Stumps

Today we removed a tree stump from our back yard. The yard guy who told us it needed to be done said it would take two hours. Sadly, he was mistaken. It was three hours of actually working in the yard, and another hour or so to buy the right shovels and an axe.

Yes, we are now the proud owners of an axe. Well, really it's more of a hatchet, but I don't really care.

We have at least three more large tree/plants to dig up around the house and I'm fairly certain if not very, very hopeful that we started with the most difficult.

First, it was, at some point, a fairly big tree. And at some point in the not so distant past, someone cut it down. And it looks like they even tried to take the stump out of the ground - a few of the monster roots were cut short. What wasn't cut were the two really, really huge and thick roots coming out the side and happily entrenched in clay and mud. Yes, I am now the proud owner of the knowledge that our back yard is evidently mostly clay.

But before we could dig in, we had to move the red volcanic rock that had been laid down by the previous owner. When we bought the house it looked beautiful. And then last fall the trees lost their leaves and have you ever tried raking rocks? That's right - it doesn't work! So no matter what we need to get rid of the rocks. I can only imagine what the slaves in Egypt felt like. Note to self: moving rocks is not fun.

We found no buried treasure. We did find lots and lots of worms. I'm not sure if they're red wigglers or not, but the idea of composting is fast becoming a possibility if they are and/or it doesn't matter.

Amazing Race and Survivor

I'm bored. It's a great show. It wins Emmys every year. And this season - it's just not doing it for me.

I was okay when the older bee keeping couple lost in the first round. There have been much more interesting older participants in past rounds. And I can't even remember who lost last week, but I'm sure I didn't like them so much either.

This week, the geeky boys lost. That was a shame. They were at least a little interesting. If only they'd read their clue more closely. Oh well. I would have been fine if the fraternity boys had lost. They are not doing anyone any favors by being on the show.

This week, the teams were in Bolivia. Seems like a great place, but not necessarily the place you want to do an aerobic challenge - like wrestling. Did they not think about altitude sickness for participants in advance?

And yes, I'm one of the people still watching Survivor, even though it hasn't been so interesting this round either. Maybe this week, when the previews have a wild elephant a little too close for comfort it will be a little better. And then again, maybe not.

The Bailout

This whole economic situation is crazy, and here's a perfect example. The headline reads: Woman, 90, shoots self inside foreclosed home. I was intrigued that a 90 year-old was still paying a mortgage. So I read the article.

Here's what gets me about this story - the woman took out a 30-year mortgage in 2004. I'm not sure when her birthday is, but if she's 90 years old now, she was 86 then. And a bank gave her a 30-year mortgage.

Really?! In what universe did they expect this woman to live up to the terms of her contract? More people are living beyond 100, but not so many are making it until 116. I don't think I'm advocating age discrimination. But c'mon, don't we have to wonder what the loan officer was thinking? No wonder the banks are failing!

Okay - the issue isn't that she died and left 26 years on her mortgage for her heirs to figure out. It's that she couldn't make the payments. Maybe she owed her bookie? The article doesn't say whether she was working into her 80s and therefore had reason to believe she could pay, or whether her social security was enough for the payments.

I am not unsympathetic to the folks heading in to foreclosure. But I think a good number of them should have read the fine print, and I definitely don't feel bad for the banks who made stupid loans when any 7th grader can tell them that someone with a $30,000 income can't afford a $500,000 mortgage.

There was a item on the news recently about a woman's whose bank failed and she lost $20,000. I coudn't figure out how that could happen - everyone knows that accounts are insured to $100,000, right? So I kept watching. It turns out she had $120,000 in her account and therefore the last $20,000 wasn't insured. It's a shame to hear that people are losing money they've worked hard for, but she knew the rules. A second account at the bank down the street would have taken her 15 minutes to open whether she thought her bank might fail or not.

Wow - I had no idea I was so heartless....

Update on the woman who shot herself here.

E-Greetings

I don't send out Rosh HaShanah cards. Probably because I'm a bit lazy and probably because even if I wanted to, it would require a different investment in time related to collecting addresses. And before that, figuring out whose addresses I needed, and finding cards, and finding stamps, and....

Today and yesterday my e-mail inbox has been filled with both generic and personal greetings for a happy and healthy new year the majority of which have been the former rather than the latter. I got an e-card from the president of El Al airlines and another from an international student organization (both generic, no surprise).

I got a video greeting posted to my Facebook page from someone I'm rarely in touch with. I appreciate the sentiment but really, I don't need to see your 4 year old spilling honey all over themselves and trying to say Happy Rosh HaShanah all at the same time. Call my cynical, but really, it's not as cute as the parents think it is.

I got e-mail wishes from people I don't know but evidently should have by all of the other people they cc'd. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I even got a Rosh HaShanah e-mail from a Nigerian prince.

I got an e-card from a friend and presumably his wife, though I've never met her. The email included a picture of (their?) dog with an apple. So then I had to figure out whether the name I thought was his wife's may actually be that of his dog. (I have not decided, in case you are wondering.)

It's too much work. I would much rather assume that every one is wishing everyone a happy, healthy New Year and if they aren't, that's when they should e-mail me!

The Milwaukee Brewers

Today, the Milwaukee Brewers won a place in the play-offs. Ronnie called to tell me and said that the last time this happened was in 1982. I remember that year well. The Cardinals won the World Series, and, as Ronnie thoughtfully pointed out, it was the year we started going out (the first time).

Just a few minutes later, I was back in the car and listening to whatever was on NPR and they mentioned that the baseball season came down to the wire. The Mets lost and the Brewers won and that meant the Brewers were in the playoffs for the first time in 26 years.

Now, remember that I was driving. Thankfully I was on a side street and could pull over abruptly. How can 1982 be 26 years ago? That cannot be. It's a physical impossibiity. 26 years is a really long time, and while it's fine for the interval between play-off runs (I know it's not, if you're a Brewer's fan, but I'm thinking existentially here), it's not for the length of time for any other number of things, including 1982.

I refuse to believe that 1982 and 26 years ago can occupy the same temporal space. Being a fan of science fiction (or speculative fiction, if you prefer), I know that 1982 does not always have to be 26 years ago. In other dimensions, 1982 could be last year, or even yesterday. And as long as we're speculating, it could be next week. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Walking through the Neighborhood

I was asked to help with a literature drop today for a paid sick leave initiative in Milwaukee. We walked a few miles of a very low-income area, dropping off flyers and meeting anyone else who was outside.

First, we had to figure out how we wanted to hit both of these streets. One idea was that we would each take every other house. But to me, that's twice as much walking to cover both sides of both streets. I suggested that we each take a side of the street, and whoever finished the block first circled around to help the other person.

It wasn't the distance we walked that was difficult, it was the stairs up to the front doors of all of these houses! And by my guess, very few of them would meet any kind of inspection standards. The first house I walked up to had concrete steps before the wooden ones up to the house. A piece of concrete was loose and as I picked my foot up to go to the next stair, a big chunk of concrete came out of their staircase! I was pretty happy there was no one sitting on the porch!

The neighborhood itself was interesting. Most of the homes looked like wood-framed homes, and then there were some incredible old brick homes. I couldn't figure out which came first. Presumably the brick, but they were so far away from each other that they couldn't have been the original homes there. Probably 75% of the houses were duplexes (which sometimes means two sets of stairs for one house!).

And then every so often was a brand new house that would have been at home in any new suburb. There were two or three boarded up homes on each block. Or if not boarded up, then just abandoned-looking. And there were houses that had their fronts on what appeared to be alleys. That was unexpected. And so were the brand new townhouses.

And today was evidently the day to be passing things out. We saw a few other teams of people passing out information about free clothing and food (but only if you go to the 1pm service at their church) and something else that was about a children's health center. There were also guys trying to drum up voter registration at the gas station we passed.

A few things I couldn't figure out:

• Some houses that otherwise looked relatively nice also had lots of garbage floating around their front yards. Not just a cup that had drifted from somewhere else, but a lot of stray bags, wrappers, cups, and cans. I don't get that.
• There were a fair number of people sitting in their cars listening to the radio. That was a definite mystery. First, it was a pretty hot day out. And of all the cars I saw with people in them - not one was running the airconditioning. In fact, they all had open windows, which I know because I handed them literature. And I didn't get the sense that they were waiting to pick people up. Maybe they don't have a radio in their house? No clue on that one!

Too Much Coffee?

I wasn't sure it was possible until today, and I'm still not convinced. But really, I think it's just maybe possible that I've had too much coffee today.

I probably wouldn't have gone out at all this morning except that I left my jacket at Einstein's yesterday. So I had to go back today. Yes, a rational person might say that I could have simply picked up my jacket and not also had two large coffees (free refills), but it was 6:30am and if I were already rational at that hour I wouldn't want the coffee!

And then I had a 10am meeting at a different coffeeshop. And it's a place with really good coffee. And it was. Two more larges for me (more free refills)!

And then I had a 2pm meeting at yet a third coffee shop, and they have the greatest ice coffee in town.

And now, I think I've had enough. I think.

The Red Pill or the Green Pill

Ok, that's not the actual quote from that classic Matrix scene, but it may as well be. Nyquil is green. Dayquil is red. Both are magic, just like in the Matrix. Well, not just like in the Matrix, but the point is that all the pills are magical.

[And now the dilemma - do I name names? I think the answer is yes.]

Last week, I stayed with Toby. [I was going to write "my friend, Toby", but I decided that if that's not the case after this post that I would hate to go back and have to delete those words.]

Toby wasn't feeling well. I'm pretty sure that like most people I know, that's a euphemism for "I want to take Nyquil and get a good night's sleep no matter what's really making me not feel well". So Toby went out to get Nyquil. [It's also possible that she went out to get Dayquil and not Nyquil but somehow the story works better the other way.] So she went to the drugstore, got some Nyquil and lo and behold, there was a special box that also included Dayquil. That's essentially 24-hour Quil. And somewhere in the universe, Quil is another name for crack. [note: if you're offended by 4-letter words, don't click on that last link.]

