Watch out Jenni Hogan, there's a new traffic girl in town

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When spending two to three hours a day commuting with your spouse, you can learn in months what takes most people years! For example, I learned that Amanda should have been a traffic reporter, like KIRO's Jenni Hogan, but without the Aussie accent.

Whether she's the driver or passenger, Amanda calls out traffic reports in real-time. She's not looking at Google Maps or another mobile application to tell me what we can expect. No, she reports exactly what's in front of us.

When traffic is light, she'll report it: "Not too much traffic today. Traffic is usually light on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Wednesdays and Fridays are just horrible."

When traffic is heavy, she'll report it and with reason: "Look at all of these people! Where are they going? I think there's a dentist convention downtown, so these must all be dentists."

She'll weave in how weather is impacting traffic ("It's a little foggy today, so people should really slow down") and she'll make conversation around unremarkable traffic ("We're moving fast today because it's not Friday"). All that's missing is a pitch to the weather guy ("Back to you, Greg!").

When I'm driving, she describes traffic like I'm blind: "There are break lights in front of you, lots of breaking going on... Someone is going to switch lanes in front of us now."

Her favorite lines are "Holy Jumanji" or "Oh my Jumanji." Anything Jumanji-related substitutes for cussing. I don't know what that tells us about her feelings toward the movie or Robin Williams.

Heaven forbid she sees a motorcycle. Whenever she sees one, she expresses her worry for the rider's safety. She watches the motorcyclist like a hawk and comments on if he's switching lanes, if she thinks other cars see him and if she'd like to give him a hug or not.

Much like how people show different sides of their personalities in the workplace versus at parties, so do they show unique personality flavors while driving. Hence, road rage. Well Amanda has shown a sort of manic, obsessive personality when she's in the car.

It's the price I pay for use of the HOV lane, right?

Suited and Styled by Men's Wearhouse

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Disclosure: This is a sponsored blog post. Men’s Wearhouse provided me a spending allowance to write about shopping at its Northgate Seattle location. See the previous story here. I picked up my suits and jacket at the Men's Wearhouse this past weekend, and damn I look good! Here are the final results:

Mom loved the Pronto Uomo blazer:

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Here's the svelte Calvin Klein suit:

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Finally, here's my dapper Don Draper Tallia suit:

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Big thanks to the good folks at Men's Wearhouse for hooking up my style!

Don't forget, the National Suit Drive is on through the month of September. If you have professional wear that you'd like to donate to people reentering the workforce, turn the garments in to your local Men's Wearhouse location to score a 25 percent off coupon in exchange.

'Elite' isn't good enough for life insurance

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Now that I'm a responsible, mortgage-paying adult and all, I thought it was about time to get life insurance so that, in the incident that I bite the dust early, Amanda and my extended family aren't screwed with my debts. Also, my Mom (the insurance agent) told me I should, so that's that.

I figured it'd be good to get Amanda some minimal life insurance as well. She's still struggling with my decision to only buy half the amount of insurance for her, insisting that I think she's only half as valuable. I plead the fifth.

Life insurance rates vary depending on your health, of course. I believe the technical terms in order of affordability are "elite preferred," "preferred" and "crappy." To determine where you fall in the ranks, you have to visit a nurse to get your vitals measured. Health is a business first, no doubt.

Last week, Amanda and I skipped out of work early to see the insurance nurse. Amanda was concerned about her cholesterol being too high, but we knew that we would comfortably be able to meet all of the other standards for the "elite preferred" rate. Amanda ate oatmeal all week to be safe.

Thevisit was fairly standard except for the nurse continually missing my veins when trying to draw blood. Three needle wounds later she got what she wanted and I had crack-addict track marks.

Yesterday morning, Mom sent us an email that started, "Well, your wife has bragging rights for the moment..."

Amanda has scored "elite preferred" but I had only qualified for "elite." Aside for one game of bowling, this is the only other competition Amanda has tangibly beat me at, not that I'm competitive about it or anything.

My damn blood pressure was too high. This felt like my "overweight" BMI score all over again. My blood pressure has been too high in past, but I thought I had that under control for the last couple of years.

CLEARLY my wife had sabotaged me before the nurse appointment with stressful conversation, knowing that high blood pressure would be my Achilles' heel. Amanda just loves talking about getting pregnant and home projects and buying boats and all sorts of things that would require added responsibility and income.

It's not like my blood pressure is going to get any lower as these ideas become realities. Good thing I have life insurance now at an "elite" rate to cover all of the above.