I'm a country boy

Through my adventures in the 757, I have noticed a few things that don't make sense to me. Things that have shown me that I am a country boy at heart. To be fair, most of these items are characteristic of cities in general, not just Hampton Roads. Here we go:

1) The country music stations (yes, I like country music) here have traffic reports. That may sound normal to you. Let's think about that. Part of every hour of country music is filled with a traffic report. That baffles my mind.

2) This one is kind of like the first. I am lucky enough to go the opposite way of traffic for my commute, but occasionally I have to go somewhere and in doing so must sit in traffic. Sitting in traffic is the one thing I have observed that drives me insane. I am a pretty easy going guy, but traffic makes me bonkers.

3) Road quality is poor. There are ridiculously large bumps and potholes everywhere despite the lack of a freeze/thaw effect here. I have always wanted to watch the guys who pave the roads when they finish a job and see if they say, "I'm really proud of the work I did today. My project looks good." I'm not sure they can honestly say that.

4) Pollution. It smells bad. I'm pretty sure my alveoli don't like it either. I greatly miss good ol' mountain air. If you don't know what alveoli are, consult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveoli.

5) My garden is weak. I have 6 tomato plants, some basil and a pepper plant. I would grow a whole acre garden if I could.

6) There are so many people here I can't possibly meet them all. Everywhere I go there seems to be an inundative amount of people.

Now that that is off my chest, I went to a place I like to call "Satan's buttcrack" this past weekend. That's right. Washington DC. I went to hang out with a bunch of men from college. We went to 2 Nationals games, watched Forrest Gump, ate and caught up with each other. We even rode the metro together at 1 am. Side note about the metro: sometimes there are guys with machine guns guarding it. (Don't ask them questions. They look scary.) At any rate, a bunch of early 20s men riding a subway late at night means one thing: mischief. Mischief includes wrestling, knocking each other off of the hold-on-so-you-don't-fall bars, and swinging competitions. This was all to the delight of the other passengers. I'm glad I found something I like about DC.

Walking into work this morning, I noticed that Uncle Sugar gave me a few extra bones in my check. Instead of ignoring this and being content, my inquisitive mind had to ask questions. Apparently if the shipyard meets certain goals (I have no idea what these goals are) everybody gets a reward. So since I did nothing to deserve this, I will just say thank you and consider myself blessed.

I had an idea a few weeks ago. As I observe many of my college friends getting engaged, I consider the idea of engagement, particularly with regard to engagement rings. I do this in no way because of me getting engaged, but because I don't understand the basis for the practice and, again, my inquisitive mind must understand. Where did my research start? Wikipedia, of course. One ridiculous convention is that 2 months wages should be set aside for a ring's purchase. Who came up with that idea? Answer: De Beers, the ring people. They decided how much you should spend on their stuff. Lame. Other than this fact, Wiki doesn't provide many details about the history of rings other than it is "tradition."

Now a ring doesn't actually do anything. You wear it and I guess it looks pretty. Whatever. I propose that men instead propose through the purchase of a vehicle. Although more expensive, a vehicle actually has a purpose and looks alot sweeter. Nothing says "I'm taken" than a minivan/sportscar/suv. I could list a bunch of cool cars here but I would leave that choice up to the woman. Maybe she doesn't want a corvette or a GT-R or Ferrari. Food for thought.

I would laugh about the guy in the adjacent cube who uses his speakerphone non-stop, but he is not here today. I will have to find a way to entertain myself. I guess I'll read. By the way...18 days left until the start of VT football. I'm real excited.