Here’s a helpful parenting tip I wanted to pass along to young parents. Every time we were about to eat out as a family, my four year old kept insisting on going to McDonald’s. Not because the food is incredibly delicious, but because McDonald’s has the market cornered on kids. Their Happy Meal toys are a great incentive for kids and a terrible curse on parents who deny their kids the privilege of McDonald’s fast food. As an adult, let me just say that the McDonald’s menu is not entirely suited to our dietary needs. After constantly being the bad guy for telling my kid no, I decided to just tell him that McDonald’s was closed for the winter season and that they would reopen in the Spring. For a few months, my kids never asked for McDonald’s and they even started to like other restaurants that served a more adult menu.

Now I’m sure some people are saying that lying to your kids is just plain wrong, but I would argue that all that advertising on television aimed at kids is not entirely trustworthy. My kids eventually realized that McDonald’s wasn’t closed, and at that time I told them why I did not want them eating McDonald’s all the time and by this time they were older and understood my intentions.

I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker, to be honest I’ve much more preferred Coke Cola. My girlfriend reminded me of the 3 liter bottles I use to down regularly while in college, but now that I’m a certified diabetic, I find myself drinking only Diet Coke and other horrible diet varieties of soft drinks. Since I started working earlier, I’ve found myself drinking 16 ounce coffee cups almost daily and even on the weekends when I sleep in, I find myself drinking coffee instead of getting breakfast. At first I did not notice, it just kind of happened with the change in work schedules, but come Thursdays and Fridays, I find myself exhausted and almost relish the energy (or should I say hyper attitude) that comes with morning coffee. For some reason, even though Diet Coke and Diet Mountain Dew have caffeine as well, it just doesn’t register the same with me.

Overall I find the taste of coffee to be bitter. It is not exactly a delicious drink. Though I would have to say that the Panera coffee is very flavorful and quite pleasant compared to the usual gas station coffee. I’ve mostly grown somewhat fond of French Roast with Hazelnut creamer. Since I’ve grown to become a coffee drinker, I’ve started to try a few other beverages as well, most notably beer. My preferred beer is ale. I find ale to be smoother, with less after taste. Luckily Iowa City offers plenty of choices when it comes to beer. There are even some nice local brews that are pretty good. Over the Holidays, I decided to try red wine a bit more, but cheap wine can give you headaches, and it sure gave me a terrible headache that lasted pretty much the whole day. No more wine for me.

Well, if 2006 wasn’t a bad enough year for me already! Seems fate had one last card to play and it came Saturday, (December 16), when on my way back from Mankato on Highway 14, a huge buck jumps out of the center highway divider and slams head first into the driver’s side of my Buick LeSabre. Needless to say, the deer wrecked the entire side of the car. I can’t even open the driver’s side door now. Luckily, it hit the side of the car and not the front or else it could have slammed right through the windshield.

All I saw was some fur in front of the side mirror and the next thing I knew there were pieces of my car flying out. I didn’t slow down at all until about five minutes later, so as not to crash into anyone else. I eventually pulled over to the side of the road and finished tearing some of the dangling pieces of plastic from the front tire well. Then we drove to the nearest town and duck-taped the turn signal light. Katryn called the local police and they came and looked at the car and I had to get an accident report. I then had to drive about 280 miles home to Iowa from Minnesota.

From what the insurance company told us so far, the car is pretty much totaled, since the repairs cost more than the value of the car. I keep going over the accident, but I can’t think of anyway I could have avoided the deer. It was totally dark already by 5 PM, and since it blindsided me by jumping from the center divider which was pretty much a wide ditch, it was very hard for me to see.

Yesterday, I happen to be at my local Target store and realized that the Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii were debuting. Is it just me or does anyone else find it strange that gamers give up the comfort of their own homes and erect shanty towns around BestBuy, Target, and Wal-Mart stores? Only in a consumer oriented society do people willingly become shanty people.