Are You with Me?

I've posted two new entries since moving over to my new site. Come and see! SuburbanRantings.com

I'm Moving...

No, not from the suburbs...just from Blogger. Suburban Rantings is now its own site, suburbanrantings.com...so follow me! (But please be patient with the site...I have a lot to learn.)

Cabinet-Painting Hell

I am seriously in I'm Sorry I Ever Started This mode.

Have you ever been so sorry you started a DIY project that you wanted to kill yourself with your putty knife? Email your story to me (with pictures if you have them). If it makes me laugh, I'll post it here so we can all enjoy your misery.

The Power of Facebook

OK, so a few days ago I wrote about my introduction to Facebook and said it was silly. It is a little silly, but...in less than a week I have reconnected with almost every best friend I've ever had.

I am particularly giddy about finding a friend I haven't spoken to in nearly 30 years: Regina Lemke. In the early 70's, Regina and I lived across the street from each other on Center Avenue in Libertyville, IL. I don't remember actually meeting her–because I was probably in kindergarten–but some of my earliest childhood memories are the years that followed when we were practically inseparable. And this week all those sweet memories have come flooding back.

Regina was a year older so, of course, was much more grown up than me. Her mom worked outside the home (a foreign concept to me), had perfectly coiffed red hair and always wore lipstick and nail polish. She was my definition of glamour.

Regina was an only child who lost her father at an early age, so it was just her and her mom. Their home was quiet, clean and well-decorated; she had her own room (something I could only dream about) filled with matching white furniture that I coveted.

This was very different from my home, which was in a perpetual state of chaos because it was always filled with small children: three younger siblings and innumerable neighborhood children that my mother cared for during the day. Being at Regina's was like being in another world.

Our family left Center Avenue in the summer of 1975 when my father took a job in New Orleans. Regina and I saw each other exactly twice over the next few years; by the time we both started high school we had lost each other.

For me, reconnecting with Regina is more than just finding an old friend. I have found my first true girlfriend, my original bff. All because of a silly website.

What's In Your Junk Drawer?

My favorite part about redecorating and renovating is that everything gets cleaned up and cleaned out. While cleaning out the kitchen drawers, I inevitably came to the drawer every kitchen has: the junk drawer. I actually have three junk drawers (scary) but two of them are used nearly every day and so are cleaned out on a regular basis. But the third? Rarely used, it contained some very interesting items, which can be organized into three categories:

Stuff I don't use but can't seem to throw away:

• 10 refrigerator magnets
• 3 old cell phones
• 1 electric hair trimmer
• 1 film camera
• 6 undeveloped rolls of film (does anyone even develop film anymore?)
• 3 unused rolls of film

Stuff I thought was lost forever and has already been replaced:

• 1 staple gun
• 1 stud finder
• 3 wine bottle openers
• 1 jeweler's screwdriver kit
• 1 paint can opener
• 1 stapler
• 1 vacuum cleaner belt

Stuff that's garbage--why was it put in there in the first place?

• 1 2005 calendar
• 1 2006 calendar
• 3 school permission forms, circa 2006
• 12 holiday cards, 2005-2008
• 4 owner's manuals to things we no longer own

The chances that all this stuff, which is currently placed in neat little piles on the living room floor, will end up back in the same drawer are approximately 98.3 percent.

Fun with Facebook

In an effort to take another step into the 21st century, I created a Facebook page. Perhaps "created" is too strong a word, as I have no idea what I'm doing there. It's more accurate to say I signed up with Facebook, just to see what all the fuss is about.

On first glance, it seems to be a silly, guilty pleasure--a way to give into our narcissistic tendencies. We can write whatever we want and "talk" about ourselves endlessly without interruption. And the best part is we don't have to listen to anyone else talk about themselves unless we want to.

