Month: April 2008

“Mill-e-wah-que” which is Algonquin for “The good land.”

I get to check off another city in my Travel Log.  Yesterday I drove up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to attend an Architecture Best Practices Forum at a large company headquartered in the area.  Ironically living only 4 hours away, I have actually never been here before.  I am not sure if there is a connection or not, but first off, it is COLD up here.  Get this, it is the end of April and I had to drag out a heavier coat to come up here because it is 38 degrees out.  This clearly must be a figment of my imagination since we are currently in a death spiral brought on by Global Warming. 

Warning….. quick tangent… speaking of Global Warming, I was eating dinner in the hotel last night and an add came on with Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich whining about the political vogue topic of global warming.  Since I didn’t really have the opportunity to change the channel like I usually do, I had to sit through the stupid commercial which as expected ended up disgusting me (This is exactly why I try to avoid commercials whenever possible).  Turns out, that the two politicians were communicating their concern for the environment and how they are going to do something about it.  So, here’s a start Nancy – how about NOT flying to SYRIA in a provate jet with your personal entourage in order to talk to the head of a country considered to support terrorism – oh, and this environment damaging trip … is considered AGAINST U.S. LAW.  In fact, how about not flying in a personal jet to visit the Dalia Lama and since you were not authorized to speak on behalf of U.S., stating it was a personal visit. 

Now with that off my mind, I just wanted to comment that Milwaukee appears to be a surprisingly nice place to visit (although it would better if it was not so cold).   Driving downtown was a little interesting since my Garmin GPS was totally confused and kept wanting me to turn left for apparently no reason – there was a lot of construction around the downtown area which may have changed traffic patterns from those in my GPS (purchased only last November).  I was a little disturbed about how high some of the new highway overpasses are going to be – it looked to be about 4 – 5 stacked lanes high.  As it turns out we simply drove through downtown and eventually arrived at the Radisson on North Shore.  Fairly nice hotel, but clearly a former Holidome.  I am going to cut them some slack since they had fresh cookies, but the two ladies checking in myself and coworker need to pay a little more attention to their directions.  My coworker was given a room number and told to go out and around the outside of the building to an entrance in the back.  Not wanting to make him walk that far with luggage, I drove him around there and then drove all the way back to the front in order to get to the elevators for my room.  After walking through the lobby, making the appropriate lefts and rights I came to the indicated elevators, took it to the third floor and walked down two hallways to room 357.  Get this, my coworkers room number turned out to be…. 356 (right across the hall and straight up from the location I dropped him off at earlier.)  Good thing I didn’t have a 357 at that time. 

Anyway, pretty impressed with this area of Milwaukee –  local parks (lots of joggers out), above average homes nestled in the trees and an incredibly nice outdoor mall (good thing my wife didn’t come 8^) .  Among all of this was the company HQ I was up here to visit.  Definitely a place I would like to come back to and spend some more time exploring.  Van Halen was playing the Bradley Center yesterday, but I found out too late to hunt down some tickets.

 Well, off to find out how to turn up the heat in my room – oh, bonus points for naming the movie the title of this post comes from.

The Winning Purse

Today I bring you an interesting scan from our local Peoria Journal Star.  Admittedly, I have an addiction to reading the local crime page to keep up to date on any hot spots to avoid in the area and to bring closure on 6 months of work on a Grand Jury assignment.  Okay, and to do some research on a future topic for the blog, but more on that when I get closer to publishing it.  Anyway, I came across an entry that made me chuckle out loud.  Among all the drugs and weapons violations was a blurb about a purse being stolen in a local bar.  Reading through it seemed pretty mundane until I came upon a particular line — I’ll let you see if anything peaks your interest:

Purse Snatcher

$8,000 in the purse.  So either the drinks in the place are on the high side, the money was earned there or the pull of a stiff drink was soooo great that she didn’t have time to go to the bank or put it under the mattress. I would love to read the actual story she gave to the police on why that amount of money was in the purse. 

Sniped

I have had an article on my desk since December 21st, 2007 just waiting for me to get time to actually comment on it.  Based on recent follow on stories, this turns out to be a perfect time to do just that.  The subject of the Entertainment Weekly article was Wesley Snipes and his pending fall from grace due to alleged (at the time) legal issues with the Internal Revenue Service.  So with Wesley all dolled up in his heritage clothes he agrees to meet with the article’s author in his “huge stucco estate with postcard views and endless lawns… identical to every other million-dollar house.”  The article points out his fall from $10M/film status down to ONLY $2M, his staff bringing them fresh fruit and the pending trial on eight counts of tax fraud that could net him 16 years in prison.  Apparently he was trying to defraud the IRS of >$11M (or a little more than one of his earlier movies) and get this… not filing a return at all from 99-04 – later in the article he blames his advisors – apparently he never expected this may be wrong – but admits “the [$11M] refunds may have been a bit aggressive” but based on a premise that income from U.S. citizens wasn’t taxable (WHAT?).

