The Morning Routine

My friend Wes Molebash (Legendary Cartoonish of Legend) has a web comic which is most excellent, and a blog on said web comic that I find very worthwhile of my RSS feed.

So yesterday Wes posted a blog entitled "The Morning Routine" (which you can go and read by clicking the linky-thing there) and not only was the blog post entertaining and thought provoking, but the responses (22 at present) were also great fun to read.

I started to respond, and whilst typing in that general direction realized two things… 
1. that my response was getting terribly out of hand, and 
2. that I haven't blogged in a really really long time.

Thus I decided to take my long-winded reply and turn it into a blog-post of my own, which I will refer to in the comments of Wes's blog for anyone who cares to read my rambling.

if you've read this far and not lost interest…

1. I commend you

2. Here is the good stuff

The Morning Routine

I used to be a morning person…  I don't recall exactly at what point in my life this changed, but I suspect that my discovery of alarm clocks with snooze buttons during while at college had something to do with it…

I (like many people, I think) use my cell phone (read iPhone) as an alarm clock.   I set three alarms, beginning at least 30 minutes before I need to get up, just so I can smack the snooze button a few times.   The times these alarms need to go off depends on whether school is in session, because I have to get up earlier and leave earlier if I have to drop Ellie off at school before getting to work.


The times pictured here are for summer, they are all 30 minutes earlier when school's happening.

I have different ring-tones set for each of these too… the first one is a very soothing, subtle, water trickling kind of noise, that if I'm sleeping really hard I don't even hear.   
The second one is a little less subtle, and the third is, well…  kind of like the alarm sound you think of if you're being warned of a bomb about to off in your general area.

This third alarm (the one that means business) prompts me to actually pick my phone up off of my night-stand, turn the ringer off, and reset all three alarms for the next day…  


So now with phone in hand, and alarms silenced, I can proceed to the checking of email and twitter before I ever toss the covers aside.

At this point I now have approximately 50 minutes before I need to be out the door… 


I grab my towel and head for the bathroom in the other end of the house where I go to the bathroom, and get in the shower.  


Now, unlike Wes, I don't subscribe to any particular shower routine…  I can typically wash my body, face, and hair in a about 10 minutes and that happens in whichever order I happen to grab the soap, shampoo, and face-wash out of the little cubby thing…  I typically take about 5 minutes also to just stand and let the water run on me because I just like those few minutes for waking up.

Following the shower I dry off, wrap the towel around me and head back to the bathroom attached to our bedroom (which has two sinks and is where we get ready, but no shower).I get out my clothes as a pass through the bedroom and put them on the bed, then finish drying off, brush teeth, apply  deodorant, etc and then back into the bedroom to get dressed.

at this point, mostly because it factored highly into Wes's blog (especially the comments) I feel like I need to have an interlude to discuss shaving…

I don't do it much. My beard (go ahead, laugh) doesn't grow very fast, and grows in mostly blonde…  I usually shave once a week on Saturday evening so that I don't look scruffy for church on Sunday, and I always shave my face when I shave my head (which is about every two weeks).   When I do shave I use a Gillette Mach 3 Power and shave cream in a tube from C.O. Bigelow for both my head and face.

Anyway… back to the morning thing… 

Once dressed I head out to the living room and my recliner which is the central location for the deposition of "stuff" when I come home in the evenings…


My wallet, pocket knife, rings, and fountain pen all get picked up from my coffee table and put back in/on the appropriate pockets and fingers.  My laptop, iPad, any cables, drives, etc I had out the night before go in my backpack, glasses go on my face and Silas usually brings me my shoes from by the door.  (Which sometimes lead to funny comments).

Shoes on feet, backpack over shoulder, I grab the keys from the hutch by the door and head out.

My morning commute is 35-40 minutes on non-school days.   I always stop at Tim Horton's in Waverly for an XL coffee with 2 cream, and an everything bagel double-toasted with butter.

I always listen to WOUB (our local NPR station) while I drive to work.

This puts me at my desk around 8:15-8:30 in the mornings where I unpack, finish my coffee, and begin tackling the day at hand…

So, what is your morning like?  Leave comments here, or on Wes's blog, or if you blog about it yourself let us know!