The part that freaks me out a little bit (beyond the fact that I don't know what I'm doing) is the popularity aspect. It's all about how many friends you have. I had an intense high school flashback as, upon signing up, there appeared the blaring sentence, "You have no friends." So the race was on to get someone--anyone--to be my friend. Of course, that's what the site is all about--ways to find friends. So now, about 24 hours after setting up my page, I have 9 friends--although five of them are related to me. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, has 381 friends. How is that even possible? I'm sure I haven't spoken to 381 people in my entire life.

So, if you're on Facebook and haven't done so already, will you please be my friend? My self-esteem depends on it.

A Sad Stat

Our little local paper recently reported that six percent of the people in Lee's Summit, MO, recycle. Six percent. That means that 94% of the people in this town find it prohibitively difficult to throw their pop cans and water bottles into a recycling bin instead of the trash can.

Now, I'll admit that I'm not a great environmentalist. My house is too big, and from the looks of my utility bills, not terribly efficient. I get plastic bags at the grocery store (although I do reuse them as trash bags) and when we need or want something, we tend to buy new instead of used. But I find this statistic a bit horrifying. I mean, it's not like we have to actually turn our garbage into new products. We just have to place them in a different container. Is it really that hard?

This pathetic number is particularly disturbing to me because our town has curbside recycling. It costs an extra five bucks a month--a Starbucks. Big deal. I place a bin full of my aluminum, plastic, newspapers and cardboard--I don't even have to separate it--out with the regular trash. Once a month or so I haul my glass and magazines to the local Resource Recovery Center, about five miles away. Not difficult. (And as a side note, I have to say that beer drinkers are excellent recyclers. The brown glass container is always full.)

The most challenging part for me has been training the people I live with to follow my lead. But I know that if I nag, rag and bitch long enough, they'll do what I want just to shut me up. Actually, I've found this to be an excellent strategy for getting just about anything done in my household.

Keeping Up With The Neighbors

In the suburbs, we care very much about the appearance of our homes. We obsess over it. The street on which I live is no exception.

I live in a cul-de-sac with seven homes...all of them (including mine) are in a perpetual state of updating. All the homes are about 15-20 years old, so maybe it's just time for the first wave, but it's really quite amazing to watch.

And I do watch. Since I work at home, I am the Mrs. Kravitz of the 21st Century, peeking out my front window several times a day to keep track of what's going on with the neighbors. It's obvious that we are all doing our part to keep the economy--or at least in the construction and home improvement industries--alive and well. Here are just a few things that have happened in just a last year or so:

All seven of our homes have gotten either new or extensively repaired roofs. Four have been painted. One had a complete landscaping overhaul, complete with full-grown plants and a koi pond. Another ripped out and replaced what I know was pristine carpeting. And the appliance and furniture delivery trucks are in and out of here with staggering regularity. You can bet that when that happens, I am looking for a reason to visit and see what they got.

This is the house three doors down from mine. In the past year they've replaced all the windows, installed an underground sprinkler system, replaced the cedar shingle roof with a tile one, and just a few weeks ago they replaced the driveway with this fancy colored one. (I hope they are planning to repaint their plum-colored front door because it now clashes with the roof.)

And this house, which sits behind mine but is obviously in a different neighborhood, is truly the home that we're all watching. The proverbial Joneses that we're all trying to keep up with. The owners purchased the home three years ago for just under $1 million. For the first year after they bought it, they lived somewhere else while the interior was completely gutted and renovated. They moved in and started on the exterior, including a new two-story, two-car garage--apparently the existing four-car garage was not quite enough. (The garage doors have been brown for quite a while. I hope they aren't leaving them like that.) Now, three years later, there is still a steady stream of construction vehicles and heavy equipment driving through the circular driveway. I can't see the backyard, but I suspect they are putting in a pool.

It's fun to live in the suburbs! I'd love to go on, but I have kitchen cabinets to paint.

Back to the Kitchen...

