So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Note: This column appears in the 1/6 issue of The Glendale Star and the 1/7 issue of the Peoria Times Just hours before our plane was supposed to take off, while I was sleeping, my phone buzzed. It was a text stating that our flight was canceled. That was it. “Flight 1535 is canceled.” No word of a rescheduling, or what to do next, or how we’d get home. Just … canceled. As far as Continental Airlines was concerned, I would be living in New Jersey again. We had a wonderful time with family and friends during Christmas and were glad we decided to travel back east. My niece and my in-law’s dog had thrown up on the carpet on separate occasions, but those were the only barf-related moments of the week, and that’s all you can really ask for. Really, it was great, but we were ready to go home. Despite the blizzard that wreaked most of its havoc directly on our little slice of New Jersey, our flight from Newark was still scheduled to take off on time. It ended up being the very last one cancel...

Note: This column appears in the 12/9 issue of The Glendale Star and the 12/10 issue of the Peoria Times My wife subscribes to the weather alert application on her phone. Because we live here in the Valley, and her Blackberry does not, apparently, recognize center-of-the-earth-type heat as a situation that bears warning—it would get redundant, I suppose—this feature is barely utilized. That changed last week when temperatures became unseasonably cool around these parts. As a result, my wife received two weather alerts on her phone, and each time we reacted as if our lives were about to change dramatically. You see, when we lived back east, the first winter weather warning was darn near the most exciting thing that happened during the year. After all, it could mean that you wouldn’t be leaving the house for the next six days, and that you’d be utilizing the canned goods your dad stored up in the basement during the fall, and that you’d probably be going to school now until July. Being w...