"What's That?"

A few months ago I was picking up my 4-year-old niece and as she climbed into my 10-year-old truck she pointed at the manual window crank and asked, "What's that?"

I paused, thought for a second...and then it dawned on me. She's probably never seen one of those before!

At first, it made me feel extremely old. But then I started to think of all the things that are totally familiar to me but won't be to my future children. It's kind of like eight-track tapes or drive-in theaters for my generation.

So now I'm wondering what my kids are going to be pointing at and asking, "What's that?"

What do you think?

I'm Impressed

On Wednesday morning, I was in charge of hosting a 5k at my work. The event culminated with our annual Share Thanksgiving Food Drive where we put boxes around the various buildings and ask people to bring in canned/dried goods to benefit local food pantries before the holidays.

At the race, we asked all participants to bring one canned/dried good to donate to the drive. We had about 170 participants so you can imagine the chaos. Overall, we collected two big boxes of food and we were very satisfied with that.

So when I got to work this morning I was very impressed to see people dropping by my office and calling me to bring the canned/dried food in that they forgot to bring on Wednesday. We didn't keep track of people who brought food and who didn't. We didn't send out a reminder saying "If you didn't bring your food today please bring it on Friday." We were pleased with what we had and left it at that.

These people did not have to put forth this extra effort--maybe go out and buy the food, remember to bring the food from home, bring it to my office (which is set away from all the other buildings), etc. But they did!

And something as tiny as this gives me a new found hope for the human race.

Women Finally Onboard

On Saturday, I watched the movie G.I. Jane. I've always liked this movie. It's one of those that I can watch every time it comes on no matter how many times I've seen it before. It's just so empowering! (You can watch the trailer below.)

Then Monday I came to work and started catching up on all the Navy news. I came across an article entitled "Navy Picks First 4 Subs to Get Female Officers." Huh?

So I started reading...

The first sentence states, "The Navy has selected four commands as the first submarines to integrate women, a process expected to begin late next year, the Navy announced Thursday." Hold up. Let me get this straight. It's 2010 and the Navy is just now allowing women to board submarines!

G.I. Jane came out in 1997 and there is a particular scene where Demi Moore's character mentions that she was turned down for a position on the submarine because there were no female bathrooms onboard.

So 13 years later the Navy is finally considering this to be a major issue. And they are acting as if it's an act of heroism. As if women should have never expected to be allowed onboard and they are simply doing us a favor. Well, thank you very much United States Navy for suppressing the female gender.