a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. priceless

my uncle tim had two grandpas. one was a minister and one worked the train lines.

when tim went to the minister grandpa's house as a kid, the three children in the family (tim, my mother and their sister) would sit stone-still while the adults caught up. i remember my mom telling stories about how tim, the family prankster, would try to get the girls to make noise. he would whisper funny...

if i could have invented one thing made in the past few decades, it would be highway rumble strips. those things are the greatest. so simple. so clever. so effective. can you imagine how many lives they have saved? there is no way it is not in the millions, the tens of millions even.

if you think that number is high, i would guess you have never had your car drift off the pavement into the dirt/grass/stone/whatever at 60 miles per hour (or better). maybe you were just distracted or maybe you had just fallen asleep. either way you would be challenged as hell to recover from the moment because to keep a car on the predictable cement and off the crazily unpredictable terrain next to the cement is what it's all about. once you're in the dirt, life gets real unpredictable real fast (and that tenet applies to more than just driving). and someone figured out a crazy-simple and super-effective way to keep you on that smooth and comfy asphalt. and not only does it let the occupants of the offending car know to get re-focused, the noise made alerts cars around the car floating out of their lane to be on alert for the driver that is droswy, distracted or messing with their phone. great on so many levels.

as far as life-saving goes, that has to be right up there with the most note-worthy medical advances seen over time.

i tried to look up who invented them and closest i got (not that i looked long) is some guy says his grandfather made them, or at least made the machine that makes them. not that receiving credit gets you much, especially if there are no monetary spoils (or you're dead), but it surely would have been satisfying to have divined something that saved, and therefore changed, so, so many lives.

as mentioned yesterday, i recently took a road trip. it is an annual trip east i have been taking since the kids got old enough they did not require a full-time staff of two. on this trek i visit friends and family and since starting the company, i mix a work stop or two along the way. the time for me is restorative and joyful and one of my favorite annual traditions (amidst many).

this year i got ambitious and over-planned the week, seeking to milk every day and hit every drivable connection. after getting home-sick i decided to trim a bit off the end and head home a full day early. in thinking on it further i thought i had a neat opportunity to surprise my family with a premature return (because we do like surprises: New Car Story).

so i planned my eleven hour drive out so i would arrive just before sunday dinner, fifteen minutes before to be precise. once home, i parked a few houses down the street to walk the last bit (so no one accidentally spied my car out front). using my cell, i called our home line and got marty. we exchanged hellos and then i said that i might not be home on monday night. there was a long pause. i knew her mind had already started thinking through the implications of me being a day late since the kids were to start school on tuesday. as she processed the news, i walked through the front door. i found bella knitting on the living room couch. on seeing me she dropped her needles shot her arms into the air and bellowed, "dad's home!!!".

i walked into the breakfast room in time to see marty hanging up the phone. she turned and gave me a wry smile. after separating from our hug i asked if i was going to find a shirtless college boy or two jumping out of our bedroom window. she said i would not, they left earlier in the day.

i recently took my annual friends and family tour back east. this is a solo trip i've been making the last few years, or put differently, since the kids have been old enough to not overwhelm a single parent. i am fortunate that a few of my closest friends and a portion of my family are clustered in a remarkably small area, an area i did not grow up in (but did finish college in) which makes it all ...