But there was a cop directly in front of me.

I parked anyway, hoping the cop wouldn’t care. But right away he put on his lights, rolled down the window, and said, “You can’t park there!”

I put on my best Reasonable Voice and said, “Could I just jump in there to buy a cupcake really quick?”

He shook his head. “No. I do this every day.”

So I gave him my Obedient Understanding You’re Just Doing Your Job Face and got back in the car. Despite the face, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t lying to the cop–I truly was only going to be a minute. Every other parking spot in the area was full, so I was going to have to use the pay-by-the-hour parking deck down the street.

The cop had waited around to make sure that I actually pulled out of the yellow zone stop, so I was really hoping that he was still around to see me walk into The Cup and back out within 2 minutes. For some reason it’s important for me to prove to people that I’m telling the truth in situations where they clearly don’t believe me. But by the time I left the shop, the cop was gone.

The hourly rate in the parking deck was a little tough to decipher–it was one of those pricing riddles, like: $3.00 for the first hour, $1.00 for every additional hour up to 5 hours, max of $15 unless it’s a harvest moon and you’re driving a compact car, in which case it’s $1 for the first hour and $2 for every subsequent hour. $1 extra per passenger unless the cumulative weight and age of all passengers adds up to less than 400.

So I drove up the attendant, silently cursing the stubborn cop, and handed him my ticket.

“You’re good,” he said.

“What? It’s free?”

“It says ‘zero’.”

I wasn’t sure if the attendant was following the computer (most likely) or giving me a break because of the whole cupcake situation (which he didn’t know about, but I think somehow he knew), but I thanked him profusely and drove away.

And literally–I’m not exaggerating–I felt like the luckiest man alive. For a mere savings of $3 (or, if my calculations were slightly off, $1,209). But because of all that had preceded it and because I thought I was going to get charged, when I walked away for free, I felt amazing.

The next time you get something for free that you expected to pay for, soak it in. This is the good stuff of life.

In this golden age of technology, we’re no match for the machines. Satellites can track a person to within a yard of their current location. Lawn mowers can cut your grass for you. TiVo can find your favorite show at any time on any channel. And now Photoshop can unblur blurry photos by processing the direction the camera was moving when the photo was taken and correcting the image.

A prime example of this is autofill. Nonexistent 10 years ago, predictive text is now ubiquitous on our cell phones, iTunes, Amazon, and online search engines. Google knows what we’re looking for before we do.

Thus I always feel extra special when I finish typing my search before autofill predicts it for me. It’s a small victory, but it feels great every time.

The day will come when humans are no match for autofill. But until that day, I will stand triumphant over my computer, hammer in one hand, loincloth in the other. This one’s for the humans!

It just doesn’t happen. Most of the time I get excited to meet someone new, but nervous? Nah. I simply follow my own recommendations for a good first date and do it.

However, there is one key area of dating for which I still get nervous. And honestly, I love that I still get nervous about this thing. Because although it often feels like I’m going through motions on dates, I don’t want to feel that way.

That area is holding hands for the first time in a movie theater. I often spend most of the first half of the movie debating where or not I should hold the girl’s hand. Is it too soon? Too late? Is she interested? Am I interested? Do I want that hand free for popcorn? Did I eat too much popcorn? Am I covered in popcorn?!

And then the calm comes when I realize: I’m going to do it. This is actually happening. My hand is moving. It’s happening. It’s touching her hand, my fingers curling around hers…

…and she reciprocates.

I then spend a few minutes wondering if she’s only holding my hand because she doesn’t want it to be awkward, and then I realize how weird that would be–if she didn’t want to hold my hand, she’d just push me away.

It’s at this point that I really start to enjoy the hand-holding experience. I wonder why I didn’t try it earlier. I’m an active hand holder–my hand doesn’t just lay their limply. Neither should yours. I don’t have a formula, but I just enjoy touching her for what is probably the first time our skin has met. In my experience, the best hand holders are active, suggestive, and variable.

For those of you who are single, what makes you nervous? And those of you in long-term relationships, does anything still make you nervous? If not, do you miss it?

It’s some miracle of invention that tandem bikes even exist. Just like the miracle of life on Earth, rising from the primordial ooze millions of years ago (or from Adam and Eve, whatever floats your boat, unless that boat is Noah’s Ark, because that’s just ridiculous), the chances that someone not only invented a tandem bike but also made it and somehow got people to ride it are astronomically low.

And yet it exists.

