So on the yahoo front page (which, by the way, is the source for pretty much all of my news. If I didn't have the internet, I probably wouldn't know that Obama was president) there was an article on why people choose baby names. I expected it to be pretty boring, as they had just had something similar within the last week, and that one wasn't very good. But this one was better. It talked a lot about baby name trends, but not in just particular names, but types of names. How vowel names are gaining popularity, whereas 20 years ago names that began with consonants were more common.

It led my wife and I to this site which my wife and I then started playing with for the rest of the night. It's basically just a graphic version of the Social Security Names website, with lots of different ways to visualize the popularity of names in America over the last 130 years.

This led us to talking a lot about names. Common names, and uncommon names. Stupid names, and cool names. Biblical names and weird names. This eventually climaxed in my wife suggesting we name our next child Shart.

That's right, shart.

That basically ended the conversation.

What's the worst name you've ever heard?

(This happened on Saturday)

The left front tire of the Prius has been getting low for a while. We had it patched when we got the oil changed in January, and it was fine until about three weeks ago. We've been just filling it up at the gas station, and thinking we'd take it in soon, but it's hard since we work opposite shifts and have carseat issues. I've been saying for a while that I was really worried it would explode while I was on the freeway.

Today I left work at 6:11. I got on the freeway, and the little "low tire pressure" light came on. I thought, "Oh, Scott will have to fill it on his way to work, since there's no gas stations around here." About 5 minutes later, I was going about 60 in the third lane (there was a little bit of traffic) and I had this panicky thought of the tire exploding and the car flipping and things being awful, so I said a quick prayer, asking to get home safely. I said "Amen" in my head, and the tire went flat.

Somehow I made it over to the shoulder. I sat there a little while, trying to stop shaking. Then I checked my cell phone: the battery was dead. We don't have a car charger for it. I looked around, and there was no call box. I was about 1/2 mile from the exit (but in a bad part of town) and wasn't feeling so great about walking down there, and down the exit ramp, and then trying to find a phone. I was starting to freak out again, so I said another prayer, begging to be able to think of some way to get out of this, and stay safe. I immediately had the thought: "I can change the tire. I can change the tire! My Dad taught me how! I don't need AAA or Scott, I can change the tire!" So I fumble with all the stuff in the trunk, get it all out, and begin trying to jack it up. I put the jack in the wrong place, and it wasn't working, so I had to move it, and then it started going up! But it was really hard, and I scraped up my hand and chipped the heck out of my fingernails. Finally I got it up, my arms were tired, and I started trying to get the lugnuts off. They did NOT budge. I was wondering if perhaps the tried-and-true "righty tighty lefty loosey" didn't apply to lugnuts, so I got out the owners manual. It said to loosen the lugnuts BEFORE jacking the car up. So I lowered the car, and tried again. It still wasn't working. I spent over 20 minutes trying to get those things, and my arms & hands were tired & hurting, when finally I got one. I almost cried. Then I got a second one! Yay! But after another 20 minutes, I still couldn't get the other three. My hands were slipping on the wrench thing, which had a giant Phillip's head screwdriver point on the end, and I was starting to worry that my hands would slip off and get sliced.

I was on my knees, trying to pull that stupid wrench, and in pain and my arms were shaking, and I was about to lose it and was starting to cry, so I started praying again, just praying that the CHP would come by, or some helpful person who wasn't a serial killer, and that I would get home safely. I said "Amen," and before I even opened my eyes, I heard a guy's voice behind me. It scared me SO bad! I screamed and jumped away from him, and I must have looked pretty terrified, because he backed away like ten feet and put his hands up a little and waited a few seconds, then said something like "I help you?" He was Middle Eastern, and didn't speak much English, and looked like a mechanic, because he was covered in grease. He undid the lugnuts (for one he had to use his foot on the wrench dealie), changed the tire, and got everything all put away. I shook his hand and thanked him like 5 times, and he went off. I thought he was getting back on the freeway, but then he stopped, got out, and moved a couple of big boards out of the way of our cars.

I started my car, and pulled out and started trying to merge. It felt weird, but I thought it was just because I was driving on the bumpy shoulder. There's 2 lanes right there that are exit-only lanes for another freeway, and I got past those real quick, when I noticed that my car was no longer accelerating, even though I was gassing it more. It slowed down to 30 before I could get off the freeway--into the little divide between the freeway I was on and the on-ramp for the other one. I decided to risk getting out of my car to see if the lugnuts needed to be tightened (even though I had seen the guy make them real tight). They didn't budge when I messed with them, so I jacked it up again and tried again to tighten them (I'm really not sure why I did that) and they still didn't budge. Now I couldn't walk off the freeway down an exit ramp if I wanted to, because I wasn't even on a shoulder any more. I couldn't see a call box anywhere either. So I decided I needed to just sit back down inside the car and decide what to do. I sat down, was starting to put my forehead on the steering wheel to try to keep myself from crying, when my head was snapped up, and there was a call box, about 50 yards in front of me. So I said out loud "Right. I'll go use the call box."

