International Travel Tip

For those of you inclined to swim in public pools, especially ones in third world countries, I have a great travel tip for you. Take a few spa/pool test strips along in your suitcase, and if you don't smell strong chlorine or the chlorine seems too strong, "before you dip, dip a strip". If the chemicals are way out of balance, don't chance it. You'll just have to use the tiny weight room instead.

For natural bodies of water, you're on your own. The only tips I have there is don't swim right next to or downstream of any nuclear power plants, industrial factories, or sewage treatment plants. And if the locals say there are sharks, heed the warnings.

Nothing To See Here

Hmmmm.....I don't have anything to say today. You might as well move on to the next blog.

OK, maybe I do have one thought for the day now that I think about it. I participated in interviewing someone yesterday, and we reviewed our thoughts on the candidate today. On one hand I hate interviewing people, but on the other it's morbidly fascinating.

How are you expected to accurately assess a person's technical skills, social skills, communication skills, life situation, and personality in a brief half hour or hour interview? And, this brief first impression can sometimes make or break someone's career. That's the part I hate. The fascinating part is that you can learn an awful lot about a person in such a short period of time. What would be even more fascinating to know is how accurate those first impressions are and how accurate this information you "know" is.

Mexico Observations Part 2

Most of my observations from my post in January still hold true except for the stuff about the weather, but I have some other interesting tidbits that I thought I'd share.

• If you need patience, then Mexico is a place for you to learn. If you're trying to improve your ability to be prompt, then going there is not so much for you.
• It's normal to sit outside in 95 degree Fahrenheit weather and have hot soup as part of your meal.
• Oddly enough, on my fourth trip there I finally learned the Spanish word for chips: totopos. The kind of chips they have there are almost as to-die-for as their salsa.
• The music there is very eclectic. I heard a variety of music that ranged from the latest hip-hop to Kenny Roger's greatest hits from the 70's and 80's to M.C. Hammer's "You Can't Touch This". Oh yeah, and I also heard some "Denise B" and some "Lerwick Home" in someone's car on the way to GM. I wasn't aware before that I knew so many celebrities.
  
• Who would have thought the first time I would do pilates would be in Mexico? It wasn't too difficult to follow along because of the visual aids, and it was a good way to learn the Spanish word for "legs". I'm also a master now at counting to ten.
• When meeting someone for supper, it's acceptable to say "I'll meet you at 7:00, 7:30." Now that's my style. I can handle having a half hour time window where you're considered to be "on time". And, when they said that, what that really meant was that we ended up meeting them at 8:15.
• We say General Tao, they say General Chow.
• I got some great tips on how to make salsa. Now all I have to do is get around to trying them....
• The German in me still wants to recoil every time some Mexican wants to do the kiss greeting thing, particularly when I don't know that person from Adam or Eve. If I know the person well, then the German just cringes slightly. And, it's a little bit awkward to determine whether the person wants to give you the Mexican greeting because you're in Mexico or if they want to give you the staid American handshake because they know you're an American.

Now on to my favorite part - the delicious food:

• pan de elote (a kind of bread cake thing made with sweet corn...mmmm...mmm...mmm)
• trombo (sometimes called al pastor - it's pork BBQ'd on a spit usually eaten in taco form)
• totopos and salsa
• guacamole and limes
  
• fajitas, tacos, and aracherra - I had some average ones, but I also had some that were so good I couldn't quit.
• mangos
• grapefruit soda/pop
  
• The two things I missed the most were peanut butter and pasta. I did manage to get a pasta fix a couple times (once at an Italian restaurant), but apparently George Washington Carver didn't indoctrinate the Mexicans. I was told good old PB is expensive down there.

And finally, we get to the people and pictures. Here's yours truly being her usual goofy self.




Angela, Benjamin, Jean, and Karina were kind enough to take me to some meetings and to the Cola de Caballo.

















While at the Cola de Caballo, we got to see some interesting wildlife. Here's a picture of the tadpoles that had partially formed into frogs.




Contrary to popular belief, I actually was in Mexico on a business trip. Check out the cool (not literally) smock you have to wear for static discharge protection. Modeling in the picture was done by the assembly line workers. The plant did have air conditioning, but it didn't make the plant feel "cool", mostly it just made the temperature in there bearable, and sometimes at 3 or 4 in the afternoon it wasn't even that. You could sit in a chair doing nothing and feel the sweat trickle down your back on a couple particularly hot afternoons. When I went upstairs to the engineer offices, they had the full AC treatment, and it felt like the arctic there.

