My first e-card of the holiday season arrived yesterday. The Hallmark E-Card featured an online slideshow of a snowy, bucolic setting, interspersed with the saying, "Through every moment of the holidays, every day of the new year, may peace and happiness be yours." As the slideshow played and the Hallmark-y saying flashed on the screen, holiday music played in the background. Then, a personal message from the sender followed. It was a nice sentiment that I truly appreciate. It was flashy and creative, particularly for someone who hasn't received one of these before. That being said, I'm pretty sure the same e-card was sent to everyone else on this person's e-mail distribution list, which seems a bit impersonal to me. Even though the only real difference between signing a store-bought card, putting it in an envelope, addressing it, putting a stamp on it and putting the whole thing in the mail is the effort and expense involved, the message lost some of its personal touch when I read it on the computer screen. I could hit the "Play Again" button and watch the slideshow and listen to the music again, but I can't put the e-card in my door-hanging Santa card holder in my living room -- though I guess I could try to print it out. Still, it's not the same. The part that truly bugged me was not the fact that this person sent me an electronic card -- I really do appreciate it. I don't like being told "Now it's your turn to make someone smile," which Hallmark's e-mail suggested I do. With one click, I could purchase photo cards, e-cards, paper cards and invitations and announcements. Now, I'm being marketed to while I'm being wished a happy holiday season. Bah humbug! A regular Hallmark card that comes in the mail doesn't include an ad suggesting that I be a good person and go to Target to buy another card for someone else. But on the Web, where everything is just a click away, I can't even receive a thoughtful holiday message without also receiving a sales pitch. Luckily, the delete button is just a click away. Happy holidays. (photo courtesy of Adam Buteux's PhotoStream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/adambuteux/2057616152/)

One degree of separation

Here's a snippet from my weekly column in The Pinnacle. For the entire text, click here.

Jack Frost doesn't just nip at my nose in the morning during the winter; he takes a full-on bite.
This week's freezing temperatures finally put me into winter mode, which inevitably leads to friendly heater battles with my wife. When I get home from work and it's as cold as it has been this week, I am fine with setting the heater at 65 degrees and getting the house relatively toasty.
I even throw some logs onto the fire and get the family room heated up so we can enjoy some family time in front of the television. So far, so good.
Then bedtime rolls around and I turn the thermostat down by one degree, to 64, figuring that we'll all be tucked warmly into bed and we can spare the extra degree and the extra expense associated with it.
If my wife gets out of bed before falling asleep and walks down the hall, it's safe to assume she'll bump the heater back up to 65. Since I usually stay up later than she does, I'll often make a second trip down the hall to push it back to 64. Wow, what a victory.
Since I also usually wake up first in the morning, I'll then bump the thermostat back to 65 because, again, that one degree really makes a huge difference, I tell myself. (see what happens next in The Pinnacle)

(Photo courtesy of EditorB's Photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/editor/2735370649/)

Watch out, your plate is hot

Nearly every time I eat at a Mexican restaurant, the waiter or waitress tells me "Watch out, your plate is hot" as they place it on the table in front of me. I appreciate the warning, because I don't like burning myself. The trouble is, every time they say that I am compelled to touch the plate to see just how hot it is. It's like I'm a little kid who is told not to look under the Christmas tree at all the presents that are there for me. While in the server's mind he or she is offering a friendly warning, in my mind they are daring me to see if they are telling the truth. The touching of the hot plate has become such a ritual that my teenage sons now touch their allegedly hot plates when we are out to eat. They shoot me a knowing glance when they do this, full of pride that they took the imaginary dare and stared danger in the face -- with danger in this case being a taco and burrito combination plate. This week, as we ate at Jardine's in San Juan Bautista, the waiter gave us the standard hot plate warning, which I appreciated -- then immediately ignored. The plate was warm, for sure, though not hot. My son's friend's plate, however, was actually beyond hot. It was fajita plate hot, where the food is still bubbling or sizzling when it arrives at the table, even though he just ordered two burritos. To my shock and surprise, the hot plate warning actually was real. Since there were three teenage males in addition to my wife and me at the table, we all had to touch the plate. "Ow!" one of us said. "Wow, that is hot!" said another. We were impressed and undaunted at the same time. An actual hot plate at a restaurant; the first time the warning actually made sense. It wasn't the smartest thing to do, but again, 80 percent of our table was male. Had they warned us not to touch the candle in the middle of the table because it was hot, we probably would have tried to touch that too just to see for ourselves. (Photo courtesy of Beverly and Pack's Photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkadog/3484426248/)

