Both of my cars have digital radios that offer this feature.  On my Prius, I have to push a few buttons to find out what song is currently being played.  On the other hand, my Torrent constantly displays the information sent down with the digital signal, so I only have to glance in the direction of the radio to learn the name of my new favorite song (well, it will be my favorite for at least the next 5 minutes).  It is really quite convenient.

As great as this technology is, someone has found a way to abuse it (in my opinion) and make money off of it.  There is a digital radio station in my hometown of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, that does not send the name of the song and artist to digital radios.  It doesn’t even send the call letters of the radio station.  The only information they send is advertisements for local businesses.  This is particularly bad in the Torrent, as it turns the radio into a mini-billboard in the center of my dashboard.  I look over to learn the name of a song or adjust the volume for a Lady GaGa single, and instead I learn about a deal on fried chicken at Ma & Pa’s Grocery.

I don’t have a problem with radio stations showing advertisements on digital radio screens when they are on a commercial break and advertisements are playing, anyway.  However, I’m not a fan of them hijacking my dashboard and sending nothing but advertisements to it all the time.  That behavior crosses a line for me.  At least I can always get away from the ads by choosing another station or even turning off my radio entirely.  Their plan has now backfired.  Instead of having another listener who gets some extra advertising, they have a former listener who will not receive any of their ads while paying too much for fried chicken.

On this recent trip I had the pleasure of going to WDW with my girlfriend, who was not only a first-time Disney visitor, but a first-time Florida visitor.  I was really looking forward to once again introducing someone new to WDW.  We did all of the major attractions, including a few that I hadn’t done before.  As I always do, I had a great time visiting Disney, but my experience was even better as my girlfriend oohed and ahhed all week long as she took in all the neat things that Disney has to offer.  In a way it was like I was experiencing it all for the first time again myself.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the feeling of taking in Disney with a significant other.  I’ve been going to WDW about once a year since I was 4 years old.  Even when I was little, I’d notice all of the couples that would visit Disney.  Of course you have your moms and dads, but then you also have couples without children, and teenage children who are traveling with their sweeties.  Several times on each of my trips to WDW, I’d see an especially happy couple on their own trip and think to myself, “Someday that is going to be me.”  As of last week it was.  As of last week, I have vacationed with my significant other.  Last week I walked hand-in-hand through the Magic Kingdom with my girlfriend.

It’s already quite a magical place, but being there with her made it even more magical; more than I ever dreamed it would be.  She has thanked me time and time again for bringing her to Florida and Disney World with me, but I can’t thank her enough for coming with me.  It’s always been a dream of mine to take a big vacation, especially one to Walt Disney World, with a significant other.  That dream came true and it was simply amazing.  Thank you, hon, for making our trip together even more amazing than I imagined it would be.

Yet, I hated it.  Call me crazy, but I’m not a fan of miniature power tools being used in my mouth.  It was on my mind and bothering me for hours before the appointment.  Here it is two days later and I still can’t get it out of my head.  It probably doesn’t help that I have to go back in two weeks for them to finish the procedure.  Can you guess whether or not I’m looking forward to that?  Hint: I’m not.

Why can’t our teeth be made of diamonds?  They’re incredibly strong, shiny, and would likely need little to know maintenance.  You certainly wouldn’t break off a piece of your tooth from biting down incorrectly on a popcorn kernel if your tooth was made out of diamonds.  You wouldn’t get cavities in something that is impenetrable by almost every other item on this planet; at least every other item on this planet that you’d put into your mouth.  Also, you’d probably come out ahead and make some money when you would have your wisdom teeth removed.  You could sell those puppies or even keep them for yourself as new earrings.

In my defense, I’ve never been a big fan of cream.  I scrape most of the cream off of ice cream sundaes when I have them.  I only add a little bit of whipped cream to my piece of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.  I’ve had the Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino at Starbucks both with and without cream on top and I know now that I do prefer it without the cream.