The kitchen remodel is in full swing. The granite countertop, sink and faucet is in, the backsplash is up, and this weekend we started the long, tedious process of painting the cabinetry:


At first I was nervous about choosing backsplash tile; the sheer volume of tile, in every shape, size and material imaginable, was enough to make me think it would take years to pick something. But once we set our budget, the options quickly narrowed from a million choices to about three. So that was easy.

We decided to save $1,000 in labor and tile the backsplash ourselves. I think we did a pretty good job!

And now, even though the dining and living room is filled with the contents of the kitchen, and the garage has become an assembly line to sand, prime and paint--count 'em--29 doors and 13 drawers (not to mention all the hardware that needs to be cleaned and spray-painted), I'm looking ahead to all the other parts of the house that need to be UPDATED. Why? Why am I devoting so much time, energy and money to this cause? Apparently, I'm just trying to keep up with my neighbors. More on that tomorrow...

America the Casual, Part 2

I'm not done ranting about people wearing pajama pants in public (see below), but before I continue, here's some related food for thought: Do your clothes influence your behavior?

This is the question that has been raised around here as an upscale entertainment and restaurant district called the Kansas City Power & Light District, imposes what has become a controversial dress code. From their website:

"The dress code prohibits the following: profanity on clothing; sleeveless shirts on men; excessively torn clothing; undershirts; excessively baggy or sagging clothing; work boots; sweat suits or athletic attire (jerseys are permitted in conjunction with Chiefs or Royals games or sporting events in the Sprint Center). Management reserves the right to refuse admission to or eject any person whose conduct is deemed to be disorderly or who fails to comply with the terms of entry. Please note that the dress codes of individual venues may vary."

Now, some people have gotten themselves all worked up about this with comments that range from how stupid it is to believe that you can spot (and then exclude) a troublemaker by his/her clothing to more serious allegations of discrimination and racial profiling.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, the district is privately owned. So really, the owners are within their rights to have a dress code--just like private schools and business offices. And as a suburbanite who rarely leaves the house, going into the city for a night out is a big enough deal to warrant getting all dolled up--so the dress code is not a problem for me.

On the other hand, does it really matter? In a country where people wear pajama pants to the grocery store and jeans and shorts to weddings, can dictating appearance do anything to keep patrons safe?

Our friends on Wall Street have already shown us that you can commit plenty of crimes in a suit and tie. So, one has to wonder if this dress code is just to exclude those that may be perceived as criminals. Hmm...

And back to pajama pants...

My sister-in-law sent me this picture of a woman in pajama pants attending a Sugarland concert--in Germany. Apparently, this is a worldwide epidemic.

The Domino Effect

The Domino Effect is defined as "a chain reaction that occurs when a small change causes a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence." This phenomenon certainly takes place when it comes to home improvement. And it is out of control in my kitchen.

It started when we replaced the old appliances that began to die, one by one, shortly after we moved in. Once we had all shiny, new, stainless steel appliances, the rest of the kitchen looked shabby.

So we replaced the countertops; with those came a new sink and faucet. Then the cheap, contractor-grade backsplash tiles had to go; while we were tiling we went ahead and updated all the electrical outlets. Now the dated oak cabinetry isn't working. Ditto the bad lighting and popcorn ceiling. Then there's the tacky window coverings and ancient kitchen furniture...where does it end?

Home improvement is a $300-billion-a-year industry. I smell a conspiracy.

America the Casual

In terms of the way we dress, I think it's great that America is a casual society. I love my Levis and t-shirts and am as thrilled as any woman that pantyhose have all but vanished.

But during a quick trip to the library the other night, I was reminded once again of a disturbing trend that may be pushing the casual thing just a bit too far--people wearing their flannel pajama pants out in public.

Now, I love my flannel pajama pants. They are warm and comfy during these long midwestern winters, and since I work at home, there are many times that I wear them all day. But I don't leave the house in them.

