Category: Observation

A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

You already know I have a life list and I was able to check an entry off earlier in the year.  Well, I was able to check another one off today.  I always wanted to purchase a piece of fine art.  The closest I have ever come to this is some wolf paintings I bought a long time ago at the Eagle Days in the Quad Cities.  I really don’t count this because it was not really an art show as much as a craft display.  The artist was there and signed them, but again, not what I had intended when I put the entry on the list.  A number of stars aligned today that I decided I had to take advantage of.

Peoria Fine Arts Fair Ticket

The Peoria Riverfront was hosting their annual Fine Art Fair.  I was always intrigued by it since it actually carried a description indicating it was not a pretentious affair.  Yesterday, I was sent an email by a coworker indicating her husband’s band was performing at 10:00AM at the same event.  Ah, the extra nudge to get me to wake up early on a Saturday and trek the 30 minutes down to the Illinois River.  I decided I needed some guiding principles to keep in mind while trying to acquire my fine art piece.

  • I decided $200 was my limit for my first piece (need to ease into this whole artsy thing)
  • The artist must be present at the booth – part of the thrill should be actually engaging with the artist to learn a little bit about the concept and creativity involved
  • The piece cannot be something I could actually create myself with less than a year’s concentrated effort (at least get close visually without the scrutiny of an artist’s eye).  This automatically eliminates the yard utensil art and any tile mosaic pieces (the latter since I can already do that now).
  • I should not be able to purchase a similar piece at a local (non-art retail) store
  • I will not purchase from a vendor that fits the “snobby artist” profile – you know, “The I’m better that you and you are not qualified to look at my wonderful creations much less explain them to you”
  • I will not be pressured by the vendor into purchasing a particular item.  I can’t stand people pushing product on me including the product vendors at work and the food sample ladies prowling the local convenience stores
  • I will take the time to look at every booth (if even just in passing) before I make my decision
  • The piece has to impress me or be unique enough to really capture my attention
  • I cannot acquire something I would be embarrassed by other people seeing it in my house (think naked lady statues)
  • I have to be able to get it home

I thought this was a pretty good list, but gave myself the option to augment If I had to.  Remember, I have never been to an art fair before so I really did not know what to expect.  Thanks to a late night of Rock Band 2 (crested 1.2Million fans last night and probably ranked in the 2,000s now) I was a little groggy this morning, but the anticipation of checking the list item overcame that as I headed to the event.  Confusing at first, there were actually a lot of parking lot spaces available in a lot right by the fair.  Once I arrived at the ticket area, I realized the show did not start until 10:00AM (actually Art Guild Members were able to enter an hour earlier).  I took a walk and enjoyed the riverfront for a little bit and returned when the show opened.  I heard the band warming up and figures I would check out the various booths first and then decide which pieces stood out while taking in a few songs.  That would be a good indication of something that impressed me.  Some booths I was able to pass fairly quickly through – jewelry items, pottery and photographs really was not on the radar.  Besides, I already have a really nice piece of pottery of friend of ours hand made for us last Christmas.  Unfortunately, my first rule ended up filtering out a lot of opportunities.   It was not uncommon to see $8K and $10K pieces causing my heart to stop a couple of times merely due to fear I was going to knock them over if I got too close – assuming the you broke it, you own it principle applied here.  Pleasantly, there really was not any vendors that were in the “push” mode.  Almost all of them simply manned their booth, had cheerful words to say as you passed and let you browse at will.  Note, due to my unfamiliarity with the whole scene, I was being careful not to touch anything.

After looking at every booth, I decided to go see the band play.  As I neared the stage, I was caught a little off guard by the type of music being played since it sounded more like gospel which was not what I was expecting at all.  A quick scan of the stage confirmed my confusion and decided that someone had given me bogus information – Oh well, more time to devote to finding the perfect art piece.  After reviewing all of the booths in my head I decided there was 4 booths worth going back to for further scrutiny.  Two of these were specializing in very distinctive wooden vases/containers with unique woods.  After going back to each of these I discovered a very similar piece at both booths.  This concerned me a little bit since it didn’t seem that distinctive if two artists could create an eerily similar piece of art.  That left me two other booths to go check out – hit the continue link to see what I ended up buying.

