"It's Pretty Good" (9/17/12)

Yesterday I had to stop at Walgreens to pick up a few things.  Walgreens has just rolled out a new rewards program, which I did not know until I saw the signs all over the store.  I'm a pretty frequent Walgreens customer so this seemed like a great idea to me, so as I approached the the check out counter I was expecting to be assaulted with a full sales pitch.  Despite being surrounded by ads, including clings on the counter, an electronic ad on the credit card machine, and a button on the cashier's shirt, he did not mention it at all.  Well, not at all until I was almost done with my transaction, at which point he said, "yeah, so it's pretty good."

Hmm...it's pretty good?  I looked quizzically at the cashier who then said, "you should really, you know, sign up or you won't get the sales in a few weeks."

That's the sales pitch?!?  It's pretty good AND sign up or you won't get sales?!?  Yes, folks, what I learned yesterday is that Walgreens needs to invest some dollars in training their cashiers in pitching their programs.  

Hey Ref...(9/16/12)

Yesterday I was watching my Wildcats beat the Boston College Eagles (Go Cats!) during one of our preseason football games.  There were several suspect calls by the officials (I don't think it's OK for that BC guy to take a swing at one of our players, ref) which sparked a conversation with some of my friends where I learned something new - referees are hired by individual NCAA conferences.  I knew that the away team brings their refs with them for inter-conference games (seems weird to me, but I guess it's to offset the home field advantage).  In pondering the seemingly biased flags being thrown (and yes, I realize that I don't tend to pay to much attention to the validity of the calls that go in my favor, so it might not be biased at all) I wondered why all of the NCAA refs weren't on some sort of rotating schedule to prevent any type of conference bias at all.  That is when a friend of mine let me know that each conference employees their own referees.  

This local affiliation is apparently one of the reasons that college football referees were not interested in being replacement refs for the NFL.  If they gave up their college jobs they would likely be replaced.  Should the referee strike in the NFL wrap up quickly these refs would then be out of a job - no college job and no NFL job (I guess the refs from the lingerie league did not have the same concerns).

So once we hit conference play I will be happy to know that the refs are Big 10 employees and therefore do not have any particular bias one way or the other.  Unless, of course, they are Wildcat fans!

Go Cats!

A Special Hello Kitty Tribute

Yesterday I was having dinner with some girlfriends, and one of them was telling us about the Hello Kitty birthday party for her 4 year old daughter.  As we were talking about Hello Kitty she said, "did you know that Hello Kitty was originally designed by a girl who had been abused by her parents?"

"What?" I exclaimed.  I grew up with Hello Kitty and all her friends (truth be told, I was a Keroppi fan) and I had never heard anything controversial about the little white cat.

She insisted that she had read this on where else but the internet.  She said the story explained why Hello Kitty has no mouth.  Truth be told (I'm very honest today) I had never really noticed that she didn't have a mouth.  I just assumed that her fur covered it up.  But this new explanation seemed way to bizarre even for Japanese anime so, of course, I pulled out my phone and Googled it.  

I started with Wikipedia (my favorite source for pop culture facts) where I learned that, according to the Sanrio company who first launched Hello Kitty, she has no mouth because she speaks from the heart.  That was a sufficient answer to me, but my friend insisted that wasn't the story she had read.

I continued searching and came across anitiasnotebook.com, which shed some light on the story.  Apparently the abused girl story is an urban legend.  It's been in circulation for some time now, but is entirely untrue.  Another untrue, but hilarious Hello Kitty urban legend is that she is actually a tribute to the Devil.  As the "story" goes, a woman had a dying daughter so she made a pact with the Devil that if he spared the daughter's life, the mother would create a cartoon character to pay tribute to the Devil.  A cartoon character, huh?  Yes, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what the Devil would have wanted if this were in fact true.  More over, I'm sure that the Devil would have wanted said cartoon character to be a cute, white and pink, mouthless but fluffy little kitty.  Maybe, like Hello Kitty, the Devil really just wants to speak from his heart. 

With the legend disproved, and the real story straight, my friend was feeling much better about having a Hello Kitty theme party for her four year-old daughter.  