I started walking up to it, and when I was almost there a guy pulled over and asked if I needed help. I said "I think so..." and asked if I could use his phone. I called AAA, gave them the number of the call box I was standing next to, and told them I was at the junction of those two freeways. She said it was 7:09 and that the tow truck ETA was 7:21. So I told Guy #2 that they'd be there really soon, and thanked him. He said something about how he thought I was a girl he worked with, because he saw the scrub shirt and glasses, and I was very glad, because that's what made him stop. So I walked back to my car.

I sat and waited for about 40 minutes, and I was really thirsty, really had to pee, and really needed to pump [breast milk for the baby at home] (but was afraid to because I figured as soon as I started the tow truck driver would show up...) and it was getting dark. Finally at about 7:50 I decided there must be a problem, so I walked back to the call box. The call box connects you to Highway Patrol dispatch, and I told her my story, and she called AAA for me, and I guess there's some other place where those two freeways meet? She said they made my call a priority now, she didn't have a ETA, but they'd be there soon. She asked if I had "an adult male" with me, and I said pitifully, "No...it's just me" and she asked if I wanted her to have a CHP officer come wait with me, and I said not really (even though this whole time I was really hoping for one to show up and save me). I felt bad wanting to have an officer sit in his car behind me just because I was scared, when he could be out catching bad guys or saving people from fiery auto crashes. Anyway, I went and sat in my car again.

At about 8:40, I was really starting to panic again. I had been sitting in my broken car for over an hour watching speeding cars rush past me on either side, was completely exhausted, only got 6 hours of sleep last night, and was getting scared because it was all the way dark now and I didn't think I'd be able to make it to the call box again that I couldn't even see any more. So I started praying again, and was crying just a little bit, and I was just praying that someone would just come save me because I couldn't take it anymore; and I opened my eyes, and a CHP officer had already pulled up behind me and was getting out of his car. I started crying a bit more at this point, while simultaneously trying to stop crying. The officer came up and asked, "Are you OK?" and I said "Yes," and really was. I told him I was really glad to see him, and what had happened, and he said he'd wait with me till the tow truck got there, and smiled and told me to put my seatbelt on just in case. The towtruck got there about 5 minutes later. It was now about 8:55, and Scott hadn't heard anything from me. I was worried he was just going to be irritated at me, and not even worried, because I have to work late all the time but don't call very often. I was having the car towed to the dealership right near Scott's brother's house, and I was planning on going to their house to phone Scott, but then decided I couldn't handle walking the 3 blocks, climbing the apt complex gate, and showing up at their house in my slightly deranged state, so I asked the driver to use his cell phone, and called Scott and asked him to meet me at the dealership.

I finally got home at about 10pm. And then ate some tortellini and lots of leftover Coldstone ice cream.

It was crazy and scary, but also amazing. Over and over I had an immediate response to my prayers, and I'm so grateful.


(Editor's question:) Do you believe in having prayers answered? Have you ever stopped to help a stranded motorist?

When you're getting ready to buy a car, one of the decisions most people consider is foreign or domestic. All of your friends will weigh in on the subject, whether you want them to or not, each of them explaining why they would choose one or the other. Eventually, you're going to decide based on your personal experience with each, and what you've seen. But basically, it comes down to this: If you know how to work on cars, choose domestic. If you don't know how an engine works, choose foreign. Most people don't realize this.

You see, American cars are made for 'true american guys'. Guys like Tim the Toolman Taylor. They love fiddling with their cars, and when something minor happens to their car, they can fix it. When something major happens, they can probably fix it too. Whether they will is probably determined by if any of their other cars are currently in working order, and will remain so for the next couple months. That's why they don't mind if their car has little things go wrong with it all the time. They'll tell you "It'll last forever, if you take care of it right" To them, taking care of it means being able to disassemble the engine on the weekends. To others, 'taking care of it right' means taking it in to get the oil changed every 6 months. Guys who don't know how to fix cars, they want something that rarely has things go wrong with it. That's because when something does, they take it into the shop, and pay hundreds of dollars for them to change the spark plugs or something. On top of that, since they don't know what's going on, they assume that the mechanic is ripping them off, and sabotaging the engine so that it'll break down again in 2 months. So they want something that will have minor problems very rarely. And that is a foreign car.

So what does this have to do with Henry Ford? Well, as we all know, he was the pioneer of the assembly line. He innovated the car making industry, but really innovated the economy. In only a short time, guys went from knowing how to do everything, to specializing in one or a few areas. So now, only people who are really interested in cars know how they work. Otherwise, you don't have time to learn, because you have to concentrate on specializing in your own area. Thus, thousands millions of americans don't know how to fix a car, and therefore they buy from Japan. This translates into "The Big Three" nearly collapsing, and getting a bunch of money from the government, and all kinds of people being pissed about it, or whatever.

They don't realize that if they want to save the economy, and save the American Automotive Industry, they need to learn how to fix their own cars. If they don't, they'll be Found On the Road Dead.

Do you know how to fix your own car?
Do you usaully buy Foreign, or Domestic?