How big is a dime bag?

My friend Sam (the one who stood outside of BestBuy on the day after Thanksgiving) has had the task of baby sitting me on the night before departing. I think I held my nerves in check much better on this go around than I did last August.

As I kept throwing more and more in the suitcases I knew I was going way over the 50 pound per bag limit. The solution? Take one of the 2 gallon bags of popcorn and break them into smaller bags. When I weighed in I would find out how much over I was and remove just enough bags to go under the limit.
We poured the popcorn into two pound and one pound bags. Dad accompanied me in the airport with a sack to take back the excess popcorn. In the end the guy at Delta didn't even weigh them. Ugh. There was a lot more I could have packed.

*****
Did I just date myself by using the term "dime bag"?

Care package

My niece Gina had a care package with things I had requested. She also sent a polo that is not in the pic. I packed it all for the Emirates but somehow forgot the saline solution... A realization that hit me as I walked through the dry morning air.

Back safe

I get up ridiculously early Thursday. Fly to Atlanta, have a great time seeing Coke Museum, CNN, MLK grave, Centennial Park... get on a plane fly to Dubai... drive to my home it is now 11PM Friday.

This whole losing a day somewhere is hard to wrap my little mind around.

Oh well, it's good to be back.

*****
Update: Sandy is right. I mistakenly wrote in the previous post that I'd be traveling overnight on Friday when it was really Thursday. Regardless, it is a strange day when you wake up on Thursday and go to bed Friday night. Losing ten hours is a strange experience... although I'm pretty sure it happened a few times when I was in college.

On the road again...

I fly out of CR at 5:30 in the morning, spend all day at Atlanta.  My next flight is direct from Atlanta to Dubai.

Here's a thought:  When you go to bed on Friday night I will be on the plane.  When you wake up I will still be on the plane.  

It's flight 07 for Delta if you want to track it...  Unfortunately, I don't know a good tracking website.

A dangerous combination

The Coke Museum

and a 

Visa card

A great trip home

I inexplicably cannot find my camera from Ann to post pictures from the day.  The day started with lunch with her mother, moved on to dinner with my parents and Tony and ended with a conversation with a fraternity brother and his new fiance.  

On this trip I missed a few people.  A few pain me because it just seemed to never work out.  Overall, however, it was a great trip.  

Odds are I won't be back next January.

I love Iowa.  I love my friends.  I love my family.  And not necessarily in that order.

Even before I came back I joked that it was insane to return to Iowa in January.  In reality it is more than "Iowa in January".  Living in the Emirates is easier, period.  There's no other way to put it.  Plus the Emriates is a short hop from Kenya, Egypt, India, Greece, or a return trip to Nepal.  

I really do love my friends, family, and state and thanks to installing Skype I'll be able to stay in touch better.  For now I will return to the land where my students make more money than I do.

It's a good place.

The value of tipping

In America we do tipping right.  The waitress asks you if you want another drink or dessert because she knows a larger tab leads to a larger tip.  

Tonight I was with a friend for a few drinks.  When I handed the bartender a $20 and said "Thank you" he knew I didn't expect change.  

There is much to be said for a tipping culture.  Every bartender and waitress has to assume, "I'm going to get a really good tip" and act accordingly.  

In the Emirates and Nepal I frequently got little to no service at a bar.  At the Hilton (where we lived for two months) we had to call the waiter over to make a new order.

The reason for the lack of service was not surprising:  most bar patrons don't tip.  There's no incentive to ask customers if they want more drinks if all it means for me is more work.

******

With no ice machines in the Hilton I started ordering a bucket to be delivered each night.  At first the bucket would come an hour or two after the call.  After the wait staff realized that I paid 5 dirhams per night the time for the delivery shrunk to less than five minutes.  

Moral of the story:  Tipping/incentives matter.

When the story is good don't over hype it

Two days ago I read about the skydiver whose coach in the tandem jump died of a heart attack.  My initial reaction was "Wow, I don't think I could have reached the cord to pull the chute in my tandem jumps."  Then I learned that the parachute had already been deployed.  I still would have been scared shitless but the difference between freefall and floating down after the chute's deployed is the difference from riding a bullet and walking in the park.

Regardless, the BBC reported the story with this line:

Instructors on the ground said that if he had pulled too hard the parachute may have spun out of control, and he too could have died.