Night one: green pill. Things are good.

Day one: red pill. Things are good.

Night two: another green pill. things are good.

Day two: another pill. Things are not good. Toby is feeling okay, but is dead tired. Now this isn't so surprising since she just moved and has been packing and now unpacking boxes for days. But it's weird that it would all catch up with her even after a good night's sleep.

Night three: there's a green pill missing.

Hah!

Two Kinds of People

I've rediscovered that there are two type of people in the world.

The people who "get" it. And the people who don't.

And here's the thing - when speaking to them at a conference, say, presenting on a panel, it just doesn't matter what you say. You don't really need to be speaking to the people who already "get" it, and it's a waste of time to speak to the ones who don't.

Still Full....

I went to lunch around 1pm today. It's 8:30pm and I'm still full. I guess you could say I got my money's worth since I didn't have to eat dinner, but really, this has gone on too long! Needless to say, the food was good but I'm fairly certain that I shouldn't go back anytime soon (given how much I ate!).

Here's the thing -I don't go out during the day so often since I work at home. That means I don't always pay attention to whether my clothes match in the morning. And at some point I reconciled myself to the fact that the people at the coffeeshop don't really care what I'm wearing at 6:30am. (And no, contrary to popular belief I do not work in my pajamas!)

So when I left the restaurant this afternoon, I realized I was wearing a pink striped shirt, brown pants and green crocs. And brown socks. So at least my socks and pants matched, that's gotta count for something. Had I looked at myself before lunch, I probably would have worn pink crocs so that the shirt would match something too.

Don't do this Icebreaker

I went to a workshop today on Classroom Management. It was sponsored by the local board of Jewish education and was run by a well-known educator in town who also teaches graduate level courses in education at one of the local universities.

She introduced the session and asked us each to go around and introduce ourselves. And then she added, "And I'd like you to also tell the group what kind of fruit you're most like and why". NOT what fruit we like, but what fruit we are like. Seriously? This is like Barbara Walters asking Katherine Hepburn what kind of tree she would be.

It's one thing to do this in a group of people who know each other, and even then, it's a dumb ice breaker.

Two people said apples and two others said pomegranates. Someone said blueberries and then spent too much time telling us that they are good for you and that teaching is about passing along things to the students that are good for them. I really didn't need to know her that well. One person said persimmon, and there was a pear, and an orange. Just to be ornery, someone chose a tomato. The teacher described herself as a pineapple. Lovely. No one said a fruit with a pit, maybe because they were afraid others might interpret their choice to mean they really have a heart of stone. I was disappointed that no one chose coconuts or a durian. At least that would have been interesting.

As for me, I said a banana for no particular reason other than there was one in my bag.

Yet Another Coffee Shop

Today I met someone for coffee late in the afternoon. We went to a locally-owned coffee chain called Alterra. Their coffee is roasted right on the premises and it always smells great there. It was a gorgeous day out so we sat outside.

Let me just say that the people there are not like the people at Panera. It's in a completely different neighborhood (Riverwest), so that's not surprising, but still, I was surprised.

The woman sitting at the table next to us was wearing what appeared to be a men's herringbone pattern polo-style shirt with baggy striped cotton pants (but not like prison pants!). She was reading a book about Black Sexual Politics and taking copious notes. Across from us, a man with long curly hair had on capri jeans, a nice shirt, and a little furry dog was sitting on his lap. I believe it was the first time I've seen a man wear denim capris. And yes, before you ask, I'm sure it was a man. Behind us was a guy with jeans, a white t-shirt and a mohawk. A mohawk? Yes, a mohawk.

Finally, I said to my coffee companion, "Wow, I haven't seen a mohawk in a really long time". the response, "We're not cool enough to be sitting here." Probably true, but nonetheless depressing!

Amtrak

My friend and avid Lentil Bowl reader, Dennis, today bemoaned the fact that there is a waiting room at Penn Station in NY for riders of Amtrak's Acela train. It is easy to see that the waiting area is always empty. And there is no waiting room for anyone (read: commoners) riding the regular regional Amtrak trains. It's as if the Acela waiting room is there merely to taunt other riders and not actually to be used.

I suggested that if someone is taking the regional train they'll be sitting for quite a long ride and since the Acela folks have less time to sit on the train (it's a much faster train) Amtrak is merely offering them more total butt time by giving them a waiting room!

As a result of this suggestion, I was accused of being a shill for Amtrak. Of all people, me? A shill? For Amtrak? Dennis, surely you jest!

I will be taking the Acela next week to a conference (paid for by the sponsors of the conference, not my employer!) and I promised Dennis that I would get into that waiting room and test out as many seats as possible before my train. That seems fair, right?

We Jews are SO not Baptist!

Yes, I'm stating the obvious.

But really, tonight it could not have been made more clear. I went to a press conference for the Milwaukee Opportunities for Restoring Employment (MORE) ordinance. They already have the committed support of four alderman and need 10 in order to have a veto-proof vote. The ordinance would require any development project in the city, subsidized by more than $1 million dollars of city tax payers’ money, to hire at least 30% of its needed workforce from residents of the city.

The press conference was held in the basement of the New Hope Baptist Church, a predominantly (maybe completely?) African-American church. The audience was maybe 25% white or Hispanic. A pastor (I think from a different church) welcomed everyone and it was evident from his first sentence that I was a fish out of water.
"Good Evening" he said.
"Good Evening!" said the audience.
"Good Evening!" he said a bit louder.
"Good Evening!" said the audience even louder.

And from there, whether it was the Union worker, any of the four alderman present, or the primary community organizer working on this project, it was very much an audience participation event. Whether it was to shout out "MORE" (as in the name of the ordinance), or "Yessir", just a louder "uh-huh" than usual, it was a fascinating experience.

When the community organizer got to the podium, she repeated the pastor's "Good Evening" call and response, I realized that this is exactly what we do with staff and participants on Shabbat when we call out Shabbat Shalom. Still, we are SO not Baptist.

One particularly nice thing was the prayer that the pastor used to close the meeting. First, everyone stood and looked down. Had I not already been standing in the back this may have caught me by surprise. And since everyone else was looking down, I could look around and see what was going on. But the prayer itself was nice and I was waiting the whole time for him to say "in the name of Jesus....", but he didn't. I believe he said something about "our supreme father" or something like that, but nothing that would have excluded those of us who are "not Baptist".

All in all - pretty interesting. Oh, and all four alderman and the pastor went to Riverside high school here in Milwaukee. Now that's kind of strange.

Blog Rolling...

Ronnie set up a blog. It's called The Receptacle. I'm not 100% sure, but I am fairly certain that even though we both named our blogs for containers, that the differences may explain a lot about us and how we interact with each other and the world.

In any case, Ronnie helped me figure out how to add a Blog Roll. I never knew the name of it, but evidently that's what the list of "Places I Go" is actually called in the blogosphere (another word I learned from Ronnie).

It's hard to figure out what to put on a Blog Roll, or even just a list of links, you know? The New York Times is not worthy, but their daily sudoku is. And it's got to be just a little interesting that I included Engrish.com AND Merriam-Webster, right? Ok, maybe not. I'm sure I'll add to the list over time or maybe tomorrow.

It's possible that Ronnie created a monster....

Weekend in Milwaukee

Wow! I was actually home for the last three nights, and unless I'm mistaken, I've got 9 more to go. I don't think I've been home 12 nights in a row for months. This means several things:

Work:

• All of my meetings are on the phone. I'm not actually sure if that's good or bad.
• I definitely get more done. There are far fewer interruptions than when I worked in the main office.

Food:

• I can buy produce and know that it will be eaten. Of course that's assuming it doesn't get frozen in our strange and mysterious refrigerator.
• I can eat chili or black bean and onion omelettes for breakfast.
• I don't have to eat out. I don't usually mind it when I travel because at home, we don't eat out much at all. But after a while....

Travel:

• I am not subject to discombobulation or, more importantly, recombobulation.
• I can use toiletries that are normal-sized and I don't have to put them back in a quart ziptop bag.

General:

• I can read the paper every day, on actual paper. And do the crossword puzzle and sudoku in pen and not online.
• I can wear different clothes. Meaning that when I travel, I tend to bring the same three or four things with me because they travel well. At home, I can dress a bit more casually (no, not in pajamas!) and generally not worry about going out with brown pants, a blue shirt and green (or pink) crocs.
• I have a choice of shoes. When I travel, maybe I have two pair with me, sometimes only one. It's gets boring.

The Big City

I'm in NY this week. It's a really, really big place. Yesterday, I saw a lot of people walking down the street eating ice cream cones. Since this was over several blocks, I don't believe anyone was giving something away for free (otherwise I would have seen more people!). Still, it seemed sort of strange.

There are no escalators in the subway system. Given how often they seem to be out of service in DC, it probably makes sense that a system so large wouldn't want the hassle. The problem is that they don't have subway maps in convenient places. Like at the top of the stairs. So if you want to take the subway, you have to walk all the way down stairs to the station, and in my case, walk back up (with all of my stuff) upon finding out that I needed a different entrance. Grrr.

Because I've been in meetings, I've seen very little of the Republican National Convention. I didn't see any of the Democratic National Convention either. But I have seen short clips from both. Here'swhat I don't get - some of the delegates (from both parties) wear crazy things. Don't they realize they are going to be on national television? Do they think it makes them look them or their party look like they can lead this country? I think it's just confusing.

Because the television is on in the background now as I write, I am hearing more of Palin's speech than anything I've heard from anyone else. The one thing I can say - she's got good writers and can deliver a good line.

It's Harley Time!

