Marriage counseling from work:

"The garage belongs to the man and it is illegal for her to yell at you in your garage. Starting from the doorknob of the garage door all the way out, that all belongs to you. The second she puts her hand on that doorknob and comes into your garage, she has to abide by your rules, and that means she is not allowed to raise her voice at you in the garage.

The reason is that when you two get into a fight, you walk away immediately and go into the garage. You both need a cool down period because emotions are running high and she's thinking irrationally. So you walk into the garage and let her cool down in the house. She isn't allowed to follow you into the garage and continue to yell at you."

I love having Mondays off. I've never been able to really relax on weekends because of class, activities, church meetings, driving, etc. Essentially, Mondays become my day of rest because that's when everyone is at work and I have the whole day to myself.

My Monday routine is still evolving, but it's turning out pretty good. I have been going to the pool for lap swim during the day and it is just great. My body gets exercised and my mind gets a quiet moment to itself. I get to think through a lot of things while swimming and that helps with the mental catharsis. I feel so recharged on Tuesdays when I go back to work.

First week: 30 laps
Second week: 45 laps

Today, I ran out of time and lap swim ended. I need to pick up my pace if I want to keep increasing my distance. Eight years after my high school swimming class, I finally figured out how I should be flutter kicking. My swimming usually relies too much on the arms for forward motion, but today while experimenting with my kick, I found that I could significantly boost my speed if my body was arched a certain way to let my feet kick at a much higher rate.

I can't sustain the fast kicking for more than a lap, so I use it when I want pass people. Next week I plan to work on my kicking endurance. If I can sustain the kicking, then I might be able to join the folks in the fast lane.

Sometimes, pickup trucks are just more conducive to guy bonding. During a break at work today, I was hanging with some coworkers. It just a couple guys hanging out, sitting on the tailgate and blocks of cement, shooting the breeze and cracking jokes.

You can't do that in a sedan. Really... it's a culture thing, trucks will never be completely replaced by dinky cars, unless you somehow deprive the male population of their testosterone and turn them into metrosexuals.