My wife and I went shopping for a new kitchen floor tonight.

I think we may have found perfection.

My wife keeps telling me I need to untuck my shirt. I usually comply, but under protest. You see, when I was in school, we used to get in trouble for not tucking our shirts in.

I'm pretty good at following rules. That's part of the reason I have the job I have. The problem is when rules change all the time.

I go back to work tomorrow. I wish I could take at least another day or two off, but something came up and they need me Monday.

I spent some time tackling little projects around the house. Watching This Old House for the last six months or so is paying off.

I won't post specifics in order to protect him, but I became a father this week. This is my first, a son.

Don't expect any coherence in any of this. These are just some thoughts in the order they come to me.

I read an editorial about the "child man" phenomenon and it made me mad.

I fit those stereotypes, spending most of my 20s living in an apartment surrounded by toys, in somewhat social isolation, when I was supposed to be "growing up," taking responsibility, (whatever those two things mean), getting married, and pumping out kids. I even had people telling me this back in that era.

Believe me, I wasn't living this way by choice. And it wasn't for lack of trying that I was stuck there.

So 105.7 morning DJ Donnie Fandango was distressed this morning over finding a gray hair. At 31, he's convinced (so he says) this means he's dying.

I say get used to it. I'm 32. I started going gray in the sixth grade. Since I have gray hairs that are old enough to vote, I have a hard time feeling sorry for him.

I have other worries. Like whether those gray hairs vote for Ron Paul or not.

Since the next couple of things I post aren't going to be terribly positive, I thought I'd share some dog stories.

I have a new un-friend now. His name is Melvin.

Thanks to Melvin, I can almost add library sales to places I've been kicked out of. It's a short list, but it includes the library, church, Best Buy, and substitute teacher Rick Hannebutt's seventh grade theology class.

When I read more about the perpetrator of the massacre at Virginia Tech, I thought the same things I remember thinking about Columbine. And I wasn't the only one with those thoughts. After Columbine, I was corresponding with one of my best friends from college, and she said the descriptions of those two guys really reminded her of me.

So the question then, as now, is, why am I a reasonably productive member of society while other people like me kill dozens of people?

We should have named the dog Houdini.

The first night with the dog was difficult, because she wanted to play all night. Since they told her she was crate trained, my wife went out and got a crate the next morning.

When we put her in, it took her 35 minutes flat to get out.