Milwaukee is a great place, and especially this weekend for the Harley Davidson 105th Anniversary. I, of course, won't be around for the bulk of it, but even just the taste is pretty good. Last night on the way back from the airport, there was clearly a rumble in the air and WAY more motorcycles on the road than usual.

This afternoon I'm working from Panera and it is definitely not the standard Panera crowd. There are the senior citizens, the moms with their pre-schoolers, and the riders. One woman just walked in looking every bit the soccer mom carrying a big black helmet. And there are clearly many other riders here as evidenced by more leather boots that one would usually see on a Friday afternoon here. And, I'm sitting at a window by the street - it's loud with the rumble of bikes and pretty hard to get work done because the different bikes are just so interesting to look at - not to mention it's all really, really cool.

Too bad I didn't pass my motorcycle class.

Go Figure

I'm in DC and getting on the train this morning. I was going to sit in a seat by the door but I noticed a man with a white cane and big yellow safety goggles on. Being the well-mannered person that I am, I moved out of the way to let him sit where he wanted and figured I would sit down after him.

He moved to the middle of the car so I sat in the seat by the door. Ten minutes later I look up and the man is reading the newspaper. Huh? I know there is probably a perfectly good explanation for this - I just don't know what it is.

There are certain people....

I'm in a cafe right now and it's pretty busy. There are the requisite screaming kids accompanied by their parents who are pretending to be oblivious, a few of us still working despite traditional business hours being long over, and a few other interesting souls - like the man who got a small cup of coffee and is playing solitaire and gets up every few minutes to raid the samples of bread.

And I see, once again, that there are certain people who can pull off different looks and many, many others who cannot.

For example, one woman who just picked up her food is wearing a pinkish looking track suit. Except the pants are really more capri length. I could go on, but really, it just doesn't work. Doing yoga in the privacy of her own home - fine. Out in public - not so fine. And she's not old - she has no excuse for not being able to see how this looks on her. And then there's the woman who's wearing a blue fitted skirt with big orange flowers on the front and back. If I saw this on the rack, I would understand why it was on sale, but for some reason, this works on her.
There's another trio sitting in a booth - a mother and her two children. The daughter looks exactly like the mother, which is unfortunate because the mother never learned to use anti-frizz product in her hair and therefore neither has the daughter. I know, call me mean, but I'm just telling it like I see it.

One of the people who works here is starting to put away the outdoor tables, chairs and umbrellas. I'm not sure if he can tell as he's dancing to his own beat that we can all see him. He's been dancing for a few minutes now, sometimes using the chairs as props. I'm not sure he's the one I'd like to make my salad....

Too Much Fruit

I found Pete's. It's a produce store on the South side of Milwaukee that is located in the Hispanic part of the city. That's only relevent because I think I was one of the only non-Spanish speaking customers in the store yesterday afternoon.

Now you might ask, why go all the way to the South side of town just to buy produce (let's be real, I live in Milwaukee - it's just not so far!). Well, first of all, this is the only real produce store in town. Other than this, it's the regular supermarkets or the co-op or Trader Joe's. Not that there's anything wrong with those places, but I was looking for a different kind of experience.

I found it.

They sell baskets of things (tomatoes, plums, peppers, grapes, in addition to other things I couldn't identify) for $2 or $3. Not per pound, but per basket. So you can't help but buy baskets of things. You can also buy them by the pound, but somehow it doesn't make sense to pay whatever the cost is per pound for plums when you can get 25 of them for $3, right?

And there in lies the problem.

I now have 25 plums. And a cantalope and a honeydew, some apples, maybe 15 tomatoes, and a bunch of peppers, an eggplant, some grapes, and a jicama. Yes, a jicama. And a husband who might eat an apple and who tasted a piece of honeydew this morning. I'm clearly in trouble.

Food at Camp

I kid you not - this was dinner last week at camp: cheddar broccoli soup, macaroni and cheese, ziti with sun-dried tomators, salmon cakes, corn bread, and apple crisp. Except for the tomatoes and very tiny green flecks in the soup, everything was yellow. I did not try the ziti or the corn bread but can confirm reports that the macaroni and cheese was excellent.

Reflections on Karaoke

Until last night, I'd never actually been to a karaoke night. Now I know why and I learned a lot.

1. The people who really can sing are nice to listen to, but boring. The people who can't sing aren't boring, but they also aren't nice to listen to.

2. I learned that even when the words are flashed on the screen in front of you, people still don't know how to to put them into the music - even for common, popular songs.

3. I learned a lot about the people in our group. Songs from Grease and the 50's were popular for some reason, as were a few country/western songs. That alone was pretty bizarre. And then there are the groups that go up and really have no business being anywhere near a microphone. But they honestly think that they can sing. This is a YouTube video waiting to happen.

4. I also learned that I am a decent emcee. Not too much harassing of the so-called talent, and definitely not too little. Plus, I got a few people who never expected to be on stage, on stage. Like our president. And the observer sent from a major philanthropic foundation. After that, I was hoping I hadn't cost us a huge grant.....

5. Lastly, I learned that the true colors of some people come out. They might be singing songs from Broadway musicals with a group, but then they are channeling Lynyrd Skynyrd when they're singing alone. Truly fascinating.

Rockerbox in Milwaukee

We were wandering around old neighborhood this afternoon and came across some closed off streets, a LOT of motorcycles parked, and a band. This was Rockerbox. There was a bike show, all the people that went with all of those bikes, vendors, and music. What made this a particularly typical Milwaukee event was that nearly everyone was walking around with a beer in hand and for a fairly hot summer day - there were a lot of people wearing leather. Even the kids had cans in their hands which actually (and surprisingly) appeared to generally be soda.

As we walked around we realized several things:

• There seemed to be pre-set tattoo minimum for anyone walking around either carrying a beer or wearing leather. I couldn't tell exactly, but that number seems to be somewhere between 4 and 17.
• Vintage records, falafel and schwarma, funny t-shirts and vegan brats make for fairly interesting vendors - and that doesn't include all of the motorcycle-related tents.
• Someone is making purple port-o-potties. I thought they were all blue and I was clearly mistaken.
• We are not very cool people.

Airports are NOT Casinos

I have a friend who believes that airports are like casinos. She's never actually been to a casino, but she's heard enough to know that there are no clocks, they are loud, bright and constantly in motion. There are clocks in airports, but you generally have to search for the time on the bottom of the monitors, and so I'll give her that point, since you'd have to get up and go look for the time if you needed to know and didn't have a watch or cell phone (or a friend with a watch or cell phone).

But, according to my friend, the most important similarity is that because of the constant motion and people and lights, you are automatically awake in both environments, even if it's the middle of the night.

I am here to say that is just not true. In fact, it's so not true that I almost missed my flight last night. I closed my eyes for a little while, wasn't actually asleep, but definitely lost track of time for long enough to open my eyes when the plane was nearly fully boarded. Had I had interesting people to watch, or slot machines to play, maybe I may have been able to force myself to be wide awake, but really, there's only a very, very small chance of that.

Airports are loud, and there are too many people, but it's not enough to keep you (or me) awake in the middle of the night. At least at a casino the people are interesting to watch - especially in the middle of the night.

And in case anyone is wondering, there were no celebrities on my flight that I could tell, at least not from my middle seat way in the back of the plane.

Crocs in LA

People in LA do not seem to be wearing Crocs. That's ok with me, but I feel a little out of place. I wore mine on the plane here, and I'm pretty sure I was the only person doing so. Everyone else was either dressed to the nines (after all they are coming to LA), or wearing grungy clothes and flip flops. Really - those were the two options - high heels or flip flops. And there I was in my Crocs. Oh well.

Ginormous Boca Burgers

Several weeks ago, I bought a box of 16 Boca Burgers at Costco. They've been languishing in our freezer ever since. I go through phases of eating them and evidently when I bought them, the phase was ending.

The phase is now starting up again and for lunch I pulled a burger out the box. It looked abnormally large. So I pulled out another and lo and behold, it was the same size. I thought maybe I was misremembering their size and was maybe thinking of some other brand of veggie burger. But I was pretty sure I wasn't.

I think that a minute in the microwave is about how long they take to heat up. But not this one - it needed another 30 seconds. Still - I thought maybe I was off on the time. But then - I finally discovered proof that this box contained Boca Burgers that were too big. "What?" you ask. Well, it turns out I needed 6 or 7 pickles to cover the burger rather than 4 or 5 (if you can find a really tiny one to go in the middle).

But still, this was strange. I looked at the box - Original Vegan Boca Burgers, 100 calories. I went on-line. Sure enough, the Boca Burgers that come in the regular packages of 4 are 70 calories. It turns out that the big burgers ones are the ones restaurants use when they serve Boca Burgers.

Who knew?! And of course, It doesn't hurt that I was right about it being a bigger burger and taking longer in the microwave. And the extra pickles were good, too!

Respite from the Heat

Who knew that respite from the heat could be found at a grocery store. We were working on some last minute cleaning of the rental house this morning and we were soaked with sweat. But I was also working my real job and had a conference call to be on at noon. When beads of sweat are rolling down ones face, it's not so conducive to focusing on what other people have to say. It's not so conducive to anything really, plus, it could probably short out my phone.



Thankfully, two blocks away is a grocery store. And, given that we live in the modern era, it was a very air conditioned store and a great place to take my call. And of course, right before the call I needed to get something to drink. So I'm waiting in the 15 items or less line with my Diet Dr. Pepper and looking at what everyone else has in their baskets (because I do that).



The man in front of me had a New York Times and a tub of the generic equivalent to Cool Whip. That was definitely not a combination I expected to see. And the woman in front of him had a lot of things (probably well over 15!) including 2 cans of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. I can understand eating gazpacho in the heat, but definitely not chicken noodle soup!



The problem with this store - it was too cold. So I had to keep walking outside to warm up. And, there was no where to sit inside, so being outside was actually better because at least there was a semi-comfortable bench (made out of 31,000 recycled plastic bags). That bench was worth not using re-usable bags right there!

