I Can't Believe it's not Dr. Campbell

2010-01-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

We finally took our first ski vacation as a family this week. This was a long time in coming, since we had gotten all the gear last year at the ski swap, only to fizzle out and not even go once. All in all, we had a fantastic time. The kids seemed to genuinely like skiing, and by the end of our three days, they were going down the blue runs at a healthy pace. That made it fun for Mari and me too. All the Mumfords were at the hill, too, which made it even more fun. Kai and Jerome both had moments when they thought they could go no more, but usually a hit of chocolate or a thaw-out in the lodge remedied the problem. Quinn was at day-care all 3 days. He didn't think that was cool at first, but warmed to the process over time. Here are some video clips:

2009-08-16T21:30:00.001-07:00

OK, so this is the part where we finally get to the Wackers, who came over for dinner last night, and were guinea pigs on not one but 2 dishes: chicken with dumplings, and apple upside down cake. Chicken with dumplings was fun - brown chicken, brown veggies, dump everything back into a big pot and boil for 45 minutes. Take chicken out and pull all the meat off the bones. Throw meat back in to boiling pot and then drop dumpling dough on top. In all, it worked well because the Wacker kids and parents helped pull the chicken off the bones. In the end, I thought the taste was pretty darn good - chicken bones and thigh meat tend to have that effect. I liked the dumplings too - plenty of bready-goodness on the inside. 5 out of 5 salt cellars. One thing we learned - it doesn't have to be done in a dutch oven. We have a heavy steel pot, in which made another batch, and it also worked well.

The last dish was apple upside-down cake. The middle of the cake was a little under-done, so I'll probably cook it for 5 ot 10 minutes longer next time. I'll call it 4 out of 5 salt cellars - pretty tasty, but not as good as Alton's super apple pie.

2009-08-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

I have been cooking a little bit recently, and wanted to blog a little on it. It may or may not be interesting - you'll just have to avert your eyes if this sort of thing is boring. I took some pictures a long time ago on the first thing I'll post on - pulled-pork sandwiches. This is probably one of my favorite dishes of all time because I love pork and I love north carolina bbq sauce - I don't know why took me so long to discover both of them. One of my problems with regular pulled pork sandwiches, is that the regular bbq sauce overwhelms the flavor and texture of the pork, turning the sandwich into a mushy, sticky, sloppy joe kind of thing. Not so in north carolina, which uses a cider vinegar-based sauce with spectacular results. This recipe is pretty straight forward - smoke a pork shoulder roast, or boston butt (which Alton points out isn't a butt at all) for about 4 hours, keeping coals and smoke going strong. Most of the meat is falling apart at that point, but even the leaner portions taste good. The smoke penetrates about a quarter inch into the meat and it is amazing. Although this isn't an alton recipe (it comes out of Steven Raichlen's "how to grill") I have to give it 5 salt cellars out of 5. If I were to cook it again (which I have since then) I really wouldn't do anything differently. Putting the carolina cole slaw on top was a bit strong at first, but now I really like it.

More recently, I have started to take a magazine called cook's illustrated (an offshoot of Amerca's Test Kitchen). Having secured the first 2 issues, I have started through a number of recipes, and am duly impressed. They take a lot of time to explain what is going on, and their recipes have all been spot on so far. The first one I tried was grilled flank steak w/provolone and proscuitto. It turned out to be a crowd pleaser and tasty at the same time. It's not every day you see meat lollipops on the grill - the kids liked how it looked and tasted a lot. The prep was easier than it might seem. After butterflying the flank steak and pounding it, I put the provolone and proscuitto on the sheet and rolled it up. After binding it with grill-proof rubber bands and poking

skewers every inch, I sliced up into lollipops - voila! Easy-peasy. Grilling was also easy, although the skewers were incinerated. Taste-wise, this dish scored very well. Flank steak is flavorful but not too tough, and plays well with the cheese and pork tastes in the dish. I would score it a 4 out of 5 salt cellars - the cheese makes things a little greasy for me, but overall, very good. A couple of things I would do differently are: 1 - tenderize the meat with one of those retracting 80 blade meat tenderizers before pounding, and 2 - soak skewers for a couple of hours so they don't burn.

Another recipe from the cooking mag was spanish tortillas. Stu will be very happy to see this one since he has an aversion to anything that is assumed to be spanish that is actually from mexico. Look, Stu, this one really is from spain. It really just an omelet that is heavy on olive oil and potatoes. It was very easy to make - just cook potatoes & onions in some olive oil until tender, then add eggs and other ingredients.

Cook, flip and cook, and you're done. The flip part didn't work so well for me, but we have solved that by getting a different pan. Overall, this might work better as a breakfast, but I liked it for dinner too. Marie made some garlic mayo to go on top, and the whole thing was delectable. 5 out of 5 salt cellars. It is so straightforward that I wouldn't do anything different next time

2009-08-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

Ok - I admit this isn't as good as the Ohki reunion video from last year, but it's the best I can do on short notice. Watching this makes us pine for Hawaii, and remember how much fun it is to spend time with the Ohkis and Gma Ohki in the Aloha State.

I also realize this is my first blog post in 5 months. Needless to say, my idea of turning my blog into a cooking thingy has been unsuccessful. I still cook - I'm just not religious about getting the pics and story onto the blog. Maybe next week.

2009-03-01T19:56:00.001-08:00

This week, I'll catch up with a couple of recipes that I have done recently. One is from the book, and one is from the online Good Eats archive. The first is blackened tuna. I was interested to see the difference between cooking the tuna steak on top of a chimney starter (as recommended in the Good Eats episode on tuna). The other major difference is that instead of sesame seeds and a wasabi-soy sauce glaze, the book version of tuna calls for a spicy rub. This is where the "blackened" part comes in, since the rub turns black when seared. This recipe is so straight forward that I'm just going to put the pics on and say a few words.

This is the Tuna pre-sear. The rub is all over the place. It is mostly paprika, but includes enough cayenne pepper to make the kids say "too spicy". They ended up just scraping the rub off, and liked the nice tuna that was left.

Right after going in, the tuna has begun to smoke.

This is a view of the side of the tuna steak right after flipping. You can see that the first side has a fair amount of cooked tuna that has penetrated the profile, while the pan-side is just starting. You can also see some of the black that makes this "blackened tuna".

The finished product, sliced and ready to serve. We all liked the amount that the tuna had been cooked (inside was just warm). Overall, this was a three salt cellars out of five recipe, though, because the level of spice was just a little too high. Also, since we've had the sesame type before, we know that this dish can be 5 out of 5. The thing I liked about the cast iron pan was that it cooked everything evenly, which is a challenge on a grill. I think I'll try the sesame seed preparation on a cast iron pan next time - should work nicely.

This is the other recipe we've done recently - spicy beef kebabs. These were very easy to prepare, and cooked up very nicely. They are also a great way to use a cheaper cut of beef (sirloin). They had great smoky, spicy taste, and the kids loved them too, especially since they were served over a bed of cous-cous. These really are a 5 out of 5, partially because it's not often that a so-so cut of meat tastes really good.

The other thing that happened this week is that we bought a new bathroom scale. Besides the fact that it measures our weight out to tenths of a lb., it also shows that we weigh 10 lbs more than the scale we used to own. Needless to say, I'm going to drop some weight. I hereby resolve to become Colin-sized within the next two months.

2009-02-08T21:37:00.000-08:00

The idea of going through Alton's cook book in order seemed like a good idea at the time. More or less, it will still be in order, but today I just couldn't keep it up. It was Mari's birthday, and rack of lamb seemed a better choice than seared tuna, although we'll do that soon. Anyway, this recipe is "Liz and Dick Rack of Lamb". It's name comes from the on-again, off-again romance of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, which apparently garnered enough attention from Alton that he applies it to any recipe that requires various levels of heat. The lamb is cooked over direct heat for about 10 minutes, and then another 8 minutes on the half of the grill that's not as hot (the spot below where the aluminum pan can be seen)

As you can see, the first (and only) problem I encountered was flare-ups from grease dripping off the lamb. This was remedied by a squirt bottle and then putting the lid on the grill. The meat surface did get a little black, but that didn't hurt the flavor at all.

After flipping over, the other side cooks for 5 minutes. I like a smoky flavor beyond what the charcoal itself provides, so I usually throw some wet hickory chips on a lonely corner of the coals.

After cooking the lamb for a while longer over that little round pan you can see above (indirect heat), internal temperature registered well over 138 degrees, so I pulled them off and let them rest for a while. The fuzzyness of the picture isn't due to a filter - it's just a large spot that was on the camera lens.

Overall I have to give this 4 salt cellars out of 5. The only thing I would do a little differently is perhaps pull them off a little sooner. The inside was still a little pink, but it was medium well, when medium or medium rare probably would've tasted a little better. Still, I loved the lamb flavor combined with the smoke. No special spices - just salt, pepper, and olive oil.

2009-02-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

First things first - my wife planned and executed some excellent "Good Eats" meatballs this week. They are part lamb, part pork, part beef, and all good.

Above, you can see them cooking in a mini-muffin tin. This keeps the meatball from wallowing in its own fat, and lets it drain while it cooks. The texture was great (not too dense), the breading was crispy, and the flavor didn't disappoint. I'll call this 4 salt cellars out of 5, but note that I'm not a meatball fanatic. My beautiful wife did a great job on these, and they are certainly the best meatballs I've ever had. I'm still on "I'm Just Here for the Food" hiatus, since the next recipe calls for Tuna steak. I love tuna steak, but can only get it at Costco, and we haven't been for a while. Add that to the fact that I've already made that recipe, and it's hard to want to continue on. I'll get there, just not this week. Instead, I asked Mari to pick up some pork chops. I have been wanting to try brining chops for some time now, but just never got around to it. We've brined turkeys before, but not chops.

Here are our pork chops, relaxed and having a good time in a solution with 1 cup of salt, 2 cups cider vinegar, and 1 cup brown sugar. Brining isn't marinading - things happen a lot faster with brining as I soon found out. Alton says to brine for 2 hours, but I pulled the chops out about 20 minutes early. After eating the chops, I can say this was a good move. Any saltier would have been too much - also, the online recipe gets dinged by quite a few people who say the chops are too salty. One step you won't see here was cutting a pocket into the pork chops and filling each with a cornbread, raisin, buttermilk, sage mixture. That's why the chops appear kind of plump.

I filled the chops with the buttermilk mixture, and stuck them on the grill. An "attractive crosshatch" was achieved on only one of the chops, and even that doesn't look that good. I put a wet chunk of hickory wood on the coals to produce a little smoke. In all, the chops cooked in about 12 minutes.
The above is what the chops looked like after they came off the grill. The closest chop is out of focus (sorry) so you can't see very well that the stuffing is coming out of the slit in the side of the pork chop. The "pocket" inside the pork chop is made by poking a small knife through the side of the chop, and then sweeping the knife one direction, and then the other so that the entry point is small, but there's a big envelope to put the stuffing into.

This is what the chops look like when sliced in half. The great thing about them is that I could distinctly taste each of the following: pork, salt, vinegar, smoke, sage, and raisin, but they all worked together. I was glad that I did them on the grill, because there was a nice crunch on the outside even though the chops themselves weren't dried out. Alton does them on a gas grill - an uncharacteristic lapse in judgement. I'm a hard core charcoal grill adherent, partially because I started cooking when Mari bought me Steven Raichlen's "How to Grill". In the book, Steven points out the many virtues of the charcoal approach. I don't see the point of grilling on gas when I can do the same thing upside down in the oven by broiling.

Anyway, the chops were a definite 5 salt cellars out of 5. The balance of the sweet stuffing with the salty pork was undeniably good. This is a recipe we will get out again soon. There isn't anything particularly tricky about this recipe, so I wouldn't do anything different next time. Just be careful not to over-brine the chops.

2009-01-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

Laden down by what can only be described as an uninspiring start to my attempt at the recipes in "I'm Just Here for the Food", I broke down and made a recipe from Good Eats. The difference in results between Good Eats (the TV show) and the book is beginning to worry me. The stuff I've done from the show is pretty much totally solid. As I've mentioned before, I can count the unsuccessful recipes on 2 fingers. Anyway, I decided to break out the apple pie for two reasons. First, I was in a slump. Second, Marie had given me a tart pan for Christmas for the sole purpose of making apple pie. The purpose of the tart pan was to have something deep enough to house lots of apples, and because the bottom comes out, you can remove the sides and slice up the pie with ease.

A few words on the use of spirits in cooking: I do it. I totally respect those who don't, and think it's a matter of personal choice based on your interpretation of the Word of Wisdom (assuming you're LDS - if you're not, please feel free to return to your game of beer pong). I'm not interested in getting buzzed on a batch of uncooked chocolate rum balls, and I've never made anything that tasted (to me) like it had alcohol in it. I just think there are some things that do better if treated with ethanol - fish, for instance. This pie crust has some applejack in it - a spirit made from distilling apples. The pie itself was straight-forward. Make the crust dough and chill. Chop up the apples, coat with sugar and let sit for 1.5 hrs. Roll out dough for crust, toss other ingredients with apples, and put into pan. Cover w/dough and make a hole for the pie bird - I didn't have one so I made one out of tin foil.

The pie was absolutely amazing. First, the crust was flaky without being weak. Whole idea of this recipe is that you've got to taste apples when you make apple pie. The only spice that's supposed to be added is grains of paradise, which is obscure enough that I couldn't buy any at the store. I just put in a little cardamom instead. I also had to substitute lemon curd for apple jelly, which safeway also does not sell. Straight out of the oven, the pie looked amazing. It was so late when we got it out that we had not will-power to wait the 4 hours required to completely cool and set. By the way, we could see that the "pie bird" was working overtime when we got the pie out of the oven - steam was shooting its "beak".

So we dug in. As I mentioned, the crust was flaky and the apples were cooked to goey perfection. The whole thing was not too sweet, and loaded with unadulterated apple flavor. The running filling you see in the picture was something we expected since we didn't even wait an hour to dig in. The half of the pie we didn't eat was left to set overnight.

The next day (today) the pie tasted even better, and had set up completely. Needless to say, the rest didn't last long. We probably would have made another one today if we owned enough apples.

Overall Rating: 5 salt cellars out of 5 - a home run.

What I would do differently next time: First, start with the apples first, since they have to sit for 1.5 hrs, and the dough only needs an hour in the fridge. Second, split the dough 60-40 for the top and bottom crust. The bottom crust needs substantially more dough than the top, and splitting the dough in half (as Alton directs) leaves too much for the top and not enough for the bottom. Lastly, I would have waited for the pie to set up, but I probably won't be able to wait next time, either. Waiting is a common theme in Alton's recipes: many times you have to start a recipe days in advance in order to be able to execute it. For example, corned beef needs 10 days, and sauerbrauten needs 3. All in all, a great recipe, and one we'll probably make again soon.

2009-01-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

The next recipe in Alton's book is Bar-be-Fu. It's a seared tofu steak that's put on some bread for a barbeque sandwich. I'll admit this process is getting a bit scary since I was 0-2 going into battle Bar-be-fu. Let me just take the suspense out of this post: I am now 0-3. The first order of business in making the tofu steaks is to get as much water out of them as possible by putting them between 2 cookie sheets while wrapped in paper towels. This is actually a great method since it does take lots of water out and make the tofu "thirsty" for tasty stuff to go into them. Then, I added the steaks and the marinade to a zip lock bag.

After a day of leisurely soaking in the bbq sauce/cider vinegar marinade, the tofu is supposed to be seared in a hot, non-stick pan for maybe 3 minutes each side. This part also went off without a hitch.

Problem one with this dish is that the sugar in the bbq sauce makes it hard to get a good crust on the tofu. Mari has made tofu before that is seared in a little oil, which makes a rough exterior that is a little crisp. The bbq sauce just burns if left unattended. Here, you can see the first side seared, and the second getting that way. The other issue with the marinade is that it didn't add a lot of flavor.

Alton suggested this dish be served on really tasty hoagies. He even said that having tasty hoagies was perhaps the most important thing for this dish. My suggestion: forget the bar-be-fu and just munch on some good-tasting hoagies. Even when we doused the sandwiches with a healthy portion of the reduction/sauce that Alton suggests, they didn't taste that good. Not bad, just not good. I made some bread from a recipe Adrianne shared with us some time ago, and it was excellent as usual.

If we had just put butter and jam on the bread, I would have given it 5 salt cellars out of 5 - Truly superb. Considering that we instead slapped tofu and bbq sauce on the bread and ate it, I'd give this recipe a 2 salt cellars out of 5 - no better or worse than the other things we've made.

2009-01-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

Because Monday was a holiday, I decided to cook the next 2 recipes in the book. Also, the man Alton said the Red Flannel Hash and Cast Iron Duck should be made together since duck fat can come in handy for the hash. I had bought a frozen duck a while ago with the intention of cooking it a la Good Eats, but this is the next recipe, so I changed plans. The first thing that was a little confusing was timing. I decided I had to have everything ready to go into the pan for the hash before I put the duck on so I could toss everything into the pan once the duck came off. That meant I needed to roast the beet and boil the potatoes prior to putting the duck on.

The first problem with the duck recipe is that we live in Pullman, and I don't know of any place that I can just pick up 4 duck breasts. I had to buy the duck whole and break it down - pretty much the same as a chicken but the wishbone was a little funky. That left me with the breasts and the thigh/drumstick sections. I decided to just do the thigh/drumsticks like the breasts - mistake 1. Turns out that thigh/drumsticks from duck doesn't like being done like its friend the chicken.

This is the stuff for the red flannel hash - beet, potatoes, onions, chives, garlic, and duck fat.

So when I started searing the duck, it was looking good, but I could have let it cook longer - mistake 2. The book said 3 minutes, and the cast iron skillet was plenty hot, but this skin could have gone darker. That had 2 effects: the skin wasn't as crispy as it could have been, and the center of the breast wasn't done when I pulled the duck off.

You can see here - center still pretty pink. Looks like tuna steak, but it's duck. It really wasn't ok to eat like that, so I nuked it for around a minute until it was at least a very light pink. The taste was superb, though, and the kids couldn't get enough of it. The thighs were a different story - totally inedible when they came off the cast iron. I kind of expected that, though, and put them into the oven at 400 until the internal temp was in the 170 range. Especially for that end of the duck, I bet you've got to follow the recipe that cooks the heck out of it until all the connective tissue is broken down. Alton has a good eats recipe that does just that.

I got the hash going right after taking the duck off the skillet. I thought it would be great, but the skillet, even at medium heat, seemed pretty hot, and the garlic, and then the onions got real dark real fast (mistake 3). I tossed the rest of the ingredients in, and hoped that the tasty fatty crust on the potatoes would materialize soon - the one that Dad achieved on those rare occasions when he was pressed into service on Saturday nights. Also, this is the crust that Gpa Harris created when cooking potatoes on the cast iron griddle. Alas, no such crust appeared, and in my zeal to find said crust, the chives, onions, and garlic went from "ok" to "totally burnt" in maybe a minute. Alton suggests cracking an egg over it, which I did in hopes that it would soften the blow of the crispy bits.

In all, the duck and the hash had amazing flavor - both tasted amazing at one level or another. For the hash, the part that tasted good was the salty beets coated with duck fat that I had to pick out of the otherwise disappointing scramble. On the duck, it was the pieces on the ends of the breasts that had been cooked perfectly, and didn't need to be nuked. You'd think that I'd know not to undercook after what happened with the skirt steak - alas, not so. The kids still loved it, but the overall experience wasn't that great. Because I hadn't made it before it took way too long to make, and if I'm going to cook for that long, I need a better result.

Overall rating: 2 salt cellars out of 5

What I would do differently next time: Let the duck breast cook a really long time on the skin side, and skip the red flannel hash all together.

Next dish: Bar-be-fu Sandwiches - I think I will err on the side of over-cooking barbeque flavored tofu steaks, if only to make up for the skirt steak and duck.

2009-01-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

Ok - this is a last-ditch effort to revive the blog. On that subject, I will now take a question from an imaginary reader.

Dear Campbelloki.blogspot.com: Seeing pictures of food on your blog so often is beginning to weird me out. I mean, come on. Are you going to turn your blog into one of those lame blogs where hopeless culinary fanboys cook every recipe from a particular cook book in order from beginning to end so as to show unparalleled devotion to a cooking icon who doesn't even know you exist and wouldn't like you that much if he/she actually knew you?

Me: Yes.

(Q&A now over) There are a couple of things I hope to accomplish in this effort. First, I want to get some basic cooking skills. Second, I want to use cooking as a device to keep writing in this blog. I sometimes wonder whether Alton loves cinematography or cooking more. I think sometimes that cooking is just a means to an end. It doesn't make him any less stupendous - quite the opposite. Because he's actually trying to make a TV show rather than just have a studio audience clap and scream when he trots on stage (take that, Emeril), he's done something unique. The reason I need to re-start the blog is obvious. Now that I live in Pullman, there's a lot less material that can safely and appropriately be shared with the world. Writing about work in San Diego was fun, but if I did that here, I'd probably offend the last 3 people at work that still think I'm an ok guy.

The first recipe in Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food - Version 2.0" is Skirt Steak - The Master Recipe. This is part of the first section of the book which is on searing stuff. I sear stuff a lot with our cast iron skillet. Mostly ham/lamb-burgers and sirloin steak. Appropriately for the first recipe in the book, it was really straightforward. Get slab of meat, lube, season, heat cast iron, and cook on both sides.

The first issue was the piece of meat. I'm sure every butcher cuts stuff a little different. The skirt steak cut I got was pretty long - maybe 2 feet - and had trouble fitting into the pan even after being cut in half. The nice thing about this recipe, though, is that since the meat is already flat, there is a good chance it will get cooked properly without much fussing around.

Once the pan was hot, I slapped the meat down and it started to hiss and smoke appropriately. This usually means I have to send Asha upstairs to shut the bedroom doors so we don't go to sleep to the sweet smells of a yakiniku joint.

Per instructions, I cooked the meat for 3 minutes each side. As you can see from the picture, it got pretty smoky. It always does - sometimes I sear outside.

A couple of observations - first, it's really helpful to get the meat out of the fridge and let it sit for a long time so that the inside isn't still 40 degrees when you slap it on the pan. If it is, you will likely get the warm pink center of the rare-medium rare. I thought this wouldn't happen with such a thin cut, but it did (see pic below where one piece is just a litte pink and the other is dark red). The steak I had was only about 3/4 inch thick. The other thing is that the cut I had was of variable thickness. I thought this would be good, though, because I like rarer meat, and Mari and the kids tend to like less rare.

Anyway, I took it off the pan and it looked like the below picture. Per instructions, I cut against the meat grain. This was also a nice thing about skirt steak. Unlike some other cuts where the grain changes a lot, and is sometimes hard to nail down, cutting across the grain on skirt steak is super easy. I whipped up a pan sauce with low expectations since I hadn't planned on doing that. I ended up with something that looked like engine sludge - low expectations were met.

