Pet Peeves

I've been ill this week, having had a sore throat through most of Fathers' Day weekend and been diagnosed with tonsilitis on Monday. Between the sore throat, painful swallowing, and generally feeling bad, I've focused a bit on negative things, including some of my pet peeves.

Language (grammar and spelling) is one area in which I'm quite a snob. I realise and accept that languages (grammar as much as vocabulary) change over time, but our languages have rules for a reason: so that we can express ourselves clearly and concisely to one another. (Fine, call me a prescriptivist; I wear the label proudly.) I'll skip my opinions on stylistics and even the routine rants about such pedestrian errors as subject-verb disagreement, verb tense confusion, and double negatives and get right to the things that just befuddle me.

• Attaching unnecessary prepositions to the ends of sentences: "Where are you at?"
• Misusing punctuation: there's so much to say here, I'll just be brief and cry "woe the dignity of the hyphen and semi-colon!"
• Misusing the apostrophe for pluralisation ("There are several lady's in the shop." and "Be sure to visit 'Antique's of Reidsville'!") and when indicating possession ("Cox's Harley-Davidson" where "Cox' H-D" would suffice or "Lois's party" instead of "Lois' party"). Yes, 'Antique's of Reidsville' and 'Cox's Harley-Davidson' are real businesses that prominently display these blunders on signs, the latter with its name engraved in stone!
• Confusing homophones: there/their, your/you're, to/two/too.
• Abusing the subjunctive: saying "I wish that I was..." instead of "I wish that I were..." or "I wish that I would've done so and so" instead of "I wish that I had done so and so."
• Worst of all, being down-right sloppy: writing "should of" in place of "should've".

Driving is another arena that I find frustrating. I have a 40-minute commute, half of which is on a freeway. Others' driving habits shouldn't amaze or shock me at this point, since I've been a driver for more than half of my life, but I still can't help but get annoyed, frustrated, and sometimes even angry at behaviour on the roads.

• Poking along in the passing (left) lane, especially when the travel (centre or right) lane is wide open and, correspondingly, passing in the merge (right) lane when the passing lane is open.
• Failing to signal.
• Weaving in and out of traffic -- be patient and wait your turn!
• Sneaking through a yellow light at the last minute when traffic is already backed-up, thereby blocking the cross street -- that's just selfish and mean.
• Parking in the fire lane directly outside of a shop. This is just the worst driving sin (though perhaps not technically driving) around and the apex of laziness!

Of course, much of this is just my opinion and I'm sure that some will disagree and others will latch onto the "snob" moniker that I applied to myself earlier, but I just think that the world would be a nicer place and that things would operate much more smoothly if we all just paused to think about the real messages that we send to others with what we say and do. :J

A Bearish Day

Today started out kinda crappy, but things have gotten a bit better as the day has gone on.

I knew yesterday evening that I'd be needing to refuel soon, so I began scouting fuel stations for the best prices. I saw a couple of stations that were offering diesel for $2.899 per gallon, but I didn't think that I wanted to pay that much. Sure, fuel is still cheap in the United States compared with many other places (and expensive compared to some oil-rich states that subsidise fuel sales), but I thought that I could find diesel for a nickel or a dime less elsewhere, so I drove on past the point of the fuel light coming on and finally HAD to refuel this morning.

I awoke this morning to a steady rain from one of the feeder bands of tropical storm Alberto and quickly resolved myself to refueling in the rain, but this was just a harbinger of the morning that I was about to have. I stopped in Kernersville at one of the places where I often refuel (an Exxon on NC-66 near I-40) and was immediately struck by two sights, the first being the price ($2.939 per gallon; sure, they claim that it's premium diesel, but there's no cetane rating visible) and the second being the hand-lettered sign that had appeared since my last stop here that read "Diesel please pre-pay inside." Grrr.