Popcorn

I've learned that you can make airpop popcorn in the microwave. And then you can put a mix of cinnamon and splenda on it. And I've learned that this is very good. I can't remember where I learned this, but they say you learn something new every day. Of course, I learned this a few days ago...

Not a Dead Man

Sunday we went to the zoo in Madison. It's a pretty small zoo, but a nice place to walk around. The spaces for the animals are pretty small and that's not so good but if you can get past that, it's a pleasant enough place.

Right in front of the Herpetarium we saw a man collapsing. He had two people (his brother and sister-in-law) holding him by the arms and taking him over to a bench. He had no strength in his legs at all. There were a lot of people around and so after offering our bottles of water (they were refused), we got out of the way. Someone else was already dialing 911, and soon after they laid him on the ground and started CPR. We moved farther away.

It seems like it took 10 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. A few minutes later he was on a gurney and in the back. But he didn't have an oxygen mask on and it was clear they hadn't done anything to him. His sister-in-law was walking around a little dazed and his brother was with the kids. Given the CPR and the time it took for the ambulance to get there and the lack of any work on him we were certain we had just watched a man die.

A while later I saw a zoo keeper and I asked him about the man. It turns out that the CPR worked and that he was doing fine and even joking about the fact that there wasn't a pillow on the stretcher. We didn't see him talking or laughing but we decided to trust the zoo keeper (because if you can't trust a zoo keeper, who can you trust?!) and believe that we did not witness a man die.

Whad'ya Know?

We went to a taping of Michael Feldman's Whadya Know today. The tickets were only $5, which is pretty reasonable especially since they have free donuts and coffee while you wait. There were only about 150 people (max) in the audience so I figured my chances of getting a question on air or even being a contestant were good. I was woefully mistaken. I had a great question on my card. In fact, I had three of them.

My first question was, "What's the most interesting place have you been and what did you learn there?" Technically that's two questions, but I was pretty sure that would matter. My second question was inspired by the woman selling show regalia outside the theater. They had nice sweatshirts and I thought about buying one for Ronnie. So I asked how much they were. She replied, "$40." I mentioned that I thought that was a lot for a sweatshirt. She then told me that they don't believe in using sweatshop labor and therefore everything was made in America and cost more. Ok, I wasn't asking for a political discourse - I was just commenting on the price of the sweatshirts! So my second question was also two questions and was: why don't you believe in sweatshop labor and if you don't have your shirts made there how are the people who work there going to earn a living?

My third question came from Ronnie who asked "What's your favorite Federalist paper?"

I didn't get chosen to play the game or read the rules before the show. And he didn't answer my question. At least the coffee was good.

More on the Felters

This morning is clearly the last day of their conference. Many of the women at breakfast were wearing their purple "2008 Midwest Felting Symposium" t-shirts. The back of the t-shirt read "If you don't behave, we'll felt you". I have no idea what this means, but it seems kind of negative, don't you think?

We did see a few more women under the age of 60 today who were also clearly felters. And one who wasn't white (and no, she wasn't one of the Tibetan's gone astray). As far as I could tell, no one was under 40, or 38 at the absolute youngest. One woman had a felt watch band (sort of interesting looking from a distance), another had a felt backpack (not sure how that holds up in the rain) and yet another had a felt necklace of sorts that was hideous. Really.

Felters and the Dalai Lama

I'm spending the weekend in Madison, WI with a friend. Our hotel is right next door to the main convention space in town. The big to-do there this weekend is a Felting Convention, which means a lot of them are staying at our hotel. You can spot them a mile away. In addition to the hand-written nametags, they all have appliques on their shirts. It appears that only some are actually felt, and most of them involve puffy paints and sequins. With one dreadlocked woman who looked to be in her 40s, everyone else I saw is easily 60 years old, which then explains the puffy paints and sequins. I'm not sure how or why, but it does. It should be noted that the 40-something woman with dreadlocks was wearing a patchwork-y jumper kind of thing. She looked more like a textile arts person than someone who only works with felt (from my extremely limited knowledge of felters).

And here's another thing - the organization has enough money to hold their conference at a fairly large venue, but not enough to print real nametags for everyone? Maybe they're hoping it feels more "folksy", but it doesn't look like it (in case any of them are reading and wanted to know what I thought).

The Dalai Lama just left Madison and some of his aderents are still here, in our hotel, with us and the felters. We've got the men in red skirts (long, looks like they're made of linen) and red shirts, and the other people who look Tibetan. They aren't wearing red or saffron robes or dressed any differently than us, but they look like the pictures I've seen of Tibetans. And no, they aren't sherpas.

The hotel hosts a happy hour from 5:30 - 7pm each night. Needless to say it was a fascinating crowd waiting in line for Miller Lite and cheap wine. And in case you were wondering, I was drinking Diet Pepsi in my black pants and black and white shirt which was neither boasted an applique or a red linen skirt or saffron robe.

DC Weather and Pluots and Sprechers, Oh My!

No, these three things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

I landed in DC, got off the plane, walked outside and was hit by a wall of heat. And not just heat, but humidity, too. It is hot here! I don't know how people live here. It's pretty hot in Milwaukee right now, but nothing like this. Thankfully, there is air conditioning where I am staying and while I am not a fan of air conditioning in general, I would chalk this up to a life-saving measure for today.

I bought two pluots today. They are some sort of hybrid between a plum and an apricot, but more plum than apricot. Evidently the hybrid of more apricot than plum is called an aprium. Really. Look it up. I wasn't sure what it would taste like and I figured if I liked it, I should have another one on hand. (If I didn't, I was just going to leave it in the fridge where I'm staying and pretend I knew nothing about how it got there.) It has a smooth skin like a plum, and it was brownish-yellowish. Imagine my surprise when I took a bite and found watermelon red fruit inside. I think it tastes plummy - I'm not sure where the apricot part is hiding, which is ok with me since I don't love apricots....

This weekend we went to the Sprecher's Brewery. It was a good tour, and at the end, there is the requisite tasting room. I'm not a huge beer fan and since they also make really, really good sodas, so it's never a problem of not having anything to drink when we go. There was one beverage the tour guide mentioned called Triple X. She said it was something (I missed exactly what it was that this is) that was aged in bourbon barrels. When bottled, it's about 5% alcohol.

I figured I should try this. Whereas they give you a full glass (albeit small) of the beers and sodas, they only give about a 1/2 inch of this Triple X. This stuff was excellent! It was like carbonated bourbon, except I know that sounds terrible and this was anything but. It's only sold at their factory and they recommended that it be consumed soon after opening. I didn't buy any, but I might need to go back.

On a soda note, they are now making a soda called Raven Red, that has Wisconsin cranberries, cherries and ginseng in it. Not only was it tasty, but we were told it makes an excellent sangria when combined with cheap red wine and some fruit. It's also supposed to be a good mixer with nearly every kind of alcohol that you might want mixed.

Le Tour du Shorewood

The Shorewood Criterium rolled through our small village yesterday and there is only one word for it - wow. Our house was located smack dab in the middle of the race so by default, the race was the only place to be.

The streets were blocked off by about 3:30pm and the first race didn't start until about 5pm. Evidently that was about 30 minutes later than expected and the delay was due to a crash at a different bike race across town. The women were doing 20 laps of a 1.3 mile course. About lap 5 or 6, the race was stopped for a good 30 minutes to take care of a serious crash. 10 riders went down, 3 were injured and 1 was taken to the hospital. Of course, that took place on the other side of the loop and we were watching from the start/finish line on the main street running through the village.

And 30 minutes later, the women started off to finish the race. It was fascinating. All of the things that you hear about in the Tour de France, but on a smaller scale and with no huge mountains to climb. Plus, since they were going in a loop, you actually got to see them every few minutes and who was now in which position in the pelaton.

The kids race began immediately after. The kids rode the same loop, and only the one loop. They youngest was three and the oldest about 8 would be my guess. Some kids were on tricycles, and they looked determined - to win or finish I don't know, but they were pretty cute.

We decided not to stay for the men's race. BIG MISTAKE! 10 minutes later we had to go to a friends car (that parked outside the loop) and saw the men go by. Needless to say we didn't go home for the next 2 and a half hours. This was serious racing. A huge field of men's professional racing. I'd had no idea what we could have missed.

Every time the pel0ton went by, we would naturally stop and watch. Plus, it made for a very good breeze on a very hot day. In front of one neighbor's house, the woman I was standing next to said, "mmm. Spandex". That was probably the funniest moment of the race.

We were also watching them on the other side of the loop (where the crash had been during the women's race), so the street was narrower and so they were that much closer. They are fast! And the peloton was a full three blocks long. Around lap 30, a break-away group of 4 made it's way forward and by the end had a full 1/2 loop lead on the rest of the field.

They man driving the lead car drove not only the men's race (50 laps) but also the women's - in the same direction, the same 1.3 mile loop, basically for 3 and a 1/2 hours. I think he probably had a crick in his neck by the end. And he had to drive pretty fast - especially for the men.

The other nice thing was that at least on the neighborhood side of the race, everyone brought out their lawn chairs, a lot of people set up barbeques if not full out picnics, and everyone was just hanging out and doing the Shorewood version of tailgaiting. That was pretty nice. We talked to a few neighbors, played with some dogs and declined the offer of shrimp cocktail.

How Not to Work and Run Errands

It's hot in Milwaukee today. Somewhere in the 90's I would guess even though the official reading right now is only 86. For a change, I was going out for lunch, which, on a day like today, is a nice thing to do being that most restaurants have at least minimal air conditioning.

Afterwards, I get in my car. My very hot car which has been baking for the past 90 minutes in direct sunlight. Lovely. And since it's so hot, I decide that I'll stop at the grocery store on the way home so I don't have to go out later. It's the regular grocery store - the one I rarely go to, but I need sliced dill sandwich pickles to go with the 16 Boca Burgers we bought at Costco over the weekend and Trader Joe's doesn't carry them. And I need diced tomatoes for the black bean soup I'm going to be making, which I could get at Trader Joe's but I'm not about to make a special trip just for them.