Called out...

This morning as I was getting ready to pull out of the driveway for work I twittered (tweeted?) as I often do...



This afternoon Corrine (a fellow twitterer, blogger, and Third Day fan) fired this at me...



Love it!

Here was the rest of our exchange...




I wonder if something gave me away... (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Thanks for calling me out Corrine! Made my day!

(ht to Corrine and Twitter)

Dear Tim... A rant about customer service

It is no secret that I'm basically a whore when it comes to a good cup of coffee.

It is also no secret that I put Tim Hortons at the top of my list when it comes to getting a good cup of good coffee.

If you don't know me well, or are doubting the accuracy of those first two statements, please see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

So, Tim... Why is it that when I walk into your restaurant (and can watch the nice lady behind the counter) and order a bagel double-toasted that you put it through the toaster 2 times, just like I ordered.

BUT, when I go through the drive thru and order a bagel double-toasted that you invariable hand to me out the window a bagel which is not only not double-toasted, but that obviously hasn't been in the toaster long enough to get warm?

Why?

Does it have to do with getting my order out to me quickly? If so, I'm not in a hurry. I am aware when I order said double-toasted bagel that it take twice as long to run it through the toaster twice. I'm happy to wait.

Does it have to do with keeping me from slowing up the line and making other customers wait? I typically go through the drive-through well after the "morning rush", and doubt this is the case... but if that is the reason, please just tell me that if I want my bagel torched I need to come inside.

Or does it have to do with the fact that I'm going through the drive thru and you know that it doesn't really matter what you hand me out the window because I'm not going to go to the trouble to turn around and complain about a bagel which only cost me a buck twenty-five.

I have a deep seated irritation that this might be the case.

Now... before you go accusing me of having "one bad experience" or "just hitting you on a morning that you were off", let me just go ahead and say that this happens to me almost every time I go through the drive-thru and order a bagel at ALL of the Tim Hortons in a 20 mile radius of my house.

IF I

• Walk in. AND
  
• Order a double-toasted bagel.

THEN I

• Receive a bagel which is crunchy and slightly charred
  (just how I like it)

BUT, IF I

• Go through drive-thru. AND
  
• Order a double-toasted bagel.

THEN I

• Receive a bagel which is chewy, and possibly warm.
  (still very edible... just not what I ordered).

Am I going to stop going to Tim Hortons? No, obviously not... Despite the bagel fiasco, they still make the best cup-of-coffee on the block.

Am I going to stop ordering bagels through the drive through? No, probably not. There is nothing wrong with a slightly warm, chewy bagel... It just isn't as good as a slightly charred, crunchy bagel.

Am I actually going to complain to Tim Hortons? Call the manager? Send a nasty email? No, probably not. My frustrations are pretty much worked out now that I've vented.

The coffee was great this morning. The slightly warm, yet chewy bagel will hold me off until lunch.

Rant over.

Back to shaving the yak.

The Adventures of Friday the 13.

First of all some back story... Who would have dreamed that it would be so difficult to get American currency changed into Canadian currency in Southern Ohio??

In preparation for the RVCC Summer mission trip, the Youthworks staff has suggested that we get as much of our money changed to Canadian before we head into the great North. Local banks gave us very mixed responses about changing currency, which mostly went along the lines of "It is too much hassle, so we'd rather not".

After a failed run to the Columbus International Airport on Thursday... ( "I'm sorry, we just ran out of Canadian Currency"... doh! ) I called the 5/3 Bank currency exchange center at the Cincinnati Airport on Friday morning and was told that changing US currency to CN would be "no problem" even in large amounts.

I was at work on Friday morning, because things at work always tend to be a bit crazy when I'm going to be out of touch for any extended period of time. By the time I touched base with Cincinnati and decided they would be our best bet for currency exchange, it was already 11 AM.

Jenn was pretty tied up in Chillicothe for the afternoon, so I decided to make the trek to Cinci solo, despite it being a crazy boring drive and at the minimum a four hour round trip.

Twitter to the rescue!



I wrapped up at work, managed to split by 12:45 and met up with Luke at RVCC.