Continue reading A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

Can You Spare a Lesson

Wow, I was called out by a loyal reader on my lack of posts as of late.  There are really two reasons for my slacking.  One, I was in Vegas all last week and 2) Rock Band 2 came out this week and unfortunately, I have one addiction (and absolutely my only one) and that is playing the fake drums.  But I can’t disregard my readers so I decided to crank one out tonight foregoing badly needed sleep even with a long trip ahead of me to see the Cubs and Cards play in Chicago tomorrow.

Tonight’s quick topic actually covers a whole year time span.  The last time I went to Vegas was about this time last year.  One of the observations that always caught my attention was the individuals begging for money on the overpasses between the hotels.  Typically the approach has been “I’m a war vet and fell on hard times…” or “some wording followed by God Bless You”.  I am not going to get into a debate on the authenticity of these individuals, but from a marketing perspective, those are pretty good approaches if you want to elicit the emotional side of individuals.  I’ll confess that I never give any money mainly because I don’t think encouragement is the right thing to do in this situation – I also give a tremendous amount of money to other forms of assistance which I know each and every one of them have the opportunity to benefit from.  With that said, I was actually totally caught off guard last year when I was crossing the overpass to Bally’s.  As I reached the top of the stairs I passed an individual sitting on the ground.  I don’t know if it is a byproduct of spending so much time observing people or not, but I have a tendency to take mental snapshots that I ponder on as I walk – this gives me the ability to assess the situation without having to resort to staring.  The downside of this is I sometimes catch stuff a few seconds later while scanning the mental picture.  As I traversed down the mental image to the individual, I was able to read his cardboard sign “Ninjas killed my parents I need money to take karate lessons so I can have my revenge”.  I thought it was fantastic and actually considered turning back and donating to the cause.  Unfortunately, as I turned back, I realized I had actually walked completely to the other side of the overpass and didn’t really want to double back that far.  Regardless if the cause was fake (no, not the ninjas, the individual actually needing to beg) I thought he demonstrated ingenuity and distinguished himself from the rest of the begging community.  Surely there is some marketing organization out there that could harness this creativity and take a person off the street at the same time…. or he is already in the marketing industry and just gaming the system for extra cash.

Comparing that to last week’s Vegas trip, there are still people begging at all of the overpasses.  Unfortunately, almost every one of them was going with the “Why Lie I need a Beer” sign.  Although honesty is an admirable trait, in this setting it doesn’t really hit the marketing sweet spot.  I know the odds that a given donation is going to be diverted to non-sustaining or non-healthy decision are pretty high (we’re in VEGAS), but providing a donation under the pretense that he needs an alcoholic drink doesn’t generally make the giver feel that good about himself.  To be brutally honest, I believe this self benefit is at the root of giving.  I would be willing to debate this further, but I just don’t see someone giving away some money and chastising himself for doing it as opposed to taking a few lighter steps while “patting himself on the back”.  I wonder if you could measure the internal pleasure that comes from an act of kindness – maybe an internal heat change or chemical change?

However, I did notice the emergence of a new approach.  At a number of the overpasses, there were individuals carting around coolers selling cold water for a dollar.  In fact, I even saw this at the Bellagio Water Show and down on Fremont Street.  This might be another good example of marketing.  Assuming the bottle water can be obtained cheaply enough (yes, I’m dismissing the bathtub bottle filling for now) , the seller can actually make some change on each bottle sold providing a win-win situation for himself and they purchaser.  It was 105 degrees out so clearly fluids is a demand item and the price seems pretty good compared to the rest of the drink prices in the area…. and NO, the free drinks while gaming isn’t really FREE if you are actually playing the game.  I think it also brings some dignity to the seller since it requires effort as opposed to resting on the pavement.