So on my drive to the store I call the office and try and touch base with someone (let's call him Avi) who's working with us on a specific marketing project. I tell him that I'm on my way back from a meeting and running an errand, just so that if he hears strange noises, he knows I'm not completely ignoring him. No problem. Until I'm looking at the diced tomatoes (there are way, way too many choices of diced tomatoes). Then it happens. A guy walks up to me and says, "Excuse me, do you know where the tomato paste is?" He clearly cannot see I'm on the phone, so I can't be annoyed. But do I look like I know where the tomato paste is? Evidently I do.

Avi laughs at me.

I excuse myself from the call for a second and say, "No, but maybe farther down this aisle?" And I was back on the call in no time.

And then it came time to check out. I had four items with me. There were three check-out lanes open and they all had at least three or four people in them. I'm not really sure why all of these people are shopping in the middle of the day, but that's why they have self-checkout lanes.

I start checking out. I'm mid-sentence with Avi when he interrupts me to ask if someone else came on the line. I have no idea what he's talking about because I'm focused on only two things: Scanning my three cans of diced tomatoes (I couldn't decide on just one kind) and my jar of pickles and having this conversation. I'm not listening to or hearing other voices.

If you've ever used a self-checkout at a grocery store, you'll remember that the machines speak to you. I did not remember this. Avi laughed at me again. I reminded him that I am so focused on our conversation that the extra voices are being kept at bay. And somehow he thinks this is funny too. So I have Avi laughing in one ear and a machine reminding me to put my diced tomatoes in the bag and take my receipt. It's a strange world.

(It should be noted that now that I am back and seated at my desk I am really enjoying the breeze and would have been fine not going out at all.)

Bastille Day!

Ever since I read A Tale of Two Cities in junior high school, I've had a thing for Bastille Day. I'm not sure why.

I don't know what would be involved in celebrating it. Should I be eating croissants? French fries? Fromage? I'm drinking eau, if that counts for anything other than my 8 glasses a day.

I don't honestly know much more about Bastille Day than I read in the book, which I realize was not non-fiction.

Speaking of which, isn't non-fiction a weird term? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't we describe books that aren't 'real' as 'non-real', rather than by defining 'reality' by what it isn't?

Au Revoir.

My Grocery Cart

I think I've written about grocery shopping before, but it's been a while, and if I can't remember, maybe neither will you.

Whenever I'm at the grocery store, I wonder what the checkout person is thinking when they look at the items in my cart. Now I know they aren't really looking with a critical eye, but when I look at other peoples' carts, I wonder all about them. What they're cooking, what kind of diet they're on, how many people they're shopping for, what kind of party they're having, if they live alone, why they are only buying licorice and tuna fish, what you actually do with plantains....

Tonight I was at Trader Joe's. My cart included: European-style fat free yogurt (I don't generally believe in buying non-fat foods unless they naturally occur that way but I've learned that in smoothies, the fat content of yogurt doesn't make a difference.), Hebrew National hotdogs, soy cheese, frozen roasted corn, Soy Ginger dressing, fake chicken and beef strips, romaine lettuce, a few onions, Luna Bars and frozen green beans and frozen vegetarian burritos.

This was not an interesting cart of groceries. I don't usually shop in order to have an interesting cart, but this was interesting in how boring it was. About the only thing remotely curious was the presence of soy cheese, yogurt and hotdogs. Maybe someone could wonder if I am shopping vegan, vegetarian or carnivore? But maybe not.

Not satisfied with having a boring cart, I stopped at a second store. Actually, a boring cart had absolutely nothing to do with it. In reality, Trader Joe's was out of hotdog buns, and wrapping them in a leaf of romaine lettuce does not make for a Chicago-style hotdog experience.

So I went into the regular chain store that I maybe go into once a month, if that. It was pouring rain - bigger than cats and dogs, more like lions and bears (no tigers were seen). And there I bought buns and a shaker of garlic and parmesan popcorn flavoring. Someone should wonder about that, right? I mean who goes out in the middle of a monsoon to buy hotdog buns and popcorn seasoning? Evidently I do.

131 steps

We live just a few blocks from the shore of Lake Michigan, so when it's nice out and I feel like walking, I walk over to look at the lake. In case you've never seen it, it's big. Just heading due east from our house gives me a nice view, but it's sandwiched between two houses, and while I'm sure the homeowners are very nice, I don't want to get arrested for loitering. So I walk the rest of the mile to the park.

The park has a few benches, a large grassy area, and a play area for kids. And it also has a balcony to look out over the lake. Look out over because the actual shore is far below.

How far below? 131 steps. Down. Steeply down. But thankfully, the planners of this good village (Shorewood, WI) were wise. Very, very wise. Just about every 22 steps there are well-placed benches.

These are not very important on the way down.

And on the way up, you have to think strategically about where you might stop to pause and look out at the lake and enjoy the view (aka catch your breath). Why strategically? Because there are all sorts of people going up and down the steps and you don't want to look like you can't actually make it more than 22 steps without taking a break. 22 steps isn't so much really, but 66 is getting up there. not to mention 88.

Yes, I know these people aren't really paying attention and don't really care, but shouldn't they? I mean what if someone (else, not me) has a heart attack?

Luckily for me, Pete Townsend kept singing and didn't care that I stopped for the better part of Rough Boys. You gotta love Pete....

Voice mail

I hate checking voice mail. Work phone, home phone - it doesn't matter. It makes my husband crazy but I could leave the little red light blinking for days. But at work, seeing that red light makes me anxious because I know that a message implies work that I haven't otherwise anticipated.

Yesterday was busy and I could see that I was missing calls and that a few messages had been left. And today was one meeting after another. So it wasn't until late this afternoon that I finally listened to voicemail.

Really, of all the things I do, this is truly the scariest. The most frightening part is the waiting to hear how many messages there are. I know I can listen to three or four and not be overwhelmed no matter what the content is. So any number four or below is what I'm waiting to hear. Five to eight and I may need to listen to them in two groups. It's generally not more than that, so there are only a few times during the year that it would be helpful to have one of those new portable "shock your heart" kinds of things around. Of course there's no one qualified here to operate one, but that's beside the point.

I call into voicemail. "You have 10 messages." What? How can that be? Who are these people and what can they want from me in the middle of the summer?! I'm not that important!

And yet they called. I was brave and listened to the messages in only two groups because the first two were things I'd already taken care of. I like those kind of messages.

The first message was from yesterday morning, and since I'd already taken care of it, I wasn't concerned that it had been more than 24 hours. The ninth message was left at 9pm last night. That meant of all the missed calls today (and there were a lot of them) only one person left a message. What? I'm not important enough for them to leave me the courtesy of a message?!

And, as always happens, and I mean always, while I was listening to my messages, another one came in. I think it can wait until tomorrow....

Spell Check and Tossing Fish

There are too many things that spell check doesn't catch. Like form and from. Today I was trying to write the phrase 'crap shoot' and it came out 'carp shoot'. I happened to notice, which I think was a good thing.

But then I started wondering what a carp shoot might be. Is it like a game of horseshoes where the goal may be to have the fish land on the spike? Fish don't roll, so it would be hard to play marbles with a carp. Or it could be more obviously like basketball, in which case the possibilities are pretty clear. I'm not sure I like the idea of incorporating a fish into the biathalon, although that might bring in a few more viewers to the winter Olympics.

And finally, I finished my email.

Mango

I never really thought I liked mangos (an accepted plural spelling). There was an Indian restaurant that had a great sauce for their samosas that someone tried to tell me was really a mango sauce, but I never really believed them, because I was pretty sure I didn't like mangos.

Of course that doesn't mean I'd ever actually tried a mango. I hadn't. And then I went to DC where a friend bought a mango for me. To this day I'm not sure why. But when someone buys you a mango, you're sort of obligated to try it, right?

It turns out I've watched enough of the Food Network to know how to slice one and make it look pretty enough to garnish a buffet. But I still wasn't really excited about eating it. But I did. It was slimy and not completely offensive. In fact, not offensive at all, but nothing I would go look for at the grocery store.

But another friend of mine told me that she loves the frozen mango at Trader Joe's. I didn't really think that would be helpful to me, but I thought I could buy it and make a mango lassi. I did, and it was good. Very good. But let's be real, I'm still not convinced I like mango.

And then, today, a third friend sent me a recipt for amba - the spicy, curry sort of mustardy sauce they have in Israel at all the toniest falafel stands. It's a little complicated and the first step calls for 10 (!) green mangos to be cut up, salted, and left on a window sill for 3-4 days. I might still try it. I can't imagine cutting up 10 (!) mangos, but for some amba... I might need to.

It just goes to show....

You learn something new every day. And today I learned the French word for "yeah". It's ouais, pronounced "way". In and of itself this is not such a big deal. I learn new words all the time as evidenced by my large vocabulary.

But this word in particular brings a totally new meaning to the movie, Wayne's World, and the exchange:

"No way!"
"Way!"

Had I known all these years that they were in fact saying "Ouais", and not "Way", I'm sure my life would be different. I'm not sure how, but it would be different.

Economy Parking?!

I believe it's false advertising to say that Economy Parking is $16/day. That's Economy? Economy is $8/day at BWI or even $10/day in Milwaukee, but it is most definitely not $16/day at O'hare Airport.

Doing Absolutely Nothing

I'm sitting here in a little cabin on a little lake doing nothing. I've been doing this now since Friday afternoon. It turns out it's a very easy thing to do. Especially if you know someone with a little cabin on a little lake.

It's very quiet, and I think because it's a little lake, there aren't a lot of loud boaters - by the time they'd get up whatever speed they'd need to be loud, they'd be on the other side already. And it seems that unless you have a boat, pretty much the only thing to do is hang out and do nothing. And from what I can tell, the people that do have boats are doing the same thing, but on the water.

