{"id":8939,"date":"2013-05-30T04:51:13","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T09:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/?p=8939"},"modified":"2013-05-30T04:51:13","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T09:51:13","slug":"random-facts-about-me-may-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/?p=8939","title":{"rendered":"Random Facts About Me &#8211; May 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t done a true Random Facts post in a while, so let&#8217;s mix things up a bit, shall we?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Despite being surrounded by people knowledgeable in a variety of areas, <strong>I very rarely ask for advice on anything<\/strong>. My pride and stubbornness deserve part of the blame, but much of it lies somewhere else: I can&#8217;t help but feel obligated to take someone&#8217;s advice if I ask for it, and I haven&#8217;t figured out a way to gracefully reject that advice without feeling guilty. So it feels like asking for advice paints me into a corner. So I just don&#8217;t do it.<\/li>\n<li>On a related note, I tend not to tell everyone about my problems partly because <strong>I don&#8217;t want people trying to solve them<\/strong>. Unsolicited advice is one of my pet peeves.<\/li>\n<li>On another related note, I&#8217;m a bit of a control freak when it comes to my own life. I like being the &#8220;captain of my soul,&#8221; as the poet said. But <strong>I hate being in charge of other people and imposing my will on them<\/strong>. That&#8217;s the main reason I have so little interest in leadership positions. That&#8217;s also one of the main reasons that parenthood is so frustrating for me. I enjoy playing with the boys, teaching them, talking with them about their day, and encouraging them. I hate trying to get them to do things. They are just as stubborn as I am, and it sucks having to butt heads with them over and over again. Maybe that&#8217;s why being a grandparent is more fun than being a parent. You get the fun stuff without the moral obligation to mold them into good people.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Heavy whipping cream<\/strong> is my favorite thing to add to my coffee. It&#8217;s fun to pour in a bit, watch it sink to the bottom, and watch it reappear on the surface. It you do it gently, little dots of cream appear on top rather than a big swirl, a bit like bubbles from a tiny scuba diver.<\/li>\n<li>Right now, my plan is to <strong>dispatch for Southwest until I&#8217;m about 65<\/strong> (31 more years), retire with Jenny, and turn into my Aunt Kathy&#8217;s parents. They divide their time between relaxing, doing family stuff, and traveling. They do all sorts of amazing trips, sometimes picking up great last-minute deals since they have so much flexibility. I might volunteer somewhere as well. I&#8217;ll need something productive to do to avoid driving myself crazy.<\/li>\n<li>When I was a teenager, I went through a &#8220;<strong>purge the evil music from my collection<\/strong>&#8221; phase and destroyed my two Nine Inch Nails CDs. I lost some good music that way.<\/li>\n<li>Part of me wants to update the heck out of our house. The other part wants to use that money to pay it off sooner and move. Lately, Option 1 has been winning. I love the idea of <strong>taking something old and worn out and making it new<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Some people like to work out to upbeat music for motivation. I don&#8217;t like to run or bike with music, but I do listen when I do cardio at the gym. I (strangely?) prefer relaxing music like smooth jazz, Yanni, or Sarah McLachlan. <strong>Mellow music helps me relax and feel like I&#8217;m not working as hard as I really am<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>When I&#8217;m working, I <strong>generally eat the same thing<\/strong> for breakfast (cereal) and my work meal (bagel, banana, yogurt, and something else like a protein bar). So the only meal that changes much is dinner with the family. I like not having to think too hard about my food.<\/li>\n<li>I <strong>shave my head<\/strong> every couple of weeks at most. I don&#8217;t trust a regular razor, so I use electric clippers with no guard, which means I always look a little fuzzy rather than looking like a cue ball. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t done a true Random Facts post in a while, so let&#8217;s mix things up a bit, shall we? Despite being surrounded by people knowledgeable in a variety of areas, I very rarely ask for advice on anything. My &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/?p=8939\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8939"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9154,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions\/9154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}