Below is a picture of some of the engineers (and one of the engineer's wife) that I worked with while I was down there.

Here's the challenge question: Which one of these men in the picture is not a Mexican?





The strangest wildlife that I saw on my trip was actually not in Mexico, but at the O'Hare airport as I was waiting for the rental car bus to stop and pick me up. One of the strains of cicadas was hatching in Chicago, so I got a picture of a cicada on the sidewalk. You only get to see that strain once every 17 years. Not only that, but I saw a guy take his suitcase across the lanes of traffic over to a grassy area on the other side, and then he proceeded to change from jeans to shorts right there where everyone could see him. I almost took out my camera for that too, but in the end I refrained.


That's it for the marathon post, folks.

New and Strange Experiences

New experiences for yesterday:
1. Being diagnosed with pink eye for the first time in my life that I can remember (no, I didn't get any good pictures of my bloodshot eyes).
2. Having a wasp fly between my toes and the insole of my sandal and sting the bottom of my foot (the sting didn't swell up much, so I don't have a picture of that either).
3. Telecommuting so as not to infect others with my malady. I was amazed that I actually was able to concentrate and get some work done despite my co-workers claims that I was relaxing in my hot tub (no pictures of the telecommuting since I prefer not to incriminate myself).

Strange experience for today:
As I was taking my evening walk along a local public beach here at sunset, I walked past a wedding being held in the open air there. See the picture below. It's kind of blurry because I waited until I was quite a ways past before turning around and taking a picture. I didn't want to make my bad manners too obvious. It seemed to be a nice, simple wedding with about ten people and 100 seagulls in attendance.



The Mexico observations are still coming. It takes awhile to sort through all my boring thoughts and find the most worthy boring ones to post. Art takes time you know.

Exercise Decision

Since only one of my readers cared to voice their opinion (thanks Pops), and I now know I have more than fifteen readers (thanks Big Brother), I had to make an executive decision on how to count my exercise days. You can view the new addendum to the right. Stay tuned later in the week for my synopsis on the trip to Monterrey. I'll post it when I'm good and ready, and not a moment sooner.

Scenic Mexico

Most of you probably weren't missing my posts too terribly, but for the one or two who did, here's a new post. I just got back from another trip to Monterrey, Mexico for work. I'm too tired right now to give any good details, so I figured I'd get the "scenery" pictures posted today and then post the "people and observations" stuff later.

The Cerro de la Silla, which is the trademark mountain of Monterrey.

For the Spanish challenged, silla = chair or saddle.

A far-off view of Chipinque, which is some kind of ecological park whatchamacallit thing. The next picture is a view that I had while taking a brief hike in Chipinque.

Most of these pictures show Monterrey to be green and lush, and part of it is. However, it's right at the edge of a desert too, I just didn't get any good pictures of the not-as-majestic plain of cacti.

The "Cola de Caballo", or "Horse Tail" falls.

Here's where I need some audience participation to determine how to count my exercise days while I was gone. Does walking in a manufacturing plant count as exercise? I know that some days at the end of the day my legs were hurting from walking and standing on the concrete for several hours, but does that count as a day of exercise? I don't wear a pedometer like some people I know, so I can't use that to help determine anything. Why does standing and walking on concrete make my back and legs hurt so much worse than walking on other things?

What Kind Of Hotel Is This?

During the cocktail hour the hors d'voures are free, and the beer is free, but I have to pay about $2 for a pop? At least the view out of my hotel room is nice.

Headline: Reggie Kills Squirrel, Other Cars Shunning Him

This afternoon it happened. With the large squirrel population in this area, it was probably inevitable. He had already made it across my lane too, but for some reason he had second thoughts and tried to go back the way he came and ran right under the tire. My regret is that the squirrel was one of the "good" brown tree squirrels. I wish it would have been one of those destructive striped ground/red squirrels. And this morning I had just been admiring a large acorn-fed squirrel in my neighbor's yard that had a bushy tail that was probably more than a foot long, so my heart smote me when the squirrel met his demise. I think the squirrel I was admiring and the dead squirrel were two separate ones though.