Umm, maybe, but highly unlikely.  

Think about it.  Your floating down to earth.  You realize your instructor is unconscious.  Why, oh why, would you pull on just one side?  And, for the record, in tandem jumps they do have you pull on just one side because it is a really fun spin you go into to... but if my instructor was unconscious I probably would have skipped the fun.

If the guy was not bright enough to remember the training to "Pull-pull-pull" right before landing he might have been in for a hard touchdown but life threatening?  No.

I will never understand the need for the press or acquaintances to hype a story when the truth is good enough:  "Parachutist lands successfully after his instructor dies" simply doesn't need hype in my world.

Blogging with Gus

It's not one of my better pictures of Gus.  He's chewing the last bit of a T-bone I gave him yesterday.  He frequently allows it to drop to the floor and sits patiently waiting for me to retrieve it for him.

Blogging with a content dog chewing up a T-bone on my lap is a pleasure I will lose in 48 hours.

*sniffle*

Groundhog day

OK, so the large rodent didn't see his shadow.  Is anyone surprised?  Spring would be hard to sell with a low tonight of -4.  

Every year I planned to count the number of really good days, you know, not too hot, not too cold, not too humid, not too cloudy or windy, etc.  The task was discouraging and I never completed it.  I wish there was a way I could set up my blog to do it for me... in other words, have a daily "Is today's weather great?" and see how many days make the cut.  Any ideas on how to do it would be appreciated.

We Iowans know to appreciate the few good days of weather we get.  It's a precious commodity.  I thought I'd be bored with Emirati weather.  It's the same day after day.  It goes from ridiculously hot to hot to warm to nice very slowly over a period of four months.  I'm sure the reverse will happen in the next four months.  But it's not boring.  Seeing the sun every day is easy to get used to.  

Perhaps those in the Emirates don't appreciate 80 days of continuous good weather the same way we Iowans appreciate 2 good days in April, 4 in May, 4 in June, etc.  We tell ourselves things like, "It makes us hearty" and you have to "endure the bad weather to appreciate the good weather".  I'm beginning to think that's a line of bullshit we Iowans help each other reinforce.

Kurt Warner and SuperBowl memories

2002 meet 2009:  

Iowa is celebrating hometown boy Kurt Warner's surprising trip to the SuperBowl.  While he is not expected to win, the local papers all do stories about Kurt's earlier life in eastern Iowa and working at Hy-Vee stocking the shelves.  

It's the stuff dreams are made of.

Given our flood recovery problems we need something someone to celebrate like Kurt Warner. 

For me, it is remembering SuperBowl 2002 (Kurt's first appearance) that is more on my mind.  I spent the day at the emergency room at St. Luke's and later transferred to the University hospital in Iowa City.

At first they thought I was having a heart attack.  Then they confirmed that I hadn't but that something was very wrong.  After a couple of days of tests they found that my thyroid had zero output... and had had zero output for a long, long time. 

I had all the classic symptoms:

- I slept for ten hours a day and woke up tired.

- My fingernails were brittle and broke off easily

- My resting heart rate dropped below 60 (which is normal for someone in great shape... I was NOT in great shape)

- My tongue was larger and I often sounded like I was drunk in the middle of the day (and while I do like to drink, I've never been a daytime drinker!)

- I generally felt like crap each and every day

The only reason it hadn't been caught before was that I didn't have tell-tale symptom:  weight gain.  It's hard to gain weight when one doesn't eat.

So for the rest of my life I will take synthroid.  On this trip back I've been really bad at taking my synthroid.  Last week I realized how lousy I felt and that I had only taken my thyroid pill once in two weeks. 

Then I remembered that that was how I felt every day... for years.  It boggles my mind to consider how much productivity and LIFE I lost during those years.

No cinnamon Scope???

I can't find it anywhere in Cedar Rapids. I have enough in stock to take back to the UAE... but what's the deal?

It freshens your breath with a clean cinnamon flavor. It's the best mouthwash on the market!

I should have tried advertising it a long time ago and they may not have pulled it.

Life is good

Sometimes that's all you can say.  I won two rounds of euchre and then faced my two arch rivals  - Marcy and Longwell.  My partner and I didn't win; we crushed them.

 I departed with a smile to meet friends that I hadn't seen yet.  

Yep, life is good.

