Yesterday, I checked another item off of my life to-do list: rush the field after a football game.

I sat one row back from the field  in the end zone at yesterday’s Big Game between Cal and Stanford.  Remarkably, Stanford earned and kept the lead, and when the final second ticked away, I was one of the first to the grass.  The sheriffs in riot gear had no prayer of stopping the thousands of jubilant Stanford students, so they stood off to the side.

The experience was exactly as I had imagined it: wonderful.

What has been consuming my life? Tagg, you’re it.

When you think about the months in a year, what image pops into your head? Whenever I am trying to manipulate dates that span more than a month, I always picture something like this:

I suspect that layout of months got stuck in my mind because my elementary school calendar had a similar structure.

How do other people visualize the months of a year?

Update: Other people have posted examples in the comments. No overlap yet.

Another milestone has been passed in Keacherland: I have become one of “those guys” when I find myself in a Starbucks. Short dry cap, “for here.”

It really is decent. Still overpriced, but decent.

Airports are a necessary evil. I try to spend as little time in them as possible when flying, and I try to waste as little time as possible near them when picking up or dropping off somebody. It’s a pain. That’s why I was thrilled to read about some sanity at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. From the article:

By Thanksgiving, drivers can park on a lot on airport grounds, free of charge, until they get a call from their visitor, on the ground and waiting for pickup.

Brilliant! The existing design forced cars into an automotive holding pattern, circling a mile-long loop until the arriving party was ready to be picked up. There was nowhere to park, and idling at the baggage-claim doors for more than a few seconds produced quick rebukes from the airport police. The loop was a huge waste of fuel, and the extra traffic of people circling about made for irksome congestion.

The new system sounds wonderful. No more mindless looping. No more fumbling with cell phones while driving. No more well-intentioned-but-very-annoying reminders that “the white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only.”

I applaud the airport commission for a move that makes tremendous sense.