Introduction Post - October 8, 2010

Today I start a new blog. It will occasionally be peppered with stories about ridiculous things that happen to me. But mostly, this will be a repository for my rants and musings about life. For any of my friends and family that read this, please know that my rants are NOT directed at any single person. I may have picked up on something that happened recently and if it offends you, I apologize, but get over it. Either you're my friend and you understand - or you don't know me at all.

In 2000 I started writing a book. It was to be called "Common Courtesies" and it was based mostly on my experiences traveling, to teach people certain courtesies that our parents didn't necessarily know to teach us.

My parents never traveled, so they weren't able to teach me how to behave on an airplane, but through experience and observation, I learned pretty quickly. So my book, which is still incomplete, was to teach some modern courtesies, mixed in with common sense.

Enter life, marriage, kids, and ten years later it's still not done. So I've decided to start this blog to summarize some of the elements I wanted to include in the book. Who knows, maybe someone will publish my blog. After all, if Shit My Dad Says was picked up from Twitter . . .

Here are my first rants:

1) If you make an appointment with me, please keep it – even if you are late. At least call to let me know you can't make it.

2) On an airplane, don’t hit me in the head with your bag as you walk by. And please let me stand up to let you in so I don’t have my face in your crotch or rear end.

Bonus rant of the day:

I respect that you have a different opinion and I love a good healthy dialogue about our differences. But please don't spew hate about my opinion and back up your opinion with facts. I love that my friends have different opinions and I try to be open to learn from them. But be warned; if your opinion is based on carefully crafted and manipulated garbage meant to incite a hateful emotional response, I will point out that you're being a mindless sheep-like idiot.