Just how screwed is my party?

My house may be in Cedar Rapids, but I am a Democrat from Benton county. Benton has Leonard Boswell as our congressman while Cedar Rapids has Dave Loebsack.

Boswell needs to go. He's a lame-ass congressman that I'm glad I didn't have to hold my nose and vote for in the past couple of elections. Yes, he is allegedly a Democrat. He votes with the party most of the time so I should be happy.

But he's also a tool. I served as a county chair for four years and have met the man many times. Trust me on this. There's a reason why 13 Republicans are vying for the seat: In two years Iowa will lose one congressional seat. Everyone on both sides of the aisle believe Boswell is the guy who will get cut out. Running against him now is a step up to challenge Braley or Loebsack when the new districts are drawn. It's no wonder the Republicans are salivating.

So as a loyal Democrat I would love to have a good, solid candidate running this year to take Boswell's seat. We don't have one. We have the guy above who makes me want to request a primary ballot just to make sure Boswell wins.

(In case you don't click on the link above...) What makes this guy a bigger tool than Boswell? He suggested we should insert microchips in illegal aliens to track them... and then said he was only giving examples of what radicals think.

Umm, yeah. Thanks for playing. Go back to Tama county. Nobody heard of you before and you made a nation-wide blog so you can be happy. The party you allegedly support doesn't need you.

Quote of the Day: Laura Bush

From Ladies Home Journal via Political Wire:

George loves to tell the story of how all his Midland friends would come to the Oval Office and say, 'I can't believe I'm here.' And then they looked at him. Couldn't believe he was there either."

So say we all.

Bacon popcorn

Even though I have booked my ticket home I sent a plaintive plea to my boss, "Are you sure you don't need anyone to teach this summer?" I'm 99% sure the answer will be "no."

Given my supply of popcorn I should be happy. There's no way I'll make it through the summer. As it is I'll have to ration for the next six weeks.

I confess that I'm curious about how this would taste. I've tried cooking popcorn in bacon fat and it was awful. I've even tried mostly corn oil with a little bacon fat. No matter how you pop it, the bacon develops a rancid taste when heated high enough to pop the kernels.

(My thanks to my closeted stoner friend for bringing this to my attention. I know loves popcorn when he gets the munchies.)

Coke factory

Sadly, the Coke facility did not allow pictures inside. I hope to go back someday with permission to take pictures... with my digital camera they can delete any that they feel compromise their bottling secrets.

While Coke is the name on the side this plant is not owned by Coke. Coke does not own any of its bottling plants (that I know of). Why? The profit margin in syrup is much, much higher than in bottling.

They had a cool carpet in the lobby. However much I wanted to rip it up and take it home with me I suspect they would have noticed.

Here's the class I accompanied to the factory.

I apologize because the pictures don't match the hype. Being inside the factory was beyond cool. It was surprisingly small. The actual area of filling the bottles and cans was no more than 3000 square feet. (They can only do one flavor for cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles at any time.)

The adjacent warehouse where the newly filled bottles go is much, much larger... bigger than a football field.

The quality control was interesting: While filling cans of Coke Zero the cans were quickly scanned. Any with imperfections were kicked out. It was shockingly common. 1 in 50 cans? A worker then physically inspected them. If deemed OK he would put it back in the que. If accidentally tipped over he would automatically throw it away. One of the students asked me, "Sir, why are they throwing that away? It looks fine."

I replied, "I don't know but it makes me sad. I wish they'd give them to me!"

Out in the packaging area we watched cases of plastic bottles of Sprite getting getting wrapped in plastic. Shockingly 1 in 10 cases had problems. Two workers were working furiously to remove the problem cases and put them back in the que.

For automated systems I was very surprised to see as many problems as I saw.

Maybe that's why they didn't want pictures.

Ann's 11th anniversary of 29 and counting

For Ann's monumental birthday she gathered with friends at the Stone Grill. (In the background is the city's only golf course.)

Ann collects Lady Bug stuff. She's slightly less obsessed with the stuff than I am Coke.
Ann has terrific friends and it was fun to spend the evening with them.

A wonderful (but long) day

I am exhausted after visiting the Coke factory and celebrating Ann's birthday. Pics will come up tomorrow.

Have I mentioned?

It's 2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. That's normal for me. But tonight there's actually a reason: In ten hours I am going to the local Coke factory.

For thirty years I have wanted to go to a Coke factory. The nearest one to me in Iowa is Lenexa, Kansas.

I can't believe I had to move to the middle east to actually visit a Coke factory.

I am a moron

I was so excited that I am weighing in under 200 pounds that I thought I'd take a picture.

I didn't think about the fact that my camera and lens weigh four pounds. Taking a picture with ME holding the camera...

When I weigh in under 200 officially on a Sunday I will shave in the morning and have a beer at night. That's all the incentive I need right now for weight loss.

What a day!

Today the College of Business and Economics sponsored an "Abu Dhabi 2030 Vision" conference. It was fascinating on many levels.

First, male students were allowed to cross the impenetrable wall on to the female campus. They sat in one section while the women sat in other sections.

Second, they highlighted the fact that women are important to the long term growth of the Emirate. If you think, "Why is that noteworthy?" think US circa 1900.

Third, they highlighted the fact that they are bringing in huge companies to relocate here but do not have the locals to staff them. One speaker said, "If you are Emirati with skills, drive, and ambition we want to hire you."

Fourth, I love the expansion plan. The best speaker... the best speaker I've heard since I've arrived in this country... was a guy from Mubadala. It's an invest arm of the government where they try to attract business to this country.

In the US we try attract business by offering tax breaks. Here they attract business by buying them - or at least part of them. The Mubadala representative talked about AMD (the chip maker who runs a distant second to Intel), EADS (Airbus, the global competitor to Boeing), and GE (who makes airplane engines) all building factories in the UAE.