Forgetful Jones...er, Joy

Yesterday I learned several things, I'm sure.  The problem is that I cannot remember them.  I have spent several hours trying to jog my memory to remind myself of the clever and interesting nuggets of information that I stumbled upon yesterday without success.  I am sure that, could I remember them, these factoids would be both exciting and noteworthy.  If only they had been a tad bit more memorable.

This struggle to remember what I had clearly captured my interest yesterday reminded me of one of my favorite characters from Sesame Street, Forgetful Jones.  For those of you who don't remember (the irony is not lost, trust me) Forgetful Jones was a cowboy with a very bad memory.  In one very memorable scene Forgetful Jones is trying to sing the theme song from Oklahoma but cannot remember the first letter of the word.  Over several takes, in my opinion, hilarity ensues.  I will let you make up your own mind, on this point...while I try to remember what I'm going to write about tomorrow.

Forgetful Jones Sings Oklahoma

Baby Klum

Yesterday I happened to be watching TLC when I saw a commercial for Heidi Klum's new line of, that's right, baby clothes.  Taking a page out of her Project Runway contestents' books, Klum has designed Truly Scrumptious is the new line baby of clothes and furniture for Babies R Us.  I hope that none of the kids clothes look like her Halloween costumes.

A Wagner Marathon

I was at my parents' house yesterday and my Mom was telling me about a documentary that she and my Dad had watched the previous night.  It was called Wagner's Dream and it aired on PBS.  It's a documentary that takes the viewer behind the scenes of the rehearsals and staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Met in New York. 

The Met set out to stage all four of operas in the Ring Cycle with a decidedly modern and high-tech approach, something very new for the Met.  Filmmaker Susan Froemke documented the 6 year journey that director Robert Lepage took to bring to life four of the most difficult operas to stage, a challenge that many a director has struggled with including Wagner himself.

I quickly pulled up the app on my phone that lets me find and record programs.  While I was sadly unable to find a rebroadcast of Wagner's Dream, I did learn that all four operas directed by Lepage are being shown on PBS this week.  I have successfully set my DVR to record all of them and I'm looking forward to my own personal Wagner marathon.  Hopefully they will rebroadcast the documentary soon as well.  To learn more about this ambitious project visit:

http://wagnersdream.metoperafamily.org/

And if you're not sure you'll like Wagner, here's a pretty good introduction to get you ready:


What's Opera Doc?

The Really Red River

Can you imagine being a fisherman and waking up one morning to find the river that you usually fish in had turned bright red?  No imagine that you kind of shrugged it off and when on fishing anyway?  That's what at least one man in China did on September 6th when he found that the Yangtze River had mysteriously turned red.  Not just kind of red, or pinkish, but full on, tomato juice red.  The Daily Mail has a series of amazing photos that you can see here:

Yangtze Turns Red

Officials are still trying to determine the cause of the dye job.  Some theories are that pollution was churned up by a storm, or someone illegally dumped waste into the river (this happened a few months ago to another river in China).   I suspect that the Yangtze was having a Katy Perry moment that day and wanted to mix things up.

Were this type of thing to happen in the US, the whole river would be cordoned off and you would see people in hazmat suits taking samples.  In China, though, people filled water bottles with souvenir red water and that fisherman that I mentioned, well he got back to work. 

They Don't Call it Crazy for Nothing (9/10/12)

On Saturday I was making guacamole when a particularly stubborn pit caused me to slice my left ring finger open (not to worry, the guac was not contaminated).  I followed my typical finger cut protocol - wash it, wrap it in a napkin, hold it in the air for a few minutes, and put a bandage on it. 

By Sunday morning it was still prone to bleeding.  While some folks might go to the hospital for stitches or maybe to an urgent care clinic, I went to get my nails done (hey, a girl needs priorities, right?).  While there my finger once again started to bleed, and my nail tech taught me a neat trick: crazy glue the wound closed.  She used the kind of glue that you repair a broken nail with, and it sealed the cut right up.

It did not last all day, and later I was faced with the same problem (though it was getting progressively better).  I pulled out my crazy glue and gave it another coat.  Sealed once more.

This got me to thinking about whether or not gluing a cut close was a good idea so I checked the web.  It turns out there have been quite a few studies about the safety and toxicity of using crazy glue to close wounds.  Most seemed to suggest that it was not toxic and in fact very effective in healing cuts.  Now, I'm not suggesting you should always use this method, nor am I a doctor, but in a pinch, it does a pretty good job at keeping the blood at bay.