Anyway, it’s late and time to get some shut eye

Those Are Some Tiny Feet

Thought I would go ahead and post one last entry before boarding the plane to Vegas.  This way I will not take a chance on partaking in toooo much fun and end up forgetting another observation taken from the Agility Dog Show at the fairgrounds in Springfield.  I was sitting with my wife back with the dog tents (yep, my dogs are treated like true members of the family and get their own special tent to lounge in between their runs) and simply watching the other competitors take their various turns.  At one point during the day, two individuals showed up, unfolded their collapsible chairs and made themselves comfortable.   The particular spot they chose was actually right in front of us, but I really didn’t mind that much since I tend to move away from our spot when it is my dogs’ turn because they have a tendency to see me and get distracted.   What did catch my attention was the fact they chose a spot right in front the ring fencing that had a full page sign on it:

Agility Show Sign

My apologies for the poor picture, but all I had at the time was my camera phone.  I added in some text so you could see one of the main purposes for the sign.   The ironic part of all of this is clearly they had to look right past the sign to see any of the dogs run.  I began to wonder just what was causing the communication breakdown and taking notice of the fact that the signmaker apparently wasted his/her time creating and hanging the request – guessing the is the classic Led Zeppelin communication breakdown.  I decided there were some possible causes:

  1. They can’t read – I dismissed this pretty quickly since the individual on the left is at least giving indications they are reading another pamphlet.
  2. They believe the sign was meant for everyone else and not them – a pretty elitist view of the world, but since they were not concerned about blocking my view this could be a distinct possibility
  3. They are visually impaired – their heads were tracking the dogs out in the ring so I am going to dismiss this possibility and I would suggest that if this is true they would likely not have been correctly facing toward the ring 8^)
  4. They are confused and think the single tick mark means inches and therefore believe they are within tolerance – This thought had me sidetracked for about 15 minutes as I tried to remember when I learned that a single tick meant feet and a double tick (quote) meant inches.  For the life of me, I couldn’t remember when this might have been…. and who was the first to do that in the first place?  obviously I have some homework to do in order to track that sidebar down – I’ll let you know what I find
  5. Lastly, they have tiny little feet so when they marked off the distance they came up very short.  This has to be it.  In the goodness of their hearts they were really trying to obey the rules of the event, but a variance was introduced which prevented them from actually carrying out that mission.  I am going with this reason from a positive viewpoint – it gives them the benefit of the doubt and eliminates the evil thought in my head that they were just stupid.

I probably should have just asked them if they were aware of the 10 FOOT rule and validate their response with the options listed above.  I ultimately decided to just take a picture and use it as blog fodder when I had the chance.   Anyway, I was still basking in the display of kindness from the Caterpillar tattoo guy to let this dampen my day.

All aboard to Sin City… type ya’ (not a measurement symbol) soon!

I’ll Use My Own Pen, Thank You Anyway

Look at me go, I’m in the process of completing one third of the total number of posts for last month… and the Vegas material has not even been collected yet.  Of course, there is always the quality over quantity argument, but I’m trying my best to cover both.  Today’s entry (actually tonight’s since I made it home from work pretty late) was observed at the State Fair Grounds over the weekend.  If you read my last post you already know I was there for an agility dog show.  The topic at hand was found in a location that I encounter at least one social/guy code violation in a day.  Kind of gave it away with the guy code statement, but just in case we are talking about the men’s public bathroom.  As a staunch supporter and follower of the bathroom guy codes, I am continually amazed at the number of people who are unaware of the unwritten rules or just don’t care.   Nothing creeps me out more than when the “greatest possible distance” rule is violated at the urinals… note, this includes redirection to the stalls if the greatest distance cannot be achieved with the current urinal usage configuration.  This topic probably needs a whole blog on its own, so I’ll redirect back to my main topic … which is bathroom wall writing.  Can someone please explain to me what the fascination is with this particular activity?  I had actually forgotten about this practice until I stepped foot into the public bathroom near the Coliseum Horse Arena.  There on the wall holding the urinal was various witty and thought provoking prose meant to inspire while one relieves.  I jest, of course, since it generally consists of a juvenile phrase followed by a phone number that is generally scratched off or smudged in some manner.  So apparently mid-drain someone decides they need to share an important piece of information, whips out a writing utensil and makes his mark (with the pen/pencil, not with the other although I wouldn’t put it past such a person).  Clearly he (yes, I think I can be gender specific here) didn’t run to the sink, wash his hands and then take out his pen and complete the wall graffiti.  I would also suggest that the dominant hand was used since most people are generally one-handed writers so it was likely involved in uncapping more than the pen or pencil.  If you carry this thought through to the end, he probably places it back in his pocket only to take it out later to write on a piece of paper or some other more appropriate medium.  I can only hope he isn’t a pen cap biter, or worse, offer up the pen to an innocent victim who needs to take a quick note.   But whom am I kidding, what is the true likelihood of this individual washing his hands up exit in the first place?   Betting “on the come” that you think about this the next time you use someone else’s pen or pencil – in actuality I am probably more worried about the guy who wets his fingers to smudge out the number on the wall (ugh!).  Quite intriguing was the person who actually responded to a statement on the wall proclaiming “F**ck Life” with the compelling and mind blowing affirmation of “so right”   (note this reply happened within three hours from the time I first saw the F.L. in the morning)  What is that?  Is your life so boring and diluted that you actually have to respond to a wall scribble?  did you get to zip with a glee in your heart?  Unfortunately, I’ll probably never ever know the answers to that question since that would probably violate an established guy code regarding asking someone the reason for a urinal activity – wait, there is no probably about that – definite VIOLATION.