Rumor has it I'm somewhere in Michigan. and maybe not too far from Ohio. Ok. It doesn't really matter to me. I am pretty sure that I would be able to do nothing in Ohio too. There's a large family of geese swimming by. Other than sliding across the water, they don't seem to be doing anything either. Evidently it's the culture here. You gotta love Michigan.

Still Combobulated

I landed at the Milwaukee airport a few hours ago and wondered if there was any chance I'd misread the sign on Sunday. I mean, I've been telling people about this sign and virtually no one believed me. They eventually did because I'm convincing (and in this case, telling the truth), but really, why would they. Who has ever heard of a Recombobulation Area. Heck, I'm surprised the people who make the signs could even spell it. Try typing it three times. Fast or slow. It's nto so easy. But I digress.

The "Recombobulation Area" sign was still there. Evidently the sign was not a figment of my imagination. If was an April Fools joke, no one has figured that out yet. Or maybe they have and figure that after making you walk on the floor in bare feet after hundreds of people before you, you need to laugh to forget how disgusting the floor probably is.

At National Airport in DC they have little booties you can put on. Of course you can't get to them until after you've already put all of your things, including shoes, into the metal detector. But if you want booties for later (I hear they are all the rage among teens today), or for walking through the metal detector, or from the metal detector to the area that in Milwaukee is evidently known as the Recombobulation Area, you can have booties.

And once again, there are people who seem surprised that they have to take off their shoes. Have they not read the news for the past five years. Shoes can be dangerous. They can be thrown. A really spiky stilleto or a heavy work boot can be pretty dangerous (not to mention painful if you're on the receiving end). I'm not sure how the metal detectors prevent someone from hurling their shoe but I'm sure the good folks at TSA know more than I do about this.

These same people seem surprised to learn that they can't take a water bottle through, and that they need to keep their boarding pass with them. There are announcements all the time. And signs. I would think that if they are as unfamiliar with the process as they seem to be, that they would be paying attention to these things. Evidently, I would be wrong.

There was a woman in front of me in line who had two small bags, two jackets and a Virginia Road Atlas. Seeing as she was going through security and about to get on a plane, I'm not sure why she didn't pack the atlas in the bag she must have checked, but maybe she's really attached to her atlas. Anyway, when she got to the first TSA person who checks your ID and boarding pass, she had to put everything down and find her ID. And then find her boarding pass. I'm pretty sure this is the same woman who doesn't think about deciding how she's going to pay for her groceries until the cashier totals her purchases.

But I digress. So she puts everything on the floor and roots through her bags for her boarding pass and ID. The security person looks at them closely, and when she hands them back, the woman bends down four separate times to pick up the bags, the jackets and road atlas. None of them were particularly large and I'm not sure what purpose standing up straight between bobs for her next item served. But again, this is a woman carrying a road atlas onto a flight.

The same thing happens when she puts all of her things down to take off her shoes. And yes, she did seem surprised that this was happening. I was not amused. And it happened again when everything came off the line. I was even less amused. THIS is why we need special lanes for security. She was risking serious harm to herself by those of us immediately behind her. Certainly someone had heavy shoes that could have easily been dropped onto her head while she was bobbing for jackets.

In the end, I think the Recombobulation Areas should have couches, lavender incense and maybe some New Age music to calm us down after being behind these people in line. That would give true meaning to recombobulation.... don't you think?!

New Words

I usually expect my main source of new words to be the Word Spy (http://www.wordspy.com/) and I was very (!) surprised yesterday afternoon to find a new word at the General Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee.

I left my laptop in DC last week figuring I could do without it for the weekend. (I was right.) Going through security without a laptop is a breeze. I'm used to pulling my laptop out and putting it in the little gray bin, but not having to do that is just so much easier. So once my bags and shoes went through the x-ray machine and I walked through the metal detector, all I really had to do was put my shoes on. There was no reassembly of anything required.

Right past the formal security area is a place with a few chairs for people to sit down and put their shoes back on. I put my bags down, put my shoes on, and looked up. Why I looked up, I can't be sure. But I'm glad I did. I was evidently using the "Recombobulation Area". I looked at the sign three times to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was reading. Yes, it said "Recombobulation Area".

Now I was not particularly discombobulated at the time, although there were certainly people around me who were. And anyone traveling with kids and strollers seems perpetually discombobulated when tney go through airport security. But who knew there was an area where they could recombobulate?!

Let's be clear here - "recombobulate" is NOT a word found in the dictionary. In fact, neither is "combobulate". The word, evidently, can only be used in the negative, or whatever adding a "dis-" to the front of the word would make it.

Yes, I have been to a recombulation area and lived to tell the tale.

A Militaristic D'var Torah

Somehow, with no proactive actions on my part, I find myself receiving weekly Torah explanations from the Jewish Defence League. They're Canadian so yes, that's spelled correctly. I've only received three and while in general I'm not interested, it's like a crash on the side of the road you can't help but slow down for. (One in which no one is hurt, by the way).

To read their commentary, it's like Genghis Khan writes the Torah. I know the Torah covers all sorts of violent topics but not everything is about the Jews being in peril. It just can't be. The JDL concludes that the Torah portion this week (Shelach) tells us to be suspect of our leadership. The text is about the spies being sent to Canaan and how 10 of them come back and say we can't conquer the people there and 2 spies disagree.

It seems to me that the lesson should be that you can't trust all spies.

Spam

I don't get spam. It's not that I don't receive it, I just don't understand it. The folks that want to sell me things I don't want or need, ok. The people that think I'm going to fall for the "my father was the king of England and you have to help me get my money", ok. I even understand that there are people out there who are just trying to give my computer a nasty virus.

But lately I've been getting spam with the subject line of: "You Look Really Stupid Andrea". Huh? Is this supposed to entice me to open an email? I don't think so!

Tourists

My flight to DC included a large class of 8th graders on their school's annual pilgrimage to Washington DC. I would guess that there were about 30 of them and, as luck would have it, all sitting in the rows immediately in front of me. Since we know that groups regress, even with appropriate staff, once on the plane, they began acting like 6 year olds.

Not long after we took off, I figured out where they should be sitting. In the middle seats. No one else wants to sit in them, the kids would all be separated, and they might behave a little better if they sit next to "real" people and not just their peers.

Kids these days

I am sitting in a coffeeshop working. It's about lunch time. I figured it would be full but hadn't considered who the "fillers" might be. I quickly learned. I am surrounded by hundreds of middle school kids. Okay, mayber there are only 40, but you'd never know it by the noise level.

The boys all rode their Trek bicycles and locked them to the signpost outside. They each have Treks. There is not a Schwinn or Huffy in the bunch. The girls all seemed to have walked. Probably because it's hard to ride a bicycle and text on a cellphone at the same time. They came in and immediately pulled as many chairs around a small table as possible. There is only one table where boys and girls are sitting together. Pretty much all the boys are wearing tennis shoes and the girls are wearing flip flops. Another reason not to ride a bike.

They look like rows of corn when they all stand up- all the same height. Except for one or two over- and under-acheivers. And except that when you look at a corn field, you can't generally see the underachievers.

Of all of the kids here, they are all white except for four who are black. There is no one obviously Hispanic or Asian. I believe that the only people over 15 are me, the grandmother-looking person who just walked in and the staff.

Asian Vegetarian is the way to go!

It turns out that Asian Vegetarian is the way to go on flights. Or at least on Delta's international flights. I was really not interested in eating dinner on the plane last night, but they brought it around and I figured I should at least look at what it was. It was rice, tofu and spinach. I haven't had tofu in weeks - this was very exciting. And when everyone else got pancakes or an omelet (both with sausage) for breakfast, I got more tofu, but this time covered in panko crumbs with rice and lentils. Not a traditional breakfast, but definitely good.

I did see two other people on my flight wearing kipot. I couldn't figure it out. They looked like the type of peopel who wore them regularly, and yet there they were flying on a major festival. I'm not one to judge, but I'm definitely curious.

I met a man with 7 wives.

Ok, that's not true. He had one wife and 7 children. They were all tall and blond, except for the little kids, who were blond and not yet tall. The men were all wearing kipot in various styles. One had a knit one with blue concentric circles. One had a red velvet one with gold trip. One had a blue velvet one with silver trip. You get the picture.

So first, it's odd enough to see anyone wearing a kipah in the airport right now as it is already chag. Second, it's fairly odd to see a family so large who are all tall and blond here in Israel. They're on my flight and we were waiting in the check-in line together. After the flight to Atlanta, they have a 4 hour flight to Oregon (Portland, if I remember correctly) and then a 2 hour drive to wherever their home is. Evidently they come here once a year and the kids are excited because they just bought a home in Tiberius. I'm not sure how excited the infant really is, but I'll take his word for it.

My guess is that they got a big house for not so much money. You would think that lake front real estate would be at a premium there, but the international market has not yet figured out that Tiberius is just waiting for them....

The last word on the Shalom Hotel

I'm not sure who the Journo Family is, but I found myself stealing their wireless signal for the last day or so at the Shalom Hotel. If anyone knows them, please thank them for me.

I've left the Shalom Hotel, destined not to return for at least six months. By then, I am hopeful that there will be remote controls for the televisions I think it's probably too much to expect to think they would have sheets that fit the mattresses.

It is Erev Shavuot and I'm flying in a few hours. The airport is quiet, as it usually is at this hour. And there is no place to eat, at least before passport control. There will probably be something to get beyond that, but for now, as I'm waiting for another hour to check in, almost everything is closed.

I have a window seat toward the front of the plane. It's not a full flight, but it appears that my row is full. If I want to take my chances, I can sit farther back and I might have an empty seat next to me. I hate sitting farther back in the plane.... I just won't drink a lot of water and I'll hope for good movies.