Listen--I'm not suggesting that people spend an hour getting dolled up to run to the library or the grocery store or the gas station. I'm talking about five minutes to throw on a pair of jeans. They can even be those dirty ones that are in a pile on the floor. Please. Because seriously, unless I'm sleeping with you, I DON"T WANT TO SEE YOU IN YOUR PAJAMAS.

eBay Virgin

Yes, it's an embarrassing confession: I am an eBay Virgin. I have never bought or sold anything on eBay.

My kids buy stuff on there all the time. But it all seems so time consuming--searching through pages and pages of, um, stuff to find what you want. Placing a bid. Placing another bid. Waiting to see if you win. Waiting to see if you receive what you think you won. And what the hell is PayPal?

I guess I'm just a simple girl. When I need to buy something, I like to get in, get what I need, and get out.

However, we recently had occasion to give eBay a try. When we picked out and ordered our granite (yes, I got the granite) we also had to choose a sink because, as everyone knows, it's way cool to have an undermount sink. And with a new sink, of course, we had to have a new faucet. I'll be ranting about the "domino effect" of home renovation very soon.

Anyway, we got the sink from the same place we bought the granite because their prices were comparable to those at the local home improvement stores. Their faucets, however--not so much. The one I liked was $1,800.

Obviously, this was out of the question. Someone (not me) thought we should try eBay. We typed in "kitchen faucets" and got over 5,700 results. Are you kidding me?

So Chris sorted through them and found one to bid on. We used Josh's account. After messing around with the bidding all evening, we lost. It was stupid. eBay is stupid.

So we went to Lowes, got what we needed--I mean, what we wanted--and got out. Simple.

Crisis Management

Although I worry about it every day, my family has not yet been personally impacted by the economic crisis. We both still have our jobs (for which we are grateful every single day), having made it through several rounds of layoffs. Our 401(k)s look pretty ugly, but since we won't need those for 20 years we've just stopped opening the statements.

But being financially stable is still a big concern. We have become more thoughtful about our day-to-day spending: we don't go out to eat nearly as often as we used to, I'm clipping coupons, and we are trying to pay more attention to the difference between what we need and what we want. Yes, we are making some major home improvements, but we believe (or hope) that we are investing in the value of our home.

So this weekend we ran over to the shopping area of our town. We have a fairly large mall, surrounded by all the big-box department stores. We hadn't been over there since before Christmas, but Chris needed a pair of dress shoes.

As we exited of the highway, the exit ramp was backed up with traffic. We inched down the ramp, thinking there was an accident; but no, there was just a lot of traffic in and around the mall. Everyone was shopping!

Believing the news that consumer spending was down, I thought maybe people were just window shopping, wanting to get out of the house on a sunny Saturday--because shopping has become a form of entertainment, right? But in the store a voice came over the loudspeaker, asking for all available associates to open a cash register because the lines were very long. People were buying stuff.

What does this all mean? Has the crisis not hit our area yet? Were these people, like us, just out to buy something they really needed? Are we all in complete denial about what's happening? Or do we all feel so helpless and out of control that we don't know what else to do except to engage in some "retail therapy"?

I think we (and when I say "we" I mean anyone under the age of 50) just don't know how to stop shopping. The line between need and want has virtually disappeared. We've never been asked (or forced) to sacrifice, to tighten the belt, to save money. I think we simply don't know what to do.

I'd love to know what you think...

Decisions, Decisions

I am a terrible decision-maker. I'm always overwhelmed by the number of choices I have, then obsess over the choices I make.

In my last house, I wanted to paint the family room a soft, buttery yellow. It took seven quarts of paint (and big swatches of each on the wall that I stared at for weeks) to make the decision. When I finally chose one, I gave a girlfriend all the quarts I didn't use. She mixed them all together and painted her kitchen. It looked great.

Chris and I have found a way to help slow this kind of craziness. I pick three colors or three sofas or three lamps that I can live with, and he makes the final choice. This works out quite well.

In our kitchen, we have replaced all the major appliances as they've died off and painted the walls beige (after I had already painted it two shades of green that I didn't like). Now we will choose countertops.

The OUTDATED laminate countertops must go.