The meat itself was o.k. The rarer parts were pretty much inedible, though. Everything on the thin end that was medium well tasted good and everyone liked. Does make a guy pine for finer cuts of meat, though.

Overall score (note I'm not scoring the recipe but rather what happened when I tried to make it): 2 salt cellars out of 5

What I'd do differently next time: Cook the meat a little longer at a little lower temperature, and make sure the center isn't cold when it goes in the skillet.

Next Recipe: Cast-Iron Duck

2008-12-29T00:31:00.000-08:00

A little Christmas video update for the blog.

2008-11-27T12:01:00.000-08:00

Per a request from Gma Ohki, here are some videos of Quinn walking. He is now a holy terror.

2008-11-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

For starters, Alison asked about the recipe for protein bars, which can be found here. I don't include the dried fruit, which besides being expensive, also violates a strict rule I have against dried fruit in baked goods of any kind. Throughout my life, I have spent significant effort carefully examining the surface of oatmeal cookies for signs that dark portions are raisins (bad) as opposed to chocolate chips (good). On the subject of chocolate chips, I would just dump a bunch (maybe one cup) into the protein bars instead of the fruit. It just tastes a lot better, and only adds about 30 calories per bar. Well, now that I think about it, the exclusion of the fruit means that it adds even less than that. I usually make a double batch, cut them up, and freeze them in individual zip lock bags. On my way to work I just grab a bag and I'm good for snacks for the day.

These are not pictures of protein bars, but yorkshire pudding - a continuation of the popover Alton Brown show that I watched a few weeks ago. I made this today for sunday dinner with drippings from a rib roast. I thought the combo of the meat and bready-eggy stuff tasted great (in a humble, non-top-of-the-BofM-pride-cycle kind of way). Props again to Alton, who has sent me astray only once - his pizza dough was overly salty. The above pic is in process yorkshire pudding, and the lower is the finished product.

2008-10-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

First things first - the recipe for popovers you see below is from Alton Brown, and can be seen at foodnetwork.com. If you try to make them, though, do follow the directions religiously since it seems bread leavened by steam (as opposed to yeast, baking powder, etc) is really touchy stuff. I tried another Alton Brown recipe this week - Tres Leche Cake (no to be confused with the altogether different La Leche League Cake). I thought it was great but Jerome turned up his nose at it - his general philosophy is that perfectly good food can be ruined by adding liquid. He eats his cereal dry. Anyway, it was good. After attending the agronomy society meetings to man the deca booth, I looked at the cake and immediately thought of soil-water systems/water potential. I'll post some pictures so you'll know what I mean. No wonder Dad can switch seamlessly between food science and soil physics.

This week Mari and I started watching the newest season of "the Amazing Race". It's one of the 3 or so shows we actually put on the DVR to watch. For such a simplistic concept, it has proven to be a surprisingly durable format. If you haven't seen it, 11 or so teams of 2 people each travel around the world completing different legs of the race. They must follow the directions and complete tasks the show puts together. At the end of each show, the last team to check in gets eliminated, and the team that wins the last leg gets $1M. Anyway, the only reason I mention it is that I was pretty surprised to start watching this year and find that I know 2 people that are on the show. One is an engineer I worked with a little at my last company. The other is an investment banker that was a year ahead of me at school. They aren't on the same team - one I met in Philly, and the other in San Diego. All in all, a very strange coincidence. At least one of them was a casualty of the recent economic crisis, which explains why they have time to go running around the globe for a TV show.

I am enjoying the twitter streak for the Campbell family. I must admit that I didn't know what it was about before I started - I just thought I'd try it and see what happened. After doing it for a while, I still don't know why it works - it just does. Part of the reason I'm blogging this week, though, is to dispel rumors that microblogging is an acceptable substitute for good old fashioned regular blogging. That could never be true.

Popovers

2008-09-21T22:42:00.001-07:00

These popovers were fantastic. Taste great with just butter or (as
Tom, Mari and I found out) with pears sautéd in maple syrup topped
with goat cheese.

Heeeeeere's johnny!

2008-09-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

2008-09-14T22:01:00.001-07:00

Who knows how useful this will be but I'm trying to do some new things
this week on the blog. This is partially because I've been in a
terrible posting drought and also because I've wanted to figure out
how twitter works for some time. Anyone who wants to join me on the
twitter experiment let me know. In the meantime here is a picture of
johnny who is staying with is until mom and dad get back from Scotland.

2008-07-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

As nearly all of you know, about a month ago I asked Decagon to take me back, and they agreed. That means we'll be leaving San Diego and my job at Vandelay Industries. A couple of thoughts immediately occur. The first is that in the years since business school, I've seen lots of stereotypical situations, people, and practices that many folks envision when they think of "Corporate America". The one thing I've never seen: a big 'ol batch of layoffs. Sometimes referred to as downsizing, rationalization, reorgs, etc., our company calls them RIFs (reduction in force, as in "I just got riffed"). This is kind of like going to Yellowstone and missing Old Faithful (the difference is that "downsizing" events these days happen more often than Old Faithful eruptions). It would be more accurate to say I hadn't seen one ... until last Tuesday. Old Faithful started to gurgle and spurt on Monday afternoon. Rumor-mongers buzzed with talk that there would be meaningful layoffs announced the next day. The company wanted to tell everyone that had been laid-off before announcing anything, and this meant everybody knew something was afoot before they released the news officially. I observed the entire episode as a bemused spectator, having already given notice I'd be leaving. On the fateful morning, all employees received two emails explaining what was going on. One was from the vice-chairman and said that layoffs were a painful but necessary step toward improved profitability. The other was from the CEO, who said that layoffs were a painful but necessary step toward improved profitability. A couple of hours later, the president of our business unit held a combined meeting/conference call to answer any questions people had. I learned an important lesson: when holding a conference call with folks that are angry and have nothing to lose, make sure you can mute everyone but the host. At one point, she (the president) gamely tried to answer a question about the rationale for the layoffs, only to be interrupted by a conference call participant saying "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" (intone proper sing-song for full effect). As it turns out, nobody in my group, or any group near me, was laid off. Even if I'd stayed, my job wouldn't have been in jeopardy. I personally knew 5 or 6 folks that did lose their jobs, but they were in corporate "shared services" type positions. The only thing I can say is that I feel really bad for people that were let go, and am lucky to have a job (and also lucky to be moving to a job that I'm excited about).

The other thought that occurs to me now that I'm moving to Decagon: In a short amount of time, I will go from incessantly complaining about "the system" to joining the family company as a member of the family (thereby becoming a certified member of "the system"). This week I heard an African American commentator on NPR present his theory on why many old-school African American activists dislike Obama (witness Jesse Jackson's crude comment on Obama this week). The commentator said that activists like Jackson have grown so comfortable in their role as outsiders railings against a hopelessly flawed system that the concept of an African American President frightens them. I guess that's one of the challenges of forfeiting outsider status: I've got to do something about all the stuff I used to just complain about.

Lastly, I won't whine much about moving. Suffice to say that I feel like Tom in the following clip. Like the airborne Tom, every time we move I know it's going to hurt. All I can do is wince and brace for the impact.

2008-06-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

I suppose that mild-mannered people like me that occasionally surf have no choice but to accept that mainstream surf brands constantly seek out new ways to be edgy. This is driven by the fact that many surf brands like quicksilver sell way more in t-shirts and board shorts than they will ever sell in surf equipment. Appealing to a certain demographic means that the companies strive to achieve an image that usually involves cuss-words and scantily-clad females. My surfer friend (the one in the video) has a young teenage son in middle school. Said son picked up a DVD at the surf shop and brought it home to watch. In between the gnarly surfing clips, a commercial appeared that featured numerous surf groupies in bikinis. Not to worry - the young impressionable boy's mom was nearby and intervened. She hit "eject", and snapped his freebie DVD in two.

This same dynamic has also gotten me in trouble. For example, on cold winter mornings, I pull on RipCurl "F-BOMB" wetsuit booties, and paddle out. This isn't my fault. I just went to the surf store last year, intent on fixing an annoyance that occurred the previous winter. When I went surfing in 55 degree water, it was so cold that when I got into work, my feet would burn for 2 hours or so until my body figured out I wasn't in the water anymore. The kind store attendant showed me some of the different boots they offer. I eliminated the ones with bright colors, or super cheap ones that were merely loosely stitched neoprene. I found a nice-looking pair with split toes that fit well. I bought them and headed home. When I examined the box, it told me that I had not purchased just any pair of booties, but they were in fact "F-BOMB" booties (f-bomb is a euphemism for the f-word, as in "he launched into a tirade, dropping f-bombs left and right") . Fine, I thought. The booties don't actually say "F-BOMB" on them, it's just the box. I stashed them on the top shelf in the garage, and pulled the booties out once the water got cold. This left an empty box on the top shelf.

A few weeks ago, Marie and I dutifully trudged off with all 4 kids to open-house night at the school. Jerome showed us around his classroom - the artwork, reports, poems, etc. - all very nice. Well, it was all very nice until we got to the dioramas. The kids were studying national parks, and Jerome got Yellowstone. His diorama contained intricate miniature sculptures of bison, deer, and geysers. You can imagine my surprise when I found that this idyllic scene was unapologetically depicted in my "F-BOMB" wetsuit boots box. I asked Marie what happened, and she said that Jerome came home and said he needed a shoe box. They scoured the house but found nothing until the triumphant discovery of the now-famous "F-BOMB" box. Neither of them thought anything of it (why should they). It didn't turn out to be a big deal. His teacher didn't say anything - I'm sure he just thought it was an unavoidable consequence of having mormon kids in his class. Morale is: please dispose of any "F-BOMB" wetsuit booties boxes you have floating around the house.

2008-05-25T21:28:00.001-07:00

The kid invented this new game where they jump on one end of an overinflated camping mat, thereby launching something or someone on the other side into the air. These are trained professionals - do not attempt.

2008-05-25T21:22:00.001-07:00

Just a couple of videos this week. First, my surfer friend took some video on Friday of both his son and me. The waves were big but nasty - breaking all at once so it was hard to do anything. I opted for my boogie board, and he got a shot of me before getting pounded.

2008-05-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

This week I had the chance to think back to a guy that used to occupy the cubicle next to mine. He is a nice guy with a good personality and sense of humor. I will now complain about him even though it is in poor taste since he can't defend himself. He is what I will call a "yeasayer". According to him, everything that he touches turns to gold - he is always one step ahead of everyone else. Recently, though, I've run across some persuasive evidence that he's mortal like the rest of us. A few examples - he switched jobs and now works at a company not too far away. A few weeks ago, some of my friends from work met the yeasayer for lunch. As the former manager of a doomed product at our company, one of the first things he said was that he'd already launched 4 new products at his new job. A little digging revealed that the products were in fact small plastic wingnuts. He also used to give us periodic updates on the market-topping returns of his day trading activities. Since I think day trading is pointless at best, I often expressed skepticism. A current check of his hottest pick (Garmin) will show a decline of over 60% in the last 6 months. He also used to talk about his north county home - often saying that "my home earns more in a year than I do". This was well after home values started to plunge - his area was "one of the few exceptions". We had some friends from business school visit last week, and the wife's parents live in the same town as the yeasayer. Turns out that home values are down 35% from the peak. In the end, I can think of lots of cases where I've shown the same kind of bias - it's probably human nature. I guess it just means that being confident and outspoken doesn't increase the probability that a person is right (Dad may actually argue that the two things are inversely related).

This week Kai finally realized some instant consequences from his mischievous tendencies. We are always telling him not to do stuff - don't get into mama's makeup, leave papa's shaving cream alone, stay out of the spice rack - stuff like that. Marie had told him to just leave the listerine pocketpack strips alone. Kai, of course, thought he knew better. Unbeknownst to Marie, Kai had grabbed 3 or 4 strips and rolled them into a ball, which he palmed to conceal as Mari loaded the kids into the car to go somewhere. Once they got going, Kai started to cry. When asked what was wrong, he fessed up - "I put the mint into my nose". One look confirmed that this was indeed the case - the listerine ball was up his left nostril. His eyes were watering. His nose was running, and every breath seemed to introduce a new cloud of menthol gas into his sensitive nasal cavity. Having eaten, but not snorted, listerine strips, I'm imagining this felt like squirting a turkey baster full of vapo-rub up one's nostril. Lacking the skills to solve the problem, Kai begged for help. Marie stopped the car, and plugged Kai's right nostril while Kai tried to blow out the left one. On the tenth try, out shot the snot covered powerball. Marie made a special call to my desk at work to tell me about this, and we both had a really good laugh. It's not often that the circumstances are right to get Kai some instant consequences.

This may seem strange, but I finally thought of a name for a bad habit I have. Sometimes, instead of doing the dishes, I do the wishes - reorganizing the piles of dirty dishes, and shoving some of them into the sink so that it doesn't really look like there are that many dishes to do. If the pile looks small enough when I'm done, I can just leave them for tomorrow.

We had Kai's birthday yesterday. Marie put in a lot of work, and we had a great time. Stu and Adrianne also came over, which was great. Here are some pics.

We also had the fathers and sons campout this weekend. It was a little on the toasty side, but Jerome, Kai (rookie) and I all had a good time.

The below video is not me (of course) but is a guy from work that I sometimes go surfing with. He is very serious about riding the wild sea pony, and owns 4 boards. I took advantage of a rather lame longboarding conditions to pull out my waterproof case-enclosed flip video recorder. I only filmed for about 20 minutes, but it was fun.

2008-05-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

2008-05-11T22:38:00.000-07:00

And another video - this of Kai trying to make Quinn laugh. This activity alone absorbs almost 80% of Kai's waking hours.

2008-05-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

Just a video this week. At the reunion, Gpa Ohki took Jerome to Borders and let him pick out some things he wanted. One of the items Jerome was most excited about was this rocket. The video is kind of long, but it shows how stuff works in our family. Jez is always trying to get stuff to work, Asha is always offering helpful advice, and Kai is actively trying to mess things up. Anyway, the rocket was a big hit, and we had a lot of fun with it.

2008-05-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

Now that we have 4 kids, and one of them is close to turning 9, I've started to think in earnest about how I can get my kids to do jobs. The concept of jobs (be they Saturday jobs, KP, or whatever) in the campbell family is as central to our existence as Sunday dinner. Who can forget the strangely satisfying smell of 409 that accompanied a complete wipedown of green/blue island wall on the other side of the kitchen range? Or for that matter, the dread at receiving the worse of the two bathroom jobs (floors and toilets?). I have realized, though, that just as soon as my kids would actually be able to do some of these jobs, they will be rendered nearly useless by the universal rebelliousness and angst of the teenage years. Note that on the handy chart I have provided, the willingness to pitch in asymptotically approaches negative infinity before reaching the age of 12. This leads me to the concept of the sweet spot - a short period of time when the child's real ability is sufficiently positive and they still are willing to do something when asked. The product of the two functions only becomes positive after age 6. This fact was reinforced this week when Asha called me at work: "Guess what Dad? I'm the mom right now. Mama is feeding Quinn, and I just picked up the whole garage, play area, vacuumed everything and made all the beds." If I had been Dad (and been at home), I'd have feigned losing consciousness. As it was, I told her how proud I was of her. I returned home to find that she really had done all those things, and had done a darn fine job to boot. In the interest of full disclosure, I never hit a sweet spot during my childhood. The week that I finally learned to pumice the ring off a toiled bowl was probably the same week I told Mom and Dad that it was fair for them to do more work because they decided to become parents.

The last couple of Saturdays have been shockingly unstructured and laid-back. I have been liberally indulging in a variety of Alton Brown recipes (pizza, shrimp ravioli, pan-fried chicken, man-burgers, pancakes) - we even bought a cast-iron skillet for $30 since Alton said we had to. I don't end up wanting to make everything he does on "good eats", but I will be attempting corned beef as soon as my saltpeter from amazon.com arrives. That's all for now.

2008-04-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

I squandered all my blogging time making this video. You will see examples of me wiping out, kids sliding, my brothers in law shredding, my son shoving, my ninja father in law, and other crazy things. For Ohki family members not pictured, you need to hang around the camcorder a little more next time. For Campbell family members who fret that I have not yet emotionally returned from Hawaii, I'm afraid you're right.

2008-04-13T22:26:00.001-07:00

This blog starts with a disclaimer: I apologize up front for blogging about the Ohki reunion. I do realize that spending a couple of weeks in Hawaii is riotous living. I also realize that I'm not worthy of having such great inlaws - I have done nothing to deserve them.

First things first - I will now fess up to partaking in an activity which is on the Campbell's "unacceptable" list. That activity is: going to the tanning salon. A couple of weeks before the reunion, I decided to plunk down $100 for 10 or so trips to the fake bake booth. I made this decision for a couple of reasons. First, every time I go to Hawaii or Costa Rica or something, I always get a really bad, painful sunburn on a patch of skin where I forgot to put sunscreen. The other reason, which I do admit, is that compared to Mari, our children, and all of my inlaws, I look shockingly white. It's not just that I'm a white guy - it's that I'm one of the whitest guys ever, and nearly all of my inlaws, their kids (and even my kids) have nice tans. I just wanted to take the albino factor down a few notches. It turned out that a couple of weeks is enough time to get a "base" but not much else. I went to the store and stood in the booth for a few minutes at a time, felt like a rotisserie chicken, and ended up a few shades darker by the time we left but was certainly not tan (if any of my inlaws are reading this, they will find it hard to believe that I fake-baked) . I never got a "burn" from the tanning booths, and although I did feel a little itchiness, it was never painful at all. The real benefit came in Hawaii when we spent a long period of time outdoors at the beach or at golf. There were a couple of times I would have gotten a terrible burn from neglecting to re-apply sunscreen, but because I had gotten a base beforehand, it wasn't a problem at all. I don't know if it was worth $100, but I think it turned out to be good thing. I have no interest in tanning on a regular basis, though, and am convinced it would probably lead to skin cancer. For any nieces or nephews reading, I would also like to say that so much as setting foot in a tanning booth is guaranteed to give you lethal skin diseases.

Coming back from the reunion was difficult on many levels. Here is an actual conversation I had with my stomach on Monday morning:

STOMACH: Yo! It's 9AM. Where's the sour cream pancakes with coconut syrup?

ME: Dude - reunion is over.

(later that same day)

STOMACH: Yo! It's 2PM. Were's the grilled ahi with garlic butter sauce?

ME: Don't start!

We had lots of good food on the reunion, but more importantly, plenty of leisure time with which to devour it. The first half of the reunion was spent at a house with a swimming pool. Most days consisted of 2 pool sessions divided by lunch. We then put on a kids dinner, sent them to bed, and did an adults dinner. I am willing to admit that I gained 8 pounds in 2 weeks. I will now try to work it off.

I went to the reunion resigned to the fact that there may not be any good surf while we were there. It turned out that the waves were mostly small and not rideable. There was one day, however, when my brothers in law took me to Ala Moana, and I had a blast. I have a little video from then that I will try to post.

One of the best parts of the reunion, for me, was seeing our kids get to know their Ohki cousins better. For the most part, the kids got along amazingly well, which is mostly a testament to how great the Ohki cousins are. Kai and his cousin Max did have their share of disagreements over toy ownership, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for 2 year olds. It was fun to see Kai and Max play together, nonetheless.

We did spend some time on the flowrider, a machine that spits out water at an extremely high rate so that you can kind of surf on it. Jerome came with us on the last night we went, and learned how to ride it on a boogie board. I had a great time, but also incurred numerous injuries, most of little consequence. That's all for now, although I reserve the right to blog more about the reunion later.

2008-03-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

My brother in law took this video this morning at Barber's Point - a surf spot on southwest Oahu. The waves were rather small and lame, but the water was warm, and we had a good time anyway.

2008-03-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

I sat down last week to blog and soon got sucked into an internet vortex. This happens sometimes when, although I have good intentions, I allow myself to cycle through a group of websites that I frequent. This includes gmail, kayak (if we've got a trip coming up and I want to know whether I got ripped off on the tickets we bought), digg, espn, craigslist (can be extremely addictive if you live in a big city), costco.com (you never know), and google news (cnn.com has become less and less useful over the years). By carefully following a 12 step program, I was able to remove cougfan.com from my website cycle, but we'll see if my resolve can stand up to football season in the fall.

For some reason (I'm not quite sure why) I have recently become something of a germaphobe. I guess it started back when I was working at my company's previous location. One day I realized that since every person who worked in that building had to enter the same door, the 5 square inches of steel that comprise that door handle is perhaps the dirtiest space in the county. Anyway, I started bringing large bottles of hand sanitizer to work (my current one is in the half-gallon range). I think life-long germaphobes have mostly mapped our their worlds, but as I go about life now, I discover new ways to worry about germs in my personal space. Two weeks ago I went on a business trip to Kansas City. The purpose of the trip was to see some customers who have recently decided to leave us for our competitors. When I sat down in the airplane, I thought about whether a seriously diseased person had occupied that area on a previous flight. Just then a rather large fellow sat down next to me, and launched into a fit of coughs. In less time than it took for his sub-microscopic viral particles to fly through the air and land on me, I had removed my travel-sized hand-sanitizer bottle from my bag, and was slathering it all over myself as if it were a key step in some ancient pagan ritual. I didn't mind that my actions veritably shouted "I hate sitting next to sick dudes!" or that the alcohol fumes wafting away from my vicinity could have started a cabin fire if one of those airline "blankets" had produced a static charge at an inopportune moment. Luckily, all blankets were removed from planes after 9/11 and sent to coastal regions of 3rd world countries where they are now used as fishing nets. Anyway, the rest of my trip involved trips to hospitals, where hand sanitizer is just as common as medicare fraud, so life was good. By the way, this has nothing to do with toilet seat covers.

This is the week before the much anticipated in-law reunion. Regardless of whether we're talking about my family or Mari's, we always look forward to them. However, we probably look forward to them too much. Pretty soon, we get to the family reunion, figure out what's going on, wash a few dishes, and realize that the reunion is half over, at which point we know we will soon return to our mundane lives. Soon after that, we really do have to go home, and we start thinking about when the next reunion or vacation will be. This has led me to conclude that the funnest time at a family reunion is really the week BEFORE the reunion, when I can think about all the fun stuff we'll do while we're there. So believe me when I say that work this week will be a blast.

Another random thought: I've gotten hooked on costco soymilk. I would have never believed it, but Mari got some because she's off dairy for Quinn, and I started drinking it too. It's plain (not "vanilla") and it tastes great on honey nut cheerios.