Saturday night at the Malcha Mall

Last night I decided to make a last ditch effort to find the shoes that a friend of mine asked me to bring back. I've looked in shoe stores all over the country to no avail. I figured this was about my last chance and the mall seemed like it should be promising.

I think half of the city had the same idea. Maybe they weren't looking for shoes, but it felt like a mall in the US on the day before Christmas. I've never seen so much traffic to get into the parking garage, the creative use of space to invent new parking spaces where none should exist, and then the hordes of people just wandering around once inside. And no, they weren't giving anything away. Evidently, it's like this every Saturday night.

And they didn't have the shoes.

The Shalom Hotel

Really, I just don't understand the Shalom Hotel. First, dinner last night was excellent. Yes, at the Shalom Hotel. I don't understand it and I'm not complaining, but it was just such a shock. In all my stays there, so numerous I've lost count, it's never been this good. Of course, we'll see if that continues on through Shabbat....

What's not excellent there, is that their sheets don't fit the mattresses. Their sheets are just slightly larger than the top surface of the mattress, which means that they cannot be tucked in on either side. The first time you turn over, you're sleeping directly on the mattress, just like the 492 people who slept their before you. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's possible that George Washington slept there.

That, and there's no remote control for the television. That's not exactly true - the "remote" is a panel on the nightstand that also turns the lights, airconditioning and radio on and off. If you don't want to sit on the bed to watch television, the "remote" becomes a description of the distance you have to walk to change the channel.

And, I should mention, that I have a double or queen size bed. The headboard and nightstands (all one piece) are built to hold a king size bed. So when they artistically centered the bed on the headboard, they left a 6 inch gap between the edge of the bed and the nightstand. So if you're watching television in bed, you could roll off the bed before you find the right button to turn off the tv!

Not enough salad....

I ordered a salad the other day. It was at the kind of place where you tell them what you want and they put it in the container for you. I requested all of the usual suspects and told them that vinagrette would be good. And then I was told that there wasn't enough salad in the container and that they were going to add more. Only in Israel.

Two nights ago, I was out to dinner with a colleague at a restaurant with only three vegetarian things on the menu, including one I've had before and don't really care for. So ordered a grilled vegatable sandwich. The waitress responded, "I really don't recommend it. You should get the noodles or portabella salad instead." . Ok..... Again, only in Israel.

Still in Israel...

The Mega-Event was two nights ago. It was more over the top than usual. We waited a half-hour for the Prime Minister. It was possible in those 30 minutes that he could have lost his position, but evidently he was just running late. And then there was the parade of dignitaries, a video by Shimon Peres who started a torch relay around Israel that ended at the mega-event, a helicopter circling Latrun (where the event was taking place) to drop off a soldier who'd had to return to his base and wasn't going to be at the event (all staged, but it made for a good show), dancers, singers, drummers, a performance by Kobi Aflalo, and, for a huge change of pace, no Gaia. It was actually one of the best megas I've been to with nearly 9,000 people.

Afterwards, around 11pm, you can imagine the scene with 150 tour buses leaving the site, along with all the cars for the VIPs and the rest of us who drove. It was at that hour that the highway crews decided to close two of the three lanes of the highway into Jerusalem to repave the road. If they could have waited just one more hour....

I think there have probably been a lot of bloggable moments over the last week, I just can't remember them....

The Parking Lot Guy

First, I should say, I have no voice. I am barely able to whisper, except for the times when I am. I couldn't see the people on the other end of the conference calls I had yesterday, but I'm pretty sure they were making fun of me everytime I tried to speak.

Today I had a meeting across town. Every other time I've had to drive to this particular building, I've gotten lost and been late. Today, I didn't get lost, nor was I late. I pulled into the parking garage and the guy says, 'Where are you going?" I tried to answer, and eventually he understood what I was trying to say. When he handed me the parking ticket, he said, Refuah Sh'laima (Get Well). Only in Israel.

The other thing I can do in Israel is catch up on all of the shows I don't watch (and probably wouldn't watch) in the US. Like Stargate SG-1, and Dark Angel. And old seasons of The Apprentice.

Coffee Shop Culture

I've written about this in the past, but now that I work at home and at the local (Milwaukee) coffee shops, it bears writing about again. I've been sitting here at Tal Bagels for almost four hours. I ordered breakfast soon after arriving, and just got the bill, and only because I specifically asked for it, a few minutes ago. The one thing that's definitely nicer about working here and not my local shops is that there is no music. I don't mind the music that Panera or Caribou or Stone Creek play, but it's always loud. Not too loud to work with, but too loud to be on the phone with.

Plus, breakfst here is good. And if you don't want both orange juice and coffee (because breakfast comes with both), they'll give you two coffees. You gotta love a place like that.

Friday and beyond

I was back up North for Shabbat. They've been doing construction on the Bik'a road for a long time and it seems that almost all of it is done. They've taken some of the mystique out of it, but it is definitely a nicer ride. There are even passing lanes in places now. Unfortunately the only wildlife I saw were a few camels.

Tiberius is hot. And not in the hip, fashionable Paris Hilton sense of the word. About a block away from our hotel there's a supermarket next door to a mini-market. I always wondered how they could exist next door to each other and on Friday afternoon I figured it out. The supermarket sells cold alcoholic drinks. The mini-market sells cold soft drinks.

I bought a flavored water, which I don't usually do. It was litchi-watermelon flavored. It wasn't terrible, just not something that I'd like to do again soon.

Hotels...

I stayed in Zichron Yakov my first night in Israel. I've never been in a hotel whose room had a residential exterior door for an interior entrance. It was the kind of door that has a semi-circle of glass in the top part of the door so that light can come in. Which is fine if the door is being used to enter a room where no one sleeps. But on a bedroom door, with a lit hallway, it's really not a good idea.

A simple solution for a few hours, was to sleep facing away from the door. But around 3am, the moon (a night away from being full) came shining in the window. It took about 90 minutes for it to move across the window frame. (this was when I learned that there is nothing good on at 4am on television in Israel).

The good news was that the night preceded a visit to Caesaria, which is always good.

Sittin' in the Yellow

Yes, I'm sitting in the Yellow (like a gas station/7-11) working. Tiberius is a great place, even if I'm the only person that thinks so, EXCEPT, they have no wireless internet access anywhere. So here I am, back at the gas station. The advantage is that there is a table near an outlet. This is specifically important because I forgot to charge my computer last night. Had it been fully charged, I would be sitting next door in the Aroma cafe working and eating a great salad for lunch. But the Aroma has no outlets, which I knew before I even got there. As it is, I'm sitting under a ridiculously loud radio drinking grapefruit juice. But at least I'm charging my computer. (i'm up to 54%, in case you were wondering.)

Last night I learned that even in Israel, there's nothing on television at 4am. And what there was, was something I couldn't really figure out. My hotel didn't have cable, so I had three fuzzy channels and one more clear one to choose from. Since I was still tired despite not being able to sleep, I chose the clear channel. It was a pretty regular Israeli station, but at 4am it was showing some sort of reality show following an Arab group of singers trying out for Eurovision. They were speaking in Arabic and I was trying to follow the Hebrew subtitles. By reality tv standards, it wasn't a great show and I'm not expecting to see them singing in any international competitions soon.

Did I mention that the bathrooms on the plane had Lemon Grass Wasabi handsoap?

(up to 61%)

Airplane Bathrooms

I just don't understand cramped, smelly airplane bathrooms that try to be nice by having Lemongrass Wasabi handsoap. Huh? At least they had good movies.

May 14th

The paper today had several articles about Israel's 60th birthday. Even though I know the date May 14th as well as I know July 4th, I couldn't figure out why the articles were in the paper today. Yom Ha'atzmaut was last week.

Really, it took a few minutes before I remembered that a) today is May 14th and b) Yom Ha'atzmaut is celebrated on the 5th of Iyar and not the 14th of May.

Now it all makes sense...

Folk Music in Milwaukee

Evidently folk music is alive and well in Milwaukee. We wouldn't have known this except two of the three emergency room personnel though Ronnie was hurt on a musical instrument and not a very sharp slicing mechanism.

Six stitches and one tetanus shot later, he's almost as good as new.

When it was determined that a hospital might be able to stop the bleeding that superglue and liquid bandages couldn't, we had to remember where the hospitals in town are. It turns out there's one not too far away and they have free parking very close to the ER door (but no cell phone reception in the ER waiting room).

After 20 minutes of solid bleeding we were running out of gauze and decided to make a break for it and go to the Urgent Care clinic instead. After a 10 minute drive and another 20 minutes of bleeding, he was finally seen. There they have cell phone reception but won't let you use it back where they actually make you wait after having waited in the waiting room. He has to go back in 10 days to have the stitches taken out unless we feel comfortable enough with needlework to do it ourselves.

In case you were curious, the mandolin was used to make garlic potato chips last night that turned out to be quite tasty.

Passover shopping

I realize I may seem a little obsessed with Passover shopping, which is even stranger when the fact that we don't eat much bread to begin with is considered. Nevertheless, yesterday we stopped at two stores in the north suburbs of Chicago before going to seder. Despite each of them clearly not having the same selection they probably did even a week ago, they both had full aisles and sections devoted to the unleavening. It was almost, but not quite, like being back in Kemp Mill. The one thing I really was hoping to find was jelly. Evidently jelly was a hot commodity this year because I only found a few jars and they were all black currant. I've never tried it, but how bad can it be?

We're not in Kansas anymore

So far, other than the persistant snow, Milwaukee has been great. And it's even finally spring-ish and getting a bit warm. Today I went out to start doing a little shopping for Passover. There was really no point. Not only were the shelves bare, but it looked to me like they had never been filled.

And what there was could have been purchased only if a bank had been robbed in advance. Living in Kemp Mill for the last several years made Passover very easy. Milwaukee for Passover will not be easy. That much is clear.

