Random Thoughts with Will

     In my family, we have this unofficial holiday tradition of putting together puzzles over the holiday season. Usually, we put together a 1,000 piece Charles Wysocki jigsaw puzzle. Typically, a Wysocki puzzle features a small town from 18th or 19th century, at least one American flag, horses, an excessive amount of wheels, and pesky sky pieces that are hard to put together because they all look the same. Sure enough, after a few hours, sometimes days, the puzzle all comes together and the final piece get puts in. In some instances, a piece or two is missing (even after checking the floor and box), and we have to settle for completing a 998 piece jigsaw puzzle.      In the 1994 classic film Forrest Gump , Forrest's mom famously said that life was like a box of chocolates. Her reasoning, of course, was because you never know what you're going to get. All these years later, that quote still rings true today.  Heck, when I was in 5th grade, the vice p...

     Growing up, just about every kid plays games such as tag, duck, duck, goose, musical chairs, and Simon says. There are two memorable commands from playing "Simon says" that I still find funny today. One was "Simon says act like a DVD player". Shout-out to my brother for coming up with that one. The other one was "Simon says wait". I've been told that I gave that command, presumably because I couldn't think of anything else in the moment. While that is a funny command to give in a kid's game, it can actually be applicable to our lives. We are often told in our lives to wait and be patient -- by our parents, our peers, etc. Although playing "the waiting game" is never fun, it seems to me that today's fast-paced environment and desire for instant gratification has made us never want to wait for anything.      Portable, handheld electronics such as smartphones and tablets really are useful. It is amazing to think about how th...

     Happy 2018, everyone! I hope everyone had a restful and relaxing holiday season. I know I did. One fun gift I got this holiday season from my brother was a collection of Peanuts specials from the 1970s. One night during the holidays, "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!"was on TV, so I watched that with my mom and brother. In this Peanuts holiday special, everyone is looking forward to celebrating the New Year...but Charlie Brown has to read and write a report on War and Peace (Oh good grief!)   that's due the day after break.  Having never seen this one before, I have to admit it was pretty funny. Well done, Charles M. Schulz.      Between watching this Peanuts special (and countless others), one thought prevailed in my mind: Charlie Brown is so darn relatable. A running gag is that he gets the short end of the stick, whether that's getting rocks as Halloween candy, managing a losing baseball team, paying a nickel to get advice from Lucy, havi...