Hopefully Reggie doesn't get shunned too much or made fun of by the other cars after this killing episode. Squirrels aren't as big of a trophy as, say, a deer or even a raccoon. What do you think, is it better to be a "bunny killer" or a "squirrel killer"?

Bad News Bears

Actually, the one on the right is more like a "Good News" bear. We were fresh off our Harleys and taking a hike in the wilds of Wyoming. ;-) Below are a couple more pictures from my Memorial Day Weekend trip to Wyoming.




It was a very enjoyable trip. We did some convention cleaning, some hiking, and some hanging out with friends. My "Top 5" from Wyoming (not necessarily in order of importance):

1. The people (seeing my sister, renewing some acquaintances/friendships, and meeting some new people).
2. Seeing all that blue sky without interferences like trees.
3. Great hiking.
4. The attitude of the people there - they have a sense of humor and that pioneer spirit that reminds me of good old ND.
5. Having my soul refreshed.
6. The antelope.
7. Playing "Settlers of Catan".

OK, so sue me, I can't count.

She's Back....

My cube mate has returned! After a 3-month maternity leave, the person I share a cubicle with came back this week. When she was first gone, I enjoyed the peace and quiet of having the cube to myself and using some of her desk space. :-) Now that she's back, I realized that I did miss her. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize you're missing something until it comes back. What's interesting to observe is how she's less of a workaholic now, which I would consider a good thing.

Check back tomorrow. Maybe I will have posted some pictures from my Memorial Day weekend. Until then, you can hypothesize on where I went for the long weekend (if you don't already know).

Too Early

I don't care how close you live or stay to the airport, a 6:00 AM commercial airline flight is way too early any day of the week. I was reminded once again on Friday why I should never, never purchase one of those kind of tickets again.

Have a Little Fun in the Grocery Store

When I go to the grocery store, I usually buy some deli meat, and in the past I have usually gotten 1/2 pound of meat #1 and 1/4 pound of meat #2 (I like to combine both meats in one sandwich). This has usually worked out not too bad, but I've been noticing that I have a little bit extra left of meat #2 when I get to the bottom of the barrel, and my sandwiches end up being a little heavy on meat #2 sometimes. The last time I went to the store, I decided to get a 1/2 pound of the usual meat #1 and only 1/5 of a pound of the second to try to make them come out more evenly. Boy, did that throw the deli counter lady for a loop. I had to tell her what 1/5 was in decimal format.

For some really good fun, try going to your local deli and requesting 3/8 or 5/6 of a pound of meat. And to be prepared, remember that 3/8=0.375 and 5/6=0.833. If you try this, let me know how it turns out.

It's complicated to explain all the intricacies of why I would want the meat to come out evenly, so we'll skip that. Let's just say there's no need to break out the derivatives and integrals for a simple blog entry.

Yard Work

An unintended consequence of the sawmill project was that part of my grass got pretty messed up, so I am in the process of working on rototilling and re-seeding grass. See the picture below.



The next pictures are for my sister-in-law so she can see that I tore out the ugly bush by my front door. With all this yard work I was doing for the grass, I just started going hog-wild. Before and After.

Dull Women

Some famous person said that only dull girls keep diaries. Apparently all the exciting girls are out there doing exciting things. Does that apply to blogs too? The more you post, the duller you are? Since I haven't posted for almost a week, that must mean my life has been more exciting than usual. Either that or I've been using my brain less, so I haven't had any original thoughts lately.

P.S. I went and looked up the quote I was referring to and found that I had dreadfully misquoted it. Here's the real one:

Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.

-Tallulah Bankhead

Is a blog close enough to a diary that this quote would apply to me?

Spring Reflection

Since it's the first full week of May and the first nice week of spring we've had here, I made a list of "my favorite things". Am I becoming obsessed with making lists? Am I becoming obsessed about being obsessed? Am I becoming obsessed about being obsessed about being obsessed? Am I becoming.....OK, enough of this. Let's get to the lists.

Best things about spring:

• Stepping outside without needing a coat
• Breathing deeply of that freshly scented air
• Driving with the windows down around town
  
• Doing stuff outside - riding bicycle, playing tennis, etc.
• Watching all the plants come alive
• My house is nice and warm
  

This time of year also reminds me of college. Best things about spring on campus:

• Making that first roller blading foray of the year with Tammy, Kristin, Malia, Melanie, Brian, Jeff, Eric, etc.
• Getting done with finals and having that feeling of finally being completely FREE for a day or two.
• Looking back on the year and thinking about what I've learned (out of books and more importantly about life in general).
• Staying up until 3:00 AM hanging out, getting up for my 8:00 AM class, and then taking a nice long nap in the afternoon.
  