The story rambles on a bit but eventually comes to Snipes’ stardom downfall on claims of “color of his skin”, “[s]ystematic racism”, “so few guys who do action and do it well … even fewer who are African-American”, “black man is usually the culprit”.  This from the actor who was star of the movie White Man Can’t Jump and in Passenger 57 had no problem referencing race with “Always bet on black”.  Oh the hardships of a multi-millionaire, mansion living, staff serving actor who doesn’t feel he should pay as much (as in none) taxes as 99% of the rest of the American citizens. 

… but recent jury decisions has brought this into a whole new perspective.  I now have the “rest of the story” thanks to a recent AP article stating that he will serve 3 (hmmm seems someone may have benefited from his fame since it was suppose to be up to 16 years). 

Continue reading Sniped

Thought or No Thought

So I was watching the Deal or No Deal show last week when it became clear to me that someone associated with that show can’t think through a situation very well.  For those who didn’t waste the 1.5 hours that night (yes, I did get sucked into it, but mainly because I was absolutely too lazy to stand up, walk three feet and pickup the remote to change the channel – I’ll blame it on the 4 mile run that night), An Iraqi War veteran was the contestant – actually I’ll describe as he is – an American Hero – three tours of duty (2 voluntary), purple heart and two bronze stars so I can live a safe life in the States – Thank You.  Anyway, he was doing the case picking thingy and getting the various offers from the banker when the show decided to have some fun with the soldier.  Out come the Robert Palmer video ladies carrying a round box about 18″ high with a lid on it.  As they approach the contestant they open the box to reveal….. a wig sitting atop the standard human bust which they also take out of the box.  So after a a night of talking about Iraq and making jokes about insurgents, they bring out a head.  I was taken completely back and stared intently at the crowd and contestant to see their reaction.  Clearly it was subdued and if not a bit stand-offish, but the contestant did make a quick deflected comment about it probably being for Howie but beyond that it was not taken that well.  Did the creative genius that thought this one up ponder, even for a minute, that a severed head image would be a humorous gag in this situation?

 Next time, I’ll leave a little in the tank to make that extra three feet after the nightly run.

A Sense of Accomplishment

The most observing I have done for the last week is the amount of phlegm that one can cough up at any one moment.  It is staggering, but I will go out on a limb here and state that you probably couldn’t care less about the biproducts of my nasty virus. 

However, I was well enough to make it over to our local Panera Bread to pick up some sinus relieving soup.  I had finished ordering and was waiting for my pickup when I glanced over at the soda fountains.   There was a little girl trying to fill up her cup.  This looked like a tremendous hardship because she could barely see over the counter ledge, much less be able to reach up to the dispensers.  Before I had assessed the situation, one of the employees came by and asked her if she needed some assistance.  With confirmation, the employee helped her put the cup in the proper place, asked what flavor and pressed the button.  She then asked the girl to tell her when to stop.  At first I thought this was odd, but as it played out it it became more interesting.  After a little while, the child informed the employee to stop – I thought it was a little premature since there was clearly a good .5 inch left to the top (I don’t generally steal sips, but I make sure I get what I paid for), but the employee stop dispensing and helped the girl take it down from the counter.  The employee asked her if she wanted a lid and then helped her over to the lid area and pointed to the right size for the girl to take.  As the employee watched, the girl struggled for a bit but actually go the lid on herself and then grabbed a straw for herself.  Showing solid parenting, the little girl thanked the employee and walked back to what appeared to be her father with a wide grin on her face.  The she said “Look Daddy, I got my own drink!”  with a very proud expression on her face. 