That's when the real adventure began...

The drive across The App was relatively uneventful as far as drives go. Luke and I haven't had a lot of opportunity to hang out prior to yesterday, so the round trip to Cinci gave us an opportunity for epic conversation.

Down 32, around 275, enter Kentucky, nearing the air port.... no problems! Then BOOM! Crazy pouring rain started pounding on us, causing some quick brake application and the engaging of the windshield wipers. Well, that worked OK, until the passenger windshield wiper pealed off of the arm and started flopping around in a very dramatic way.

Thankfully the downpour was quick, and we made it into the airport parking garage safely.

Quick park, quick walk, right up to the counter at the 5/3 Bank.

"Hi, we would like to change some currency to Canadian."

"No problem, are you the guy who has been calling all day?"

Reassuring smile to persuade that I'm not a crazy person... "Yep that would be me".

Ten minutes later Luke and I were standing back at the van packing a large envelope of Canadian currency... It struck me as amazing that several days of stress had culminated in a less than 10 minute extremely painless experience, that was obviously no big deal at all for the girl behind the counter.

The exchange rate was $1.05 US to $1.00 Canadian. We started with almost $1200.00 American ( almost entirely collected from Youth going on the trip, who wanted their spending money changed ahead of time) and ended up with $1140.00 in pastel pink and blue bills.

Anyway, where was I...

Oh yeah, we managed to re-affix the errant windshield wiper and pull back onto the highway.

We had pre-decided that it would make no sense at all to visit Cinci without having Skyline Chilli. ( An obvious conclusion, I think anyone could agree ). Now that our main objective for the trip had concluded, our secondary objective [Destination SkyLine] was in high order.

No problem.
Punch up the NUVI.
Nearest Skyline, 3.2 miles.
Go there!

The NUVI, I've noticed since we've had it, really doesn't care how crazy or indirect the route is to get your from point A to point B. It has never really failed in getting me where I was headed though, so I tend to just trust it and move on.

An immediate turn off of the highway, and a crazy, curvy, steep, road through the woods brought us to a stop sign.

The NUVI says "Turn right".
No problem.

The NUVI says "Turn left".
No problem.

The NUVI says "Proceed 300 feet and board ferry".

WHAT??



Who knew that you could cross the Ohio River on a ferry? Luke and I certainly didn't know it was an option until yesterday.

Here are some other iPhone shots of our experience...





Although extremely cool, the ferry crossing was pretty uneventful. The lady in the car next to us was obviously a regular ferry rider and looked quite bored as she relaxed during the crossing. We surmised that she was probably on her way home from work.

Quick gas station stop. Skyline was right where the NUVI predicted it would be.

Half-a-dozen conies, a large three-way, an order of fries, and a few sweat teas later we were both quite content and ready to head back home.

The entire ride was filled with great conversation, and trying to get from the out of the way Skyline back onto the NUVI's recommended route home proved a little distracting to me. I missed several of our turns heading out of Cincinnati, but we eventually found our way back to route 32.

Traffic leaving Cinci was crazy around 5:30 on Friday afternoon, but great conversation prevailed as we made it back into familiar territory.

We tried stopping at the Starbucks in Batavia, but lack of electricity stopped them from being able to serve anything. A few miles later we tried a McDonalds to get a couple of coffees, but brewing a small, black, decaf proved too much for them and after having us "pull up to the curb", so they could bring it out, Luke finally had to go inside to track his coffee down.

We pulled back into RVCC a little after 8PM.

It was a great day, a grand adventure, phenomenal conversation, and a fantastic way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Luke, thanks dude for keeping me company, for the conversation, and going along for the ride.

A Good Morning

This has been a really tough week at work.

Things like a hot cup-o-Tims keep me going though.

Thanks Jenn!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Making the afternoon bearable.

2:55 PM.   

unanswered email.  desk is a disaster.  projects to work on.  retreat to plan.  trip to pack for.  iphone that needs hacked.  blogs to read.   blogs to write.  phone ringing.  stressed because I write at a junior high reading level...

*deep breath...

*sigh of contentment.

the coffee is good though.