The one thing I don't miss about spring on campus is being stuck inside working on engineering projects the Saturday before finals while everybody else was at Springfest. I know, I know, I could've said phooey on the project and gone and had some fun, but my conscience wouldn't let me....

Bathroom Behavior Observation #3

Who in the world stays in the bathroom long enough at work to think that it's necessary to read a magazine while in there? Don't get me wrong, I like to read in the bathroom as much as the next person, but I prefer to do that in the comfort of my own home. It's just too difficult to read with all those disturbances of people going in and out and using the facilities. Once again, I have a few theories on who put the magazines there and/or uses them:

1. The night cleaning people, who hide out in the bathroom sometimes when they don't feel like working.
2. The daytime people at work who also hide out there when they don't feel like working.
3. Someone with severe bowel/bladder issues that they should see a doctor about.
4. For someone who secretly lives in the building, this IS the comfort of their home.
5. Someone with a serious TV magazine addiction uses them to get their "fix".
6. Deep concentration on reading diverts your mind from the smell, although all those soaps and body sprays on the counters should already help with the smell I would think.
   

Is it significant that the people who bring these magazines in cut off the mailing label? In case you're wondering, I don't have a bathroom fetish. It's just that when I'm in the stall NOT reading a magazine, random thoughts like this always pop into my head. And I know for sure that some people do use these magazines because sometimes they leave one or two on the floor of the stall(s).

And finally....I just noticed in this picture that the magazine stand is a filing cabinet with drawers. Hmmm......any guesses on what, if anything, is in the drawers? Check back for another exciting bathroom episode sometime in the next year! :-P

44% Yankee - Barely In The Yankee Category

For some pointless entertainment,

Take the Yankee or Dixie Quiz

According to dictionary.com:
Yan·kee /ˈyæŋki/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[yang-kee]
–noun

1.	a native or inhabitant of the United States.

2.	a native or inhabitant of New England.

3.	a native or inhabitant of a northern U.S. state, esp. of one of the northeastern states that sided with the Union in the American Civil War.

4.	a federal or northern soldier in the American Civil War.

5.	a word used in communications to represent the letter Y.

6.	Military. the NATO name for a class of Soviet ballistic missile submarine, nuclear powered, with up to 16 missile launchers.

–adjective

7.	of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a Yankee or Yankees: Yankee ingenuity.

Bathroom Behavior Observation #2

It's almost as if I had written this myself. I have heard one or two people on the cell phone in the bathroom at work.

View the funny Cathy comic

***Special note: if you didn't read this on the day it was posted, then you're too late. The comic this is linked to changes.*** Mostly the comic was talking about cell phone ettiquete.

Subliminal Clues and Psychoanalysis

Is the song on a person's "My Space" significant? Does it give you an insight into their psyche? I'm inclined to think people give their song some thought before they put it up there, so my answer would be "yes". Not being a psychologist, I can't give this a professional opinion.....but it's always interesting to speculate on what somebody's song means in terms of what is going on in his or her life. Is that reading too much into stuff?

Some people change their song frequently, likely with their mood or recent experience(s). What if someone rarely (never) changes it? Does that indicate laziness, lack of use of their My Space, or someone who picked their theme song and is keeping it until the artist removes it? Another interesting thing is that someone's song doesn't always fit their personality (or else your preconceived notion of their personality). There's one guy at work we call "Mr. Furious" because he often emanates anger, but the interesting thing is that his song is a classical orchestra piece. What if someone doesn't have a song? What does that mean?

I think the study of science and people have one big thing in common. Science is fascinating because it follows rules and is so predictable once you understand the rules. Yet it's also unpredictable in the sense that there are many nuances and undiscovered combinations of these rules that always bring new ideas and problems. People are so fascinating for exactly the same reasons. And still, there is nothing new under the sun......Amazing.

Weekends

Here's a few pictures from the last couple of weekends.

It's always more fun to cook breakfast when you have a
two-year-old to help you "crash" the eggs.

A Kentucky derby, but not THE Kentucky Derby.