"Newly" Published Article about Politickin'

I scoured the internet and found an article I sold to an unknown bidder last month.

Check it out: Dear John...That Sarah Palin Thing... it was a joke, wasn't it?

Dear John...congratulations on a hard fought Presidential campaign. I have a lot of respect for you. Still, I voted for Barack Obama. It's only fair, I think, that I tell you the ten reasons why I did not vote for you, John McCain. (And, may I call you John?)

1. Sarah Palin.

I got the joke, John. You chose Palin to stick it to the GOP. They demanded right wing; they got it! Maybe you called your pal Lieberman and you both had a good bipartisan laugh. Who would have thought they would go along with Palin, who's so inexperienced? (Even Castro said Sarah Palin ""doesn't know anything about anything.")

2. Overuse of the word "maverick".

I sympathize, John. Obama seized the younger generation. You wanted to compete, to appeal to the kids. Give them a simple, yet fun, drinking game. Pull them into your speeches. Alas, after 5 minutes and 15 drinks, they all sat around talking about Obama, and everyone still sober wondered, "Why would a real maverick need to keep pointing it out?"

3. I own fewer than one home.

John, when you need to count on your toes to keep track of your property, you've lost my vote. I know you're a little on the older side. You've had plenty of time to accumulate wealth, and then forget about it. Still, I don't think we'd have anything to talk about at a party. Maybe, we wouldn't understand each other at all.

4. Sarah Palin.

Remember when she said she could see Russia from Alaska? That was cute.

5. Victory obsession.

I like winning: Scrabble, gaining possession of the remote control from my brother. These competitions cost relatively little, and there's very little chance of death. Sure winning is great, but at what cost, and isn't protecting your country from real threats more important?

6. Not a good fireman.

When a fireman witnesses a fire, she attempts to put it out or help in some way. John, at your rallies people were "screaming "kill him" and "terrorist about Obama. If you want to be President, shouldn't you try to lead?

7. Sarah Palin.

"Ak-me-DEEn-a-shad." Look, John! Pookey pronounced her first foreign leader!

8. Does not play well with others.

Each time you have a clever Obama zinger, or when you refused to look at him during Debate 1, or when you called Obama "That one" in Debate 2, I have to wonder, how would your represent the U.S. to, say, the Prime Minister of Pakistan?

9. Kept referring to me as "friend."

I'm flattered, John, but before this letter, we hardly knew each other.

10. Men in Black.

I liked you a lot going into this race, John. You sponsored middle of the road bills. You like Joe Lieberman; I like Joe Lieberman. But right around the time of the Republican Convention, I got a feeling that recalled the movie Men in Black. You were no longer John McCain; you were like a right-wing alien wearing a McCain suit.

Anyway, John, I hope there are no hard feelings. At least we still have the Sarah Palin joke. It was a joke, wasn't it?

How Amazon.com Users Describe Products

Paranormal Romance.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No shit! I just tagged about 50 items on Amazon.com with the phrase 'paranormal romance'." Well, you're not alone. Of all the phrases and words in the English dictionary, "paranormal romance" is the 6th most popular adjective that comes to the minds of Amazon.com users when they want to describe Amazon products.

Nearly 42,000 products on Amazon.com are tagged with the phrase "paranormal romance".

Tagging is the Web 2.0 practice of labeling items with keywords. As far as I can tell, the theory is to "tag" web content with keywords to improve search engine rankings.

I was initially shocked to learn that 42,000 items exists on Amazon.com that are worthy of the tag "paranormal romance". Then I became shocked at the number of common terms that get used less than "paranormal romance". Here's just a couple:

• "Book" only had 32,000 tags.
• "Disney" owns 14,000 tags.
• "Christmas" gets a nearly 13,000 tags.
• "Toys" and "Sex" (not one phrase) each get fewer than 9,000 tags.

Please feel free to not believe one word of this, and check out the Amazon.com Tag Map for yourself. Hover over the words to get stats on the number of tags for each of the "popular" phrases.

World War Z, you should read it this weekend!

Everyone should read World War Z or at least listen to it on tape as soon as possible!

The World War Z is the story of the great zombie war told through the words of dozens of individuals throughout the globe, and in the end, you get a fantastic book, excitingly action-filled and forebodingly satirical. I just finished World War Z, and I am completely in awe at how engaging and evocative the experience was!