My thoughts went directly back to the employee.  I would guess that in just about every other scenario I have witnessed (including my own experience) the approach was to take the cup from the child fill it up, put the lid on, stab the straw and hand it back to the kid.  In contrast, the person helped the girl to get “her own drink” and in turn not only did the girl acquire her drink, but also lefther with a sense of accomplishment.  That employee needs to be in our school system where she can use this special trait on more subjects.  Hats off to Panera and their apparent quality applicant review process.  (yes, I am assuming it has improved since my previous post on a Panera observation)

4 Months and Counting

Rarely do I get so torqued up that I actually convince myself that a personal boycott is in order…. okay, that may not be entirely true since I do have a number of bans in progress, but they are all for very good reasons!  This particular boycott is still in its infancy (compared to my Sprint BAN dating back to 1986) and was initiated on January 29th 2008 when I read about a particular bill being reviewed in the house.  Just in case the link goes dead, here is the paragraph that ruffled the fur (all rights to paragraph remains with the ArsTechnica author)

“Not content with the current (and already massive) statutory damages allowed under copyright law, the RIAA is pushing to expand the provision. The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA’s perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully. Sound fair? Proportional? Necessary? Not really, but that doesn’t mean it won’t become law. ”

Yes folks, that is $1.5M for copying a single compilation cd.  I will let that sink in just a minute… tick…tock….tick…tock.  I have had enough.  On the spot I committed myself to a minimum one year boycott of all big label music purchases or any artist that actually came out and supported their efforts.  It is now over 4 months and I have not even thought for one second about breaking the agreement.  Does this mean that I ended my music purchases, stopped filling my silent voids with raunchy guitars, thunderous drums and unique arrangements…. NOPE.  What the RIAA has failed to comprehend in their pursuit to litigate every single person in the world is that there are other outlets for music.  The stranglehold is gone.  Big labels are no longer needed – the Internet has essentially removed the unneeded middle men/women.  Instead of wasting my hard earned money on uncaring artists, I’ve turned to 100% Indie and at this point I see little reason to every go back.  Thanks to distribution houses like CD Baby , and the emergence of studios catering to the non-signed bands, there are plenty of bands out there who actually deserve our attention.  Oh and don’t forget the pod sector (Insomina Radio’s SoCal, Chicago and UK as examples) cranking out wonderful DRM free samples to help get the word out.  For the record, I have bought over 30 CDs as a result of these three podcasts and their sister feeds.  So if you are not put off by the RIAA tactics or enjoy seeing how the big label bands treat your money on shows like MTV Cribs, nor wonder how much investment there is in simply cranking out a greatest hits or compilation CD (yet priced at the same rate as a new cd with studio fees etc.) then please don’t click on any of the links in this post.  I on the other hand am getting ready to listen to my August House, Half the World and Band of Horses CDs.

As a side note, I did find something out while tracking down the Pro-IP link, I noticed that on March 6th, 2008, the compilation piece was pulled from the bill : In case the link goes dead, here is the statement that brought my smile (rights remain with ArsTechnica author) “Today, a House subcommittee removed the controversial provision from the Bill and passed it on to the full committee for further comment” Interesting enough, apparently they didn’t consider the magazine and newspaper impact.  This of course doesn’t change my boycott, but good to see there are some logical thinking people in congress.

A Day of Irony

Today was a little odd in the sense there were at least two visuals which made me stop and hesitate for a moment to provide time to verify what I was really seeing.  The first of these happened on my way to work.  On the highway ramp next to where I work, there is a huge billboard sign with a picture of a cute little blonde girl on it.  There is a bold caption at the top that states “When smoker’s are nearby, I smoke too”  I actually do not understand the attraction to smoking myself and as long as an individual can read, there is little excuse for not accepting the outcomes that result from that addiction.  However, the visual that caught me offguard as I rounded the ramp, was a small red truck at the bottom with two men and a small blonde girl sitting between them.  As he was yielding for the oncoming traffic, the driver pulls out a pack of cigarettes and starts beating it on his palm to get his cig out.  I find it hard to believe that he didn’t take notice of the billboard as he passed by and if he did, apparently the message didn’t sink in. 

The other image occurred at the exact same intersection where I was almost hit a few posts ago.  As I came upon the location I looked to my right and noticed there was 2 seconds left on that corresponding walk light.  This brought a tad bit of satisfaction since that meant I would not have to wait to cross the street ahead.  I then noticed a police car nearing the intersection from the right – glancing at the walk light, took note the time was up, shifted over to the left to look at the traffic lights and it was turning yellow… but the police car was not slowing down (I am a little more cautious on this per the last incident there).  Sure enough the police car enters into the intersection and begins the turn left at the same time the light goes red.  I stopped in my tracks and stared the the cop as he accelerated past me – no flashing lights, no urgent call… just plain blew the light.    What really made it interesting to me is the fact there was an article in the paper two days ago about how the police department has been cracking down on people who run the red lights downtown.  This enforcement initiative was requiring two officers that they felt could be re-deployed to more important areas if the city installed cameras ….. say cheese 8^)