I leave you with some words of advice… always carry your own pen or pencil so you don’t have to think about this topic ever again

Resolution through Tattoo

First off, a whopping 6 blog entries all last month (although to be truthful, my last one could have been three).  Definitely dipping below plan, but the good news is I am heading to Vegas next week.  You know what that means…. enough blog fodder to last me the rest of the year 8^).  This Labor Day weekend, we headed down to Springfield for an Agility Dog Show my dogs were competing in.  It was actually being held at the State Fair Grounds along with a huge motorcycle race which was bringing in everyone with a Hog in a 50 mile radius that wasn’t already up in Wisconsin at the big Harley gathering up there.  My parents showed up a little later in the day to watch the dogs run and ended up finding a spot where they were parking to go to the motorcycle race.  Nothing to special there, just the standard honor system for row parking – space, car, car, space providing the ability for each vehicle to leave without being blocked in.

At some point in the day, I went back to my Dad’s vehicle to check if they had left their cell phone in the car.  While I was looking in the car windows, a van pulls up and parks in the space between the double rows of cars (car, car, about 5 ft of space,  newly parked car, about 5ft of space, car , car).  My Dad was parked in the second spot in and wasn’t blocked in at the time since the new van parked behind the first car, but the driver was basically establishing a new row pattern which was surely to be duplicated the rest of the way down (assuming they could actually get turned 90 degrees in the tiny space.  I was somewhat surprised that someone would actually do that so I decided it was appropriate to wait until the individual exited his vehicle so I could question him about this particular decision.  Best case, I could point out the error of his ways, at worst case I would have new material for my blog.  An older man gets out (I’ll go with mid 60’s) with a cigar in his mouth.  I asked him if he was actually going to park there because it would lead to us being blocked in.  He then asked us which car was our and we pointed out the second car in, but it would eventually happen if someone followed his lead…. what followed totally stunned me…

Completely out of the blue the individual replies with “You know, you’re right I am starting a new row and it could block you in. I’ll tell you what, since you’re wearing that shirt (looking towards my Father …. )  he then reaches over and pulls up his right sleeve to reveal a Caterpillar logo tattoo matching the logo on my Father’s shirt which I had given him as present)  … I’ll move my vehicle for you.”  Unbelievable, I was expecting some serious discord and as it turns out, this guy actually retired from Cat (where my brother and I work) and actually worked in the facility in Decatur where my older brother used to work – He even knew my brother.  We exchanged names (his name was Mike), shook hands and pleasantly departed.   Sometimes things work out better than expected and fortunately this is one of those times.  Saved by a tattoo.. now that is definitely a first for me since most of the ink I see these days leans to the aggressive side.  What is the most satisfying is someone liked working for my company so well, they had it permanently displayed on their body.  Just one more example of the strong commitment to the Caterpillar Family.

A Interesting Week (almost my last)

It has been an interesting week on the observation front.  Not so much out of the ordinary as opposed to things just catching me off guard. 

For starters, I was taking the back way into the Best Buy parking lot (you learn interesting shortcuts into local shopping areas during Christmas) and happened upon an ambulance parked under a tree towards the back.  I decided this was a great idea – disperse the ambulances to various parts of the city in order to improve response times.  They are going to probably sit around anyway waiting for an event anyway so why not increase the opportunity to save a life. The surprise moment came as soon as I passed by the ambulance and noticed the drive sitting on the back bumper smoking a cigarette.  I have to question this choice of occupations.  He spends his days probably witnessing some horrible situations of which more than one has to be heart attack or stroke based.  However, he still chooses to increase his odds of requiring the services of his organization.  Maybe smoking is a means to calm his nerves after dealing with the situations he faces at work. 