Maybe that glue is not so crazy after all!

The Northwestern Stripe

Yesterday was Northwestern University's Football home opener.  It was also the first time I got a chance to see our new uniforms in person.  They have taken a decidedly retro turn, which I love, by including a series of three stripes, one wide flanked by a narrow one on either side, across the center as seen here:

I learned that Northwestern University was the first team to use this iconic stripe on their uniforms in 1928.  Talk about trendsetters!  It's nice see we've once again returned to our roots.

GO CATS!

I'm Here to See a Website About a Horse

Yesterday I was driving to work when I heard an odd story on the news:  The United States Marshall Service would be auctioning 93 of the over 400 horses that Rita Crundwell, the former city comptroller of Dixon, IL once owned.  The US Marshall Service is auctioning off the horses because Crundwell is accused of stealing over $53 Million from the city of Dixon in her 22 years as comptroller.

Now, I am from Chicago so news about a corrupt politician is not really news since it happens so often.  What I thought was so interested was that they were auctioning the horses (well, at least some of them) online.  I've seen a lot of online auctions, from eBay to charity fundraisers.  I've even participated in a few (unsuccessfully) but most of those have been for pretty reliable items - concert tickets, cooking classes, autographed memorabilia, and the like.   I have never seen horses in any of the auctions, so I was curious as to how this works.

I went to the auction website http://professionalauction.com and found the auctions listed under "U.S. District Court-ordered Dispersal of horses in United States of America v. Rita A. Crundwell."  There you will find two different auctions and online catalogs listing all of the horses.  The opening bid is $400, which seems pretty reasonable for a horse, but some of the bids are already up to $36,000.  

$36,000 for a horse you've never seen in person?!? I guess it goes to show you that you really can buy anything online!

The Nose Knows

Yesterday I was at happy hour with some friends.  I had started with a cocktail, but decided to switch to beer.  I ordered a Dogfish Midas Touch, which is an ancient ale with hints of honey and other old stuff (according to the label).  I was about to start drinking it when a friend of mine yelled at me. 

"Drink that out of a glass," he chided.

"I'm good with the bottle," I replied.  Really, I'm not too good for the bottle.

Apparently the bottle is too good for the beer, though.  I learned that in order to fully enjoy the beer my nose needs to be included.

According to the Trappist Punks website, the human nose can detect thousands of distinct smells but the human mouth can only detect five or at most six tastes.  Yes, the mouth is a slacker, but also only allows a beer drinker to just scratch the surface of the complex flavors that been masters strive to achieve.  The nose knows how to enjoy beer fully, but it can't do its job if it can smell the beer.  And it can't smell the beer if it's trapped in a long neck bottle.

So it turns out that I am too good for the bottle.  From here on out it's glasses for me, if at all possible.

Is it 5:00 yet?

Slap a Logo on It

Yesterday I was very uncharacteristically early to meet a friend for drinks.  While I was waiting I because momentarily disorientated because the New York Giants were playing the Dallas Cowboys on TV.  Did I  miss a day?  Was Wednesday cancelled this week and Thursday had to step up?  Was it Monday and I had two extra days ahead of me?  No, I was sure it was Wednesday, so why was I watching football?

As if in my head hearing my question, Chirs Collinsworth supplied me with the answer:  the Thursday night season opener had been rescheduled so as not to conflict with President Obama's speech at the DNC slated for tonight.  Chris then went on to tell me that this was the first Wednesday night game in 64 years.  The last was played by the Los Angeles Rams who beat the Detroit Lions 44-7 on September 22, 1948.

I have to admit that I couldn't quite remember the score so I went to look it up, and that's when I learned something really interesting.  According to www.sportsecyclopedia.com the 1948 season saw the introduction of the horns on the Rams' helmets.  They were designed by Frank Gehrke, a halfback who worked as a graphic designer in the off season.  Gehrke's design made the Rams the first team to have their logo on their helmet.  That iconic design has survived 64 years and relocation to St. Louis. 

Frank Gehrke, you were certainly a trendsetter!

Phew!

It only took an extra two weeks but I am finally caught up with all of my posts.  My poor little notebook has been through the ringer, but has kept me (for the most part) on track!  Back to regular posts from here on out (hopefully)!