And people ride them!

I want to know what the conversation looks like between two people when they decide, no, we don’t want to buy two bikes. We just want one bike that we can both ride at exactly the same pace. If I steer to the right, he has no choice but to follow. If I fall, she falls too.

It’s kind of a good analogy for marriage, isn’t it?

What is the most ridiculous sport/activity that you’ve done as a couple?

This is a stock photo--not the girl at the game.

When you were younger, did you ever find yourself so wrapped up in a book that the rest of the world melted away? Maybe that happens to you as an adult too, but I feel like we read in socially acceptable places now, even in public: coffee shops, the park, cafes. When I was younger, I could be walking through a crowd of people at Disney World, and would be considerably more aware of the world Roald Dahl created on the page than the actual world around me.

Kudos to books, because this is awesome.

I thought of this because I went to the Cardinals game the other day and saw something I hadn’t seen in a while. These days I see kids playing on their parents’ iPhones or the Nintendo DS’s. Rarely do I see a kid get as wrapped up in a book as I used to. But I know it happens, because young adult fiction is hugely successful right now.

As I walked to my seat at the game, I noticed a young girl–maybe 11 or 12–completely engrossed in a book. The game had started (Cubs/Cards; she was wearing a Cubs uniform), but she didn’t care. I craned my neck to see what book could compel a kid to read instead of watch the game, but I couldn’t see the cover.

She didn’t read for the entire game, but now and then she’d pull out the book. I know what it’s like to not be able to put a book down. It actually feels…good. Other forms of media don’t have that effect. (Okay, maybe True Blood.)

What’s the last book that you got so wrapped up in that the rest of the world melted away?

This is the best for several reasons:

1. You get to look really tough and strong even though you only have glamour muscles, and tiny ones at that.
2. You don’t have to exert much energy on your superficial glamour muscles.
3. If you see the other person struggling, you can adjust your hold so that you’re helping them out a little more. Thus from their perspective you’ll go from lifting 50% of the weight to about 70%, but really you’re going from about 10% to 20%.

Another related strategy I’d suggest using is when you’re at a big family gathering and it’s time to clean the kitchen, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom for a while. Take your time. Check your e-mail on your iPhone 3Gs.

Then when you finally come out of the bathroom, be super helpful for the remaining 2-3 minutes needed to finish cleaning. Everyone will remember you being there the whole time, and you will be a family hero, showered with praise and hot cousins. (What?)

Does this make me lazy, strategic, brilliant, or despicable? I hope my mom doesn’t read this one. Or anyone who’s ever helped me move.

You put a plate of leftovers–let’s say rice and salmon–into the microwave. Then you have what is really a very minor choice: How long do you wish to cook this food?

There’s no real difference between 1 minute or 1:11 or 1:23, and yet we carefully choose our cook time to the very second. Do you know how much a second matters? In the world of microwaving, it means nothing. You’re not going to turn a good dish into throw-you-onto-the-counter orgasmic dish by adding a single second.

Yet we do it. We carefully select our cook time to the second.

And when the food comes out just right, we feel like we are are a success. We have cracked the secret code of how long to cook rice and salmon. Mark this day in history, for it shall be remembered.

That is, until the next time you cook rice and salmon, during which the whole process starts all over again.

The washing machine was leaking. A wall was dripping wet. A bathtub was losing water.

The copier broke. Several recently installed electrical outlets were discovered to be in the wrong place. The sound system repair guy didn’t show up on schedule.

The roof needs repairs. An old elevator stopped working for a while. And the spindle that holds one of the garden hoses cracked and broke.

So after a long day of checking in with contractors and trying to fix things, I was locking up when I heard a rattling sound coming from the large air conditioning unit near the main entrance.

A cursory glance revealed nothing superficially wrong. There was something loose inside the machine.

I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if a single kick could fix this machine?” Because we all know that it’s the best when that happens.

I wish I could report that a single kick repaired the AC unit. That would be a fitting conclusion to this blog entry, all wrapped up in a bow like a Friends episode. However, I’m sad to report that my kick did nothing.

But wouldn’t it have been great if it did?

I do this when I play soccer on the weekends–I watch a few minutes of a game, get hyped up about playing, and then go out onto the field and think I’m Ronaldo.

Part of the thrill of this is seeing how the best players in the world play the game and then trying to emulate it. And part of it is watching the players and feeling like I can do that and then actually going and doing it!

It’s the best.

Do you do this for any sports?