 A day or two later I was sitting in an Chinese restaurant waiting for a carry out when a lady walked in with her 4 to 5 year old son.  First off, it hit me that I have a poor ability to actually judge a child’s age.  Guessing this is due to not having children of my own and really do not have a lot of contact with children in the pre-school to kindergarten range.  Hopefully some little kid won’t hold up a filling station while I am there and then have to try and give an age estimate to the police… not to mention I don’t think the height charts on the exit doors go that low.  As I was sitting there (admiring the fact that the lady was able to speak perfect non-accented English and then apparently converse in fluent Chinese -or Mandarin – no clue with the Asian lady behind the counter), the child asked if he could have one of the new ice cream bars he saw on the menu.  The mom looked like she was going to happily comply with his wish when she read the fine print indicating it was sugar free.  I had noticed that on the sign and thought this would probably increase his chances of scoring the treat.  Contrary to my assumption, she said “no, that is sugar free, I don’t want you to have that”  Whoa, luckily the kid asked the exact same question I wanted to ask “why is sugar free bad?” (thanks kid).  Her response was “It’s just not good for you.. bad stuff”.  In the age of fat nation, I was kind of stunned since it seemed like a lesser of evils and a potential enforcement of choices in future treating situations.  I actually pondered on this all the way home and ended up asking my wife to weigh in on the situation.  She immediately sided with the mom under the argument that sugar substitutes are bad for children.  Is this true?  I recalled the sign did have a Splenda logo in the bottom right hand of the sign (I have a tendency to recall scenes in pretty good detail which you might at first think is a good thing, but if you know of a way to eliminate the mental picture of the 250+ pound lady wearing the red skin tight running shorts during the Bix 7 road race, I’m all ears) .  Is there a age when sugar alternatives are good for you.. is it bad at any age…. is this position wrong and we have another Olestra scandal on our hands?  … of course I am sure that breaded chicken in the thick orange sauces is sooooo much better for the kid.

Lastly, and the most startling, observation happened today.  I was coming out of the Culver’s parking lot in East Peoria and was first in line at the stop light waiting to turn left.  I usually hate approaching this light from the right because it isn’t sync’d real well with another light about 3/10ths of a mile away which causes the need for “critical decision time” when you have to determine if there is enough room past the light not to block the intersection if the cars get stopped at the other light- by the way, intersection blocking is PET PEEVE of mine!   I was simply watching the vehicles approach from the left and taking in the sights and sounds when I noticed the car in the lane closest to me (on the left) started slowing down which is generally a good sign that the light is preparing to turn.  For some reason my spider senses flared up and my attention diverted to a van alongside that vehicle that showed no sign of slowing down – in fact, it looked like it was accelerating relative to the vehicle that was slowing down.  Sure enough, the light turned green (actually green arrows because I was a T intersection) and the lady in the van just kept coming – still 3 to 4 car lengths away from the intersection… I hesitated for seemed like an eternity and half expected the car behind to start leaning on the horn…. no decline in speed…van still approaching, van entering intersection and then I caught a good view of the older lady driving – guess in the late 50’s (okay, I suck at older ages as well 8^)  I was getting ready to raise my hands in the standard palms up for the universal “WTF?” display when she turned her torso 90 degrees to me, raised her hands in the air in the stick ’em position, opened her eyes wide open, opened her mouth and shook her head violently like she was trying to scare a kid.  She continued through the red light like than and then calmly returned to the standard driving position and continued on down the road.   I was left dumbfounded – the car behind her stopped and proceeded through the intersection and actually caught the attention of the driver who stopped in the lane closest to me – he was shaking his head in disbelief as well.  I have no explanation for this … other than a death wish.  My thanks to whatever triggered my internal alarms – it actually had a lingering effect on me since I spent the remainder of my drive assessing all the assumptions I make on road.. hope that guy stays in his lane, does he know what a dual turn is, will he accelerate to speed before merging.  Guessing this will pass soon, but that is the closest I’ve come in awhile to getting a ride in an ambulance…. If I’m in luck some guy will have one parked close and, believe me – if so,  I will not give one ounce of concern if he is smoking. 