Of course, I want granite. From what I read, granite is the standard now, even in the most modest homes. It's what buyers expect. But it's expensive. So we look at some alternatives:

"High-Definition" Laminate--for about a 1/10 of the cost of granite, we can install HD laminate that looks like granite. We go to Lowes to see it. It looks like fake granite. No, thank you.

Granite Tiles--also a fraction of the cost of granite slabs, but to keep the cost down, we'd have to install it ourselves. We've tiled before, so I get online to see what's involved. Too many steps. It could take years. Next.

Trend Stone--an engineered surface that mixes ground granite and quartz with a polymer, so it looks like a mix between granite and solid-surface. Nice, but almost as expensive as granite. If we're going to spend this much, why not just get granite? (This is called rationalization; something I am brilliant at.)

So, after much deliberation, it is granite. We choose granite.
I MUST HAVE GRANITE.

The Sin of Being Outdated

Here is my kitchen:


It's perfectly fine: it's large, well organized, clean, and everything functions the way it should. But as I'm sure you'll notice immediately, it is OUTDATED. If you pay any attention to home decorating magazines or TV shows, you know that the worst sin you can commit is to live in an OUTDATED space.

It doesn't matter if your house works well for you or if you have three little kids and work full time or if you barely have time to make your bed much less make it with stylish bedding and the proper number of accent pillows. You must update!

My home, which I feel very fortunate to live in, was built in the early nineties and is full of finishes and fixtures from the late eighties-- lots of brass, fake marble, popcorn ceilings, stuff like that. When people visit, they always say nice things about it, but often follow up their compliments with a little additional comment:

"It will be fun to fix up!"
"What room are you going to redo first?"
"It's a bit OUTDATED, isn't it?"

Well, yes. It is. It's a bit OUTDATED.

OK, I get it. We hope to downsize in the next 3-5 years, and from what I understand, no one would ever want to buy such an OUTDATED house.

Where do we start? By robbing a bank, I suspect.

The Worst Drivers on the Planet

Before I dive into the kitchen remodel, I thought I'd take just a moment to rant about something I'm reminded of every time I leave the house--the suburbs are teeming with soccer moms in SUVs, or who I like to call The Worst Drivers on the Planet.

You've seen them: They're usually blond with expert highlights, they wear expensive sunglasses, and they have a cell phone that's perpetually attached to their ear. For some reason, they've never gotten around to buying a Bluetooth, so they're always driving with one hand. They weave in and out of traffic, cut me off (because they realize they're in the wrong lane at the last minute), or my favorite, tailgate me because I am not observing their inalienable right to be in a hurry.

If I ever kill anyone, it will be a blond in an SUV who is tailgating me. I suspect I will beat her to death with her cell phone. And steal her sunglasses.

Size Matters

When you live in the suburbs, your self-esteem is intimately tied to your home. More specifically, it is tied to the size of your home. And bigger is better, right, Ladies?

So when we were transferred from (a suburb of) Denver to (a suburb of) Kansas City four years ago, we got pretty darn excited when we saw how much house we could get for our money. The homes we were looking at to buy were twice the size of the basic little tract home we were selling. Yippee!

And since we weren't terribly happy about leaving Denver (but you have to follow the job, right?) it was easy for us to justify buying the biggest house we could afford: we're moving away from our family; we work hard and deserve it; if we have to live here we'll live however we want.

But did we stop to think that there were only four of us? Or that our kids were older, had friends and girlfriends in Denver, and would want to escape Missouri (which my oldest son pronounced "Misery") at the earliest opportunity? Not for a second.

We also didn't think about how much maintenance a large house requires. Or how much it costs to heat and cool. Or the time and energy it takes to care for a pool (yeah, we got one of those, too, thinking it might help convince faraway family and friends that Kansas City is a great vacation destination).

So we went for it and bought a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood. It has four bedrooms and five baths (which sounds cool until you spend a Saturday morning cleaning five toilets). It includes a formal living room, a formal dining room, and a designated guest room--three spaces for which we didn't have any furniture.