The story begins in rural China with a doctor witnessing Case Zero, the first documented case of the living dead. From there the story takes off across the globe crafting the stories of different nations: from how they become aware of the zombie epidemic to their progression of reactions including denial, concern, panic, retreat, and finally, regrouping and offensive.

Each of the characters had unique stories to tell, and each of them had unique mannerisms and culture backing them up. The military figures have a broad command of weapon and strategy terminology. The Israeli scholars speak methodically yet conversationally. The businessmen seem to swagger and strut.

Of course interesting characters are nothing without action and conflict and with millions of zombies hungry for human flesh, there was plenty of decapitation, skull-busting, disembowelment, and cannibalism (on both ends of the fence). Even before the Great Panic, international tensions are high. Palestinians fear that offers to take asylum in voluntarily quarantined territory may just be Israelis trying to lure their enemies in for enslavement. Without diplomatic relationships, misunderstandings lead to nuclear war. Celebrities become torn off their pedestals by the very people that initially instated them. Civilians flee in all directions, and everyone falls under the category of refugee.

Above the action and the impeccably crafted characters, is the satire. Every character that told a personal story in World War Z had some keen insight into our modern world, without being corny. The book was rampant with topical themes such as community vs. isolation, selfishness vs. cooperation, practical vs. prodigal.

The setting in time added tremendously to the book's allure as well. The author constantly references the Cold War and pop figures so that you know exactly when this story took place. In short, if World War Z was a prophetic book, zombies will be taking over the globe in something like 2 to 5 years from right now! Keeping within the frame of reference of the reader only enhances the illusion of World War Z.


The audio version of this book is like listening to a movie! Its only 6 hours long, and whereas many audiobooks are done by one reader playing voices for each individual character, World War Z featured a new reader for each character. readers included, among more than 12 others, John Turturro, Mark Hamill, and Alan Alda.

Download it from audible.com, listen to it on your way to work next week or while you're at the gym, and you won't be sorry.

Vote for my TShirt

Well, the infamous flying fish drawing is now a TShirt design and available for you to vote on Threadless.com... so please do!

Threadless.com, Everyone should look and critique my TShirt Design

Okay, I would post and post and post some more, but this little gal is pooped and needs to get her beauty rest because she starts marathon training (again) tomorrow early morning-style!

If you come across this post, you should check out Threadless.com or at least go to this site and critique my TShirt submission! There will be a day very soon that I will ask for voters. Hurray. And goodnight.

The Walrus (a poem)

Let's all be on the outside,
Who we are on the inside.

Let's go to the Walrus on Tuesday,
Dressed as your spouse.

Shame what?
Embarrassed, huh?

Fall on your face while dancing.

Queue up with the other guys,
Glazed over eyes,
Waiting to put their "drink order"
Into the waitress.

Respond: "I am a robot."
When a stranger says,
"Someone drew lines
And wrote numbers one through six
on your back."
Respond: "Robots don't sing."
When the same person
Asks you to duet Meatloaf.

Do the monkey on stage as
Your new best friend
What's-his-name
Sings "Baby Got Back".

"Unchained Melody", "Eclipse of the Heart", "Big Booty Bitches"
An entire genre of songs use
Lyrics such as mlaah la la la.
Dhaaa.

When you're asked if you'd
Like another Cherry Coke,
Feel free to say, "No thanks.
I'm driving."

Because here at the Walrus,
Singing karaoke with the mic
Parallel to the floor
With your eyes closed,
Here at the Walrus
We are all
Openly retarded.

The Best Dating Method Ever: Get over yourself and get a girl

I knew I was going to be sitting down with my friend W last time I came into town, and I knew that our enjoyable conversations were going to go toward love troubles. We all have them. I was trying to come up with a good plan to get W out of his head and into a girl.

Thus the Krenn Method was born!

I have to say it is a pretty great, nay INGENIOUS Method!

Let me set this Method up a little better with some of the fundamental observations that lead to its conception:

1. Everyone gets rejected a lot. Here I'm using a loose definition of the word "rejected." It's not so much as having a girl tell you she won't go on a date with you. It includes a member of the target gender bailing out on plans, not being interested enough while conversing with you, etc. The trick is that most people rack up rejections at an early age (junior high-ish). By the time they hit college, they can read signals well enough to make good decisions on who is worthy of their attention.
   