A Disgraced Angel

Today I was appalled.  Was it hearing about Supreme Court Lying Ex President Clinton speaking in Las Vegas on Energy Conservation (I wonder how many people it takes to FLY Clinton to Nevada – bad news is he wasn’t on the campaign trail ruining another election)…. nor was it Bolt from Jamaica going on about how people like him for his cockiness and end of race taunting…. nope, neither of those things.  I was stunned by an Angel… by name only.  As it turns out Angel Matos – a Cuban Tae Kwon Do Olympian competing for the Bronze Medal decided he was unfairly penalized so roundhoused the referee.  That’s right, hauled off and kicked the referee who disqualified him (per the rules) for taking too much injury time (he was winning 3-2, but was knocked on his *ss by his opponent).   Now there are two overall goats for the Olympics and unfortunately this one hits closer to home since I spent many years in Tae Kwon Do and consider this a slap in the face of everything that discipline is based on. 

I still remember my TKD Tenants and Pledge to this day:

Tae Kwon Do Du Jun Sin (Tenants of TKD)

  • Ye-Ui – Courtesy
  • Yom Chy – Integrity
  • In-Nae – Perseverance
  • Guk Ke – Self Control
  • Bakjul Boolgool – Indomitable Spirit

 (pardon the translation attempt, it has been awhile since I wrote Korean)

My Pledge

  • I will obey the principles of TKD
  • I will obey instructor and all senior ranks
  • I will never misuse TKD
  • I will be a champion of freedom
  • I will build a more peaceful world

 Might as well throw in my Master Commandments while I’m at it:

Kwan Jang Nim Hoon Se

  • Chung Kyul – Cleanliness
  • Tin-Seel – Truth
  • Kyum Son – Humble
  • Sa-Rang/Ja Bae – Mercy
  • Duk Do – Spiritually Awake

 I was expected to know these upon any prompting from my instructors and required to demonstrate this knowledge along with Korean philosophies for all techniques and forms before every belt test – knowledge before technique, technique before use and competency before advancement.  Yet for some reason this sad excuse for a martial artist apparently didn’t see an issue with attacking a judge … nor did his coach who was apparently unapologetic.  The World Taekwondo Federation has issued him a lifetime ban – which is a good first step, but I am thinking an additional exhibition at the Beijing closing ceremonies should include an example of Kyum Son – Maybe a Monkey or Crane style demonstration to see if Angel’s black belt is really up to standards.  But alas, I’ll obey Ja-Bae and hope none of my students ever show such disrespect to the ancient arts.

Pil Sung!

Utter Failure for USA Runners

Ugh… I just finished watching the Men’s and Women’s relays.  Pretty basic really…. run real fast, pass a baton to the next runner and repeat until the finish.  Let me pause for a few minutes to let the flood of defensive statements crash through my monitor… tick tick.. “Oh yeah, then you try it”, tick tick “They’re at the Olympics and you are sitting at home so there”, tick tick “Don’t ridicule unless you can do better” tick tick – okay, times up.  Pretty lame comebacks, but I’ll quickly address one… Give me four years to practice every day of my life and I will guarantee you that I could pass a small cylinder to another run without watching it bang onto the ground.  What makes this so ridiculous is that it was a heat race … which means even if you don’t have a chance to beat the Jamaicans, you should be able to at least get in the top four even if you run a “safe” race and go slower at the transfers.  But no, both the men and the women played hot potato on the last leg and succeeded in flushing any medal chance down the drain.  I guess the cherry on the shame cake was the women’s after race interview where they runner claimed she didn’t know what went wrong and that they were the best team out there … GOOOOONNNGGGG  a) you know exactly what went wrong, you dropped the baton because you were not focused and b) every team out there without a DNF after their team name was better than you. 