Was it because they thought the UAE was a fabulous place to build a factory? No. The Abu Dhabi government invested a lot of money in each of those companies so well, hey, there's a bit an of an obligation.

The speaker said repeatedly, "We used our leverage..." Which is polite business speak for, "We'll give you this money if you build a factory in our country."

I left the conference energized. There's pretty much zero chance I'll be in this country in 2030, but hearing and seeing the plans makes me know I'd want to come back to visit.

50 Days

Fifty days from now I will be home. 50 days!

I'm not homesick but I am looking forward to Iowa. By the time I land I will have been gone 293 days since I left last August.

In my remaining 50 days I will be teaching 13 days. Giving quizzes for 4 days, finals for 3 days and a couple more days for grading. That means I have about 20 days of work in the next 50.

After my 20 days of work in the next 50 I have 93 days straight of vacation.

Hmm. 20 days of work in the next 143 days.

Did I mention that my earliest class next semester is 12:30?

Life is good.

The sunflower seed diet

And the march goes on...

Here's the latest:

Start: 225
Week 1: 221
Week 2: 218
Week 3: 215
Week 4: 213
Week 5: 211

Week 6: 209

Week 7: 209

Week 8: 206

Week 9: 203

200 is so close I can taste it. More specifically, I dream of the taste of beer. I promised myself I could have some beer when I go under 200. Who knew beer could be used as an incentive for a diet?

This week I rediscovered the appetite suppressant known commonly as sunflower seeds. Most days this week I ate one decent meal (usually salad or meat) and spent the rest of the time cracking sunflower seeds. They are not popular here and it's easy to know why: Local brands lightly roast them and add very little salt. I buy from the one store sells seeds from the US: Planter's (twice the price, but still cheap).

Psst, dad! Check this out

There's a place in Vinton that sells morel mushroom seeds (spores?).

You've had a strawberry patch, peach trees, large asparagus patches, grape vines, 80 tomato plants decades ago, nearly an acre of sweetcorn, lots of rhubarb, green beens, peas, radishes, green onions, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, kholarabis, and loads of fresh new potatoes. (Not to mention the largest non-commercial popcorn patch in Iowa.)

So wouldn't a nice morel mushroom patch be great?!

Shades of Hamilton/Kaplan

A colleague in a different college was called in last week and told, "We're giving you notice. You will not be teaching in the fall." He was assured it was an "operational decision" that had nothing to do with his teaching.

He will get paid for the next six months and then receive two months "gratuity." (Since us ex-patriots don't plan to retire here, they give a bonus one month salary for each year we work... payable when we leave or switch jobs.) So he's basically getting paid through the end of 2010. In academia it is hard to start looking in late April. Good jobs have already been taken. I wish him luck.

And, yes, this is scary.

Not helping the diet!

I went with a friend to a chinese restaurant. I asked for no rice with with broccoli beef.

They didn't give me any rice, but gave me twice the broccoli beef. How can I diet when they do this? (I tried not to eat it all...)

Woah, dude, that's harsh!

From John Deeth: 18 Iowa City police officers busted 21 students for pot on the eve of IV:XX (a.k.a. 4-20).

Eighteen cops arresting students who wanted to get stoned. I'm pretty sure most of those cops were once the kids in high school who couldn't get laid and were never invited to the cool parties. Busting those students probably gave them a chubby.

Music from around the world

Musician from Nambia, Iran and India performed at a large outdoor concert tonight. I took my good camera to get some pics...

...but forgot the memory card. The IPhone pic above doesn't do it justice.

A tower of Oreo cream

I have never liked Oreo's much but as a kid I fantasized about doing this...

For me the ratio of "cookie: good stuff" was too high. Also I think Oreo-eaters are milk drinkers. I'm not. By the time they came out with "Double stuff" Oreos I had moved on.

One of those classes...

In two years here I've had 24 classes and over 800 students. I was bound to have a class that I didn't like. The class meets at 3:30 - 4:45 on Mondays & Wednesdays. Wednesday is the last day for classes so it's like teaching from 3:30 - 4:45 on Friday. The students come in mentally checked out.

The class has 30 students. Twenty of them spend the class surfing the net. That will end next week as one forwarded a joke to others in the class and several burst out laughing.

This is the class where a student said, "We'd laugh at your jokes if you gave us points."

Today I gave worksheet that's a good review for a quiz next week. The ten good students went to work and completed the worksheet. Most did just about anything but the work in front of them. With about ten minutes to go a guy - who had not done anything - asked if I had planned anything else. I said, "No, once you get the right answers on the worksheet you can leave." He went over to a guy who had it done, copied down all the answers and brought it to me.

I said, "The point of this was to learn something, but obviously you don't care. Get out of here."

He looked at me.

"You heard me. Get out of here."

I beat him to the door as I packed up my stuff quickly and walked out.

It's baaack!

The Coke machine was trucked off last night. The leak was fixed and the fridge was returned tonight.

McGyvor at first said, "There is no charge because this is the third time we had to add coolant." (True, but the first time was when I got it. The second time was just before he left to get married and I knew it was only a temporary fix.)

I insisted on paying. He said, "Pay me after 10 days. Make sure you are happy."

"I am very happy!" I replied. "Let me pay you tonight."

The charge? Dh 250 ($68)

There's no company in the US that would pick it and return it for that price... let alone fix it.

I paid him Dh 350 ($95).

Happy 4-20!

...although I think I only have one regular blog reader who celebrates this holiday, but I guess some are probably in the closet.

*****

Today I discovered that I'm hyperthyroid. It explains the headaches and it's easy to fix (take less synthroid).