This week, as the credit crisis has deepened (today JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns for $2 a share - Bear stock traded at $150 last summer), I am again reminded of how much I dislike Realtors. Lawrence Yun, head economist for the national association of realtors, embodies the characteristics I hate about these guys. They were happy to rake in the dough when times were good, and now they are frantically trying to prop up the market by making statements that have no credibility. This blog is kind of sloppy, but the guy is dedicated to monitoring Lawrence Yun and the dumb things he says. We recently received a local rag - the real estate section was headlined by a helpful article (written by a local realtor) entitled "The Sky is Not Falling" - a clear sign that the sky is falling. Another thing I think is silly: homeowners who got into mortgages they couldn't afford who are now begging the government to bail them out. It funny that during the real estate heyday, I never heard these same folks volunteer to give a slice of their cash-out-refinancing windfalls to Uncle Sam. It wasn't as if they said "this 20%/year home price growth is so crazy - I've gotta send some of this cash to the IRS so that they can bail people out when this bubble pops".

A little preview to a future blog. For many years, certain products and activities have been shunned and hated by the Campbell family: captain crunch, first person shooter games, the spraying of PAM indoors, attempting to wipe off a table in a single pass, cable tv, fast food, video game consoles, car payments, seinfeld, sleeping in, most soft drinks, and terry gross. It's worth noting that some items that used to be on the list (frozen pizza is a good example) but became kosher sometime during the late 80's-early 90's. Although I happen to agree with some of these campbell aversions, in my next blog I will confess to something that is definitely still on the list. That's it for now.

2008-03-02T22:27:00.000-08:00

I went to a tradeshow this week. No matter how many tradeshows I go to, they are all the same. The first constant is the Freeman family of companies. I have now attended tradeshows in the following industries: food, pharma, lab instruments, military weapons, irrigation, medical devices, health system pharmacists, and healthcare information technology. In every instance, the Freeman family of companies has somehow been around performing a confusing array of services for which it is paid wads of cash. Not only that, but they have a never-ending supply of exhibit hall carpet which is infused with proprietary energy-sucking ingredients. Even seasoned exhibit hall wanderers are not immune to the carpet's powers. After wandering between booths for a mere two hours, my body feels as if I am on an episode of Man vs. Wild and my only source of water on the African Savannah is elephant dung. (at last week's conference I succeeded in suppressing the urge to wrap my head in a urine-soaked shirt).

While wandering by the booths, my reactions to seeing each exhibitor also fall into predictable categories:

1. Awe - There are a few companies at these shows that just have their acts together. They have an impressive array of products and services, and seemingly move from strength to strength as potential customers and partners clamor to do business with them. At this show I went to last week, that company was Google. In spite of Microsoft's gargantuan booth, Google chose to go with a tiny 1x2, and were hounded by throngs of conference-goers from dawn until dusk.

2. Confusion - I am constantly amazed that certain companies can survive year after year. Even after lengthy discussions with them about what they do, I sometimes still don't understand how they stay in business, or why someone would pay them to do what they say they do. I realize that some of these companies exhibit for the sole purpose of getting acquired by a bigger company, but I wouldn't want to buy company that can't explain what it does.

3. Red-faced shame - There's always that one company which insists on using scantily clad "representatives" to push its products. I recall at the military convention a few years ago, one exhibitor paid some Washington Redskins cheerleaders to show up and mingle with potential customers. To me, this conjured up unsavory stereotypes about sleazy back-room government deals for contracts and the like. The cheerleader's shock value was relatively high, too. In the context of a tradeshow, it seemed especially scandalous to see someone who is essentially wearing a bikini. There must not be enough important women in the military to put an end to this sort of thing.

4. Contempt - As I wander by the competitor's booths, it is easy to imagine how the competitor's employees must be in real life. Most likely, they breeze into the express checkout line at the grocery store with 18 items, file fraudulent tax returns, download pirated media over the internet, buy non-energy star-rated appliances, and tell lies. Unlike me, they do not mind deceiving customers, and look like skilled practitioners of the shell game, pyramid schemes, the bait and switch, the Nigerian letter, the Spanish Prisoner, the pump and dump, and various Ponzi schemes. I see attendees standing there talking to them, and assume that they are slowly being led away to customer purgatory.

That's quite enough for now. I will call the attached video "Asha pwns chin-up bar". After cajoling us into buying a chin up bar for her on ebay, Asha has certainly gotten value from it.

2008-02-27T22:40:00.000-08:00

2008-02-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

I don't have a lot to write this week, but I did have another run-in with "the man". My company is in the midst of a large-scale overhaul of our quality system. These types of initiatives are always interesting studies in corporate culture. I mean, let's be serious: if a company needs to install a new quality program, that's a sure sign that quality was never really important before that. At my last company, the executives made everyone start wearing "Q" buttons at all times to show how committed they were to the new quality program. Shortly after that policy went into effect, a low level employee happened to be sharing the up elevator with the CEO one day. After a cordial greeting, the CEO examined the employee's attire, and asked "where's your "Q" pin?". With a quick glance to his lapel, the employee replied "Damn - I left it on my pajamas AGAIN".

In my company, the quality program mostly consists of an online training tool which requires me to study pointless minutiae like standard agenda items on the monthly quality audit. Then, the quality folks confirm that I have actually read through the tedious documents by giving me a "quiz". Until recently, there were ways to game the quiz, but the quality department stopped sending emails with the list of questions you missed after you failed the quiz. This change in policy led my boss to despair that he would never finish the dozen or so training modules that he had just been assigned. I decided to tackle my unfinished modules on Friday afternoon, and soon was stuck on an 8 question quiz that included a lot of "check all that apply" questions. After scouring the relevant documents for the answers and taking the quiz 15 or 16 times, I still couldn't get a passing score (80%). However, I accidentally discovered that you can "submit" your quiz answers without giving an answer for each question. Needless to say, the quizzes went much faster then, as I just answered the questions one at a time, submitted the quiz, and wrote down the answer to each question if in fact it was right. Not only did I dispatch 4 quizzes in 45 minutes, but I ended up with a crib sheet with all the answers on it. I gave the sheet to my boss, who appeared to have flashbacks to our corporation's ethics video, but took the sheet all the same and said he was grateful. He also mentioned something about plastic spoons. Last year when we moved to our new building, "the man" stopped stocking the coffee room with plastic utensils. I was frustrated by this, so I went to our cafeteria, and commandeered a large case of soup spoons, which I put into the cupboard of our coffee room. Anyway, my boss (who saw me make off with the box) has ribbed me about it for some time, especially after the cafeteria started stocking the plastic utensils next to the cash registers and charging $.25 per spoon. After I gave him the answers to the quality quizzes, he admitted that he had 2 choices: spend 6 hours completing quality training modules, or throw his lot in with the spoon thieves.

Another video this week - Quinn is starting to smile. For some reason the sound isn't lined up with the video, and it's playing in slow motion - don't know why that's happening but you can still kind of tell what's going on.

2008-02-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

See below for a video of Kai. He is being entertained by my buddy from b-school, who was in San Diego for business, and dropped by for dinner with his sister and nephew (who happen to live here).

Part II of the career-limiting email I sent last week: I actually got no response on Monday, and felt fine about it. On Tuesday, I happened to be in a meeting with the SVP dude who I sent the letter to. He pulled me aside and said "I got your email on (insert name of hated competitor here), and I loved it - we just need to figure out what to do next". So a positive reaction. One bit I kind of glossed over last week. Our flagship product is the responsibility of a VP that reports to that SVP. I don't report to said VP (whom I will call "Floyd"), but both he and my boss report to the SVP. I sent the email to both the SVP and Floyd, since it would have been poor form to go over Floyd's head when most of the content related to his product line (which just happens to be the lifeblood of the company). The interesting thing about Floyd's reaction was ... nothing - he didn't mention it to me at all. To be clear, the email made one extremely helpful point (more funding for his product line is critical) and also an unflattering one (as things stand, we are enduring death by a thousand cuts). You'd assume that either way, he'd have an opinion and want to discuss it. The fact that he's said nothing makes it clear he's ticked off about the email. When I first joined the company, Floyd seemed like a affable, quick-witted leader who was equally comfortable talking with salespeople or corporate executives. Over time, it's slowly become apparent that his true skills lie in putting out fires and navigating the byzantine network of political connections that sit underneath our corporate structure. While valuable for self-preservation, this approach isn't useful in the long run. I know he will understand the best way to "deal" with my email, but the problems I listed would still remain unresolved.

Ok, that's it - we'll see what happens this week.

2008-02-03T19:59:00.000-08:00

2008-01-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

I had some free time on my hands yesterday after dropping Asha off at a birthday party held at Nickel City (an arcade-type place in a nearby mall). There were a couple of accessories that our family needed in the electronics area, so I made a rare stop at Circuit City. The items we needed were a mini-usb cable for an MP3 player we own, and one of those DVD lens cleaner thingys. These are extras that make the stuff we own work. They are also items that a person is likely to only purchase once or twice in his/her lifetime. I would assume most people are like me, and have no frame of reference for what these things would cost. Marie's guess on the DVD cleaning thingy was $4 - after all, it's just a disk with some wispy brushes shoved into its underside at strategic places. I walked into the store, and found my way to the USB cable. Price = $30. Wha--? I walked away and found the DVD lens cleaner. Price = $15. Double wha--? I can't bring myself to pay that for 2 items that were probably made for under 20 cents. It got me thinking - when a retailer prices an item, they have a few choices. First, they can give you a fantastic price and make you genuinely glad you hauled yourself into their wonderful establishment. Next, they can go for not good, not bad pricing. Also, they can go higher than that, and make sure people buy the item even if they're not crazy about the price. Lastly, they can try to sell a stupid USB cable for $30, causing them to end up in my blog where I will make snide remarks like "it's no wonder Circuit City's stock is down over 90% since the year 2000". I came home and bought a mini-USB cable on ebay from a nice fellow in Longview, WA for $6.89 (including shipping).

The Japanese have a phrase that I've always liked - "gatsu pouzu" - (literally "guts pose") it describes the feeling or appearance that accompanies the moment when a person knows he or she has won. This week, I had a rather lengthy road to a gatsu pose which I will now bore you with. My company moved locations in the fall of last year. Our new building is fine, but is roughly the size of Mall of America, and has only one "employee entrance". Every day I waste about 10 minutes (roundtrip) getting from my car to my desk. Over the space of a year, this represents roughly a total of 284 man-months of wasted time for the 1500 employees at the building. I began riding the kid's razor scooter between the car and building in protest, but soon found a better way in. On the ground floor of the building, there is a trash compactor the workers are always using, which leaves an open door. It's open in the morning, but closed at night, so I started going out an adjacent exit that you can't get in via key-card. This route takes only about a minute, so it saves a lot of time. A couple of weeks ago, all employees received an email saying that starting that day, all exits except the employee entrance would be "alarmed" to keep us safe because tiles were falling off the side of the building. All doors (including the one I used) had signs on them - "THIS DOOR IS NOW ALARMED". I was mad.

Around that same time, I became frustrated by the inability of my company to make new products. The problem is now so bad that our competitors are making us feel the pain on a routine basis. In spite of this, we continue to devolve into the gang that couldn't shoot straight. I resolved to write a letter to my superiors telling them this, and making a few dire predictions about what would happen if we get to the end of 2009 and still have a losing product. This last Friday, I ran the letter by my boss, who was supportive, and then sent it to the SVP dude who runs our business. I really didn't pull any punches - the letter was accurate but gory - the kind of thing that I may look back on in a few months and say "there are few exceptions to the "honesty is the best policy" song, but that letter was one of them". Having sent the letter late Friday afternoon, I decided to make a hasty exit, and a thought popped into my mind. Those signs on the exits are probably lying - there are really no alarms. If there was any time to test this little theory, it was then. I mean, if the man fires me for my too-honest letter, a little incident with the emergency exit really won't be that important. So I jogged down the stairs, pushed the bar to open the door, and left the building. No alarm - GATSU POUZU!

2008-01-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

This week I was labeled a gross polluter. I had taken my car into the test-only smog center because in California, you have to get your car smogged every 2 years. The name of the establishment was "15 minute smog test". After 50 minutes and no sign of any results, I asked why I was still waiting. After all, it seems that if I have gone to an establishment named "15 minutes smog test", this outfit should have only 1 purpose in life - to get my car tested in 15 minutes. So anyway, the guy came back with the bad news about 5 minutes later - there was something wrong and I was probably responsible for many of the pollution-related instances of respiratory failure in the greater San Diego area. The test results spelled out this conclusion in no uncertain terms: "gross polluter". I somehow find this hard to believe. Every day I spend my commute jockeying for position with scores of Escalades, Suburbans, and Hummers that have brontosaurus-sized carbon footprints, and I'm the gross polluter? I also find the label interesting. Whenever I hear of some company that's been sued for negligence, I assume they probably made some ill-advised decisions. If they are sued for gross negligence, however, I'm forced to conclude that the company in question is staffed entirely by irredeemable mouth-breathers. My car apparently had a bad O2 sensor, which my honest mechanic Ivan replaced, getting my ride back on the right side of the law for $250. I'm not joking about my mechanic being honest, though. He really is good, and has never upsold me on anything.

That's about all for this week.

2008-01-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

2008-01-13T20:35:00.000-08:00

This week I had the misfortune of being summoned to a training meeting in Houston for my company. By training, I mean that I had to give some training on our competitors to a group of salespeople whose roles are shifting to higher-level sales. I almost didn't make it. I was confused by the emails about the training, since it said it would be held in Houston, but I later was told Dallas. Turns out that there are 2 different training sessions, both attended by the same folks. By sheer coincidence, I happen to be the the only person giving training at both sessions. Anyway, I hurried and made reservations. My training module was only 2 hours long - seems a waste to fly for over 1000 miles for 2 hours. The schedule was complicated by the fact that I needed to attend a late-day meeting on Thursday before getting to Houston where my section started at 10am the next morning. I ended up flying out at 7:30, arriving in the lone star state at 2:30am. I rented my car, got lost, and found my hotel by 3:30am. Everything went smoothly with the session the next morning, except that my opinion of our Sales staff took a hit. About 1/3 of the way through, the group of about 20 started to trickle out - "gotta catch a flight" they said. In the end, there were 5 left. Salespeople are great - if nothing else, they have sold the heck out of our dated product line, and for that I'm grateful. However, the experience reminded me that 1 - you never want to be last on the schedule for an off-site meeting, and 2 - salespeople often behave like inconsiderate middle-schoolers. This last point was reinforced when I boarded the flight home at 3pm and ran into a sales guy who had excused himself and 2 buddies at 11:20am (gotta catch a flight).

The trip also reminded me how much I hate the Texas freeway frontage road set-up. This is one reasons why Texans are so religious - they must pray fervently that all their destinations lie to the right of them as they tool down the freeway. If they need to go somewhere that happens to be on the left side of the road, they must find a way to flip a u-turn and back-track, which invariably requires driving to Amarillo. The trip also reminded me how much I love Jimmy Johns. It is a chain/franchise sandwich joint. For the 16 months I worked at my last company, I conservatively estimate I ate 178 Jimmy Johns sandwiches. 175 of those were the "turkey tom, no mayo", which I was gleefully reunited with when I happened upon a Jimmy Johns on my way to the Airport in Houston. The bread is maybe 50 times better than subway, and the sandwiches are made in 15 seconds. It's really amazing. Anyway, some videos to upload. The first is of Kai "reading" his favorite book - of course he's not really reading, but it's kind of funny. The second is Asha doing tricks, but she's interrupted by Kai who has other ideas.

2007-12-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

Christmastime has brought our family happiness, joy, and a barebones camcorder with onboard USB plug that allows us to capture videos like this:

Hopefully it works.

2007-11-25T21:59:00.000-08:00

I have done nothing for the past week but sit around. This means that I have the urge to blog about stuff other people have done. One thing other people did this week was win the Apple Cup. I should say the RIGHT people won the Apple Cup. The game felt almost exactly like the 2005 one to me, although it was probably more entertaining, given the 6 TDs scored by the Cougs.

I have uploaded some recent pictures of the kid. When Mom came down here to help after the birth, I talked to her about having 9 kids. I'm not even the one that does all the work for having kids, and still it's mind-boggling that she spent almost 18 years either pregnant or breast feeding. I feel this uniquely qualifies her to write a book: Lean Manufacturing Applications in Çhild-Bearing. The 4th child also gave me some other ideas. For example, I feel that newborn diapers are an untapped source of renewable energy, especially with oil at $100/barrel. One thing that consitently annoys me is the magazines targeted at insecure parents that the hospital always gives away. These publications prey on a parents desire to know that their kid is gifted or at least normal, despite the fact that all children are above average. I half expected to see an article entitled "Early Warning Signs Your Newborn will be Lousy at Standardized Tests".

2007-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

So we all came home from the hospital on Friday. Both Marie and Quinn were doing well, so the docs said there was no need to stay longer. It sounds like some people want to extend to 5 days, but Mari just wanted to go home. This has been her best c-section of the 4, which is certainly a welcome development. I have had a totally different mind set going into this birth which I attribute to Kai's concussion and also having to move. Basically, I was waiting for something to go really wrong. So far, nothing has. Everything came off without a hitch at the hospital, and Gma Ohki has been holding down the fort at home. The kids are all taking Quinn in stride. Jerome is relatively indifferent, Asha is doing motherly stuff, and Kai seems to like his new little brother just fine. Speaking of Kai, he continues to try to climb nearly everything in sight. The above picture is an example of something he does every day: scale the cupboard in front of the sink, balance himself on his midsection, and make mischief with the water.

I am compelled to include a quote from the economist this week, which said: "There are few international conferences at which delegates can hope to be presented with a souvenir ball of dried human faeces. Indeed the World Toilet Summit may be the only one". This was from an online story on toilets of the future. That's all for now.

2007-11-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

Quinn is getting some treatments under the lights today. He is our Aquabats baby, as you can plainly see.

2007-11-07T19:26:00.001-08:00

A few pictures from the hospital.

2007-11-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

Last week, there was a subject that I really should have blogged about, but didn't - indecent exposure perpetrated by my company's intranet. Every once in a while, my company does a feature on one of the employees that is posted on the intranet site. This is the site that I have to log into every time I want to look up someone's phone number. Point being, it's not an obscure corner of the corporate web. When I went there last week I was greeted by the picture you see here, along with a story about an employee that does triathlons for charity, and also cares deeply about corporate "quality". I have pixelated the pic so as to protect the innocent. First thought: total beefcake! Second thought - who submits a picture like that to corporate? I can only hope he didn't know it would be used on the top page. I actually know the guy, and he is super nice. Luckily for him and us, no further triathlon pictures were included, since triathlons are notably rife with biker's spandex and speedos. I knew he was in shape, but I didn't know that he had set the company standard for tricep definition. For some reason, this kind of reminds me of that story Nig tells about Tamsin when she lingered briefly at the Orioles team store in front of a poster of Brady Anderson in compression shorts.

For some reason, the following story has been floating around in my head for some time, so I'm just going to write it.

Monkey Business: Hospital's Loss of Accreditation Could Cost it Millions

Shocked Memorial Hospital officials learned this week that the facility may lose its JCAHO accreditation for admitting and treating a primate in its pediatric care unit earlier this year. Loss of accreditation could cost the hospital millions of dollars in revenue, and precipitate an exodus of top doctors and other clinicians.

The bizarre chain of events that led to the current crisis began 4 months ago during a routine JCAHO inspection of Memorial Hospital's patient care areas. JCAHO inspectors, who normally are on the lookout for wrong-site surgeries and potential medication errors, were inspecting Memorial's pediatric wing when they noted strange sounds coming from one of the recovery rooms. The lead inspector then entered the room, drew back the curtains, and found a 3 year old monkey nicknamed George eating a bowl of ice cream. JCAHO personnel were apparently blunt in their assessment of the situation, saying "you have a monkey in your hospital".

Hospital president Ed Glosser says that the whole fiasco began with an innocent mistake committed by the admitting nurse. Says Glosser "the admitting nurse noticed that George was a monkey, and that he had no last name, but some guy with a yellow hat vouched for him, and let me also point out that George had a social security number". Subsequent investigations show that George did indeed have a social security number from an ill-fated stint as an apartment building window washer. More recently, George has stumbled on a burgeoning acting career, starring in a 98 minute vehicle called "Curious George".

It may have been George's value as an actor that led to his hospital visit in the first place. His caretaker, an eccentric middle-aged bachelor who favors yellow safari outfits, says he was worried sick when George swallowed a wooden puzzle piece. "George is my meal ticket, and I wasn't about to drive another 20 minutes to the vet when I've got a level 3 trauma center right around the corner. Besides, this was his second stay at Memorial. I didn't think they cared that he was a monkey". Hospital records confirm that George was also admitted 15 months ago, a fact corroborated by Glosser - "Yep, he broke his leg, got put in traction for 3 weeks, and then cleaned us out of ether".

JCAHO officials say they have been more vigilant in their search for animal admissions since the "George" incident, and are already investigating two more potential occurrences. An internal JCAHO source (who asked not to be named) said a field goal-kicking donkey named "Gus" had arthroscopic hoof surgery an a Los Angeles area hospital 2 months ago, and that Mr. Ed is currently being treated for severe laryngitis at that same facility.

2007-10-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

Let me state up front that I don't really think I have anything useful to say this week, but I'll post anyway. Yesterday, I went surfing at an old man break about 20 minutes from our house. I've been feeling like surfing more recently - not sure why. Average age of old men at the old man break is about 55. They think it's a little weird to see someone like me paddle out, but they know what's going on when they see how bad I surf. The waves move slowly there, and a shortboarder could never get up. It was fun, although the waves were almost non-existent. The crowd reminded me of the tenor section at I-Wash. A bunch of guys that had been around forever, laughing at each other and making irreverent comments. It was a really laid-back vibe, though, and was fun to talk to them. Surfing has been a good hobby because it doesn't cut into family time that much (just sleep). Normally, I either go before work, or on Saturday morning at about 5:30.

Let me make a few needless comments about the Cougs. It has been nice that they are so bad this year because I am a lot less nervous about the games (Mari thinks it is cute/irrational that Wazzu football games make me pitsweat). Now, with the season pretty much in the tank, it was fun to sit back and watch the Cougs put some other team's season in the tank. My take on this week's performance: they aren't much better than they used to be, but at least they've figured out how to run the offense against a team that will swarm our receivers to take away the pass. I still don't think the Cougs will go to a bowl (if they do, could you please make it the Poinsettia Bowl?) since they would have to finish 3-1 and get some help, but it's still fun to watch the games.

Well, that's about it. Oh, our rented house almost burned down this week.