A Christmas lights inferiority tale

If there were a Christmas Tree Lane in my town, it would be my street. Starting on Thanksgiving and gearing up in earnest this past weekend, our quiet, tree-lined residential byway becomes a slow-motion highway of holiday revelers driving 3 mph up and down the road to check out the cool holiday displays. It's really cool to live on such a festive street, as it makes every nighttime sojourn to the store or to basketball practice a trip through a (California) winter wonderland. Most of the homes on my street are of the two-story variety and three-fourths of them are strung with lights and festooned with every possible Christmas-y decoration, from mangers to wooden character cutouts to inflatable snow globes. On any other street in any other town, my house would be appropriately decorated. Our nicely-decorated living room Christmas tree fills the front window and two small, lighted Christmas trees border our garage door. Our gutter is lined by a string of lights that is simple, yet festive and we soon will drape some bushes with white lights and place a lighted snowman in the front yard. But compared to the rest of my street, my house is the Charlie Brown Christmas tree: simple, bare, sparse, yet symbolic of the season. Despite peer pressure from my sons that we add enough lights so that our home is visible to the International Space Station, we will keep it simple and modest, even if it means our driveway remains the turnaround point for holiday lights gazers. Simplicity was good enough for Charlie, and it's good enough for me. Good grief. (Photo courtesy of Ted Murphy's Photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedmurphy/3068154256/)

They dropped a bomb on us, baby

The three-quarter-page public notice in this week's edition of The Pinnacle sounded a bit ominous on first read, using words like "Bomb Target No. 5, Hollister," "unexploded ordnance," and "discarded military munitions." It turns out that some rural property east of Hollister off Santa Ana Valley Road was used by Navy pilots as a practice dive bombing target during World War II and the government is in the process of checking it out to see if any clean-up is needed. I knew that there was a Naval Auxiliary Air Station at the Hollister Airport during the war, but the practice dive bombing info was news to me. A spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is coordinating the investigation, said the advertisement was meant to help the government gather more information about the bombing site, though it has already talked to current and former owners. In next week's Pinnacle, I'll report in more detail on the bombing runs from 65 years ago and explain what the next steps will be in the investigation of the site. My dad, who grew up in Hollister and was related to the then-property owners, recalled to me how some family members collected the practice bombs, which, fortunately, were inert -- usually filled with sand. Unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately -- those weren't kept as family heirlooms. Check the Nov. 13 issue of The Pinnacle for the full story. (image courtesy of ezioman's Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ezioman/)

Paper or plastic? Don't bother asking

The question "paper or plastic?" could be sacked in Hollister stores if rumblings from City Hall come to pass. According to minutes of the Oct. 5 City Council meeting, at least two councilmen mentioned what could become a hot-button issue locally; whether to ban the use of plastic bags at stores. District 4 Councilman Doug Emerson "requested information on what other jurisdictions are doing to ban plastic bags," according to the minutes posted on the city's Web site, and Councilman Victor Gomez "suggested talking to Mandy (Rose) at (the) San Benito County Integrated Waste Management Department regarding Styrofoam and plastic bags..." So, does that mean that the city is considering a ban on the bags, much like our neighbor to the north, San Francisco? It's too early to say, but this journalist and local shopper will look into the matter and offer an update within the next week. As reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle, the City by the Bay, which already bans plastic bags at large grocery stores and pharmacies, is now turning its attention to paper bags. Legislation introduced this week "would require those stores to offer a 10-cent rebate as an incentive for people to bring their own bags." The ordinance would include fines up to $500 for stores that don't offer the rebate. It'll be interesting to see if such a rule will fly or get bagged in Hollister. Stay tuned. (photo courtesy of evelynishere's photostream on Flickr)

Shooting for the moon

I never intentionally wake up at 4:15 in the morning. A barking dog or earthquake or the necessity of a trip to the bathroom are all will stir me at that hour. Until this week, that is. Before I went to bed, I heard on the 11 o'clock news that NASA's planned lunar mission, in which it was going to crash a rocket into a crater on the moon, was going to be televised at 4:30 the next morning. I figured I didn't need to see that live, so I went to be thinking that I would catch the highlights on the "Today" show at 7 a.m. Then, for some odd reason, I was stirred awake at 4:15. Normally when this happens, I readjust my pillow, pull up the blankets, and let out a sigh of contentment knowing that I have a couple of hours left before I have to wake up. On Friday morning, however, my inquisitive side took over and I got out of bed and went to the family room to watch the lunar show on TV. As soon as the tube flickered on, I saw the camera feed from NASA, as the spaceship beamed back images as it neared the moon's surface. I made the right choice, I thought, even though it was dark outside and I was sacrificing valuable sleep time. Within a couple of minutes, scientists were shown celebrating the mission's success, as TV anchors on various networks wondered what had happened. There was no big explosion to see. The people back on Earth who stayed up all night to watch the expected explosion though telescopes saw nothing, except the moon looking the same as it always has. The 14 minutes I devoted to watching this historic mission wasn't the fascinating, spectacular show that was billed to be. And it took me more than 45 minutes to fall back asleep as I argued with myself about why my head was in the stars on this night/morning. The thing is, I'd do it again because I don't want to miss history -- or a chance at it. It was a gamble I took and one that didn't pay off. But sometimes you shoot for the moon and miss. (photo courtesy of Kevin Collins' Photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevincollins/)