Note, I was actually surprised at the commentator statements to the same effect at the end of the event – in fact, they basically spelled it out as lack of leadership and inability to deliver across the board.  Before I f0rget, I would like to give some credit to Dix in his respectful acceptance in the bronze medal last night after two faster runners (one an American) failed to stay in their lanes – I think he actually stated he still lost and thanked the officials for the medal – contrast with American supposed silver medalist that was tossing the word “protest” around… tapes rarely lie

by the way, did anyone see the US women’s pole vaulter getting a tongue lashing by her coach because she only won a silver medal?  Can someone direct me to the Olympic Creed again – she made it to the final rounds (runners check that) and then came up one position behind a lady that was clearly tops in the field (…. update, someone mentioned this lady was actually trash talking the gold medalist before the event -if this is true, I will recant my statements since I can’t stand that)

Mission Accomplished for Phelps

I just finished watching Michael Phelps win his 8th Gold Medal at the XXIX Olympic Games.  He came with a mission, executed with determination, supported by the strong efforts of his teammates and brought home the gold.  Congratulations Michael, clearly the greatest Olympian Athlete to date – although with a 12,000 calorie a day diet I’d hate to see his food bill.  In addition to Speedo’s million dollar bonus, I’m also thinking NBC needs to be chipping into the Phelps Phund (see how I cleverly used the Phelps spelling in a phonics play on words – sometimes I crack myself up)  anyway… If it wasn’t for Phelps, I probably would not have been watching as many of the Olympic Games since I prefer the winter version.  As an example, I ended up watching the entire women’s marathon tonight just so I wouldn’t miss Michael’s attempt.  Okay Okay, I like running, but a play by play of a marathon is really not that exciting.

 Oh, so far the US goat goes to Deana Kastor who quit the marathon due to an apparent injury — if she was hurt that bad before the race she should have relinquished to the alternate.. if she hurt herself during the race, then she probably wasn’t prepared since it was a slow start for the race.  I reserve the right to change my mind once details come out, but Paula Radcliffe at least showed the Olympic spirit and finished the race under serious pain (although she also gave up the last time). (note I said US goat because the overall goat is the Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian who threw a hissy fit at the medals ceremony and ended up leaving his bronze medal on the mat.  Luckily the IOC did the right thing and stripped him of the medal … dignity in defeat is as important as humility in victory.  In contrast I give kudos to Tyson Gay who when interviewed about his loss in the semifinals of his race said he was at 100% (had a hamstring injury) and made no excuses beyond not delivering. 

Hats Off!… let the endorsements kick into h$gh gear.

Breakfast with Sinners

This post brought to you by our new sponsor Plans Unfolding.  Ron has done a fantastic job on his recent paper planner software release.  I have been utilizing a similar planner for a number of years now and basically take it with me everywhere I go.  This new release provides a graphical front end for data entry (previously I had to use a powerpoint template which required writing upside down in certain situations) and extremely configurable and downright crisp output due to the LaTeX engine underneath.  If you want to get organized, want to carry a large amount of data without having to reboot or like to have the ability to take notes on the fly — you know… like jotting down an observation you might want to blog on later that day… well, look no further and head on over to the Plans Unfolding website.  Here’s a partial cap of my organizer:

 My Plans Unfolding Organizer

(no animals were harmed in the making of this promotion)

Now on to today’s post.  As mentioned previously, we were heading through Council Bluffs Iowa on our way back from South Dakota when we decided to visit the local casino (Ameristar) and try our luck in the den of the devil.  My wife and I actually do like to gamble (in moderation) and quite frankly if you want a good people watching opportunity… go to a casino – especially in Vegas.  As detailed in the Rath Inn entry, we were up early and out of there as fast as possible, leaving us pretty hungry.  To satisfy this craving, we decided to catch some breakfast in their restaurant.  While we were waiting for the food to arrive, a couple with another man came in and sat at a booth next near us.  I am not sure if they were simply holdovers from the night before or just arriving, but it struck me odd that the solo dude ordered a beer while the other two stuck with water.  I do not drink very much at all (social only) and never for breakfast so it seemed a little interesting, but when the food arrived for the couple it was replaced with a sense of confusion.  Before they dug into their feed, they made the sign of the cross and took a few minutes to say a prayer.  This is not exactly the place I expected to see such conviction seeing as I am not aware of many religions that really endorse such sinful behavior as gambling (and potential lifestyles that can be found in such places).  I didn’t stick around to see if they actually went into the gambling area, but chalked it up as something I really hadn’t witnessed before – don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to people wanting to follow their faith –  as long as it isn’t directed at me, an attempt to influence me, or used to justify violence on your fellow man). 

Plates empty, glass drained… time to hit the tables