2007-10-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that I violated my company's dress code this week by wearing flip flops into the office. I know a guy at work who said he'd be going surfing on Friday morning, so I decided to tag along. He was going to a break I consider to be a short-boarder wave, so I decided to just body board. Although he did refer to me as a "sponger" and I got some dirty looks, I had a good time. The issue with going to work after surfing is that it's hard to get from a wetsuit into a worksuit. I decided to just pull on my jeans and shirt, and leave the shoes for when I got to my desk. This was ok, but I did wear my flip flops into the building before changing into company approved shoes.

We had Mom here this week, and had a great time spending time together and talking. I'm glad to have a Mom that I can talk to for a really long time about lots of stuff. One must admit that it's getting pretty bad for Dubya when even Mom has to give ground on issues like Rumsfeld and government spending. The other thing
Mom's visit did was require us to come to terms with our failing Select Comfort bed (the kind with the adjustable air bladder). We bought a new one few years ago when we bought a larger bed for our Pittsburgh house, so we have a queen size one for our guest bed. It's worked fine for a long time, but just recently (when my brother in law came to help us move) it started crapping out. He said he woke up in the middle of the night to find himself in direct contact with the bed boards and most of the air out of the bladder. No matter - I'll just call up these yokels from Minnesota who made the bed in the first place and get them to send me new bladders. Upon closer inspection of the 20 year warranty, however, this appeared to be a fruitless strategy. Although the company spares no expense in advertising the warranty, if you've owned the bed for longer than 2 years, you have to pay 20% of the replacement cost plus 4% for each year since you bought it. If you bought the bed 19 years ago and it breaks, you will pay 96% of the replacement cost. How is this a warranty? We bought the bed 8 or so years ago, so I decided not to waste my time calling them.

I thought originally that the pump mechanism was leaking, but I put a clamp on the air hose that went to Mom's mattress, and it still deflated. The air bladders are rather large, so checking for leaks was a pain. However, when I did (by spraying soap water all over), I found multiple leaks all over both bladders (see picture). I then marked each leak with a crayon, and slathered "GOOP" (a common sealant/adhesive) on the problem areas. This appears to have worked, but I still don't know whether the leaks are a one-time thing or they will continue to spring up periodically. In this age of self-assembling nano-materials and airliner fuselages made from composites, an air-tight mattress bladder doesn't seem like a real tall order. Apparently, though, it is.

Tonight we attended the baptism of one of Jerome's classmates. I was just getting settled into my seat when I saw Jerome file into our row, and noticed that he had his pants on backwards. This was immediately apparent because there are no boys (or mens) pants that have pleats on the butt. I spent a long time trying to figure out how this could have happened. I mean even if you don't notice that they feel funny when you put them on, you still have to reach around behind yourself to zip and button them. Turns out the pants are loose enough that he can just pull them on without unzipping them. It reminds me of when we were living in Philly, and Mari chastised me for putting Asha's pants on backwards. Asha had lots of pants that Mari made, and so there were no helpful tags. "You can always tell where the front is" Mari said "by looking inside at which side has the shorter distance to the center crotch seam". Fine, I thought, I can do this. One day I went to put Asha's pants on her and no matter which way I turned them, it looked like the distance to the seam was exactly the same. They also looked funny both ways, so I gave up. When I protested later to Marie she said "Oh, sorry. I accidentally made those pants with 2 butts".

Note to Cougs: please call me when coach has changed.

2007-10-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we had a full-on party for Asha's 6th birthday. Thanks to Mari's preparation and exhaustive researching of party options, we found party nirvana. At the local gym, the YMCA will run a gymnastics party for a very reasonable sum (less than Chuck E. Cheese, which we hopefully will never use). This involves zero prep on our part, and for an entire hour, and instructor just runs the kids around the gym and has them do exercises on all the equipment. After the kids were good and tired, we herded them into an adjacent rec room, fed them ice cream and cake, opened presents, and we were done. What's more, the kids loved it too (Asha - "I'm the happiest girl in the world"). For the record, I do realize that the YMCA idea is far more expensive than a stocking cap, a knife, a fork, some mittens (preferably sewn together with a long piece of yarn), a pie plate, some dice, and a hershey's bar wrapped 6 layers deep in brown grocery bags.

I always find it interesting when we get directives at work that tell us how to do stuff that we should already know how to do. One such example surfaced about a month ago when we got a "dress code". I will now list many items which I found in the dress code, followed (in parentheses) by the number of times I have seen them in the office:

miniskirts (0)

leggings (0)

shorts (1 - there is this one weird guy in engineering)

midriff shirts (0 ... ok fine 1, but technically, the dude in question just has a
very large midsection, and was not wearing a midriff shirt)

tee-shirts (0)

shirts with advertisements or slogans other than (insert name of my company here) or the shirt manufacturer (0, although the letter of the law dictates that snooty executives that are always showing up with Ralph Lauren-logoed shirts are in
violation, since Ralph Lauren doesn't actually make anything)

tank tops (0)

exercise or similar apparel (0)

sleepwear (0 - I have nodded off once or twice at work before, but I wasn't wearing sleepwear)

hats, visors or other non-religious head coverings (0 - note that in an office where I used to work, a Steeler's stocking cap would qualify as a religious head covering)

flip-flops or beach-type foot wear (0 - see earlier post on how HR tricked some employees into wearing flip flops to a company sales meeting, but that wasn't in the office)
slippers (0 - but that's not a bad idea. Maybe I could also get a smoking jacket)

Recently we also receive the new officially sanctioned company power point template (Yay!). One nugget of advice in the document that came along with the file: "When comparing (my company name) to a competitor, use warm colors to represent (company name) and cooler colors for the competitor." The presentation comes with a palette of acceptable colors to use for representing my company. The fact that we have people who devote time to this level of minutiae is perhaps one reason my company's stock price has tanked so bad this year.

Mom is coming to visit this week, which we are all looking forward to. Although we are done moving in to our house, maybe Mom can Feng Shui it up real nice for us.

Lastly, I found a link for a housing concept we are now considering: click here

2007-09-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

I read an industry blog to try to stay current with market goings on. Besides being a good source of esoteric healthcare IT content, the guy who writes it is intelligent, witty, and tells it like it is. Anyway, he says that by far, the biggest challenge for bloggers is consistently posting. He's right - it takes a lot of discipline (discipline I don't have). I've noticed that I'm not the only casualty of early fall blogging. I'm sure that school starting, moving, pregnancies, etc. have all taken their toll.

Speaking of moving, we did the dirty deed again last week, for the 7th time since we've been married. I have now observed a number of signs that will clearly indicate that a person is moving too much:

1. You routinely consider having all your worldly belongings fitted with casters
2. You are familiar with 5 different techniques for utilizing "Mom's Attic" space on Uhaul trucks
3. Elder's quorum presidency members avoid eye contact when you draw near
4. You can take apart and re-assemble your bed frames in your sleep
5. You realize that the only difference between you and Odysseus is that Odysseus had a place that felt like home
6. You think that the green roll of saran-wrap stuff with a handle is, like, the coolest thing, ever.
7. You are constantly checking Craigslist for rental homes, just for kicks (Yes, I'm talking about you, Mari)
8. You consider hiring some "roadies" full time.
9. You own cardboard boxes that read: "~~China~~", "~~kid's cupboard~~", "~~hutch stuff~~", "~~glass dishes - THIS SIDE UP~~", "~~cooking wine~~", "~~jello molds/misc.kitchen~~", and "~~painting stuff~~".
10. Frequent movement of large sums for prorated rent, last month's rent, new damage deposit, returned damage deposit, etc. cause feds to think you are laundering money for the Arellano Félix drug cartel.

The move itself went as well as can possibly be expected, given that Mari was 7.7 months pregnant. My brother in law Yu flew in from Orem to help, and Stu came over on Thursday night (the 20th) which allowed us to get the piano and other heavy stuff done. In the end, moving is just a pain - that's all there is to it. It consists of hefting large bulky items with sharp corners up and down steps. It creates skinned knuckles, bruised shins, blood-blistered fingers, and sore backs. My brother in law was smart enough to swipe one of those ubiquitous back brace/suspender thingys from the loading dock at his company before he came. He said it made a big difference. Another thing that made the move go better is that I had a comp-day coming at work, and asked my boss for 2 more because of the silly weekend sales meeting. He capitulated.

Work is going ok, although my boss has been too busy to give me anything to do. I know this sounds strange, but he has been trying to get a product that I'm not familiar with out the door, so has been totally preoccupied. I did have a good annual review with my boss a few weeks ago. He gave me the highest raise that 'the man' allows, although 'the man' is a notorious tight-wad. He also gave me something called a long term incentive award. Essentially, it is a stock grant that takes a certain number of years to vest (also known as "golden handcuffs" because if you leave the company, much of your future award is lost). Considering that the total amount of this year's award was quite small, I think that "feldspar handcuffs" would be a more appropriate label. Not that I'm ungrateful - I appreciate anything that I get.
I happened to be out surfing with my boss's boss a couple of weeks ago, who was sure to reiterate that the award was 'really special'. I like my boss's boss (and my boss for that matter), but I made a mental note after that conversation: any pay scheme or award that must be explained to someone in order for that person to grasp its 'specialness' is probably ineffective. For me, it's nice for my employer to tell me they like me, but I'd rather they leave it to me to determine whether the money I'm paid makes me feel like a valued employee. At this job and others, I've been told "you are the only person at your level in the company who has been granted membership in the manager incentive program" and "you received the highest raise that we can give you". Maybe I'm being stupid, but I think bosses say things like this because they believe it prods listeners to a desirable conclusion: "I'm fortunate to make as much as I do". For me, it has the opposite effect. It makes me think they are trying to distract me from objectively evaluating whether I'm paid a market rate. I do think I'm fortunate to make a good salary, I just don't like corporate compensation mind games.

That's it for this week.

2007-08-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

A return to the blogosphere. I guess I really should write about Kai's accident, since it has sucked up much of the space in our lives and minds during the past 3 weeks. The backdrop for the whole thing was that, having just returned from Pullman 2 days prior, I was trying to keep my head above water at work, while Marie and the kids readjusted to home again. I think most parents with any kind of tenure know what it's like to really worry that your child might die. After Marie called to say that Kai had fallen off the swing set, that kind of worrying set in. All I knew as I hustled from my job to the hospital was that he'd fallen, and had lost consciousness at least once. On the way there I happened upon Marie who was driving the van to the hospital, and was merging onto the freeway. I could see the kids waving at me, a reminder that kids (for better or worse) tend not to grasp the raw desperation of situations like this.

As we drove to the hospital I began muttering the same prayer over and over. It struck me how different this was from reality TV shows, where medical emergencies are accompanied by camera crews and eerie suspense tracks. We, on the other hand, were driving fast, but quietly waiting at traffic lights in the midst of hundreds of normal folks just doing the normal activities that make up a normal day. After arriving at the hospital, the emergency room staff sprang into action. They administered neck braces, plugged Kai with an IV, and herded the kids off to the waiting room. Not being blessed with medical training, I remember being worried about a few basic things - 1. Kai dying, 2.Brain damage, and 3.Paralysis. The first CT scan didn't show any damage to the spine, and we had made it to the hospital, so I stopped worrying about #s 1 and 3.

As soon as we sitting around and waiting for doctors to read scans, I started the true process of regret for not dismantling the swing set once I knew Kai climbed to unsafe heights on the thing. I suppose a person might encounter a number of similar regrets over a lifetime. Not the kind where I knew what was right and didn't do it, but one where I could've done something simple that would've prevented something needless and horrible from happening. After some time, the doctors said that all of his scans looked fine, and that the diagnosis was a severe concussion. They suggested he be transferred to Children's for observation overnight. Before we left the hospital, Kai looked up at us and said "I wanna get out" - the first thing he had said since the accident (besides "no"). As someone desperate for signs that he'd be ok, this was really encouraging to me.

After spending 4 or 5 uncomfortable hours in the Children's ER, Kai and Marie were finally admitted to the hospital and given a private room. They were about to send them home, but Kai vomited (the second time since the accident) a little while after arriving at Children's. Still everything looked good, and Kai really perked up that night when we started feeding him real food again. By Friday (July 27) everything looked fine, and Kai was discharged. It wasn't until the following Monday that we noticed he was tilting his head, and in certain situations, not pointing his right eye in the proper direction. This persisted, and Marie got an appointment with the doctor on Thursday, who felt he needed to see Kai that day even though it was late. The doctor showed grave concern at the way Kai's eye was behaving, and had us re-admitted to Children's. On Friday, we saw a new parade of neurologists, ophthalmologists, and trauma docs. After all sorts of exams, another CT scan, an MRI (for which Kai had to be sedated), and a 6 hour fast on Kai's part (prior to MRI), all docs eventually told us Kai has 4th cranial nerve palsy. As Marie said in her email, there is a 47% chance (precisely) that this will get better on its own. If it doesn't, Kai will have eye surgery, perhaps more than once. All in all, we're really lucky that it wasn't worse. It does strike me, though, that throughout all the time Kai was at the 2 hospitals, he never received any care aside from some fluids. This will likely end up as just a really expensive 2 night hotel stay.

It's been a little over 2 weeks since that last visit to the hospital, and Kai's eye has neither improved nor deteriorated. It's the same, and he doesn't seem to care at all. He just runs around and does everything he usually does. His new thing is apologizing - "Sorry, Papa", and stuff like that. It only feels like it's been a week since he was in the hospital, since I (and my family) were cheated out of last weekend by the evil planners of this year's corporate sales meeting. The theory they (executives) used was that if they used the weekend for the sales meeting, there would be fewer days of selling actually missed. I am here to say that I will be comped those 2 days, so help me suzabelle. Anyway, the meeting was held in sunny San Anton' - 98 degrees and muggy. The one time I ventured off the riverwalk, I regretted it, since I was instantly ensconced in sketchy liquor shops and Star Jones product endorsements. Something like Chestnut st. in Philly, but with a heavy dollop of latino and the South.

The meeting itself included some humorous moments. First of all, the organizers attempted to quell bitterness about being in a muggy, hot city during the weekend by distributing a lenient dress code. Said code indicated that it was fine to dress "cool and casual" for all meetings, meaning yes to shorts and flip flops. I recognized this for the sham that it was, opting for long-sleeved dress shirts and slacks. Sure enough, nearly everybody showed up dressed like me. The few unfortunate naïfs who sported cargo shorts and sandals were widely snickered at, mostly by HR representatives while they made notes in the appropriate employee files. I asked my boss beforehand, who said he was going to be wearing shorts. After seeing other attendees, however, he quickly scampered back to the hotel to change. Another amusing aspect of the sales meeting is that all presentations and group sessions must be choreographed with upbeat yet sappy bumper music (think "Beautiful Day" from U2). This wouldn't be so bad, except it seems weird for a 58 year old executive who doesn't know the Black Eyed Peas from Anne Murray to stride onto the stage while "Let's Get it Started" blasts.

It was good to reconnect with salespeople, since this is the only chance I get to see them anymore. Mostly, it was the same as last year - sales performance was good; quality, service, product development productivity all point to tougher times ahead. The food was relatively bad - one night we had a "street party" complete with mechanical bull and circus performers. Many dishes came from the BBQ, but all were below par. The kebabs were memorably bad. My attempt to separate meat from skewer resulted in a snapped skewer, and the piece of wood was thick enough to qualify as a dowel in Stu's world. I don't know how they got it on the skewer in the first place.

We finally had a regular weekend, and took the kids to Sea World early so that we could ride all the rides we don't usually go to because of long lines. Worked great, and we all had a good time.

Enough for this week.

2007-07-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

Ever since moving out of our last house, I have had a sneaking suspicion that we would never see the remainder of our $1000 damage deposit again. After finding out that our landlord at our last house had purchased that home from a real estate con artist and had financed 100% of the purchase price, we knew we would have to move (this was back in September of last year). We negotiated a lower rent, and asked for $1000 of our $2000 damage deposit back. We assumed (correctly) that if our landlord was in financial dire straits, our chances of getting the damage deposit had taken a hit.

In any case, we moved out. After speaking with Mario (old landlord), we learned that carpet cleaning and other touch ups had cost about $200. Since we moved out in November, I began calling Mario in December to see when he was going to give us our $800 back. Let me say that Mario isn't a bad guy - he just has met with some tough times, and hasn't been very helpful in the process of trying to reclaim the deposit. At first, everything sounded ok - "I'll send you a check" Mario assured me. When it became obvious that no check would be coming, he admitted that he didn't have any money to pay me back with. He also said that some lady had hit him on the freeway, and most of our conversations revolved around the vain hope that State Farm would soon be sending him a big check. These conversations were not helped by the fact that Mario's english isn't that great, and my Spanish is non-existent. Since I had no way of knowing whether he was being straight with me, I resorted to calling him on a daily basis. If I called Mario 10 times, I would get through to him maybe once. Finally this week I happened to chat with Mario's wife, who said I should come over to their house on Thursday to collect the deposit. Thankfully, I think she put her foot down and told Mario that he had to give me back the deposit. Anyway, I drove over there at the appointed time and picked up our $800 (cash). Mario's wife was nice, and thanked me for waiting to get the deposit back (I had told Mario on numerous occasions that I could give him time as long as he could tell me when I would be getting the deposit back).

Unfortunately, the $800 which I had spent months trying to reclaim only spent about 40 minutes in my pocket (no, Dad, my money was not burning a hole in my pocket). Our friendly neighborhood mechanic's sixth sense (which most mechanics are blessed with) told him we would be coming into a sum of money. So, on my way home I stopped at the auto repair shop to pick up our Odyssey, which had A/C and brake problems fixed to the tune of $750.

While driving on the freeway this week, it occurred to me that I find it hard to resist the urge to put a face to a bumper sticker. For example, I want to see what the person looks like who put the "Republicans for Voldemort" sticker on her car. I also find it hard to resist glancing at:

- Aggressive drivers (to confirm that they do indeed look like jerks)
- Drivers of insanely expensive cars like bentleys, rolls royces, ferarris, etc. (to confirm that they do in fact look like elitist rich types).

Maybe I'm the only one that has this problem.

2007-06-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

This week, I was lucky enough to be among the 100 or so members of the marketing department to receive an impromptu pep talk from a finance executive. We have these meetings once a month that are kind of like Deca lunch meeting, but without the lunch. This time, a VP from finance had been called in to explain next year's budget to us. The budget is already a sore spot for anyone that has had anything to do with it. Because of downward pressure on gross margins, achieving explosive profit growth will require big jumps in revenue, combined with no new spending on anything. This is not a business strategy - it is a financial goal that is palatable to shareholders. In spite of the comprehensive austerity campaign, Finance guy says that our business is considered the growth engine of the company. Accounting for only about 2% of revenues, we make up nearly 1/4 of the company's value, he says, because of the profitability of our business.

In a moment of spontenaety which the VP must have later regretted, he used the slide showing our balance sheet to launch into a discussion of Corporate's new definition of profit - "economic profit". Instead of just saying a business unit's profit = stuff sold minus how much it cost to make the stuff, the will now include a charge for financing assets. Think of it this way (my example, not his). You got a guy who has a taxi, and guy with a rickshaw. Guy with the taxi takes in $100 in a day, and the rickshaw dude gets $50. Let's say operating expenses are $25 for the taxi, and $10 for the rickshaw. Taxi guy makes more money, right? But the taxi costs a lot more than the rickshaw, so if the taxi guy has to pay $50 to finance his taxi, and rickshaw dude only has to pay $5 to finance his rickshaw, rickshaw guy make $35, and taxi guy make $25. Plus, rickshaw guy gets a nice lower body workout.

Finance guy makes broad generalizations about the markets that we operate in, saying that surely with all the stuff we do, we can just expand into adjacent spaces, and find all these new opportunities that will generate plenty of "economic profit". "You guys are in marketing! You're the creative people! ("creative" used as a pejorative) You can come up with all the ideas we need in order to generate more economic profit!". Wow - why didn't I think of that? There are just so many new opportunities lying around that require no people, no investment, and no assets. In fact, we receive engraved invitations from our competitors on a daily basis asking us to come and exploit these opportunities at their expense.

I am somewhat nervous as I listen to him, because I know that I have to ask him a question. "How can we be the growth engine of the company, and yet be financed like a rickshaw brigade?" (I didn't use "rickshaw brigade"). Well, says Finance guy, finance people have studied spreadsheets for many years now, and have discovered that it's possible to sell lots more stuff without hiring any more people. This is called "leveraging SG&A". Believe it or not, I'm done complaining.

The US beat Mexico today in what I'm sure was an extremely entertaining Gold Cup final. I'll watch it tomorrow morning when I work out. I was sure the US would lose this time, but I was happy to be wrong.

I read something from Nig a while back about the pews being too far from the wall, gifting an escape route to his kids. Thankfully, this is something our new church got right. I know this because every week, we place Kai on the inside between us and the wall, and every week the first thing he does is attempt to wedge his head through the gap between the pew and the wall. Now if our church would only retrofit the pews with chicken wire underneath, we would be set.

Below are some pics of the daddy/daughter campout. Props to anyone who knows what the heck most of these are pictures of.

2007-06-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Due to a number of parallels that are readily visible to any observer, I have decided to start naming my canker sores, hurricane-style. Canker sores will also be rated using a category scale from 1-5. Category 1 canker sores are minor affairs - small sores that cause little pain. Category 5 sores are rediculously large and painful. Because I am bitter, I will retroactively name my worst canker sore ever "Madge" (experienced on my mission in Japan). Easily a category 5, Madge started as a small tingle on the side of my tongue, but before I knew it, she had grown to a size of a shirt button. Madge caused such excruciating pain that I couldn't speak (Japanese or English) properly, since every time my tongue slid past my teeth, it felt like I had been stabbed in the mouth by one of mom's sharp crochet needles. Just last week, I had 2 category 4 cankers inside my lower lip. I think they qualified since they altered the shape of my already-large lips enough that it was obvious to the casual observer. After a night of tense negotiations, merger talks between the 2 cankers (which were right next to each other) broke down, and I was spared a category 5 mammoth. I wish Nigel would hurry up and become a doctor, so that I could embark on some ill-advised trials of anti-tnf drugs to treat what is usually just a minor annoyance.

This past week, I noticed that a dress shirt that I got at the Buffalo Exchange (for $14) was lacking those stiff pointy things that make your collar stay straight. As a result, I had this lame-looking curled-up collar. I was annoyed, and decided to fix the problem by constructing my own pointy stiff collar inserts. I scanned my desk at work for an appropriate material, and found a semi-transparent somewhat stiff plastic CD case. I got out my scissors and made two inserts. After some fiddling around, I finally got them shoved into the little slots on the back of my collar tip. It was later that I realized that it would've been awkward had my boss walked in on my little craft project. Boss: "What are you doing?". Me: "Oh, heh, heh. Well, you know those little stiff inserts on your collar? Do you need any? I can make you a pair, too."