Hey Big Lug: Grow up!

Governor Culver is a good man.  I know that from spending hours with him as a photographer while he was Secretary of State.  I also know that his wife Mari has a very funny biting wit. Her calling him a "Big Lug" is one of the few comments suitable for TV.  Being a good guy, however, and being a good governor are two different things.  

Republicans and Democrats are urging him to support a 8 - 10 cent increase in the gas tax.  It's time to get on board.  

Frankly, I don't understand his opposition:  1.  The tax is paid partly by those driving across our state (although the 20% estimate from supporters seems high to me).  2.  Both Dems and Republicans support it so there's little political fallout.  3.  Iowans like good roads and don't mind paying taxes for something we can actually see have a positive impact. 4. Construction spending will be much less this summer.  Providing additional jobs to those workers is a good idea for all concerned.

I hope Mari gives the Big Lug a push to get his head out of his ass.

Black guy vs. the racist guy

Mr. "I didn't notice there were no negroes at my country club" had not dropped out of the race for RNC chair.  In fact he survived the first couple rounds of voting getting more votes each round as others dropped out.

After five rounds it came down to racist Dawson vs. the black guy Steele.  Should have been an easy one, right?  Well, there was a "we'll show them" backlash that almost got the racist guy elected.  Steele ended up winning 91-77. 

NBC's Chuck Todd summed it up:

The GOP averted a P.R. disaster after the race came down to Steele and Dawson. It was a pretty obvious choice: Pick the African American or the guy who had to quit an all-white country club. Had Dawson not had that negative mark on his resume, he would have won because he was a party insider. (Will this lead to him and other southern Republican politicians to end these country club restrictions? It's very retro in this day...)

No longer a Classic

In 1985 Coke shocked the world by changing its flavor.  That led to people like me calling 1-800-GET-COKE everyday to get them to switch back.  

Coke was so sure that the new flavor would ultimately win that they left the new Coke with the name "Coke" and reintroduced original Coke as "Classic Coke."  

Sales of new Coke tanked and the product was off the market in a few years.  (If you want to remember what new Coke tasted like hop on a plane to Nepal...)

Coke has finally decided to drop the word "Classic."  I'm surprised it took them so long.

In a word: Screwed

Today's economic news is worse than reported.  The number showing a 3.8% decline in output is artificially good.  Why?  Business inventories rose in the fourth quarter.  That's usually a sign that companies are gearing up because they expect strong sales.  In this case the build in inventories is because people stopped buying.

Therefore, the real number for this quarter is a stunningly bad 5.1% and that build in inventories means companies will cut back even more sharply now.

Yep folks, we're screwed.

Update 1:  You may be listening to the news and hearing, "The number is not as bad as expected..."  Yeah, the top line number isn't as bad as expected but it's because of a fluke in inventories.  

Update 2:  Here's the real sign we are screwed:  Rush is telling listeners that things aren't that bad.  It's all media hype...  Further he is conducting a count of "casualties" of the Obama administration.  He says every laid off person is real and affecting real families so he's going to count the casualties "the way the drive by media counted casualties" in Iraq.

The guy is equating someone losing their life to someone losing their job.  If a commentator on my side of the aisle did that they'd be run out of the country.

Oddly anxious

Republicans elect their new national chair on Friday.  I'm looking forward to the outcome.  Mr. "I didn't notice there were no negroes at my country club" pulled out today.  Unfortunately, there are a few candidates left that are just as bad.  

I hope they follow Iowa's example:  After some far right Bible beaters were elected to prominent party positions last summer there was serious question as to who would be the next state party chair.  

The party chose a fellow Benton Community grad.  I assumed that was good because Benton is not exactly a hotbed for far rightwing politicians.  

My Republican insider friend assures me that it is very good; the fundamentalists not only lost the race for chair but for every major position.  

Yippee!  Both parties have their batshit crazies.  It's best that they don't get into power.

Update:  I was wrong about which guy dropped out.  Sorry.  I am following the election closely and will make a post when it has been completed.

Thought for the day

A back wax is satisfyingly masochistic.

Flowers for Susan

I sent flowers with a "Congratulations!" balloon to Susan.  An insider said she refused them from her office because she was concerned they were poisonous.  

I worked for her for five years and she never understood me.  There's no reason to start now. 

She truly has no idea how grateful I am.