Two Hours of 916 Pages

Yesterday I learned that it takes nearly 2 hours to page through this year's September issue of Vogue.  I purchased the tome (it really is wonderfully huge) with plans to read it at the beach, but it seemed far too overwhelming to flip through while laying out in the sun, so I saved it for last night.  I sat down with the goal of just looking at each page.  I didn't read any of the articles or content (yet) and kept up a pretty steady pace.  It took me nearly two hours to page through all 916 pages!

While I need to go back to confirm, it appears that menswear is going to be popular this fall along with booties and purple nail polish.  Hmm...I'm now feeling like the information return for two hours time seems a little weak.  I guess you just can't quantify the enjoyment of looking at beautiful clothes on women with really weird hair.

I can only imagine what the articles have in store for me!

Peeled and Tasty (9/4/12)

Yesterday I learned that kale and beets and ginger and apples and lemons all juiced together are surprisingly good!  A friend of mine was in town from Ohio, and before she hit the road she took me over to Peeled, a juice bar that just opened in Evanston.  I am usually a coffee/Coke Zero kind of morning person, so I wasn't sure that juice was going to do it for me, but I was willing to give it a try. 

We walked and and the first thing I learned is that everything there is vegan, including the gelato.  I also learned that most of the questions that I had were not going to be answered by the two young women working there, and I stopped asking technical questions.  

Most of the drinks are blends of different fruits and vegetables.  Kale is a big player as are apples and nut milks.  You can also add in various supplements including hemp powder for protein and tocos, which apparently is vitamin A.

I skipped the supplements and went with the fruit and veggie mix called Focus'd.  The woman took easily two bushels of fruits and veggies, cut them up and stuffed them into this big silver machine that looked the the centrifuge that I used to use when I worked in a lab.  All of this effort yielded 16 ounces of bright pink juice that, once I got up enough nerve to try it, was delicious!

I am looking forward to trying all of the other brands.  It my not be a substitute for caffeine (I went home after and took a nap, actually) but Peeled Juices are darn tasty!

Yes, That Youngest Brother (9/3/12)

Yesterday I learned that my youngest brother is going to be a first-time dad.  My youngest brother who ran across the room to do the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance at his barbaque yesterday.  My youngest brother who recorded a rif on the Muffin Man scene from Shrek as my voice mail message yesterday.  My youngest brother that stood in the background of a picture I was taking with several friends, holding a carnation in his mouth yesterday.  That youngest brother is going to be a first-time dad in April.  It seems pretty appropriate that the due date is April 1st.

Congratulations, little bro!

The Distracting Cats (9/2/12)

Yesterday I learned that I wasn't perfect.  I actually missed writing this post on time, even in my trusty notebook.  I think I was too distracted by the heart-stopping opening season win that Northwestern managed to eek out over Syracuse.  It was one of the best possible distractions to be sure.  Here's hoping that they settle in and start winning by huge margins so that I can stay on track with my blog!

Go Cats

The Mango on the Sticky Rice (9/1/12)

Yesterday I learned that if you order online from my favorite thai restaurant Thai Sookdee you save 10%.  Talk about win-win (for me at least).  Thai Sookdee benefits from automated ordering and I don't have to embarrass myself by trying (always unsuccessfully) to pronounce the names of my favorite dishes.  I would use online ordering even without the discount, so saving 10% is the icing on the cake, or more accurately, the mango on the sticky rice!

Yum!

Lazy River (8/31/12)

Yesterday I learned that the Rio Grande River is very low in New Mexico.  Partially because of a lack of rain this season, but largely due to Colorado syphoning off so much water to keep in reserves.  Pars of the river in Albuquerque are less than 3 feet deep.  this is still deep enough to float a 30 year-old rubber raft down it, just don't be in a hurry.

The Rio Grande River in Alburquerque is the epitome of a lazy river.

Land For Sale - Radiation Free Location (8/30/12)

Yesterday I was in a talk given by Alan Deutschman, a former journalist and the author of the book Walk the Walk.  He was giving an example about the leadership and cultural shift at IBM in the late 90s.  He shared an experience he had recently when he visited the new IBM headquarters in NY.