I believe that this year we may finally fully embrace kitniyot. It will mean that beans, tofu and brown rice could be part of our menu. It also means that Passover food won't actually differ much from non-Passover food. I realize that's not actually the point of Passover, but in the whole "why is this night different than other nights" kind of perspective, for it not to be different may mean it won't actually feel like Passover....

Mice

I've been traveling all week. Sunday was LA, Tuesday was Tampa, Thursday DC. Monday will be back to Milwaukee.

In LA, at our first stop (before checking into the hotel) my traveling companion realized that her mousse had exploded in her bag. Nothing was ruined, but some things were wet. The bigger problem of course was that she no longer had any mousse.

I had only flown half-way across the country while she had flown half-way across the globe. Either way, by the time we checked into our hotel later that night, we were both exhausted.

But it was still only 8pm on the west coast and still a bit light outside. Too early to sleep. So in addition to asking the hotel clerk for directions to a drugstore, she also began explaining (hopefully for reasons that can only be explained by the sheer tiredness) to this poor clerk why she needed a drugstore. So again, I hear the story of her mousse exploding.

To which I finally respond "you should have seen it, there were antlers everywhere!"

My traveling companion did not think this was nearly as funny as I did. And nearly a week later, I still think it's funny. So there.

Traveling

Here's the thing about flying these days. And not actually these days, for the last several years. You have to take your shoes off at security. Everyone knows that. Even people that don't fly know that. And yet, somehow, I am always either immediately in front of, or worse, behind, someone who has yet to hear this news.

This morning, thankfully, the person was right behind me. She looked to somewhere in her 30s or maybe early 40s and didn't seem like the type that was taking her first flight ever. Now I realize I am in the airport fairly frequently (but not nearly as much as some other people I know) but I think that if you've flown in the US anytime in the last 5 years, which I would venture to guess is a lot of people, you shouldn't be surprised when you're asked to take your shoes off at security. Or finish your water. Or take your laptop out of your bag. Or take your jacket off. Or not put your boarding pass through the scanner. Or.....

Could it be?! Could it really be?

It's possible that spring is on the brink of being sprung here in Milwaukee. Today it was in the 50's and maybe even the 60's if I believe the temperature reading in the car. I think it would be foolhardy to take out the storm windows and put in the screens yet, but maybe in a week or two. What I do know, is that we may not get more snow. Now that would be a miracle....

People Plan, Gd Laughs

There's an old Yiddish expression probably taken originally from somewhere in the Bible that roughly says "men plan and Gd laughs.

I almost wrote yesterday about how nice it's getting outside. The snow is finally melting and we can see more grass than ice. It feels like we're really on the brink of spring, which, in Milwaukee, is a great time.

And then, today, WHAM! We're getting a snowfall that could put us in the record books. The weather service is predicting up to 14 inches and any morning televisions shows have been pre-empted by "Weather Watch". I'm not sure why since there's nothing to watch but snow coming down.

Correct me if I'm wrong but we're about at the end of March. This should not be happening. I am not amused.

More on Blue Plastic Wrap

First, evidently I should not be complaining about blue Saran Wrap because we do not have blue Saran Wrap. We have blue Plastic Wrap (by Reynolds, if that matters). Either way, I still don't like it.

But I don't want to throw it away, either. That would be a waste. So I've been trying to be more conscious about using it. I suppose in a sense that's tantamount to throwing it away since we own a bazillion plastic containers that will hold nearly everything I would need to wrap up. But somehow it seems that it's less wasteful if it's at least used, even needlessly.

Today I was thinking, "Wow. I wonder how much longer this will last. I really don't think I can use it fast enough." When, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed three frightful words (technically, two words and a number/symbol): BONUS 25% MORE!

What?! It's not enough to figure out how to use how much ever is left from the 100 square feet the container was supposed to include - now I have to use an additional 25 square feet?!

To put this in perspective, 25 square feet is a 5 by 5 area. That's bigger than a bathtub, bigger than the largest surface on a refrigerator, and, I believe, enough to cover our love seat. No, not all at the same time. But still - that's a lot of extra blue stuff I have to use. This is definitely not cool.

Blue Saran Wrap

I don't like it. I didn't even realized we'd bought it until I opened up the container and there it was. At first it was pretty cool. I mean - it's blue. That's pretty cool. It functions the same as the regular non-colored wrap and I figured there shouldn't be anything not to like, right? And I don't use that much Saran Wrap anyway so there wasn't much to think about for a while anyway.

But for some , a few times this past week, I've needed to use the blue Saran Wrap.

Onions wrapped in blue just don't look right. Neither does chili. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only thing that wouldn't look really strange is fruit salad and that's more of a guess than it is a well researched fact.

Now I've seen the red wrap, and while I haven't used it personally, it somehow seems that it would not be as strange looking on food. Maybe because there are more red foods? I wonder what black wrap would look like....

My ipod

Today was the first day in a really long time I could take a real walk outside. Up until now, it's been walking through snow and ice to the garage, or walking down the middle of the street to get out to Einstein's (coffee) or Schwartz's (bookstore). But today we finally hit 40 degrees and it seemed about time for a walk.

And of course, I decided to take my ipod with me. And then there are choices - what is good walking-for-the-first-time-since-fall-and-still-trying-to-avoid-puddles-and-random-ice music? I decided to let the ipod just start playing songs in alphabetical order and see what I have.

I knew I had some eclectic music and hadn't actually considered how crazy it would seem to someone other than me. Here's what I heard today:

• Accidentally like a Martyr (Warren Zevon)
• Allison (Elvis Costello)
• two Israeli songs
• Across the River (Peter Gabriel)
• Act of Contrition (Madonna)
• Adayin (David Broza)
• Adeste Fideles (Frank Sinatra)
• and then two, not one, two Adon Olams. One by Josh Nelson and the other by the Sheba Choir. Interestingly enough, both are versions by black Jews. How many people do you know that have two versions of Adon Olam on their ipod? If it's more than one, and the other isn't a rabbi (or other clergy) I'm impressed (or scared for you).

I am thankful for being at my front door before "After the Love" by Culture Club started.

Reality is not all it's cracked up to be

This morning it was back to work and back to reality. It's not nearly as fun as everyone else claims it is. I'm not sure what the hype is all about. I had more than a dozen phone messages (which I didn't listen to until 5pm), conference calls, and hundreds of emails to return. What's that all about?!

Plus, Ronnie has yet to be assimilated.

Ronnie was not assimilated

It turns out I was too cheap to have Ronnie assimilated at the Star Trek experience. Oh well.

ATM

Being the geeks that we are, today we went to the Atomic Testing Museum. It's the one place in Las Vegas where we have NOT seen an ATM. Strange but true. It was actually pretty interesting and there were more people there than I would have expected. Sadly, we are not here in town during one of their field trips. Evidently they do a free monthly field trip to the testing grounds about 65 miles away. Now that would have been very cool.

And tomorrow, it's possible that we're going to the Star Trek Experience. Depending on my mood, it's possible I will let Ronnie be assimilated.

Best Buffet in Las Vegas

If you're wondering where the best buffet in Las Vegas is, I can now tell you with absolute certainty that it's on the corner of Tropicana and Pecos about 30 blocks west of the Strip. You're wondering what can be good that's so far away? I'll tell you - it's the Pinball Hall of Fame.

This is a great place. It's smoke-free, cheap, clean and filled with geeks who like pinball. And, they've got a little 4x6 card on each machine with a little background on the machine - when it was made, who restored it, and any little anecdotes that might be interesting. All the old games are just 25cents and the newer ones are still only 50cents.

Some of the machines were from the 1950's. They had a good number of video games from the 70's, including Asteroids, Centipede and even an old Tetris machine. There were a lot of very old baseball machines. Who knew that there were so many?!

And there are a lot of machines, more than I realized, that are associated with television shows and movies. There were three Star Trek games. One from the 60's based on the original series, one from the 70's (also based on the original), and a later one from Next Generation. I also lost a few quarters in the Terminator pinball machine. Evidently degree of fandom does not allow for any additional skill.

As we were walking out, we saw a tall, wide machine that looked like a multi-level pinball game. It wasnearly as deep as a traditional game and it was about 2 1/2 feet tall. I can't remember the name of the game, but it was one of only two machines ever made like this. It was based on a circus and featured different levles of mini-games, a few hard to see flippers, and a pretty fast ball. It also cost four quarters to play. It was a great game and a shame that more than two weren't made. They needed two cards to tell the whole story of the machine, most of which I don't remember anymore.

The Damn Dam

The Hoover Dam is really, really big. Last October they reinstated the tours that go way far down into the dam and that's the tour we took. The difference between the regular power plant tour and the "way down into the dam" tour is significant. We were in a group of 20 people trolling around the tunnels and hallways on the Nevada and Arizona sides of the dam, looking out the vents, down the really steep pre-OSHA staircases and finally out over the edge. It's a big place.

And their building a big bridge over the canyon. In my opinion, it's going to totally destroy what is now a beautiful view. Forget that it will be an engineering feat - it's still going to be an eyesore. Think of the Holyland buildings in Jerusalem - a total fish out of water. And in the bridge's case, over water.

Boker Tov

One of my tasks yesterday morning was going to get bagels for the house in case anyone stopped by and had not yet eaten breakfast. Unlikely, but nevertheless evidently a possibility. So at 6:45am I drove up to Einstein's. The regulars were there drinking their coffee and reading their papers. I've never been to this Einstein's at this hour but I imagine that this is their regular routine. It's not the kind of thing you just do one day.

But I digress. So I walked up to the counter and a man behind the counter says in a big booming voice, "Good Morning!" And started to respond, "Boker Tov." At which point I realized he would have had absolutely no idea what I was saying. It was a little surreal.

The best part of being there - they already had mixed dozens of freshbagels sliced and in boxes so that I didn't have to decide what kind to get!