And so began what has become a real love/hate relationship with my big suburban home...

A Tragic Ending

I am a hopeless home decorating junkie. This is not to say that I'm any good at it, but I love to read home design magazines, burning through around 20 of them every month. And even though I know that these magazines make you feel about your house the way fashion magazines make you feel about your body, I read them cover to cover, tear out and save pages I believe I will someday replicate, and dream about what it would be like to live in a magazine-worthy home.

(I also watch many more hours of HGTV than would be considered normal, but we'll work through that issue later.)

So I was grief-stricken when I recently learned that one of my very favorites, Domino, is ending its publication after just four short years.

I will really miss this fun and funky magazine, but I also feel the staff's pain: a few years ago I was the editor of a short-lived (we published a total of four issues) trade magazine for interior designers and architects. During the production of what would be our final issue, the magazine was sold to a new publisher. Shocked by the cost to produce it (it was expensive) and uncertain about its ability to make a profit, the new CEO quickly put it down. And although I am grateful to the company for my current position (maintaining the websites of eight regional home design magazines), I will forever mourn the sudden and brutal death of my magazine and my dream job.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I have been entrenched in the home design industry for almost 10 years and am sure I'll be sharing some stories about its excitement and glamour, as well as a lot of silliness that comes from a decade of interviewing interior designers who sometimes take themselves way too seriously.

Chris and I are also about to dive head-first into a quasi-major kitchen renovation, which is bound to bring up many of my profound and insightful thoughts about the Importance of Good Design. The whole extravaganza should be good for a few laughs as well. Buckle your seatbelt...it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

"Dinner Moments"

So, I was cooking dinner last night, and by cooking I mean I was heating up a Stouffer's frozen lasagna, and on the back of the box was part of their latest media campaign, called Dinner Moments. The message: Families should eat dinner together and parents should talk to their kids. And on the box are "conversation starters," questions you should ask your kids, while you're all sitting around the dinner table, to get them talking.


Well, yes...of course. As parents, we already know this, right? It's a lovely sentiment, in a very Ozzie and Harriet way (although Harriet would NEVER make a Stouffer's dinner).

So why does it bug me that a corporation feels the need to dole out parenting advice? Perhaps because the questions are so dorky:

• If you could star in a movie with a famous actor, who would it be?
• What singer or actor would you want as a babysitter?
• If you could be a foreign exchange student anywhere in the world, where would it be?
• What is your favorite Saturday morning TV show?

These are obviously for younger children. Now I don't know how things are in your house, but when my kids were young I couldn't shut them up...all I had to do look at them and smile and they'd babble on for hours. It wasn't until they were about 14 or 15 that my interest in their lives was met with a series of grunts.

I got online to see what kind of questions they came up with for older kids (yes, they have a website dedicated to getting families talking, which apparently will sell more frozen dinners: dinnermoments.com) but they were all for little kids, too. So I thought I'd suggest some questions to get teenagers talking:

• What's it like to play video games for 12 hours straight?
• When are you going to get a job?
• When are you going to stop asking me for money?
• When are you moving out?

Now these, my friends, are Conversation Starters.

"I hope he fails"

Rush Limbaugh's infamous statement a few weeks ago caused a lot of press (which, of course, was the idea--Limbaugh is nothing if not a master media whore). A shocking statement to be sure, even for someone who makes a living trying to be shocking.

I totally understand that he and his listeners are staunch conservative republicans, and that the focus of his show is to trash democrats. But does he really hope our new President fails?

Let me tell you--you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who dislikes George W. Bush more than me. But I never, ever--either publicly or privately--hoped he failed. In fact, I hoped beyond hope that he would succeed. Because when the President fails, we all fail. As it turns out, the former President did fail...and here we are.