I’m just not a cream kind of guy, so it should come as no surprise that a desert that’s composed of a little bit of puff with a whole lot of cream would not appeal to me.  But, I still tried one, even though I didn’t have the highest of hopes.  I figured as a life-long Wisconsinite, it was my duty to at least try one.  Even though I didn’t enjoy it, I can at least say that I’ve had one.

I was talking with my girlfriend yesterday as I was driving the Prius home from the service center and she asked how it was doing.  I told her it was great and it felt smooth.  We both laughed at that as she said I probably meant that it drove more smoothly, not that it actually felt smooth.  Her version makes more sense and is grammatically correct.  Honestly, it’s what I meant to say, but my slip-up ended up being quite funny.  Can you imagine taking your car in to the shop only to have it returned to you smoother?  Almost as if it went in for a shave?  “Here’s your freshly tuned up Prius, J.R.  Now smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

I’m currently on a 3-day “cross-country” drive from Wisconsin to Florida.  While I’m not technically traveling alone as there are two vehicles making the trip, I am alone in the car.   Well, not totally alone.  I took a picture of the passenger seat to show who my companions are.

There’s my water bottle, my iPod, my work cell phone, my backpack, some Cool Ranch Doritos, and a cooler.  Except for the iPod, they are all very quiet passengers.  That’s probably for the best.  I’ve probably been on the road for too long if anything else on the passenger seat starts singing to me.

However, always looking for the bright side, I have found that there is one advantage to the cold, dreary spring.  While looking through my closet full of clothes on Sunday, I noticed that I have several sweatshirts that I didn’t wear at all in the past six months.  Even though I like all of those sweatshirts, they never made it into the rotation and have just hung, all lonely and not-worn, in my closet since the winter of 2007-2008.  With a few more days of weather forecast to be dreary and in the 50s to 60s, I made it a goal to wear as many of those sweatshirts as possible before summer arrives.

I’m on Day 2 of Sweatshirtageddon 2009.  Today I’m rocking a navy blue Old Navy sweatshirt.  It’s very soft and comfy and deserved to be much better represented during the cold winter we just experienced.  After a brief hiatus on Wednesday when I will wear something nicer for a dinner with my parents and girlfriend, Sweatshirtageddon 2009 returns powerfully on Thursday with another neglected sweatshirt from the back of my closet.

Let’s hope I don’t discover some other neglected clothes and feel the need for Hammer-Pantsageddon 2009 to occur this summer.

As I rolled through the country on a nice, almost-spring evening, I paid more attention to the scenery and my surroundings than I usually do.  Coming into a small town I did not know of, I glanced over to the GPS to learn it’s name.  I couldn’t find the name of the town anywhere on the screen, but I did notice that there was a waterway named Stony Creek.  I found this odd, as I didn’t see a waterway from my window when I was looking out it just moments before.  I checked again.

Nope.  I could not find Stony Creek, but I did find a large ditch that may have carried water at some time in the past.  I doubted that this was the aforementioned Stony Creek.  We were in the middle of a spring thaw, there was water flowing everywhere, even in places that it shouldn’t, yet this Stony Creek was bone dry.

Also, it was not stony.  Not at all.  It was muddy and full of twigs.  Not even branches, just twigs.  And piles of leaves from 2008’s autumn season.  Some trash, too.  All kinds of things were in this ditch, but not one of them was a stone, let alone enough stones that would lead you to describe it as “stony”.

Yet, according to my GPS, this had to be Stony Creek.

I was instantly upset at Mother Nature.  Why give us Stony Creek and then have it not be filled with water and stones?  I wanted to shake my fist at Mother Nature and her poorly named natural occurrence.  Then I had an “oh duh” moment as I realized that it’s not Mother Nature’s fault at all.  Mother Nature didn’t name this spot Stony Creek, but rather, some guy did.  Some guy that had clearly never seen a stone or heard the comforting babble of a beautiful creek.  I’m guessing it was some blind, deaf guy that got tricked into naming a muddy ditch by his idiot friends.