I pulled out the umbrella and trudged into the shop, waited for the clerk to stroll from the back of the store to help me, and told her that I wanted $20 diesel. Sure, my car could've held $40, but I was displeased with this store, so I'd decided to give them a minimal amount of my business (even forgetting for a moment that almost no diesel pump has a pay-at-the-pump card-swipe option). As she was processing my transaction, she pressed a button on an intercom and said, "your pump's on; you can start pumping". I looked outside and saw all of the pumps unoccupied except the diesel pump next to where I'd parked. "I thought that we had to pre-pay for diesel," I challenged her. "Oh, he's OK; I know him." Grrr.

I returned to my car, filled the tank half-way, and drove away. Back on I-40, the traffic was moving at the speed limit (as opposed to the normal 10-15 miles per hour above the limit) due to the rain. Of course, this was in the passing (left-most) lane, while the travel (centre) lane was relatively empty. I gritted my teeth and prepared to pass the slow-pokes on the right (which I am loathe to do, but sometimes one has to). As I pulled along-side the slow-pokes, they sped up slightly so that just before I had clearance to get back into the left lane, I came face-to-tail with a FedEx truck, so I had to slow back down and get back behind the slow-pokes. Grrr.

At this point, I began banging my steering wheel and muttering obscenities to myself. I determined that I would pass these nincompoops eventually, no matter what, but at that moment, something clicked in my head. I noticed that the rain hadn't slackened at all during my entire drive, there had been plentiful brakes-tapping for most of the way, and the road was crowded with rush-hour traffic. I decided that I'd better calm down and said a little prayer to make it stick. A few minutes later, I arrived safely in the parking garage at work. Yay!

On the way into my building, I struggled with my belongings and dumped a good bit of my coffee onto the paper bag containing my lunch and into my closed umbrella. Grrr.

So, I was in a foul mood when I arrived at work. Fortunately, my colleagues were in good spirits and we chatted amiably for a few minutes before I sat down and got to work. For several weeks, I've been working on a difficult project that's made me quite discouraged at times, so I've been having trouble staying motivated. I worked on and finished another smaller project that still required a bit of brain power, so I felt quite accomplished as the day wound down. Yay!

I didn't have any car-poolers this morning, so I drove alone. Knowing this, my sweetie, Chris, asked me if I'd like to have dinner together after work and we feasted on fried seafood at Libby Hill. Yay! Then we went back to his place and I helped him to set up his wireless network. Yay!

So, this bearish day that started out meriting several "grrrs" finally turned bullish. Yay! :J

Lisa and Kelly's Wedding

I travelled with my friend, Jeff, over last weekend to DC's northern Virginia suburbs to participate in the nuptials of our mutual friends, Lisa and Kelly. Some might recall our travelling to Tappahannock VA around the end of April for Lisa's bridal shower.

Jeff and Lisa were classmates during their undergrad days at WVU. I met her at the wedding of another of their mutual WVU classmates (Sherry) in Charleston WV in 1998. At that time, Lisa was thinking about her career plans; we talked about her interests, her education, and her previous jobs and I eventually convinced her to come to library school at UNCG, where she and Jeff ended up being classmates again! I became quite close with Lisa during her five or so years in NC. I got to know Kelly during his time in NC, too, and was sad to see them move back to the DC area.

When Kelly finally proposed marriage after a six-year courtship, Lisa asked me to be a part of their wedding, acting as Master of Ceremonies, a glorified logistics person and wrangler of flowers and caterers. Jeff was one of her bridal attendants, which resulted in quizzical looks from a very few. I found little strange in that arrangement, since I was a bridal attendant for my friend, Donna, at her wedding in Kansas in 1994.

It was a fun weekend spent catching up with old friends, making new friends (Hiya, Debbie, Corky, Molly, and Shane!), and enjoying good food and drink. (Lisa is every bit as much of a foodie as am I.) The whole affair was very elegant and classy while also being simple and uncomplicated -- not extravagant. Have a look at some photos of the occasion in my Flickr account and enjoy! :J