A follow-up on the toilet seat covers. A couple of weeks ago, I walked into the john at work, and found a paper seat cover carefully folded and wedged between the wall and the handicapped handlebar on the wall (why was I using the handicapped stall? It's roomy and nice! Like a mini upgrade to business class). What was the guy who put that seat cover back thinking? Was it "Gosh, I removed a seat cover that I decided not to use. Let me fold it up nicely and put it back so that people who are already paranoid about toilet cleanliness can choose a paper seat cover that appears to be used" ?

Tonight I was getting ready to read Asha a story and asked Jerome if he wanted to join us (he usually doesn't). "No" he said from the top bunk. "What book are you reading?" I asked. "Oh - it's called 'How to Talk to Kids so They'll Listen, and How to Listen so They'll Talk'". He had gotten it from Mari's night stand.

Back when the ladies went to women's conference, Mari wrote out some instructions for Stu that I think are kind of interesting, so I'll paste them below.

- Lock the bathrooms and the master bedroom. Keep the front door locked because Kai can open it and get out if it is not.

- Check the gates, or have Jerome or Asha check them, before letting the babies out.

- Ask Asha or Jerome to watch the babies if you don’t want to be out with them. Don’t let the babies play in the flowerbeds. We just planted tomatoes and strawberries.

- Feel free to say “no” to Jerome and Asha. “I don’t think it is a good idea.” doesn’t work well for them because it suggests that it is just an opinion. They need clear instructions.

- Push Asha to finish her lunch and milk, or you will end up feeding her all afternoon. She is not allowed to eat 1 hour before dinner.

- Asha knows where most everything is and what I usually do. Just ask her if you aren’t sure about Kai.

- Kai’s schedule is pretty much the same as Hannah’s. He takes his nap in our bedroom so Asha can still play in the playroom. Tie his foot and take it off as soon as he goes to sleep (within thirty minutes). If you forget, and I sometimes do, don’t go in anymore because it would wake him up. He sometimes cries during his nap. Most of the time he will just go back to sleep. When he is ready to wake up, he will start talking cheerfully and you will know.

- Asha usually watches one show during Kai’s nap AFTER she reads two pages (Asha thinks it is ONE page because it is one opened page) of Peter and Jane. Have her read it to you out loud. She needs to read another two pages if she talks too much or does silly things. You can remind her about that before she starts.

- If Jerome wants to watch a show, I let him watch one once he finishes his piano practice.

- Please don’t worry about keeping the house clean. I would rather have you and the kids have a good time together.

2007-05-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

An upfront warning. I’m going to write a few things that are regular, boring, blog-type observations, and then this post will lapse unavoidably into my brush with jury duty.

There are few things in this world that infuriate me as much as manipulative telephone support personnel. Because of this, I admit that last week I found myself lying like a cheap rug in a (doomed) gambit to resolve a software glitch that prevented video transfer between my camcorder and our new computer. The problem was this: we have a Hitachi video camera, and I wanted to transfer video from it to our new computer, which we recently got because our old one died (no, I didn’t kill the old one by drilling holes in the motherboard – I only did that once and I learned my lesson). Unhappily, the camera and computer didn’t recognize each other. Far from “plug-and-play”, it was more like “hey, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”. So, I started calling people, googling cryptic error messages, reading obscure tech support strings, downloading drivers, and generally engaging in troubleshooting whack-a-mole. When I finally got on the phone with someone from Hitachi, my fuse had been shortened considerably. The tech dude insisted on confirming all system requirements, before latching on to my OS version as justification for refusing to help me.

Tech Dude: You have OS X 10.4.9, but our software is only compatible up to 10.4.7.

Me: You’re kidding, right?

Tech Dude: No

Me: Do know of any specific reason why 10.4.9 would cause problems?

Tech Dude: Well, not really.

Me: Let me tell you what’s going to happen. I’m going to waste a bunch of time rolling back my OS to 10.4.7, and then I’m going to have the exact same problem.

Tech Dude: I just can’t do anything while you’re on 10.4.9

Me: (Having just decided to lie, I see my next temple recommend interview flash before my eyes) I’m happy to tell you that while you were giving me your last answer, I just completed the installation of 10.4.7.

Tech Dude: You just installed a new operating system in the last few minutes?

Me: Yes

Tech Dude: Well, ok. How much RAM do you have?

Me: How much RAM do you want me to have?

Having exhausted all potential blocking strategies, Tech Dude relents and starts to troubleshoot. Alas, Tech Dude is much better at evasive maneuvers than he is at troubleshooting, and appears to be reading snippets aloud from and out-dated manual for an unrelated product. Even if his latest tack is feigned ineptitude, it works, and I give up on Tech Dude. I did eventually solve the problem, but it took another hour. In a nod to family tradition, I also curse the engineers at Ford.

It was surreal last week when Stu watched my kids so that Marie could go do women’s conference (Stu side note relating to last post– I like “Lawn Gnome”. It’s a great song, but was just over-used by my kids). Watching our kids was a super nice thing for him to do, and I enjoyed “stayin’ up late tellin’ manly stories”. One or two awkward moments, however, couldn’t be helped:

Me: Hi honey, I’m home.

Stu: Step completely away from my personal space.

In fairness to Stu, we need to consider as background the harrowing night he spent splitting a motel bed with Nigel a few years back.

Has anybody besides me noticed that the names on the aisles at the grocery store have been messed with? I was at an Albertson’s last week, and noticed one aisle professed to contain “new age drinks”. The store was essentially saying “we’re not going to tell you what’s really down this aisle, but in order to suck you into more retail space, we’ll label it with confusing names”. This is almost certainly an unwelcome extension of the “milk and eggs in the back corner” ploy. Come to think of it, grocery stores have a perverse incentive to use confusing signage since it makes me visit every corner of the market in order to find the blasted tahini.

I will now complain needlessly about annoying ads. First, the Kay Jewlers jingle – “every kiss begins with Kay”. Can we all please agree that this is presumptuous and not true? Next, that commercial where the kid gets his mom a gift from Best Buy, and she loves it. A helpful Best Buy employee chimes in “There’s a lot you may not know about your mom, but know this: she’s in to electronics”. I’m certain we can also dismiss this erroneous claim. Saying Mom is in to electronics is like saying Dom DeLuise is “in to” portion control. Witness the panic that ensued when the ctrl key was moved, or the rocky transition from Wordstar. I’m quite sure Best Buy knows nothing about my mom. A quick aside: Happy Mother’s Day, Ma!

For some reason, I often do really stupid things. Example one – I often attempt to do stuff like gather up notebooks, pick up my laptop, etc. while holding on to an uncapped pen. This results in lots of solid black graffiti on my dress shirts. I’m sure this allows many of my coworkers to feel mentally superior, given my inability to function without inadvertently writing on myself. Also, I sometimes forget important things when working on cars. Just last week, I checked the oil in my car. Finding it low, I added a couple of quarts. I drove home from the service station, parked the car at my house, and I was troubled to see oil dribbling from the crack between the hood and front bumper. It reminded me of Kai trying to eat too many gummy worms at once. I soon found that I had forgotten to replace the oil cap, so oil was shooting out of the top of the engine. This is similar to the time I was working on the Golf with Dad, and accidentally left a crow bar hanging on a hose underneath the hood. When we discovered it a week later (thankfully with no damage) Dad allowed as how even if I were someday to become a doctor, he probably wouldn’t want to be operated on by me.

We had the Father’s and Son’s campout this weekend. Believe me when I say it’s pretty cushy. The breakfast was put on by our overachieving elder’s quorum prez. The spread included 5 varieties of muffins, strawberries, freshly-squeezed orange juice, hotcakes, sausage, and milk. The EQ prez was hustling around taking care of business and looking smart in his Williams Sonoma couture apron. He took some ribbing for the apron, which one brother called “cute”. On another subject, one elder pitched (for himself and his 2 year old) the largest tent I have ever seen. It could have easily been a facsimile of the Moses-era tabernacle, complete with assembly hall (see picture).

Now, you will be regaled with a lengthy and frivolous account of the day I spent hoping I would not be put on a jury. Warning: there is no point to this account, at all.

I get up at 6am because I have to take the train in to town, and jury duty starts at 7:45. The large jury lounge is packed with other potential jurors by 8:00. We are treated to a video about how being a juror is part of our civic duty, and it’s even kinda fun. A kindly, spry judge who looks to be in his 70’s then addresses us. He scores the joke of the day:

“I was at the checkout line at the grocery store when I ran into a lady who had been on a jury in my courtroom a few weeks before. Her whole face lit up as she said “That was the most fun I’ve had in years!”. “Gosh” I thought, “this lady needs to get a life”.”

I’m intent on napping whenever possible, and this plan goes ok until my name is called and I am told to report to jury services. It seems I have been chosen for an important assignment, no doubt because I appear to be a mild-mannered, responsible citizen. I am to take a fat envelope filled with court documents to room 52 on the 4th floor, north wing, of the country courthouse next door, and join that group for jury selection. I set off, but get lost once I’m inside the building. I ask a man in uniform with a gun where I can find court 52 on the 4th floor. “Well, I don’t really work here…”. Wait. You’re loitering in the hall with a nightstick and gun, and you don’t work here? He thinks about it and starts in again “this is going to sound funny, but it’s going to be on the 3rd floor”. I set off again, but have to stop off at the restroom. This is a weird place. No toilet seat covers, floor is spotless and gleaming, but the cleanliness of the toilet could have been vastly improved had I challenged it to a nee-nu fight. I get to court room 52. We are all shown into the room, and 12 people are placed in the jury seats. The room itself is kitschy. Lots of wood paneling, fluorescent lights, and shelves sagging under the weight of neat rows of books that appear never to have been used. The “Great Seal of the State of California” sits front and center on the wall. I wonder why it is “great”. As I settle into my chair, I look at the defendant. My first impulse is to wonder what she’s accused of (it turns out to be petty theft, a low misdemeanor). She is a slender, diminutive blond-haired woman with a deep tan. She looks to be in her early 40’s. In general, she doesn’t look directly at anyone in the jury area, instead shooting them the occasional furtive glance. That’s not to say she acted guilty. To me, she looks more ticked-off than anything else.

The judge starts in after we are sworn to tell the truth (maybe Tech Dude should’ve made me take an oath). He certainly has the appropriate amount of gravitas, and commands the attention of counsel, the defendant, and potential jurors, addressing us in a rich, unhurried baritone. He’s a retired judge from up north, but is here in San Diego to help out because we have a heavy backlog of cases, and also because he has a child and grandchildren in the area and likes it here.

I glance at the reading material my neighbor has brought. The back dustcover reads: “Jammed with the tensions of imminent disaster. The whole thing unfolds with the timing of a quartz watch” - a far cry from the courtroom drama at the moment. Come to think of it, the only thing that really looks like a TV show is the jury. In most shows, the jury is composed of all different kinds of people, and they just sit there and say nothing. That’s exactly what the 12 people look like now.

The judge is deliberate as he explains everything to us. Stuff like “beyond a reasonable doubt means to have an abiding conviction”, “the defendant doesn’t have to testify”, “the people must prove their case”, etc. In our case, the judge vets the jury, and the lawyers use their preemptive challenges after hearing him do that. He asks for name, occupation, spouse occupation, etc. One lady says here husband is a “systems analyst”. Although I’ve heard this title many times before, I’m again struck by sheer ambiguity of it. What does a systems analyst do? All I know is that there’s some sort of setup somewhere, and that dude kind of takes a look at it.

I’m interested that there are a lot of people who really want to be on the jury. One lady even says “hey, it beats going to work”. A former US attorney and a lady who has a brother in law on death row are both on the original 12. Both are quickly dismissed by the defense attorney. The assistant DA is content with the jury from the start, and doesn’t remove anyone. The defense attorney ousts mostly young guys. In the end, I get my day in court (I leave about 4pm), but I’m never called up to the jury stand. That’s the end of it – I check out and go home. A couple of other observations:

-One time as I was hurrying down the hall toward the exit on lunch break, I glanced to my right and saw two people in shackles waiting in front of an elevator with an armed guard behind them. Although I didn’t slow down, I was still taken aback. It’s the kind of scene I usually see in a film, or on the news. For a split second I caught the eyes of one of the men. He was young, and appeared to be Latino. I thought about it a lot afterward. It’s hard to describe why, but I guess it’s because I was only a few feet from this guy, but our day to day existence could probably not be more different. I live a cushy life. I’ve got plenty of food to eat, a car that works, a job I like, and a loving family that I look forward to going home to every night. I go where I want and usually make my own choices. He was shackled and watched over by a guard. He doesn’t get to decide where he goes or what he does. He spends his days in a cell surrounded by very dangerous people (perhaps he’s one of them). He can’t go where he wants or do what he wants. I learn about how to navigate corporate stuff; he probably learns how to navigate the incarcerated world. I probably still haven’t explained it – oh well.

-It was genuinely interesting to take a break and get sucked into a totally different system where the gears are turning everyday just like they are in the corporate world. In my usual world, it’s presentations, revenues, profits, strategies, products, competitors and the like. In theirs, it’s preemptive challenges, plea bargains, jury instructions, and reasonable doubt (I guess there’s other stuff for civil cases). All the same, escaping did mean that I’d be able to avoid coming home for a week and doing my day job until late. The work still has to get done even if I’m on jury duty.

2007-04-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, there was a slow moment at work, and I found myself staring blankly at my monitor. Excel was up, and I became acutely aware of the little visual cue Microsoft uses to show the user that a cell has been copied/cut, etc. You know - the one that makes it appear that a line of ants is marching tirelessly around the cell in question. First, I find it interesting that there is someone in Redmond (or at least there was when excel was created) who was the ant-line guru. He thought of highlighting cells like this, and researched the right way to do it, and decided which way the ants should march. Or did he? After 5 or so seconds of trying, I was able to convince my eyes that the ants had suddenly reversed direction, and were now going counter-clockwise. I could also make myself see that 2 columns of ants were emerging from the bottom left corner of the cell, marching up to the top right corner of the cell. This pointless exercise was interrupted by a call from my boss, who informed me that we would need to create an intricate revenue model of growth opportunities for our group president to discuss with the board of directors in 2 days. So much for slow moments. Thus began the latest itteration of a time-honored business tradition: the SWAG (scientific wild-a** guess). Managers walk a fine line when producing SWAGs. SWAG too low, and you get no funding. SWAG too high, and the SWAG presentation has the habit of showing up quarters or years later (like an uninvited guest) so superiors can use it for a paddle on your fanny. Because of the expedited nature of this SWAG, we deployed a SWAG escape pod - a slide buried at the end of the presentation loaded with assumptions and caveats. Such slides are almost always discarded by executives as the presentation makes it up the chain of command, but at least we have a paper trail. Enough on that.

This Friday was Career Day at Sundance Elementary. Kids were supposed to dress up as what they wanted to be. Asha was a ballerina. Jerome was torn between being a painter, a scientist and an olympic runner. Wanting to help him with his dilemma, I suggested a perfectly reasonable alternative. "What about being a marketing manager?". Jerome started laughing uncontrollably. "Oh dad", he said "nobody wants to be that". Suggestions (facetious) that he reconsider have been met with repeated doses of incredulity and guffaws.

I was about to quaff a bottle of Gatorade this week when I paused to read the label. One ingredient that caught my eye: "glycerol ester of wood rosin". Wha--? Has Gatorade gone so far as to actually put physical elements of well-known sports scenes into its energy drink? After all, the rosin bag is an obscure but recognizable prop in a baseball game. If they're gonna do it, here are some suggestions for new additives:

Partially hydrogenated zamboni oil
diamond-dry - http://www.diamond-dry.com/
Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lena_Blackburne
Bonds Trifecta - The cream, the clear, faxseed oil
Polyglycerol esters of NBA sweat mop
Mechanically separated pigskin

One thought I've had recently is that I often think of companies as people. For example, I see my last employer as an amiable septugenarian who is nonetheless cruel when you don't expect it. My current company is a little more complex, but I see it as a middle-aged man or woman was aggressive and successful 10 years ago, but is complacently coasting now that he/she is comfortable.

I was sad to hear this week that Mom is having rotator cuff surgery on the other shoulder, now. Time to dust off all the old jokes about Mom making rehab starts for AA West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx, being on a pitch count, etc. I also fear that one day, Mom will have a Jim Hurtubise-style conversation with her doctor, requesting that her shoulders be fused at the proper angle for "planting begonias".

As I was mentioning to Stu the other day, my kid's undying love for his Knogahyde ditty "Lawn Gnome" has begun to sap my productivity at work. As kids are wont to do, they play that track on the CD over and over. Asha has learned how to switch on the "repeat 1 song" feature on our CD player, which has compounded the problem. When I get to work, I have Lawn Gnome going through my head incessantly. It got so bad this week that I was forced to deploy the "Coup de'Tune", a maneuver where I forcibly remove a song stuck in my head by planting a different song. Lawn Gnome being what it is, I had no choice but to use "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. Unfortunately, this may have contributed to the dark tone of many emails I sent to work colleagues on Thursday and Friday.

Not having been blessed with Denzel Washington-like face symmetry, I was glad to have happened upon someone whose ears are at least as unbalanced as mine. The unlucky guy is former Mariners manager Jim Lefebvre, and I can tell you right now, those sunglasses aren't doing much for him. This is the reason I have uneven sideburns. I happened upon Lefebvre while reading an obscure story about how MLB is trying to seed interest in baseball by sponsoring a Chinese baseball team (Lefebvre is coaching).

Kai does some crazy stuff. For some reason, after he is done eating, he pops his right thumb in his mouth, and grabs whatever is handy with his left hand. He uses this object like a miniature blanket, pressing it to the left side of his face. Objects he has cuddled up with in the past week: a slice of sirloin steak, a square of tofu, a molded blob of peanut butter, a piece of chicken, and a soggy pit of nori.

I've been doing some cooking on the weekends. Good stuff so far - a pizza that finally works well, as well as some hamburgers stuffed with goat cheese. Oh yeah - a leg of lamb bbq'd wrapped in rosemary - that was good. That's all for now.

2007-04-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

I will now start writing as if it has not been almost 2 months since I last posted. I find the catch-all word "management" to be annoying. What does it mean, and why does it matter to the average joe? I often seen banners or signs, especially on restaurants, that say "Under New Management". Why is that important? It would be more sensible to say "You know those worthless hacks that used to run this place? They're out and now someone competent is running this joint, so no more hair in your caesar salad". But even in that case, the sign refers to people that the vast majority of patrons have never met. Seems like a waste of money to me.

Also, this week I was in the company john, minding my own business, when I noticed that the paper toilet seat covers have an interesting message printed on their outer package - "Provided for Your Protection by the Management". So, who are these management blokes, and why do they think I need to be protected from things that inhabit their bathrooms? The message also insinuates that the paper toilet seat covers are a regular agenda item at board meetings.

Chairman: Next item - shall we approve expenditure of company funds on an initiative to protect the back sides of employees with disposable toilet seat covers when they use company facilities?

CFO: I for one, restate my continued opposition to such extravagances

COO: Not so fast. Have you been to the head lately? We've got some loose cannons that work here.

I'm sure I'm sharing too much information here, but I bet the seat covers are actually more psychological than useful for preventing public health problems. I only use one if I'm in a bathroom that I think is really dirty (proving that I, too, am irrational). Also, I think there should be a way to manufacture those things so that they don't automatically rip in half as one tries to prepare the cover for actual placement.

As I was leaving for a business trip a month ago I had a lingering cough so I bought a product advertised as an "expectorant". I was supposed to make coughs "more productive". This was encouraging, since I can think of no activity that is less productive than hacking up a lung. However, it didn't work. It got me thinking, though. Maybe they have the definition of expectorant wrong. Maybe it actually means "one who spits". That would make and expectoree "one who is spat upon". Famous expectorants in sports: Ruud Gullit, Terrell Owens, Robbie Alomar. Famous expectorees in sports: Rudi Voller, DeAngelo Hall, and John Hirschbeck. I guess that makes me an expectator, as in: "Dude, I totally saw Ruud Gullit spit on Rudi Voller".

On a related subject, I have also been thinking about low-dignity job titles. I think that "phlebotomist" takes the cake. I have an acquaintance at work that thinks it is "proctologist" (loosely translated: "butt doctor"), but I'll go with "plebotomist". For me, the fact the name is a comical, coincidental approximation of the actual job (going around the hospital putting phlegm into bottles) is the clincher. In researching this subject, I discovered a totally awesome word: sputum.

That's all for now. I do realize that I have hit a new low since this post consisted entirely of references to spit and bathrooms. Sorry.

2007-02-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

So Nigel has inspired me to blog this week. I was reading a post of his that contained certain factual inaccuracies, which I intend to correct. Nigel, it was me who left you to fend for yourself at the top of Beaver Mountain, not dad. In saying it was dad, you have besmirched the reputations of both dad (who does get a bit irrational when it comes to skiing) and me (the 'mean brother'). And no, you can't have any 'Tato Skins.

I will now complain unnecessarily about marketing campaigns that annoy me. Back when we were living in Philly, I was routinely accosted by ad posters featuring disheveled men in pajamas. The copy read "Mondays Can Be Rough", along with the claim that because razor blades begin to dull after 1 week, users should change them that often. Turns out the Gillette Company, not satisfied with their already scandalous profit margins, was attempting to get people to use even more blades than they already do. I had a bad reaction to the campaign, and now take great pride in using my blades for as long as humanly possible. Of course, by the sixth week of using the same blade, it feels like I'm shaving with an emery board, but the sense of accomplishment is well worth the neck rash.

I'm also annoyed my most ads that come from Ford. For example, the mercury milan spokesmodel in the comical bustier-style leather vest with her effusive defense of that particular auto. The message I get is "you'd think a car like this would be crappy, but it's totally not. Really." Also, Ford-owned Saab and the whole "Born From Jets" thing. "Born From Jets"? You vetted thousands of ideas, spent millions of dollars, paid the ad agency even more, worked late into the night amidst lots of crumpled-up pieces of paper, and all you could come up with was "Born From Jets"? How about "Born From the Jets", which could either refer to the Tongan/Mormon 80's pop group, or the hapless NY football club.

This week I overheard a good old fashioned throwdown in a cubicle in the next isle over. In my book, a throwdown requires 2 equally overconfident people to take opposing positions on a factual subject that can be easily researched to determine who just made a fool of himself. One guy was a technical writer (Guy 1) trying to get the other (a product manager - Guy 2) to get all the mistakes out out of a user manual before he started revising it. Guy 1 insisted that the old manual was riddled with mistakes. Guy 2 insisted it was not, and asked for an example. Guy 1 made the preposterous claim that the customer service phone number on page 1 didn't even connect users to the service center. Guy 2 claimed that they could call the number, push "3" and get help. Inevitably, they decided to call the number and settle this thing once and for all. I listened as they put the call on speakerphone and dialed the number. Well, option 3 came and went with no help for Guy 2. In true throwdown style, Guy 2 was required to explain why it was rational to take the position he did, even though he was mistaken. Also, Guy 2 spent some time later in the day trying to figure out who had screwed up the customer support phone options, but nobody seemed to know.

