pool, but there are over one million, and he was the only person to get all four teams correct.  Quite impressive, but I bet he’d be in last place with picks like that most years.
• I saw a 60+ degree day in the forecast for this week!  I am so ready for warmer weather and doing stuff outside.  This winter did go by fast, but I’m usually ready for winter to be over by January 2. 
• No new lyrics today.  Any guesses for the previous ones though?

Quick Thoughts 3/24

• I’m off to Chicago this weekend for the bachelor party of one of my good buddies from high school, who was also the best man in my wedding.  It should be a fun time.
• I picked Duke to win it all in my NCAA tourney bracket, so I’m pretty well hosed.  UConn is my only final four pick left as well.  That’s what I get for not following college hoops all year and then thinking I know what I’m doing.
• The Bears signed Brian Griese to a five year contract earlier this week.  I think the Bears have done a very good thing for once with their QB situation.  A writer at cnnsi.com had a good article here that I agree with.  Basically he says the Bears have to figure out their QB situation because their time is now.  The rest of the division is a mess and the Bears should be the second easiest guaranteed division winner in the league.  I definitely feel better about the Bears’ QB situation going into next year than I have in a long time. 
• Baseball season is almost ready to start, and Mark Prior is already hurt again.  This could be another long season for the Cubs fans.
• What, no guesses for the previous lyrics?  I gave you a whole week.  Doesn’t anyone listen to Lenny Kravitz?  Okay, here are some fresh lyrics, and for some reason I’ve always liked these lyrics.  Today’s lyrics: “You know you’re semi-good-lookin’…”

Quick Thoughts 3/17

• Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of Kahn’s Korner. Unlike the Hawkeyes, who really screwed me over with my picks by losing today, I will not be one and done.
• It’s St. Patrick’s Day today. Bah humbug. I’m not Irish. Plus green food coloring does bad things to my digestive system.
• Two weeks from today we close on our new house. We got another offer on our house last night, and it looks promising. I’d say it’s about a 90% done deal. I can’t wait for the ink to dry and the whole thing to be over.
• Today’s lyrics: “I am you, and you are me. Why’s that such a mystery?”

Lego Mania!

A friend of mine sent me this link today, and it could possibly be the best website ever put together.  It has the instructions for just about every Lego set ever made!  I still have some of the instructions for the Legos I had, but a few of the big ones got lost over the years.  I had a lot of the sets under the Space 2 page.  The 6950, 6861, and 6842 are sitting put together in my closet at home.  I had the 6971 Command Base, but lost the instructions, so I might have to work on putting that together this weekend.  One of my first normal (ie, not Duplo) Lego sets was the Exxon Gas Station, which is 6375 under Town 4.  The instructions for that were lost years ago, and I bet a lot of the parts are gone by now too, but I’ll have to see what I can do with that.  I don’t think you can ever out-grow Legos!

Driving me crazy

I really have been trying to be a less aggressive driver and not let things bother me so much on the road, but it’s hard when there are so many horrible drivers on the road.  There are certain things that just drive me nuts, and make me work extra hard to stay calm.  This is a list of the top ten things that get me royally riled up on the road.

1. Drunk drivers – I think the most upset I’ve ever been while driving was a couple of months ago when I was on my way to BW3 to watch the ISU/Iowa basketball game.  I was about to exit, when a car came screaming around me and cut me off at the exit ramp.  The light was red at the end of the ramp and I was pulled up behind this car.  The driver opened up his door, and threw a can out.  After turning, I ended up along side of him at the next light.  As I looked over, he was taking a drink from another can of beer.  Turns out they were going to BW3 as well.  This was one of the only times in my life that I wanted to go over and punch somebody.  Does anyone know if I had called the police, if they could have done anything when the police didn’t actually catch them in the act of drunk driving?
2. Stopping at the end of an on-ramp and waiting for a break in the traffic to merge. – This is really the extreme case of number 3.  The dangerous part about this is that people behind expect the person to speed up, not stop, and as they are looking back to make their merge, it’s possible to rear-end the person that just came to a stop. 
3. Not using on-ramps to get up to the speed of traffic. – This makes it difficult to merge when you aren’t going with the flow of traffic.  When the cars on the highway are going 60mph, you need to be going faster than 35mph!
4. People not using turn signals. – I can’t read minds folks.
5. People not moving to a different lane when you are trying to merge onto the highway. – This is really a courtesy that people in Rochester have a hard time with.  I never had a problem with this growing up in Iowa. 
6. People going less than the posted speed limit in ideal driving conditions. – I must learn patience.
7. Tailgaters – I don’t like it when I am tailgated.  In Driver’s Ed. they taught us to actually go slower, but I think that just enrages the tailgater.  I think slamming on the brakes is a more effective method. 
8. People going too slow in the left lanes – These lanes aren’t for Sunday drives.  If someone on the road is going faster than you, move over and let them pass on the left. 
9. People littering cigarette butts out their car window into the street. – Just a big pet-peeve of mine.
10. Talking on cell phones. – This really only bothers me when there is a secondary annoyance with a particular driver.  I guess I figure that secondary thing wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been on the phone.  No worries, I don’t feel strongly enough about this one to go sporting a bumper sticker.

I also have a habit of talking to offenders of this list while in the car.  So what if they can’t hear me?  As I said earlier, I really have been trying to just let this stuff go, but it hasn’t been easy.  I know everyone has opinions on this topic, so I expect the comments to light up.  

Quick Thoughts 3/10

• Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  This house stuff has been extremely stressful for me.  We’re getting interest in our house, and actually had one offer already, but it didn’t pan out.  However, we did take the plunge and decided to finalize the deal for the house we’ll be buying.  This has been one heck of a roller coaster ride, and I’ll be very glad when it’s over.
• 50 degrees for the high today and tomorrow.  I hope those temps bring out the buyers!
• I heard some of Michael Buble’s (sorry, it doesn’t look like I can put the little accent ague over the last “e” in his name) music the other day when a friend let me take a listen, and I really liked it.  He’s another crooner for the young generation, and mostly sings a lot of jazzed up cover songs.  Very cool.
• Today’s lyrics: “Cold turkey’s getting stale, tonight I’m eating crow.”