SteveRogers.info

Category: Personal Story

  • Alex Rinehart

    Steve’s an uncle! My nephew was born on January 12th, 2012. Today is his two week birthday, and I will proudly display photos of my little buddy Alex Rinehart.

    Last week, I went to Milwaukee to meet my nephew. He was very appropriately dressed.

    I got to spend all day with him on Thursday and Friday. My sister characterized her son well: He is always in a state of waking up on a Saturday morning. Karen and the baby are doing well. The new grandmother loves holding Alex. This baby is well photographed. My sister had the neat idea to take pictures of Alex with common objects. Here he is thinking about whether to pay the 10% or $200 on Income Tax.

    And here is the little guy dreaming of the day he can compete for the Taboo Championship cup and win the right to be served pie by the Flowers women.

    He already has the competitive spirit. I challenged him to a thumb war, and he won!

    It was great to meet my nephew, and I can’t wait until I see him next.

  • Men Serve the Pie

    Well, Thanksgiving was last week. And regular readers know what that means: The Taboo Championship Cup was on the line.

    Now the men in my family have been on a pretty good streak. Winning in 2008, 2009, and 2010. But this Thanksgiving was the first one where Karen Ann Rogers Rinehart was back in town since being married. Karen led the women to victory, and now the Taboo Championship Cup for the first time is in Wisconsin.

    It is a rare experience for the men, but the tradition is that losers of Taboo serve the pie. So Jeff got to slicing it up, Jim threw on some whipped cream, and I served.

    The men may be in some trouble in future years. Generally Barb is the women’s MVP, but she and Tim spent Thanksgiving in KC. If the women get Barb and Karen together at the same Thanksgiving, we may be doomed.

  • Small World

    I wasn’t expecting to have two Facebook posts in a row, but this was sort of amusing.

    Today, these two posts showed up in my mini-feed, one right after the other.

    Michelle lived on the same floor of my Freshman dorm. Scott and I go to grad school together. It was sort of funny to see two posts about Denver weddings right after one another. So I thought I would GChat Scott asking whose wedding he was attending.

    Steve :  Randomly curious, but whose wedding are you going to in Denver  Two facebook posts in a row on my mini feed mentioned denver weddings

     Scott:  lauren maynard and coley brenan
     Steve:  HA! Same wedding
    Michelle and I have not spoken in years.  But its a very small world sometimes.

  • The Facebook of Police Departments

    You may have heard, we got a little rain here in Jersey over the weekend.

    Saturday night it stormed. I lost power while asleep, and by noon the next day it was almost sunny. I stayed indoors for all of it, and I woke up today. I however could not get to work. I put my Garmin GPS to the test, hitting the detour button multiple times, but it could not find a non flooded route. So I went back home to work.

    Later on, I debated going in (I work better at my desk). I however was still concerned about traffic. My friend Deborah pointed me to West Windor’s Police Department Facebook page. Mickey Weinberg happened to ask if there was anyway to get into Princeton, and 8 minutes later Leslie Fox detailed how Washington Rd. was the only way in, and there were alternative ways out. Considering that when one road (Alexander Rd. into Princeton) closed caused 30 minute delays in June, I decided not to test what happened when just one road was open.

    Now, I am generally skeptical of social media/Web 2.0’s usefulness. But Michael Franden says it well:

    This just shows why West Windsor is doing better than East Windsor. East Windsor is the MySpace of Windsor Police Departments

  • Goldfish

    My aunt and uncle gave me an M&M Machine that I used to play with at their house.  It is made of red metal and takes quarters.  As a kid, I made the great discovery that if you jiggled the handle, you could get M&Ms for free very slowly.

    I have brought this machine out to New Jersey, and it currently sits in my new apartment.  I am highly tempted to convert it into a fish bowl, get a goldfish, and name it Skittle.  Thoughts?

  • Electronic Mail

    I have had some good emailing today.  This however was a cute excerpt from my mom’s

    Oprah is over….and yes I’ll miss her…I did enjoy the show.  Our Charter was out on Monday & Tuesday so believe it or not…I went up to Des Peres Lodge and watched both shows in their lobby. It was just me and the TV… a few people stopped by and watched for a few minutes but I was the only one there for just that purpose…They really were good shows so I’m glad I saw  them.

  • Flight today…

    Flew back to Princeton today….three things.

    1. I think the TSA thought a 12-pack of beer in a white garbage bag in my luggage was a bomb.
    2. Southwest pilots reuse the same jokes upon landing: “Now I am going to say what my parents told me when I was 18…..get your bags and get out” – heard on 3 of 4 flights in last week.
    3. I ended up waiting out my delayed flight at my destination airport (I was bumped up to an earlier flight to Newark, but my bag wasn’t.  So I waited for my original (delayed) flight to land at Newark).