That's enough for this week, I guess.

2007-01-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

Last Post - 11/19

'Tis sad to say. We are all getting back into the swing of regular life after a Christmas where we had Mari's mom and sister here. I went back to work on Jan. 3. Day 1 back to work after a break is always a struggle, but by day 2 was a lot more productive. I decided to take Thu and Fri off, though, in order to do family stuff with the in-laws, who were going home on Saturday. We all had a great time, visiting Balboa Park on Thursday and Sea World on Friday. Unfortunately, by the time we sent them back to Japan on Saturday and I got into work this week, my momentum had vanished, and I had to claw my way back to productivity throughout the week. The lingering melancholy after some big fun thing is always the same: I have to get used to the little pleasures of life as opposed to the big ones that I was enjoying only a few days earlier. Say, a well-written piece on NPR during the drive home as opposed to spending time with family members I haven't seen in a couple of years. Now is a busy time at work, though, so that helps.

Today we had some good news on the nursery front. Recently, Kai's steadfast refusal to be reasonable about nursery had become a problem. Mari and I both teach in the primary, so Kai really does have to go. In spite of that, he is clingy and screams his head off when we leave. Complicating this is that, as everyone knows, there are 2 kinds of nursery leaders: the kind that kick the parents out and the kind that pine for them to stay when signs of resistance emerge. Ours are of the latter persuasion. In any case, we pulled out all the stops today, and came armed with his blanket and many bags of fruit snacks. I gave these implements to a bro. who serves in the nursery and told him to bribe Kai as necessary. It all went off without a hitch, which is a big relief - we just need to bring enough fruit snacks every week.

It's the time of year when I frequently hear co-workers discussing their new diets. Overheard: "I'm on South Beach"; "I'm on 1500 calories a day"; "I am allowed to eat 2 of these pita chips when I get hungry". These seasonal cycles can also be seen at Costco, where the crates of Belgian chocolates have been replaced by elliptical trainers.

Well, that's it. If I'm really ambitious, I might post some pictures later tonight. That is probably wishful thinking, though.

2006-11-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

12870 Sundance Ave. - We Hardly Knew Thee

My last post was on October 8, but seriously, cut me some slack, people. This has been a busy time for us. Here is a short history.

October 13 - I take teachers quorum boys on a campout to the beach. This campout is roughly 100 times better than the one the boys planned last spring, where we went to the sand dunes. On that campout (if you will recall) we left way too late, arrived at the dunes at about 10pm, played on the dunes for about 30 minutes, went to sleep, woke up, ate raw bread because nobody had brought a stove to cook the french toast, decided it was too hot to play any more, and went home. The reason the campout is so good is that we did not allow the boys to play any aspect of it. After getting to the beach and pitching tents, I make a nice dinner for me and another leader of sirloin steak fajitas, and we chat amiably around the camp fire while the boys tire themselves out running around. At about 11:30 it begins to rain (this is the first time it has rained in the last 6 months), but this convinces the boys that they have nothing better to do than to go to sleep. The next morning is bright and crisp, and I get in a nice daybreak surf session with another leader who has brought his board. We return to the camp and have a tasty french toast and bacon breakfast (not raw), and get in some more surfing and body boarding (the waves were quite nice). Then we play an enjoyable game of beach football, strike camp, and go home.

October 18 - We leave for Pullman to go to Gillian's wedding. The whole weekend, while kind of hectic, turns out to be great. Staying at Karine and Bryan's house really makes our time there enjoyable, and our kids can't get enough of all the fun things to do there. The reception and wedding come off nicely, and everybody seems pretty sane. It's gratifying to be in the temple with my whole family. Saturday turns out to be an amazing fall day (bright and warm), and the Cougs whip Oregon to put the icing on the cake.

October 28 - Knowing that we have to move the following weekend, we begin to pack all of our belongings. The packing is what really takes a lot of time. We make good progress, but moving is truly an unpleasant undertaking. The realization that our tenure at each successive location for the past 7 years of our lives is trending downward makes us even more uncomfortable. Please refer to the graph at the right. Under current projections, we will only spend 4 months at our current address, and can expect to live at the next location for negative 54 days.

November 2 - The moving process begins in earnest, complicated by the fact that Asha and then Kai become sick with hand, foot, and mouth disease. I rent a Uhaul in Escondido (they are the only shop with one available because it's the beginning of the month). I soon realize why they have a truck available (it is a really bad part of town). I realize that it is a bad part of town when a sketchy dude walks into the convenience store while I am waiting and buys a single cigarette. The lady tells me that if I leave my car in the surrounding neighborhood, it will probably get stolen. I have no option, though. Stu is super nice, and helps me move some things on Friday that we don't necessarily want the Elder's Quorum to (man)handle. The Relief Society had moved our kitchen on Thursday, and that was really helpful. On Saturday, only 3 guys show up from EQ to help, but I had done most of it already with Stu and on my own, so we were done in a couple of hours. Marie and I clean our old house, and are finally done. Oh, by the way, Marie got super sick on the preceeding Wednesday. On Sunday, I teach Marie's class so she can stay home with Kai. On Monday, I plan to come home after a half day of work to help get the house set up. Marie's throat is hurting really bad, so she goes to the doctor, where he tells her she has strep. I am feeling crummy, too, and can't help with anything because I'm sick, too (strep). I stay home from work for 3 days, and finally return to work on Friday. We basically dig out on the following weekend, and only start to feel like we are getting our heads above water in the past week.

That's all for now.

2006-10-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

It's been almost exactly a year since I came to San Diego for a conference my old company asked me to attend. It's wierd to think back to that time - I was excited to see Stu and his family, but thought the recruiting at the conference would just be a waste of time. San Diego seemed to be something of a dream: crisp, crystal clear mornings gave way to sun-drenched days in the low 70's, as if Mother Nature woke up every morning, wandered over to the thermostat, and bumped it up to room temperature. Just the fact that I was in San Diego was a fluke. The conference was supposed to be in New Orleans, but plans obviously changed after Katrina. I had been looking at a job in San Diego, and on a whim, dropped my contact at the company an email before flying out. I said that I'd be in the area, so why not try and meet. It all worked out in the end, and I met the guy that would eventually hire me, as well as 3 others at my current company.

In the year that's passed since then, I can't help but think that we've been blessed. The reason I wanted to leave Pittsburgh was just that I didn't enjoy going to work every day. I thought that if I were to build a career in the healthcare industry, I'd feel like what I did meant something, and I'd enjoy the market dynamics more. It was an admittedly simplistic view of life. However, I'm 9 months into it, and it's turned out to be mostly true. A lot of the same dynamics exist here as with my old job: extreme cost pressures, the company's inability to execute, complacency, and a huge corporate beast with tens of thousands of employees. Still, the industry is fascinating, and I love being a part of it. That's the difference. For me, the bottom line is that tomorrow's Monday morning, and I'm looking forward to going in to work. Things can change quickly, though, but for the time being I'm thankful for last October and my trip to sunny San Diego.

2006-09-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

Near the end of last week, I was putting the finishing touches on a presentation that my boss's boss would give on Tuesday of this week. When I emailed it to him, his reply confused me, since it suggested that I was actually the one who would give the presentation. A short conversation I had with him later on that day (when I ran into him in the hall) confirmed that I was indeed on the hook for this one. Said turn of events was somewhat disconcerting. The presentation was to be given to a group headed by a pretty important person, (she runs the $2 billion business unit I work for). I knew the material, but that wasn't nearly enough to insure that I wouldn't make a fool of myself in front of these folks. I spent the weekend worrying about it (but not enough to put in a lot of work), and devoted Monday to writing out almost every word I would say and memorizing it. Incidentally, my boss was taken aback when he found out that I had been given the task, perhaps thinking I had been needlessly thrown to the wolves too soon. He was really supportive, though, and gave me some useful advice.

In the end, the presentation went much better than I could've hoped for. It was intimidating to stand there in front of 10 people (most of whom I didn't know, and all of whom are at least 15 years older than me) and go through my slides. At the same time, it was a great adrenaline rush to have prepared well enough to know the material, and answer questions adequately. The mood wasn't aggressive at all, but I could see how the wheels might fall off if something were to go wrong. The most surprising thing was how much people had to say. I was talking less than half the time, and the lively discussion definitely helped things go better. In the end, I was glad it was over, but it's the kind of experience I need if I'm going to make progress.

Organizationally, things are still up in the air. I will know more in a couple of weeks, but chances are that I will become part of a new group that's being formed with pieces from both businesses that are being combined. That would mean a new boss, and mostly new co-workers. I'd prefer to stay with my current boss for various reasons, but I've talked to him about it, and I think it will work out ok either way.

The day of the presentation, we signed a new lease for a house 5 minutes north of where we live right now. It's a great home, and will be better than where we live right now for about the same money. Mari did a great job of finding it. That's all for now.

2006-09-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

Asha and her friend Kayla

2006-09-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

We went in to check on Asha, and saw only this - an empty bed. She decided that the baby bed (which we had retrieved from the garage for her baby doll) was more "cozy".

2006-09-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

2006-09-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to use Labor Day to visit the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier that's been turned into a museum near downtown SD. The Midway was in use from 1945 to 1992 or so, and (among other exploits) took in about 7000 evacuees during the fall of Saigon. The self-guided tour was absolutely fascinating - a definite don't-miss if you're ever in San Diego. I have to say, though, that life aboard the Midway looked pretty rough. The highlight of everyday life appears to have been fruit loops in the mess. I work with a guy that used to be in the Navy. He said the hardest thing about the long deployements was living in a confined space with guys for whom personal hygiene was an oxymoron. On the ship, they had lots of different eating spaces - one for elisted men, two for officers (clean shirt and dirty shirt wardrooms), etc. The audio tour explained that the pilots tended to hang out in the dirty shirt wardroom so that they could sprint off to the flight deck if need be. I was talking with Jerome this week about our visit to the Midway, and asked if he remembered who was likely to be found in the dirty shirt wardroom. He replied - "the dirty shirt wardroom was usually used by pirates. Wait, wait - I mean PILOTS". We all had a good laugh.

On Friday, we went to the Sock Hop - a PTA fundraiser . We thought it would be a drag, but the kids had a blast. The kids just had a free for all in the middle of the room, bouncing around to Oldies, while the parents hung out on the edges and talked. Kai caused problems, though, since he seemed drawn, as if by tractor beam, toward the mosh pit at the center of the floor, where 5th graders 10 times his size were making merry with inflatable guitars and hula hoops. Oh, and he made numerous attempts to eat flattened pieces of popcorn off the floor.

On Monday we signed a new lease with our landlord. It will enable us to move somewhere else with 10 days notice, but will allow the landlord to show the home to potential buyers, and ask us to leave with proper notice if someone buys the house. For this, we negotiated $600 off our rent, so the longer we're here, the better. The reason our landlord has to sell the house is that he paid $690k for a $575k or so house in a shady real estate deal. Interestingly enough, the guy that sold our landlord this house was featured prominently on national newscasts a couple of weeks ago when he attacked an investigative reporter who was trying to expose his scams. Anyway, the mortgage is now upside down, and he can't make the payments anymore. A bad deal all around, because we would have been happy living here for a long time.

That's all for now.

2006-09-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so the Cougs took a beating. It was obvious that Auburn was the better team, and that our defense was overmatched. I kind of expected it. I see the game as a positive, though. Point one is that we're better than last year, especially in the defensive secondary. True, Auburn broke off 10+ yard running plays at will, but that was true last year, too. Unlike last year, though, the cornerbacks didn't give up an embarrassing number of big play touchdown passes (their longest pass play came on a coverage mix-up). Also, I don't think most PAC-10 teams will have offensive lines as talented as Auburn's. On the offensive side, Brink still showed no ability to go over the middle for more than 10 yards. He did, however, rediscover his penchant for throwing long E-W passes that are intercepted at inopportune times. Will the Cougs win the PAC-10? No. Can they give any team in the PAC-10 a run for their money? I think so. Can they beat a resurgent, Dennis Erickson-led Idaho? Only time will tell.

Upon discovering that Kai had taken a 1/4 full container of Krispy Rice and spread it over the living room floor, I was left to ponder the various categories of messes that can and do exist in our house:

1. The easy mess - the Krispy Rice falls into this category. It looks kinda bad, but just grabbing the vacuum and wheeling it around in the general area does the trick. It's so easy, it feels like a vacuum cleaner demo. It takes longer to wind up the cord than it does to clean up the mess.

2. The kid-ok mess - this is one where, for some reason, the kid who made the mess is able to clean it up when commanded to do so. An example from our house would be the play-dough set or the duplos. Having a container specific to the items creating the mess is obviously key.

3. The 1hr 15min mess - When we have people over to our house, it is always in an unpresentable state until we give it a thorough clean-up. This will always take us about 1hr and 15 minutes. We pick up all the stuff, vacuum the floors, and clean the bathrooms (chief among all social faux pas is allowing guests to use a bathroom which shows any signs of having ever been used for activities that bathrooms normally accomodate). This usually takes about 75 min. After the guests leave, the house usually still looks nice - a fringe benefit of having people over.

4. The "Rome wasn't cleaned in a day" mess - This is a type of mess that can't be tackled in one or two attempts. It must be gradually beaten into submission by 10 or 15 sessions. Because of this, such messes are best housed in non-public, low-traffic areas. For us, this area would be the garage. Our garage is actually doing ok at this point, and we are glad we saved the cardboard boxes from our move here because we're gonna be moving again.

5. The "I will never forget this mess" mess - This kind of mess will forever be burned into our psyches, and cannot be revisited without groans of digust. One such mess would be the time when we spilled a 2 gallon container of Kirkland liquid laundry detergent in the kid's bathroom of our Philadelphia apartment. Somehow the jug, which had been sitting on the sink, fell to the floor, cracking the cap on one of its spouts. The stickly liquid oozed and spread over the entire bathroom floor. In its super-concentrated form, the detergent was nearly impossible to clean up. Washing the detergent-soaked towels out in the sink just made huge mounds of suds, and they didn't pick up much of the stuff to begin with. I finally fashioned a makeshift squeegee out of a flexible plastic folder-cover, and scraped the offending material off the floor. The bathroom did always smell good after that. For mom, a certain honey container in the grinder room comes to mind.

Ok, that's enough. Work is still great, but my company is constantly reorganizing and changing itself. To that end, 2 businesses (one of which I work for) are being combined, and I'm not sure I'll be able to keep working for the boss I have now. That would be really disappointing - he's the kind of guy I love working for, and I have a lot to learn from him. We'll see how it goes.

2006-08-20T23:16:00.000-07:00

Stu and Asha at our picnic at La Jolla Shores.

Jerome plays catch

Proof that my ear wax drops and eye drops really do look about the same

From about a month ago- We went to see the sand castles in Imperial Beach w/ Stu and Adrianne.

2006-08-20T23:10:00.000-07:00

Jerome took off shirt (too hot) and donned goggles (soda-can chicken BBQ was too smoky)

We found Asha sleeping in the Tee-Pee on Saturday night

Our first attempt at beer-can chicken (with a soda can) - the can is what's keeping the chicken upright.

Kai at La Jolla Shores

2006-08-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

Asha warms up after body boarding.

Kai insists on getting the corn off the cob himself.

2006-08-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

I just read Nigel's zoo post, and I have the exact same feelings about the museums in Europe. Invariably, there are 50,000 people pressed up against the usher's rope in front of the Mona Lisa contorting their bodies to try to fit themselves and the painting into a snapshot. They all have the same attitude: "I've flown 5,000 miles to get here, and I'll be damned if I'm going home without proof that I set foot in front of the world's most famous painting". It is comical to enter places like the Sistine Chapel, and see the anguish on the tourist's faces when they're confronted the "no photographs" sign. Going through their minds: "Sheesh. If I had known I couldn't take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, I wouldn't have booked this vacation in the first place". As Marie just reminded me, Derek Harris reserved his place in the Pantheon of Needless Picture-Taking years ago when he took a picture of every single Rose Parade float on January 1, 1998. Adding to this feat is the fact that it required tons of film - the digial camera really hadn't been invented yet. If you're reading this Derek, you're a great guy - just a little shutter-happy.

This week, I heard 2 radio commercials back-to-back that caught my attention. One was from the California Assiciation of Realtors, and the other was from the Yellow Pages. Both industries attempt to make potential customers so afraid of not using their services that they will pay arbitrary sums of money for benefits that are debatable. Both are industries that are hopelessly inefficient, and may be completely undermined in the near future (or so I hope). The Yellow Pages are just silly. First, most people don't even use them anymore. Second, there are a few different companies out there that spend millions of dollars proclaiming that they are superior to the "other" phone book outfits. Then, they pepper my house with all manner of thick, ambulance-chaser-laden phone books. I will either toss them into the recycle, or use as booster seats. BTW - the only reason they advertise is so that they can comfort the unlucky businesses who purchased advertising in their pages. Consumers absolutely do not care, but if an advertiser hears "yellow book" and that's who they happen to use, it can certainly trigger warm fuzzies.

If the yellow pages are a minor annoyance, Realtors are like a disturbing infectious disease that has run totally out of control. Last year, Realtors hauled in $60 billion in commissions, while delivering only a fraction of that amount in value. They do this by preying on the fears of buyers and sellers, and operating a virtual cartel (I didn't arbitrarily apply that word "cartel" - it was used by the Consumer Federation of America). It is about this point in an anti-realtor rant that most people admit "there are some good realtors". While that may be true, it doesn't excuse the fact that on a (let's say) $500,000 deal, no 2 realtors in the world could contribute $30,000 in value, but that's how much they get paid. I'm rooting heavily for companies like Redfin, BuySide Realty, and BuySelf Realty. They may not do it, but somebody will surely visit creative destruction on this industry during the next 10-20 years.

2006-08-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

We bit the bullet and got California licenses this week. We were supposed to do this within 10 days of moving to the state, and let's just say it may have been a little longer than that. Our reason for procrastinating is obvious - going to the DMV is slightly less enjoyable than being fitted for orthodontia. At least the orthodontist give you straight teeth. The DMV gives you nothing but brusque, middle-aged ladies who have been jaded by centuries of working at the DMV. They seem to come from a parallel universe, and (recalling Dave Barry's opinion of lumberyard employees) probably scurry back out of the light at 5pm, only emerging from their underground abode when the building opens at 9 the next morning. I shouldn't say such things - one lady actually changed one of the answers on Marie's written driving exam so she could get a passing score (she didn't study), and we emerged from the building after 2 hours as the proud owners of 2 California licenses and a new registration for our van. In order to secure said items, we had to bring:

1. Checks (NO CREDIT CARDS!)
2. Old car registration
3. Proof of insurance
4. Old car title
5. Old Pennsylvania licenses
6. Marie's green card
7. My passport
8. Our marriage license
9. Smog testing certificate for the car
10. Acceptable eyesight

It probably would have been easier to just wheel our Ikea filing cabinet in the front door. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't ask for my entire dossier from Mom's computer room desk. You know - the one that has our 7th grade report cards in it. Now, we can never leave California - the switching costs are just too high.

Tuesday night was Mormon night at our hometown San Diego Padres' Petco Park. We saw the flyer at the church building, and thought "wow - what could be more fun than that?". So I bought tickets ($10 each) and we even got Stu and Adrianne to come with us. All was good until we actually sat down in the seats. Kai was a holy terror - just like he is at sacrament meeting, but worse since at sacrament meeting there are no pistacio shells to pick up off the ground and eat. Asha insisted on sitting on our laps, reminding us that she is a powerful 40lb. package of pain. Jerome, accustomed to a certain standard of luxury at Aunt-T baseball games, brokedown over the strict "no snacks" regime we implemented. To make matters worse, the game was a 1-0 pitchers duel lost by the Padres. I have successfully weaned myself off of baseball over the past 3 years, so I guess it was good not to even feel any stirrings of interest during the 5.5 innings of our baseball odyssey. Oh well - you live and learn. Next year we will not be fooled so easily.

Last night I went into the bathroom to administer some allergy eye drops because my eyes were itchy. Unfortunately, I confused the eyedrops with another identically-sized squeeze bottle. I am happy to report that my right eye is now totally free of ear wax. I put the drops in, and immediately noticed something was wrong. My eye was burning, well, like I had put Muriene in it. I flushed it out in the sink just like they taught me in chemistry class, and all was fine. I guess I'll be checking the label a little more carefully next time.

Below: baseball game, and Asha helps cut cucumbers in the kitchen.

2006-07-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

We have now gone from being a 4 computer family to 3. One of the computers left standing is the one I'm using now (Marie's). It was purchased for $400 about 4 years ago when we realized that one desktop wasn't big enough for the both of us. We also have the Fujitsu laptop, which my father-in-law bought me for b-school. It has miraculously survived various trips, and is barely hanging on to life, given its overmatched Crusoe processor. I also have my work computer, which is always around. It works well on our wireless network around the house. Marie is using it right now, since it's easier for me to blog on her computer.

My desktop, which was purchased in 2000, and was quite the machine at that point, finally died two weeks ago. Actually, I accidentally killed it with my can-do (read: ill-advised) approach to computer maintenance. It all started a couple of months ago when the computer started making this loud, annoying, repeditive beeping noise in the middle of computing sessions. I have no idea why it did this, and after restarting failed to remedy the problem, I ripped off the cover and searched the motherboard for the offending buzzer. I thought I found it, and after shutting down, I drilled a hole in one of the places in the motherboard where I thought the buzzer was soldered in. No dice. I tried to just ignore the beeping for another two weeks, but I couldn't take it, and drilled 2 more holes in the motherboard just to try to kill the buzzer. Well after that, (surprise, surprise) the computer wouldn't boot up any more. It's not a big deal, though. I just slapped all the useful components (hard drive, DVD-RW drive) into Marie's computer, and use my work computer a lot more than I used to.

The heat wave finally broke this week, and we are enjoying a run of 75-78 degree days.

This week I sat through 4 days of meetings, and was taken aback at the prolific number of truly bad doodlers there are in this world. I happened to see a few of the pads people left after the meetings, and they definitely should have disposed of their artwork before leaving to catch their flights. Come up with a system, people! Get with the program! Draw a series of squares and make little patterns in the squares (for example) - it's really not that hard. I know Tamsin to be an excellent doodler. Maybe she could give lessons.

Here are a few pics from this week.

2006-07-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

A couple of Stu notes - first, he was exceedingly happy to see me produce the Colin-towel from my trunk after our Saturday morning body board session. Although he asked me how I got it, I really don't know.