The fact is, it's a luxury to hope someone fails. You have to be in the enviable position of knowing that if someone fails, you a) will be affected in a positive way, and/or b) will not be affected at all. For example, I have the luxury of hoping Limbaugh fails. I a) won't have to hear reports of the crap he spews, and b) since I don't listen to his show, his demise would have absolutely no effect on my life.

Both of these points are true for Mr. Limbaugh in his hope. If President Obama fails, the effect would be positive for Limbaugh in that he can rant about how he was right and perhaps expand his listening base. Obama's failure could, God forbid, make Limbaugh more popular than I can bear to think about. Financially, Limbaugh won't be affected at all. He just signed an 8-year, $400 million contract with Clear Channel. Bravo, Rush!

I suspect that most of us don't have the luxury of hoping our President fails. If he fails, those of us teetering on the brink of job loss, foreclosure or bankruptcy (or in many cases, all three), or who are watching our 401(k)s disappear, will fail right along with him.

For someone who considers himself a great patriot, I find Limbaugh's comment terribly unpatriotic. I'd love to hear what you think. Do you feel the same way, or do you agree with Al Franken (and me) that he is just a "Big Fat Idiot"?

"Cybersquatter"

So I spent about 12 seconds researching the concept of inactive but unavailable domain names (I have a really short attention span) and learned a new word: Cybersquatter. This word is funny to me. And it seems like it defines someone who snagged a name that they think (or hope) someone else will want to buy for a pile of money. I don't think it describes someone who just started a website then lost interest...does it?

Use It or Lose It

When you set up a blog or a website, the first thing you do is decide what to name it. Since I wanted this to be called Suburban Rantings, I of course wanted the url to be suburbanrantings. blogspot.com. It wasn't available. I checked out the blog to make sure I wasn't unknowingly being a copycat, and discovered that the blog, called--I'm not kidding--Eschewing Obfuscation, has exactly one, one-sentence post dated Tuesday, August 26, 2003.

Then I tried sububurbanrants.blogspot.com. Unavailable. Checking it out, I was happy to see that it is actually called "Suburban Rants" but in a post dated January 1, 2008, the author announces that he's done blogging. Yet, the blog remains.

So, I wonder...how many hundreds of thousands of "dead" urls must there be out in cyberspace? Perfectly fine urls that could be put to good use but are UNAVAILABLE because someone once, for a second, thought they had a great idea for a website?

It seems like there should be a limit to how long you can hold on to a url (especially a free one) without doing anything with it. But then, what is that limit? A year? Two? With the lightning speed at which the internet changes, maybe it should be just a few months. I really have no idea--perhaps a little research is required.

Last year a girlfriend and I got a wild hair to hop on the environmental bandwagon and start some sort of "easy green" site. So the hunt for the perfect url began. We head to godaddy.com and start typing in names to see what's available. EasyGreen - taken. SimpleGreen - taken. SimplyGreen - nope. This went on and on and on; some sites were active, most were not. After a really, really long time, we found that OneGreenChange.com was available. Snag it!

Needless to say, we never developed the site. And the irony of this little tale? My friend continues to hold on to the url...although last time I looked it appeared to have been taken over by a Turkish Hacker. Really.

Why Rant?

So, one might ask, why rant about the suburbs? More to the point, why would someone live in a place they don't like? Well, like many of life's decisions, you never really know what you're getting into until you're there. After all, everyone (well, everyone we know) who has a decent job and children wants to live outside the city, in a too-big house surrounded by "good schools" and chain stores. So perhaps it was peer pressure that brought us here.

And, it's not all terrible...we've just decided that we'd be happier in the city. Our kids are leaving and we have this big house that eats up all our time, energy and money. Unfortunately, we came to this conclusion at the precise moment that the housing market fell apart. So, we'll have to stick it out for a few more years. In the meantime, I think it will be fun to make some observations about, well, just about anything that comes to mind. I'm sure that all my thoughts will be frighteningly witty.

ego + time=blog

This, as I understand it, is the equation for a proper blog...I have them both, plus the need to do what everyone else seems to be doing--so here we go...