2. Rejection leads to relationship maturity. Let's face it. Girls in their mid-twenties and beyond expect guys to behave and react in certain ways. Don't ask me for examples. I don't have any. All I know is that things I hear my female cohort describe can often be shielded under the umbrella of relationship immaturity or inexperience. Unfortunately, it seems that the most socially mature individual can still be relatively immature in a dating relationship. These immature daters are at a terrible disadvantage because the relationship maturity is what intelligent women base their romantic (not to be mistaken as sexual) decisions on.
3. Time is constantly being wasted. Pining over the target gender was fine and dandy for Shakespeare. Afterall, the dating pool in any play is only a max of 5 people. In the real world, every second you waste pining is time you're out of the game and missing opportunities to find the next best thing.

These observations lead to conflict.

1. How can an immature dater rack up the experience to get a girl? Only through rejection. But how do you get those worried about rejection to throw caution to the wind and try anyway?
2. What advice can you give an inexperienced dater so that he stops wasting time on girls that are not worthy of him?
   

The answers to question one lie in The Seventy Five. The answers to question two lie in The Steps.

As my friend has already done such an amazing job of explaining the method on his Live Journal page, I'm not even going to bother getting into it.

Check out Don Burleson on Live Journal.

An omen of better times to come

Acupuncture: My deeper sensation

Today I got stabbed in the back with a needle, and I immediately was reminded of having my teeth drilled at the dentist. It was my 2nd acupuncture treatment.



Magic Ingredients

Acupuncturists do this thing where they light herbs on fire and stick them to your body. When you feel the heat, it gets removed. The herb is called Moxa (possibly misspelled).

On my first acupuncture treatment, I was told that I was going to get Moxa in my belly button. To disperse the heat evenly and prevent burning, my acupuncturist was going to put salt into my belly button. I immediately envision some magical Chinese salt that you have to buy from the same store where that kid picked up Gizmo from the movie Gremlins. Limited edition, thousand-year-old salt from the bottom of an ancient sea. And as I'm in the middle of this imagination frenzy, my acupuncture gal begins to pour into my belly button the salt from none other than a standard blue Morton Salt container... I felt a bit like a cake...

Today there was Moxa, sans salt, all over the place and lots of it! I don't know if the Moxa was a compounding factor or what, but there were plenty of "deeper sensations" today as well.


Deeper Sensation

When you hear about acupuncture, maybe you're used to hearing phrases such as "really works" or "balances energy". What you do not hear tossed around is "deeper sensation".

I owe my deeper sensations to luck. I've always been curious about acupuncture, but my curiosity has never motivated me to open up my wallet. My first two visits to this acupuncturist have been pro bono on account of my going to a health fair to get my cholesterol checked and getting my name picked out of the magic acupuncture hat.

Anyway, the first visit my acupuncture gal was prepping me on what to expect. She said, "You're going to feel a pin prick, and then you may feel a deeper sensation."

"What is a deeper sensation?"

"Well, it could be a dull pain, or like a shock of electricity..."

"So you're telling me, something bad."

For that first treatment, she had drawn four X's around my ankles. These were the treasure map to the points she intended to jut a needle into to aleviate the following symptoms: stress, cold extremities, and mood swings.

First needle goes in and out, and there wasn't much in the way of a deeper sensation. Second needle, things stay boring. Third needle, starting to yawn. Forth needle, a huge rush of energy from the needle point shooting out my toes. (Days later, I recounted this to my mom who thought this could have been a "hit nerve". I've been wondering about that, and decided that it was somewhat different: Pinching nerves leave a pain after you remove the simulus. In my case, the needle came out and the excitement was immediately over.)

Anyway, this "deeper sensation" left me on an "acupuncture high" until at least the following day. I felt drunk, to be quite honest, and that evening when I was talking with my friend Kara, I found myself more eager to laugh than usual--quite a feat, because Kara is generally funny anyway and this was definately a heightened experience.

So today I had my second treatment.

One point in my back and I mistakenly thought my teeth were getting drilled. A point on my calf and I thought I was standing on hot coals. Probably 4 deeper sensations in all, all somewhat unpleasant, and this was with about 10 points.

Also I got stuck in the stomach. I didn't like that very much.

Flying Puppy

Question: What's worse than phoning your boyfriend at midnight-thirty to say that you have abandoned you room because no one is around to save you from the gigantic moth that slipped into bed with you?

Answer: Re-branding the nemesis from "fluttering menace" into a "flying puppy."


"Just trap it with your hands," he said. "It's soft."

"I don't care what it is," I said. "I tried to capture it with the tupperware, and it just started flying around!!" (Truly an outrage.)