Also, he invented a really good word on the spot - "Pseudity" to describe the kind of nudity that is disguised in the cloak of artistic expression but is nonetheless embarrassing and lame. He was describing the time when he took a date to see "titanic".

2006-07-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

Out of the frying pan and into Poway

Poway is a nice little community on the other side of I-15 from us. Its downtown is maybe 5 miles from our house. On Saturday, I noticed that our car needed some gas, so we ventured over to their Costco instead of the Carmel Mountain one (w/no gas pumps) that's a little closer. We knew it would be hot over there, but were rather dismayed to be driving down the main drag and see a bank thermometer proclaim that it was 120 degrees F. When we got to Costco, I stepped out of the car to fill 'er up, and felt like I was in the Costco rotisserie chicken roaster. Inside the store, Marie overheard one woman telling another that it was 111 at her house, and she was going to hang at Costco for the next 4 hours until it closed. When we had finally purchased our groceries and breached the air curtain to go outside, I recall feeling like we had just been hit with a huge wall of car exhaust. This turned out to be rather humorous since, as I was loading our pile into the van, I actually felt the exhaust on my shin, and it was cooler than the ambient temperature. Back at our house, it was a 'comfortable' 90 degrees, although combined with our current 70% humidity and no AC, it's pretty bad. We're told that it's almost never this hot or humid. The temperature gradient is very real, though, and San Diego County has lots of microclimates. The coast is nearly always in the 70's, with the temperature variation increasing by the mile as you go inland. The nightly ritual of getting air to circulate through the house has made me pine for Dad's fan-on-steroids device that we used at 800 Fisk. Remember how that thing could slam the sewing room door? It's a wonder the door didn't get ripped off its hinges and sucked into the air intake.

On Monday of this week, I tested the limits of the Costco return policy, and came away considering a Costco ankle tattoo. It will surprise none of my non-Tato-skin-eating family members to know that I make questionable purchase decisions. For some reason, on the drive home from work on Monday, serious buyer's remorse hit after owning a $1200 Vizio 37" LCD flat screen TV for about 2 months. I just decided that for the time being, the TV might be considered riotous living. Many of you may be wondering "what made Scott buy it in the first place?". The answer is that 2 months ago, we had just finished a rather difficult english-japanese translation for my dad-in-law, which made me feel like we had some extra dough. Oh yeah - the world cup was about to start, too (we had just gotten digital cable for the occasion, which we then canceled last week). So we loaded up the TV into the car, and with no receipt, successfully returned it to Costco. The employees weren't exactly overjoyed to see it being wheeled in, but they took it anyway, and in the end, were nice about it. It is sometimes a humiliating experience to return stuff, and this was no exception. I'm kind of getting the hang of it, though. In the last 6 months, I've returned a prepaid cell-phone, a juicer, DVDs, a DVD burner, and a color printer. I know I may be a marked man, now, but Costco is basically the only place we shop, so I think they still make money on us.

Here are some random pictures from the beach last week. Kai is eating sand (as usual), and Jerome is making the obligatory 'tunnel'. Mari used an innovative technique for removing sand from the kids which involves talcum powder (see pic where Asha's crossing her eyes.

2006-07-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since my last post (have I said that before?). I hasten to add that my last post was on June 4, a mere 5 days before the World Cup. I still feel it is one of the few events that it worth turning your life upside down for. I have a few observations that I'm going to share, whether you like it or not.

1. As a US fan, I watched the team for 270+ minutes, and was actually happy for 3 of them. Those 3 minutes occurred after Clint Dempsey put one in on Ghana, and before the referee whistled Oguchi Onyewu for a foul on a shameless dive in the box, awarding Ghana a penalty that essentially sealed the US's fate.
2. It was nice to see the teams that were actually good at soccer playing deep into the cup. None of this Senegal, South Korea, Turkey, Greece (see Euro 2004) stuff. If I'm watching the world cup, I want to see the Italys and Brazils of the world in the quarters, and we did.
3. Can we please get instant replay into world cup football? Before all the purists erupt into violent spasms of protest, let me say that I too see game 'flow' as sacred to the sport, so lets only consider options that won't interrupt flow. For example, if a penalty is awarded, play has already been stopped. We at home already get to see the foul from 3 or 4 angles in less than 30 seconds, so why can't a ref? Check quickly for a dive, and then let play resume. Another option that wouldn't interrupt flow at all would be to let play continue after fouls, but have a 5th referee review replays of fouls to award yellow cards after the fact for obvious dives. I would estimate that perhaps 10% of fouls in this cup could be termed as blatant play acting, and were clearly so upon review of the tape. Same thing in offside non-calls resulting in goals. Play has stopped because a goal has been scored. Just take 10 or 20 seconds while the celebration's happening to confirm that everyone really was onside.
4. Everyone has to have an opinion on Zidane, and I guess I do, too. My take is that his exit didn't hurt the French at all. Barthez is a spaz in goal, and kind of short to boot. The French probably weren't going to score in the game's final 10 minutes anyway, so even if Zidane makes the penalty that Trezeguet missed, there's no way that Italy misses before France does (remember that Roberto Baggio has not been with the Azzurri for some time now). Zidane's head butt is inconsequential, but useful for giving Zidane more noteriety than he had, if that's possible.
5. Why fire Arena? He's gone anyway, but let's be realistic and say that there's no way anyone else will do better. The only thing a Klinsmann will do is produce a mirror image of what happened in Germany this last world cup, where vast hoardes of Klinsmann skeptics were instantly transformed into true believers when he won (and made a soccer team that was fun to watch). These people then bawled like they had been forced to eat Schneeballen when Klinsi up and quit last week. The mirror image refers to my prediction that everything will happen in reverse - a small band of soccer fanatics will be giddy upon the hire of Klinsmann. Gradually, the team will fail to produce results and Klinsi will turn giddy supporters into skeptics who cry when they realize that Sunil Gulati gave truckloads of money to Klinsmann and now can't fire him for fear of hurting his own credibility. Oh, and don't get me started on how bad it will be if Gulati picks an MLS coach to head the team. That's what Areana was, too, but Arena is Arena.

Well, I got through soccer and nothing else. This is sad, since I really don't know anything about the sport, but have strong Campbell-style opinions anyway.

2006-06-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

For some time now, I've felt that what the world really needs is a new commute car. Why does the world still not have a car that:

- Seats only one person
- Is only 1 person wide
- Is battery powered with a range of maybe 80 miles
- Costs less than $20,000
- Is as safe as your standard SUV

I kid you not - I would buy that car today (if it existed and I had any money). Instead I am forced to look at dog ugly wonders of the design world such as:

The Hyundai Santa Fe - very ugly

The Acura MDX - non-descript blob of a car

Lexus RX300 - Who allowed this car to be made?

There are a number of very cool cars in this world. Most of them happen to be little cars made in Germany. They include:

Plenty of muscle in a tiny car - truly beautiful. Great commercials, too ("sometimes my fast and my girlfriend don't get along", and "un-pimp your ride").

Audi A3 - has just recently started showing up on US roads.

Smart ForTwo - All over Europe, tiny, great gas mileage, what's not to like? Who cares if Smart is a hopelessly doomed money-losing venture by Daimler. As long as they're making cars, export them to the US and let me buy one. Oh yeah, make it run on diesel, too, please.

I hasten to add that there is a company that claims that they have a solution. I would buy this car if it didn't cost $100,000. (click here to see why George Clooney likes this car)

Enough car ranting. Some random pics from this week below.

2006-05-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

The more I shop at Costco, the more I realize that there are really two kinds of treat ladies (I say 'ladies' because I have only seen one guy in the many years I've been shopping there). The first kind makes the treat stand run like a well-oiled machine. She has 2 or 3 trays goin' in the toaster oven, and the plastic tray with bite size samples is always generously stocked. One need not even halt the rolling wheels of the gargantuan Costco shopping cart to sample the garlic buttered shrimp. Then there are the treat ladies that are always causing cart pile-ups and shopping delays because they cannot or will not churn out the DiGiorno slices fast enough. They fidget with the toaster oven controls, fastidiously check lineage of each child hoping for a sample, and keep a tray of empty napkins in the bullpen, waiting to emerge with pizza slices, should they ever show up.

This week at work, I witnessed two phenomena that often occur in presentations, and they caught my attention for some reason. The first is the urge for a presenter to ask (after spending an hour or so speaking) "has this been useful?". This is typically asked by an important person after he/she has given a highly esoteric talk to a room full of silent employees. Regardless of the situation, this question breaks the employees out of their trance, and the presenter hears a jumble of comments like "of course" and "sure it was", as if anyone would be crazy to think otherwise. It's as if we're going to audibly mumble "complete waste of time" or "I'd rather have been filling out HR benefit election forms in my cube for the last hour". The second thing is the concept of the "hard stop", as in "we have to wrap up in 15 minutes because I have a hard stop at 4:00". This makes a mockery of our ability to manage time in the absence of the "hard stop". It suggests that the meeting organizers would just love to have everything drag on for hours on end, but today will be prevented from doing so by the trotting out of the phrase "hard stop".

This weekend, I finally conquered spare ribs. Back ribs have always been easy - hard to make them anything but tender and good in a little over an hour. However, I have had limited success with spareribs. Probably my best showing was when Mom and Dad visited us in Pittsburgh, but I've only been able to get tender meat inside by burning the outside. This time, however, the grill was just the right temperature, I sprayed the ribs with apple cider every 3o minutes just like Steven Raichlen told me to, and voila! - perfect spareribs. They were amazing. BTW - if you want a BBQ book, get "how to grill" by mr. Raichlen. It's great for beginners like me, and takes you through all the steps w/pics. It got us hooked on bbq during our summer in Evanston. That's about it for now. Pics - Kai trying to see out the front window (on tippy toes). Me stealing Asha's princess crown, Asha in on the swingset with Kai, and Kai in the kitchen.

2006-05-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

This week was also Kai's first birthday. Marie made a banana cream cake that we all enjoyed, and Kai even figured out that there was good stuff inside the wrapping if he tore it open. He did need some help getting it started, though. Jerome and Asha were both really cute about Kai's birthday, and both made cards for him even though Marie and I hadn't told them to. Gma Campbell sent along two presents for Kai, who loved the truck book (the Thomas the Tank Engine overalls were more of a hit with Kai's mom). Kai also was allowed the pleasure of devouring a piece of banana cream cake on his own. As you can he, he quickly got into the task.

To be honest, I can't really think of a lot to write about, but here are a couple of things. On Friday I went on my first campout with the Teacher's Quorum. It was apparent that the Teachers had planned it themselves because the entire plan focused on taking various props to the sand dunes in the desert and riding these props down the dunes. They hadn't taken into account the fact that the dunes are 2 hours from San Diego, so it would be dark when we got there. They planned to camp in approximately the same place as they had 2 years ago when they came to the dunes as Deacons. This would also be the time that they were also almost run over by dune buggies numerous times during the night. After arriving at around 10pm, the boys then insisted that we camp in the same spot. I vetoed this idea, and we went to a different place where folks are actually supposed to camp and pitched our tents. Predictably, the boys stayed up all night, but this had the fringe benefit of having them suggest that we go home at 9am the next morning. Another fiasco that I managed to see coming was breakfast, which was supposed to be french toast. On the way out, we stopped at a truck stop to buy dinner. It was there that I acquired 2 Clif Bars which would serve as a fine breakfast in the event that something went wrong. Well, the Teacher that was supposed to bring the stove didn't actually come, so at 8am while I was contentedly snacking on my Clif Bars, the teachers were washing down chunks of virgin white bread with room temperature apple juice. In case you're keeping track, here's a rundown of the campout stats:
Teachers attending: 9
Teachers shot with airsoft guns: 9
Leaders: 3
IPODs holding songs with profanity: 1 (that I know of)
Total man hours of sleep for leaders: 12 (I got half of that myself)
Total boy hours of sleep: 18
Total meals eaten: 2
Total meals purchased at fast food establishments: 2
Driving time : 6 hours
Time spent actually having fun on dunes: 2 hours

An unrelated realization I made this week: At work, I keep on seeing people that I swear worked at PPG, too. These are people I probably only see once or so a month, and I guess there's a place in my brain where I store that info, and it happens to contain both PPG people and Pyxis people. I can't tell them apart anymore. Of course, I'll probably find out that in addition to myself, there were a bunch of people that worked at PPG headquarters that also quit and moved to SD to work at Pyxis at about the same time as me.

2006-05-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Here we are at Point Loma! On the suggestion of my excellent brother Stu, we all went up to Point Loma on Saturday afternoon. It was a gorgeous day, and we could see all the way up the north coast on one side, and all of downtown San Diego, Coronado Island, and all the way down to Tiajuana on the other. The point is near the spot where Juan Cabrillo is believed to have landed in 1521, becoming the first white guy to visit San Diego.

Jerome plays with a beetle. Unfortunately, this propted Asha to grab an insect for herself. This insect happened to be a bee, and it stung her middle finger. It appeared to hurt pretty bad, but after a few minutes it was ok.

2006-05-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

OK, a few more from Mother's day. Stu made a strawberry tart, and it was really, really good.

2006-05-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

This week, I'm tired. I spent 4 hours writing a talk for church last night, and have no desire to blog. I see this as a temporary affliction. In the meantime, here are some pics from our first real trip to the beach. It was great!

2006-05-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

So, I turned 31 this week. I got lots of presents, including some great flip-flops and board shorts from Marie. I also got this great product from Sony which will finally enable us to transfer all our old camcorder tapes to DVD. There is one minor problem - it doesn't work. It came from Costco, though, so it won't be a big deal to take it back if we can never get it to work. I really wish it would just work, because it's really simple to use - it just makes coasters, that's all. asha. (that last word is the work of Asha, who made me let her write her name in the blog).

This week was also the Fathers and Sons campout, which was held at Lake Jennings. It was only about a half an hour away from our house. There was no shortage of prickly pears, as you can see, but it was hard to feel like we were roughing it when I could look across the lake and see the palatial sub-suburban mansions of San Diego rich folks. The Jack-in-the-Box was only about 3 minutes from camp, and many a Father and Son succumbed to the temptation. In fact, Jerome and I were the only ones that actually cooked our dinner at the site. As if you can have a Fathers and Sons without cooking your own dinner. We had hamburgers.

This is what Asha calls her "mad face'. CTR5 (Asha wants everyone to know that she just wrote "CTR5" on the blog)

This is another picture of Asha, but this one's not her "mad face".

Here are some unrelated thoughts from this week. After seeing the name of one top prospect in last week's NFL draft, I was left to wonder whether D'brickashaw Ferguson has a long lost brother named D'rickashaw, who shows a prodigious athletic ability regarding the pulling of a two-wheeled cart.

Also this week, Marie and I decided to unload our house to a total low-ball offer, which reminded me of when Clint Eastwood's character remarked "There are two kinds of men in this world. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig." We dug. We'll see if we actually close.

2006-04-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

Highlights of my week -

So, I was on the flight back home after attending the "society of competitive intelligence professionals" meeting in Orlando. All of a sudden, the plane started bouncing around like an amusement park ride, and the flight attendants beat a hasty retreat with the beverage cart. It then got even worse, prompting a lady seated right behind me to blurt out "God help us!". The flight attendants appealed for calm, implying that such turbulence is common, but who really knows. The rest of the flight passed without incident.

The meetings were meant to get me up to speed on what I'm supposed to be doing here, but seemed less than useful to me. At the end of the day, on the ball people who are perceptive and listen will do well, and those that aren't probably won't. That's what I learned. I also learned that I will never be as smart as Clayton Christiensen, who gave an amazing talk about innovation and churn in the business world. His conclusion: the only way that traditional companies can hope to survive is to establish autonomous companies with a mandate to kill the parent corporation. Bleak, but very timely given lots of the challenges we're facing at my company.

I had to cringe when I saw an Applebee's commercial with Sammy Davis, Jr. digitally patched in this week. I find it highly objectionable to use dead celebrities to hawk products. Now if someone wants to buy an Elvis shirt, and his estate wants to make a buck on that, so be it. I have no problem with that. I also have no problem with Tiger Woods endorsing Buick, a brand that's way more Sam Snead than it is Tiger. Tiger decided to make a fool of himself. I do have a problem with Applebee's and Sammy's estate deciding posthumously that Sammy prefers Applebee's to Chili's, TGIF, Outback, Olive Garden, and every other lame-0 micro waved food outfit supplied by Sysco (thank you, Tom). Why, during the middle of a commercial, do I have to ponder on how Applebee's and Sammy's relatives hammered out his latest deal? Why is Applebee's stupid enough to think that people won't think about that when they see Sammy in their commercial?

The proliferation of password "help'' questions continues. I've been thinking, and here are some you are not likely to see:

What was the serial number on the first can of soda you ever drank?
How many times were you screened for scoliosis in elementary school?
What was the name of the first store in your hometown put out of business by Wal-Mart?
Who makes up your favorite 2 man luge team?
Why don't you like jazz?

I was called to be the assistant teacher's quorum advisor. The boys are pretty rowdy, but I think I can still beat most of them up - maybe not all at the same time, though.

No pics this week - sorry.

2006-04-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

This week, I finally got around to another task that I've put off for about 2.5 years - taking the Ichthus off our van. This was kind of wierd from the start. The guy we bought the van from in the first place (who was really nice, by the way) had the Ichthus on it, and it wasn't a priority for us to take it off. If, instead, the bumper had read "honk if you're horny" or "bad cop, no donut", you can bet we would have been out there with a razor blade and ammonia on day one. The Ichthus is more complicated. We are Christians, after all. We also respect the origins of the Ichthus, and the legacy of the early Christians who used it to identify themselves. Still, we have gotten our share of funny looks as we leave the church parking lot. We considered ways of modifying the Ichthus (see above) but felt the meaning would be lost on fellow members while also not playing well with fellow Christians not of our sect.

So, I took it off. This also was kind of wierd. Imagine, if you will, a friendly neighborhood Baptist minister having a conversation with his wife- "Bernice, I was driving down the road today minding my own business, and happened on sorry young man scrapin' the Ichthus off his car. Poor boy has fallen pray to the persuasion of the world, lost his faith, and got to the point where he couldn't take it anymore. Saddest thing I've ever seen". Luckily, this didn't happen.
Marie here: How am I going to find our van in the parking lot any more?

(Back to Scott)After dinner this evening we had the chance to take a walk through the canyon behind our house. (The black shade at the top of the picture is the fence behind our house.) It was fun for the kids and us. So far we've been really pleased with the neighborhood and living in San Diego in general. I hope you like my finger in the pic to the left.

Last thought: a coup d'état is defined as the sudden overthrow of a government through unconstitutional means by a part of the state establishment that mostly replaces just the top power figures. A poo d'état is the sudden overthrown of family priorities executed by the youngest member of that family through an unusually large, smelly, or leaky poopie. Kai pulled one off before church today.

2006-04-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

My longstanding procrastination regarding backyard play equipment for our kids ran head-on into Marie's discovery of a guy on craigslist from our neighborhood unloading a used playset for cheep. That's what I spent Saturday doing. As you can see, it all got done in the end, even if I muttered a few choice words at various nuts and bolts that didn't seem to be doing their fair share. We almost didn't get it done, though. I went over to Ricky's house (the guy that was selling it) and he kindly assisted in the partial dismantling of the playset. We then hauled it out to his front yard. Having no rig to haul the pieces over to our house with, I called Home Depot (both of their trucks were out) and then Uhaul (yes, they had trucks and they were 19.99/day plus 1.20/mile). Great, I said, and headed over to the sketchy liquor store/uhaul franchise. There, the loser owner proceeded to say that he had no 19.99 trucks left, only 29.99 trucks. This crock (along with the multitude of signs warning of dire consequences if rip-off insurance is not purchased) affirmed U-Haul's place in a select group of truly disgusting American institutions. Needless to say, I left and drove over to Home Depot. Someone had returned one of their flatbed trucks, which I rented for 19.99 (no per mile charge) thereby saving about $30. Ricky helped me load the playset onto the truck, and we then re-assembled it in our back yard. Asha and Jerome love playing on it so far, and spent some time on Sunday kneeling in front of the patio door staring longingly at the swings and slide.

A quick thanks to Jules for the Flat Stanley letter. This is a picture of an engrossed Jerome reading the letter to Asha. He loved it, and his class was very impressed, not only with the letter but with the fact that Flat Stanley was trapped in a Suburban in some place called Kennewick, WA.

Lastly, the Easter bunny came. I don't know why neither Marie nor I are big sticklers for family holiday traditions relating to the lesser occasions, but everything below Christmas for us seems to be off the radar. Anyway, Jerome mentioned to Marie that he thought that the Easter Bunny didn't really come, and that it was just his dad that had put out all the candy. When asked why, he referenced as proof a comment I made to Marie that Kai probably wouldn't enjoy looking for candy, because I hadn't put any low enough for him to reach. I guess he's gotta find out sometime.

2006-04-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

Fascinating article this week in the Economist on soft paternalism (in other words, the saving of ourselves from ourselves, sponsored by the government and encouraged by everyone but the Cato Institute). For instance, researchers found 2 new ways to make people save for retirement (almost no one saves enough on their own). The first way is to make people opt out of 401K saving when starting a new job, instead of making them opt in. This increases the participation rate from under 50 to over 80%/ Also, if you commit workers to save a certain percentage of future wage increases up front, researchers were able to raise the savings rate for workers from about 5% to over 13%. Some researchers have even suggested ways to get people to quit smoking, like letting people buy cigarettes tax-free for 5 or 10 years, but only if they pay the tax up front in a lump sum. They would pay the same, but the current system makes it easy to start smoking by using a pay-as-you-go structure. If we're going to have sin taxes, might as well have ones that work. Hugh Nibley might say "work we must, but the lunch is free and nutritious and you're gonna eat it". Tough dilemma. Most of us are doomed to failure unless we can be tricked into succeeding, in which case we don't learn anything and succeed in spite of ourselves. I can email the article to anyone who wants it - just let me know.

I've been thinking about what makes a person into a better person. This week, an executive at work talked about how he started out in medical devices over 20 years ago. He's an inspirational kind of guy who's good at motivating and developing people around him; a class act. It made me wonder what kind of a guy he was 20 years ago, and what has he done (or what has happened to him) to make him into what he is today. There's a larger issue here that has spiritual implications. I'm still trying to figure out how one can measure personal progress; how to take a snapshot of my abilities or failings today and dust it off 2 years down the road to see what has changed.

So we went to Legoland. It was good, if only because the kids absolutely loved it. We hatched a crazy plan for bro-in-law Bryan (who was in Anaheim for a tradeshow) to come down to San Diego for dinner on Friday night, leave Kahlin, who would then go with us to Legoland, after which we take Kahlin back up to Anaheim, and drive back to San Diego. Kahlin was great with our kids, who love his intense personality. The only tears were shed by Asha, who failed by 1 inch to qualify for spinning teacups-like ride.