While there some executives took him over to their original world headquarters.  As they were driving up to the old headquarters, Deutschman noticed the road was lined with old apple trees (an irony lost on most people in the room I would imagine) and that the road was named Apple Orchard Road.  He asked if this had once been an orchard, and was told that indeed it had been before IBM purchased the land back in the 60s.  Deutschman then asked why, back in the 60s when all businesses wanted to be in the heart of global commerce in Midtown Manhattan, did IBM want to be 40 miles away in the middle of an apple orchard.  The answer was quite surprising.

It turns out tat IBM wanted to make sure that in the even of a nuclear attack on New York by the Russians the would survive.  They determined how far the radiation would reach, and then drew a circle around Manhattan to determine where to put their headquarters.

IBM was convinced that the world could not function without them and that nuclear war was pretty darn likely.  I guess that's one way of picking real estate.

Wordle Til Next Year (8/29/12)

Have you ever heard of a wordle?  Yesterday I learned what a wordle is.  No, it is not a Dr. Seuss character or a children's singing group from Australia.  A wordle, also known as a word cloud is a word map, a collage of different words artfully arranged and sized based on the number of times the word appears on the list.  

Let's say that you asked 100 people to name their favorite Cubs player.  You might get a breakdown that looks like this:

Ernie Banks: 21 votes

Ryne Sandberg: 16 votes

Ron Santo: 12 votes

Billy Williams: 12 votes

Andre Dawson: 10 votes

Mark Grace: 7 votes

Fegie Jenkins: 7 votes

Jodi Davis: 4 votes

Leon Durham: 4 votes

Joe Girardi: 4 votes

Derek Lee: 3 votes

  Yes, those three votes for Derek Lee would be from me.  Hey, I'm from Chicago - vote early and vote often!

Based on the last names you can now weight them to represent the number of votes and create a wordle that might look a little something like this:

Now, if only all those guys still played on the Cubs.  Next year would be here.  Ah well...

A Delay of Hurricane Proportions (8/28/12)

Tropical Storm Isaac is bearing down on the Gulf Coast, gaining speed in its quest to become a hurricane.  Yesterday I learned the vast impact the weather can have on the entire country.  

Because I haven't been gone enough of late (yes, that is the return of my sarcasm), I thought another trip was in order - this one for work. I headed to the airport to fly to Albuquerque for a few days.  I didn't really pay too much attention to the storms since I was going to New Mexico by way of Dallas, both locales far afield from the crazy weather.

My flight to Dallas was delayed just enough to cause me to miss my connection to Albuquerque.  I wasn't too worried because there was another fairly open fight just two hours later.  What I didn't expect was how difficult it would be for American Airlines to find a plane to take us there.  It turns out that many of the planes needed to ferry passengers from one city to the next were stuck in Gulf Coast cities, grounded due to the storm.

Alternate routes and contingency plans were made behind the scenes to find available planes and get them to the cities where passengers were waiting.  It took about two extra hours, but they were able to get us on our way to New Mexico.

It was a logistical challenge to be sure, all because of a storm on the other side of the country.  Just like that butterfly flapping its wings in Africa...

When Life Does Not Hand You Lemons (8/27/12)

Yesterday I needed lemons.  Not a ton of them, but I was hoping to get one or two to put in hot water with some fresh mint - a delicious, soothing drink that I had picked up from my friend's mom in Istanbul.  I stopped at Whole Foods where I learned that they do not get shipments on Sunday.  This means that Sunday evening is a really bad time to shop for produce.

The Whole Foods that I went to was completely out of lemons, mint, and several other produce items.  Lemons?  Really?  How can you be out of lemons?  And yet they were.  The woman at the checkout, who rang up my 100% real lemon juice told me that Saturday and Monday evenings were the way to go.  Noted.

And now back to your regularly scheduled grocery shopping.

Nature's Great Walls (8/26/12)

Yesterday was our last day in Istanbul.  Before heading to the airport my sister and I decided to take one more walk around Sultanahmet.  We went to the palace gardens of Topkapi where I learned that there is an Istanbul Museum for the History of Science and Technology in Islam.  Unfortunately we did not get to do in, since it was too early, but we did get to see a huge globe which depicted the known world as it looked in 200 A.D.