2006-04-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

This week, not much to report.

I do have one pet peeve that keeps on popping up. Could we please all agree on the airplane flight metaphors? There seems to be an unhealthy number of flight altitudes floating around in conversations I hear. For example, I heard somebody say this week "Just give me the 30,000 foot version". I've heard everything from 10,000 feet to 100,000 feet. Frequently someone will really think he or she knows what he/she is talking about, and will throw in an increment of 5000, as in "Well, here's 45,000 foot view of the situation". These are usually silly and pointless. It would suffice to say "cut to the chase", or "just give me an overview". One problem is that people typically use the number they remember from the pilot's announcement on the last flight they took ("We have reached our cruising altitude of 52,000 feet, and I'm going to turn off the fasten seatbelt light"). But if I'm not mistaken, these numbers are always different. Also, nothing looks like much of anything from above 50,000 feet. For me, the views aren't that interesting unless I'm taking off or landing. This means that if I had my choice, I'd prefer the view from 5000 feet, thank you very much.

Also, one thing that has always bugged me about sweaters. They are harsh on my elbow skin. Every time I rest my elbow on a table with a sweater on, it makes a semi-permanent waffle pattern. Besides the fact that this is annoying, it is also mildly uncomfortable. A related point: what's up with the elbow patch on sweaters and blazers, anyway? I have yet to see any article of clothing that has been so abused in the elbows that it would warrant this kind of overkill protection. It's not like all of us wear our nice tweed jackets to play rugby or compete in arm wrestling tournaments. So I've got an idea. Sew the patches on the INSIDE of the sweater elbows. Voila! No ugly elbow patch is visible, and resting of arms on tables is much more comfortable.

2006-03-26T13:35:00.000-08:00

For me, it's nice to look at something at the end of the day and see that I actually accomplished something. When I was working construction for a few short summer months in high school this consisted of digging a ditch or something and then being able to observe the place where the earth used to be, and the pile I made with the stuff I removed. This is one thing that makes starting a new job frustrating. A good example would be spending 4 hours trying to order business cards. It's like ditch digging in a swamp. Thankfully, I was able sit back and scroll through a deck of slides at the end of a day this week and think that I had actually accomplished something - always a good feeling, although I acknowledge that creating a powerpoint deck is not nearly as manly as raising a barn (for instance).

A quick aside - I'm really enjoying my job, and am thankful that I get to do what I'm doing now. The people I work with are great. It may just be that I have lower expectations after my last job, but I think this job is exactly what I wanted coming out of bschool; it just took me a year and a half to get there. A quick aside on that aside - I got word from an old colleague this week that the department I used to work in has been dismantled. Some of my former coworkers have been shipped off to other units, and some are still in limbo. Makes me glad I left.

Fingernails have always bugged me. Whenever I have a lot on my mind, cutting my fingernails just seems like a colossal bother. When they become embarrassingly long, I often have difficulty locating the fingernail clipper, causing me to go a week or more with nails so 'beautiful' that Mari asks if she can paint them.

At work I often have to research companies that we compete with, or that are in adjacent markets. Some of these outfits are based overseas. One annoying thing my brain does - when I find out a company is in England, the voice in my head insists on reading all of their materials with a British accent. What's up with that?

At church today we sang a hymn with a little ditty where only the women sing, and then the men come back in later (He Died, the Great Redeemer Died). There are lots of hymns like this. I hate them. I think they sound bad, and are prejudicial. I have yet to see any 'men only' sections in the hymns. Today our organist, who is a woman but apparently agrees with me, just barged through the offending section, bass notes and all. It was great.

This week's Sunday school scripture reading has been less than uplifting. During reading Genesis, 35-40 or so, I found myself yearning for the comparative calmness and high moral standards portrayed on network TV today. This section of the bible should be referred to as 'desperate concubines of the Pentateuch'. The unsavory-ness of these chapters has only been enhanced by the fact that I'm reading the NIV. With the King James Version, the flowery language is ambiguous enough to sometimes gloss over what's really going on (at least for me). The blunt NIV leaves no such wiggle room. It's nice to finally have Joseph's story roll around.

Speaking of network TV, an actual excerpt (as best I can recall) from a TV show called CSI Miami:
Horatio Caine : Marisol, what's wrong?
Marisol Delko: (staring out huge window) During my fight with cancer, I was trying so hard not to die, I forgot how to live. There are so many things I've never done. I've never traveled. I've never had a baby.
Horatio: Marisol, it's not too late.
Marisol: (In a whisper, as though not daring to believe her ears) What did you say?
Horatio: It's not too late.
Marisol: Oh Horatio, if you say it is true, I believe you!
Horatio: That's because it is true.

As Dave Barry (from Miami!) would say, I'm not making this up. For Nig and Stu – perhaps Clive Cussler is now doing dialogue for CBS TV shows.

I object to the use of the phrase "various and sundry". First of all, it's repetitive (m-w.com says so). Second, it's often used in presentations and talks by someone trying to sound smart. Lastly, if these two words were nation states, "sundry" would be a small, mostly useless protectorate of the word "various". I say this because "sundry" is almost never deployed without being paired with "various". Same goes for "trials and tribulations", although I don't think these two are quite as bad. Props for the person who reads this blog and comes up some more good word pairs.

That's it for now.

2006-03-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting that when one attains a certain position in a company, one can haul off and yawn in one-on-one meetings whenever one feels like it. By "one", I mean "not me" because as a peon in corporate

America

, I have not had meetings with people whom I out-rank. Just this last week, though, I had 2 meetings with VPs at my new company, and both of them were apparently sleep deprived and had forgotten to take their Provigil. So they yawned six or seven times. The implication is that they have been slaving away at their jobs and haven't had time to sleep. In reality, they probably stayed up because they wanted to see Oprah on Letterman. The hard thing about big-wigs yawning is that yawns are contagious. Just by seeing one, or hearing a yawn-moan, or writing about yawns, one tends to yawn (heck, I'm yawning right now). This, however, is unacceptable behavior for small fry like me. It's ironic that if anyone should be sleepy, it's the guy who just pulled an all-nighter to get the presentation ready for the (yawning) execs. I hadn't pulled an all-nighter before these meetings, and was able to suppress.

An anecdote illustrating the importance of marketing: In going to a Japanese restaurant this week, I remembered how two foods that are exactly the same can be perceived in very different ways. For example, Billy-Bob can walk into the local greasy spoon and order pounded, breaded pork deep-fat fried in lard with onion rings. A yuppie can go to the local Japanese food joint, and ask for Tonkatsu with Tempura and get the exact same thing. Both can feel that their food selection is consistent with their own self-image. Great that international cuisine can be so accommodating.

This last week, I went out surfing. Because the waves were really small, I had some time to think. One thing that occurred to me is that boards are really fragile equipment. Here are some things that can be hazardous to a board's health: sun, saltwater, rocks, reef, sand, and heat. These are also the basic ingredients of surfing. It's like having a baseball bat that degrades in the presence of pine tar, skoal, and Stanozolol.

So my family's gone this week and next enjoying sunny Hawaii, while I am stuck in sunny San Diego. This may not seem like a crock to you, but the fact that all the Ohkis are gathered for the annual family reunion there makes me mad that I can't go (gotta work). It's strange that when my family is gone, I turn into a totally different person, not unlike the guy to the left. It's hard to explain, but here are some symptoms:

Inability to leave TV off
Affinity for otherwise objectionable hard rock bands like Creed
Aggressive driving
Inadvisable purchasing behavior (Jack LaLane Juicer was lookin' good yesterday)
Bizarre eating patterns

An episode which occurred mere hours after my family left: Upon returning home Friday night, I ate 9 frozen cookie dough balls Marie (unwisely) left in the freezer, washed them down with some milk (swig taken straight from jug), watched basketball and went to bed.

Enough for today.

2006-03-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

This week, Marie's parents finished their visit and left for the Morinda conference in LA. I am forced to admit two things:
1. I love it when my in-laws come
2. In-law visits can be hazardous to one's health

As usual, we ate way too much, and stayed up way too late each night. The staying up late finally caught up with everyone on Monday evening. After Marie and parents and kids had shopped all afternoon, we had a huge dinner and returned home. On the way back the main van went straight back, but I stopped by the grocery store and purchased duraflame - a synthetic wood-like log substitute that's great for people w/fireplaces like us. I figured it would be perfect for Mari and Mom because they like sitting around and talking late into the night. Also, Mom and Dad had already expressed fascination with our non-fake fireplace. So I put the log into the fireplace an light it. No sooner is it away crackling contentedly than the dancing amber flames trigger a long-overdue narcoleptic episode among those gathered. I'll remember this for next time - a useful trick for times when we really should go to sleep but wanna stay up talking.

Visiting us has also been hazardous for my Mom in law. She saw our "ab-lounge" and wanted to give it a shot. Mari warned her to take it easy, but to no avail. She ended up doing quite a few crunches, which it turns out, has given her severe abdominal pain while she's been in LA this week. Kinda reminds us of the time she paddled out in double overhead surf at "tracks" in Hawaii. Or for that matter, the time she put our treadmill through its paces at our apartment in Philly.

One interesting note on Jerome. We caught him writing a letter to Jerome Bettis this week in which he proclaimed: "Did you know that I'm named after you?". Actually, he's not. The fact that, after 1.5 years in Pittsburgh Jerome is a rabid Steelers fan is a testament to the lack of separation of Steelers and State in the North Allegheny School District. It is also obvious that most children in Franklin Park Elementary were wild with envy that Jez got named "Jerome", and this may have contributed to Jerome's affinity for the Steelers.

I can't really think of anything interesting to write this week - enough for now.

2006-03-05T22:25:00.000-08:00

WOW - my fifth post. I have been shamed into returning to the blogosphere by Julia, who has promised a reciprocal post. That's worth it in my book, so here goes.

First of all, I just want to cover a few important but weird topics. The first is the alarming appearance of a word that I have been misspelling my entire life. It is: "raspberry". When it was rejected by spellcheck, I knew at once that it fell into an elite category of my misspelled words. That would be the "Gosh - I've never spelled this word correctly, and it's so easy, I really should have learned and remembered how to spell this in the 4th grade" category. I've got other categories available:

"I seldom use this word and it's so hard that I'm just going to forget it and let spellcheck catch it every time". Examples: daiquiri, colonel
"This might be tough, but I really should learn this in case I'm authoring a hand-written note to a superior at work, and don't have access to spellcheck". Examples: personnel, millennium.
"i before e except after c exceptions". Examples: weird, foreign (ok, fine. I've never had a problem with "foreign", but there aren't that many words that violate the rule)

The strange thing is, I really like raspberries, but just never have had to write the word on a computer. I'd like to point out, though, that nobody goes around saying "razP-baireez", which is part of the problem. I suppose that overall, the word "raspberry" is not as put upon as "worcestershire", which for centuries has been robbed of multiple letters in its actual pronunciation for no particular reason. It's also hard to spell.

Because we've just moved, I'm again writing my signature on the back of the new bank cards I get. This process is absurd. Why do I have to try and sign a little box the size of a toothpick on the back of my card in order to make it valid? This reminds me of another silly ritual: signing the electronic pads at the store after swiping my card, or for that matter, signing anything at all. I think it is time to start using some of my favorite names instead of my own, just to enjoy the process more. Some names I have liked for some time:

Milton Flinders
Joyce Frankenberg
Boutros Boutros Ghali
Deco (famous soccer player AND saves time in checkout line)

Here are some recent pictures - from TODAY in fact. Gpa and Gma Ohki are here for a few days before a Morinda conference in LA. We went for a walk in Torrey Pines State Reserve, and it was gorgeous. Amazing views of the ocean and the "badlands"-like cliffs. We are loving having Gpa/Gma here, as always. Too bad they have to go to LA on Wednesday.

Here are a few other pictures from last week. We finally took Asha to the beach, just to show her that it is as cold as we're telling her it is. We also went to a free Aviation museum run by the Marines. They had lots of new planes and helicopters there, but Kai mostly just liked being in the backpack.

2006-02-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

The stupendous return of the "We put a lot of thought into this blog title" blog! Since the last posting, I've moved in with my brother and the Steelers have won the Super Bowl. Before I do anything else, I should tie up a few loose ends.

Talking to Jez about AIDS - So it's getting toward bed time one night a couple of months ago. I'm checking my email on my computer, and Jerome sees a banner ad for AIDS Month. He asks what AIDS is. I say that it is a terrible disease which kills millions of people every year. I say that there is no cure. I'm also careful to point out that if we are making good choices, there is only a very tiny chance that we will ever get this disease. He asks how the disease hurts people. I say that it weakens their immune systems until even a weak disease like a cold can be fatal to them. He asks how may people have the disease. I say millions, especially in Africa, which has the most severe AIDS/HIV problem. He asks how you can tell if have the disease. I say you can't, unless you do a test. Jerome looks pensive and stares at the computer screen. He looks up at me (while pointing at a new section of the computer screen) and asks "Daddy, what's 'Bird Flu'?"

Christening of Home by Ceiling Spot - A home isn't really a home without a spot on its ceiling that goes along with a good story. In our house (which, ironically, we're trying to unload) the ceiling received its spot through an unfortunate "tofu shake" incident. I had made myself an entire pitcher full of tofu/protein shake. Each morning, I would pour myself part of it and put the rest back in the fridge. A quick side note - the tofu/protein shake is a repulsive sludge which, if I choke down at about 8:30 am, will keep me full until 12pm. Anyway, one day I stumbled out of bed, got ready for work, and optimistically started to pour the sludge into a cup. The lid of the pitcher slid off under the weight of the sludge, and when the lid (full of sludge) landed on the countertop, it launched its contents upward, covering cupboard, wall, (yes!) ceiling. This ceiling spot is the latest in a long line of spots, including Ken's (kyupi mayonnaise @ Tsuruma High Town) and (I think) Tamsin's @ 800 Fisk.

Useful Job - This is a thought I posted and said I'd write about, but it really wouldn't be that interesting.

Other random thoughts - I don't know which is weirder - the fact that the blood bank has cases of V8 on hand for people to drink before they give blood, or the fact that I have the strong urge to drink it, and this is really the only time I drink V8.

I feel that the words "webinar" and "padfolio" are atrocious perversions of the english language, and should be stricken from use. Also, the word "webinar" sounds particularly bad when used by someone with a thick southern accent.

Other random happenings - I am writing this from Stu and Adrianne's living room. Today is day 15 of my invasion of their house, and letting me stay here is amazingly good of them.

Jerome got here on Thursday afternoon, stepping off a Southwest jet after having the time of his young life by getting to fly solo cross country. His official reaction upon seeing me in an airport after 3000 miles and 6 hours of flight, which he spent with no one he had ever seen before in his life: "oh, hi dad". From the moment he arrived, he seemed dead set on going to the beach, so we did (on Saturday). Needless to say, Jerome found the beach a little on the cold side, since the water temp is about 60 degrees, and Saturday air temp topped out at about 65. Soon, though, his extremities had numbed sufficiently, and he began frolicking around in the waves with a hardy pair of kids, probably visiting from Minnesota. Jerome would always run into the surf, and then run away when the larger waves came in classic kid fashion. Also in classic kid fashion, what started out as a wading trip turned into getting fully soaked, little by little. He did ask pointed questions after we were done, like "will the water ever get any warmer?" and we assured him it would.

On Sunday we went for a walk in the canyon, and found lots of birds and squirrels there. The park itself was deserted, especially since we arrived at about 3pm - kickoff time for the Super Bowl.

Other than that, my job is going really well, and that I can't wait for Marie to get here. Getting Marie here (and Asha and Kai) and starting to build our little existence in San Diego will be the most satisfying thing that has happened in a long time.

2005-12-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

You may wonder - what happened the new campbelloki blog? The painful and always contentious annual family Christmas letter has happened to the new campbelloki blog. It (the blog) will return shortly, with such scintillating topics as:

Friends with useful jobs
Christening of home via ceiling spot
Talking to Jez about AIDS

And many others. Until then...

2005-11-20T18:21:00.000-08:00

This week I sat through a very exciting 7 minute presentation - my company's new corporate video. This prompted me to think of a great project for the marketing/communications department: the un-corporate video. Just as the corporate video attempts to put a positive spin on every facet of the company, this version would call a spade a spade. First of all, it would be longer than 7 minutes -

(fade in) - (unattractive man narrates) - Let's get one thing straight - the glory days are over. Most of our products have been turned into commodities, and our major customers now have so much bargaining power that we routinely take it on the chin. Sure, we'd love to sell our business units that have stalled, but they are about as appealing to potential buyers as an '80 Citation w/flood damage.

(cut to R&D center) - we tell investors that we spend $100's of millions on R&D every year, but most of that is just technical support. True R&D investments are shunned by executives bent on reaching this year's profit numbers. Most of our R&D centers have parking lots that are half empty (or is it half-full?)

(cut to HR person) - In HR, we have very little experience in real business, but have become the ultimate power brokers. It's like that scene in the nature shows where all the little baby turtles hatch on the beach and make a mad dash for the water. We're the birds that swoop down and pluck the tasty morsels from the sand. Those lucky enough to survive will have their annual compensation decided via Ouija Board.

(cut to the plant) "Could someone please call Haz-mat. Asbestos is leaking out of the drains AGAIN"

(tag-line) - (insert company name here) we don't make the products you buy, but we used to.
(fade away and cut music)

Another random thought - This week I have had an ear infection. After being a nuisance since last Saturday, it kicked in for real yesterday, and I have been popping Advil ever since. Yesterday I bought "earache relief ear drops" but didn't notice on the label that this was a "homeopathic" product. I have since learned that this a fancy way of saying the product has no hope of affecting much of anything. I feel a better label for this particular medicine is "quack juice". After putting the drops in and expecting instant relief, nothing. Today I arranged to go hometeaching to one of my families where the dad is an ENT doc. He took a look in after I had shared a spiritual message, and said that the external canal is infected. We both know but do not say that the infection was probably caused by my addiction to Q-tips. He called in a prescription for REAL eardrops, which I will pick up and religiously use beginning tomorrow.

Lastly, any player who cries on his final play as a Coug is ok in my book. Scroll down most of the way and read about Trandon Harvey. A beautiful game, a perfect ending. Viva la Cougs.

Ok, that wasn't the last thing, but this is: a "hi" from the kids.

2005-11-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

Ok - so looking more like the pumpkin, but as long as we call it the pumpkin, there is some hope that it will turn out ok. Actually, just a few random thoughts this week.

First - why is it that hammering out a coherent power point presentation as a group is such an unbelievably hard task? It's as if when one says "I think we need to rework slide 16", the person who slapped the presentation together in the first place hears "I can't say you have any worth as an individual, and this slide is just another example of a general lack of intelligence" (I've been on both sides of this before). In such happy meetings, there are many roles to play:

Hyper-defensive author - must begin each response to a suggestion with "the reason that I put that in is that..."

Time nazi - persistently insists that there is no way that a person can cram 45 slides into 60 minutes (incidentally, this person is usually right)

Pithy nazi - has a pre-determined limit for bullet points or words, and exceeding these values will cause irreparable harm to innocent audience members. Ideal slide has heading like "Competitors" with 3 nondescript bullet points like "Distribution, Value Chain, Cannibalization"

Chart guru - Pushes group members to use more charts than Ross Perot. Everything has to be shown in chats with upward trending lines.

Audience advocate - Usually begins sentences with: "sure know what you're saying, because we're here, but put yourself in the shoes of the audience". Very similar to the Executive Advocate, who insists that all executives have the attention span of 3 year olds, and must be spoon-fed data in 10-second sound bytes, with the entire meeting lasting no longer than 5 minutes. Incidentally, these people are frequently right, too.

Techno-wizards - are aware of obscure and puzzling powerpoint functions, frequently relating to multimedia applications. This person would know, for example, how to patch 1/4 page-size video conference session into slide 33 ("Live Goals") so Anthony Robbins can conduct a live Q&A.

The Realist - points out after a grueling 2-hour smackdown, after which most group members feel insulted, that the power point is just a small part of a great presentation, and that Microsoft has tricked us into thinking we don't need a good story if we've got slides with cool features like "wipe" animated bullet points.

Enough on that. Random thought 2: while handwriting a really long word, like "differentiation" it is frustrating to realize that the first few letters are too ambiguous to support an abbreviation, and that I will just have to write the whole thing.

Random thought 3: the best thing we've bought at Costco in the last 2 months is le petit francais. WOW - this is really good bread, and now they don't sell it anymore. As you can see from the web site, you can get it shipped to you, but it costs roughly 200% more than it would at Costco.

That's all for now.

2005-11-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

Billy has again inspired us. After seeing the unprecedented fame achieved by http://www.oneinagillian.blogspot.com, we had to give it a try,too. This may as well be called the wannabilly blog, but as you can see, it's not.

This opening post gives me the chance to ponder the future of the fledgling campbelloki blog. It could turn out to be like yesterday's trip to Blueberry Park, when we finally convinced the ever-cautious Jerome (who is 6, after all) that he should try to ride his bike without training wheels. This took some doing, and we fielded numerous questions on the way to the park about whether we had remembered to bring his "safety gear". Even after he was on the bike, he was reluctant to give it a shot (I could tell because he kept on repeating "Dad, don't let go").

In spite of his trepidation, I gave him a shove and let go. Lo and behold, his inner ear appears to be functioning adquately, and he just rode off across the vast field. It may have been harder than it looked (Marie heard him muttering "concentrate, concentrate, concentrate..." as he rolled by her), but he was doin' it. Our blog could turn out to be like this - a genuine "why didn't we do this a long time ago?" type thing.

Or our blog could turn out to be like the unloved pumpkin that has been kicking around our house for 3 weeks now. Marie bought it, thinking that we could make a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. This was fine, except that we really didn't have much time before Halloween to carve jack-o-lanterns, and it mostly just absorbed abuse from the kids. Come the evening of the 31st, I got home from work and decided that we should at least set something out that would let the kids know that they could trick-or-treat here. I tried to quickly carve the pumpkin, but it was not to be. The pumpkin isn't the hollow kind, and with a very sharp, expensive, German knife that Aunt T gave us, I can penetrate 1/16" into its surface. Now, our little pumpkin has missed its shot at the big time. Marie is thinking of alternative uses, but mostly it just gets kicked around, and every once in a while Asha posts some graffiti on its surface (where did Asha get the sharpie? Why can Asha always find a sharpie when she wants one? Didn't we throw all the sharpies away after the keyboard incident?). So you see, our blog could turn out to be one of those "well, it was a nice thought, but it really didn't enrich our lives or the lives of our friends and family members" kind of things. Only time will tell - for now, though -
Thanks, Billy!