Among other thing, what I learned initially learned is that there were a lot of walls around the world.  They seemed clearly depicted all over the globe as you can see here:

10,000 unskilled workers constructed Aya Sofia in less then six years, so maybe they built walls in their spare time.  Big, huge walls across the world.  Just as I was starting to ponder the number of people it would take to build walls on that magnitude, it occurred to me that maybe those aren't great walls, but mountain ranges.

I guess mountains are natures great walls, but it's just not nearly as impressive to think something formed over thousands and thousands of years instead of having been made by hand just a few months back.

Don't Judge a Turk By His Cover (8/25/12)

Yesterday I learned that a serious face on a Turk often hides one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

My sister and I had lunch at the Para Palace Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote "Murder on the Orient Express."  We arrived after lunchtime but before cocktails so we enjoyed the patio nearly all to ourselves.  Our server was a very serious woman who seemed almost annoyed to be waiting on us.  After we ordered dessert she came back with spoons and cautiously asked, "are you sisters?"

My sister and I both smiled our big, straight-teeth, personable smiles and said yes.  Those smiles opened the door to her smile.  We found out that she is from Istanbul, has twin four-year olds, and that Turks live by a personal commitment to hospitality.  She offered to take our picture, and then agreed to be in a picture with me.  She chatted so long with us that she worried she might get in a little trouble with her boss.  She was one of the most genuine people we met, and it was all initially hidden behind her serious demeanor.

Later that day we headed to dinner at Balikci Sabahattin, a fish place popular with locals and tourists.  Boy was it crowded!  There were several groups of people waiting for tables, some very anxiously.  I watched one woman repeatedly ask various waiters how much longer her party would have to wait (I'm pretty sure that she was not American, for the record).  Not wanting to be difficult, I patiently waited for the owner to have a free moment.

Once I saw that the owner was available, I approached him and smiled.  Now, according to my guide book it is not recommended for women to smile at men in Turkey because it is seen as flirtatious, but I can't help it - I smile at everything.  I politely told the owner that there were two in my party and that we should have a reservation.  He nodded and I told him that we would be waiting by the edge of the patio.  I returned to my sister and we patiently waited, enjoying the atmosphere and, of course, the people watching

I'm not sure if it was because we had a reservation, or because we were so polite, or because we were dressed up and smiled, but when the next two person table opened up the owner bypassed several other groups waiting and called us forward.  We were seated after waiting only a few minutes clearly much to the chagrin of the others waiting.

Upon being seated another gentleman in a checked shirt, possibly the owner's son, came over to our table.  I said "merhaba," which is hello in Turkish.  He smiled at me and then said something in Turkish to my sister.  Now, neither of us speak Turkish beyond basic phrases and whatever he said was not basic.  My sister replied, "pardon?" to which the man in the checked shirt laughed heartily while winking at me.  I have no idea what he said, and I'm not sure if he was just testing us to see if we were locals (apparently my hello was very convincing) but he went on his way chuckling to himself.  He was replaced by a very stoic waiter, and then fun for the evening was seemingly over...or so I thought.

We had an incredibly delicious dinner which included fish, mezes, salad, and two presents - an extra meze and a dessert with apricots and the best ice cream I've ever had in my life.  Both culinary gifts were bestowed upon us in the same stoic fashion that our server had exhibited throughout the whole meal, though his generosity was very much appreciated.

When we had finished our meal, and were leaving, I stopped to thank the owner and let him know how much we had enjoyed our dinner.  My sister and I said goodbye and were walking out when our very stoic waiter called to us, "excuse me.  Excuse me."

We stopped and he came up to us and said, "he is a policeman," pointing to the man in the checked shirt, who stood several yards away grinning and obviously not a police officer.

"He needs to see your passports,"our waiter continued, as he broke into a huge smile.

My sister and I both laughed.  I wonder how much the man in the checked shirt bet our waiter to say that to us, as it definitely felt like a dare.  I winked at the man in the checked shirt and we said goodbye.  As we walked away we could hear the laughs of the waitstaff, which mingled with those of my sister and myself.  A police officer - classic!  I would have never pegged our waiter as a prankster, and his silly joke was the perfect way to end an amazing dining experience.

So then next time you encounter a very serious person, especially a Turk, don't be too quick to judge.  There is probably a very personable if not hilarious person lurking behind that stoic demeanor.

Oh, and a big smile never hurts either.