The problem with moths, more so than other bugs, is that they're just as clumsy as I. Flies are easy to shoo out of the open door or window because they have a predictable trajectory. Moths, on the other hand, are all willy-nilly, and I find myself imitating their behavior, wiggling around as if I had no bones.

Let's be honest, I don't do well with other bugs either.

In college, I had two carpenter ants in my apartment. I had moved all of the lights into the affected room so that I could see their every move. It's debilitating. Like being a child that saw a scary movie too close to bedtime. In the end, I bought very hard soled shoes and mashed the ants into the carpet. Then I covered their little carpenter ant corpses with a desk.

One time, that same year, I had a big spider in my apartment. I was on the phone with Walter at the time, and I started panicking.

"Walter, what should I do!"

"Turn off all of the lights and hope it goes away!"

"Will you come over and kill it for me?"

"God no!" were his exact words.

Fastforward to two years after the carpet ant/spider apartment, and I was living in an apartment with straight up roaches! They were nice, because although very gross, the adults were very secretive. You never had to look at a live moving adult roach in my apartment. Just the little baby roaches would hang around in the sink, and the remedy was simple: Turn on the hot water, dump a cap full of bleach into the drain, and spend the night at a friends house for about a week.

Earlier this month there were two big wasps in our apartment. Wade lured them toward the screen door by turning on a nearby light. Then he crawled GI-style toward the screen door and slid the door open without getting so much as 4 inches from the ground.

It was pretty impressive, and luckily for me, his demonstration on how to rid the apartment of a wasp occurred before he left for his DJ gig. So when the second wasp was in the house and I was alone, I had the survival skills to get it out the door. Then I had the common sense to close all of the doors and windows and turn on the AC.

Well, I've procrastinated long enough... its time to leave the lights on in the hall, build a fort out of my blankets, and get some sleep.

beat that!

I had a friend in college who maintained that her father's dream was to have a photograph of her and her mother wearing matching floral dresses.

Summer Book Review #1

The Books
Positioning--Al Reis and Jack Trout

The 22 Immutable Truths of Branding--Al Reis and Laura Reis

The Sort-of Review
Okay, so I've finished two books this week--never mind that one was an audio book! Both of them are from my Additional Work-Related Reading list, leaving only one left in that caegory for the summer.

These two books, both related to marketing, branding, and positioning were incredibly insightful for me, being that I'm the "Marketing Director" despite being entirely clueless about marketing.

The point is that if anyone is interested in marketing, these two books are quick, easy-to-reads. They are very instructional, i.e. repetitive and full of good examples. They were perfect starting points for me to get my feet wet in the first step of marketing a new product--branding it. Even if you're not interested in marketing, these books provide fun insight into the way that people think when they go to the store.

While reading, I identified a dichotomy in myself between when I am a consumer and when I am a marketer.

The rule? Repetition creates a brand and a position in the mind of the consumer.

As a consumer, I best remember things that have been repeated over and over again. That "how many licks to the center of the tootsie pop?" commercial. Perfect example. I don't think the Tootsie Roll people made any other commercials. So in my mind, I have a special, uncontested place for Tootsie Pops. I also have a unique place in my brain where I store tips from Louie the Lightning Bug with regards to power lines.

As a marketer, I enjoy coming up with different looks to our brochures. Although it's fun for me to keep coming up with new designs, it doesn't help establish a singular idea of our company's brand in the mind. As it turns out, a singular, uncontested version of your company is the best way to go.

For more on these things, read the books!


NOTE
You can download a 1-hour audio version of The 22 Immutable Truths of Branding from Audible.com for less than $7.

Short Hair is Fierce Hair! Agree? Vote!

TRESemmé How "Fierce" is Your Hair? Sponsored by TRESemmé

My Summer Reading List

If you plan to do something, over-plan it to the point nothing may get done. ~Sortajack

After a year of almost inactivity, I decided to take up reading again. This time two years ago, I was reading a book every two weeks, as well as The New Yorker (I can't wait to get my issue with the controversial Obama cover, btw) and The Week.

So to jumpstart my summer reading, I've started with a "healthy" list including titles I already own, as well as Business Week's recommended MBA poolside reading.

In no particular order:

BusinessWeek Titles

1. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Finance and Business (Steven Rogers)
2. The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman)
3. True North (Bill George)
4. in progress Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Elizabeth Kolbert)
5. Ulysses (James Joyce)
6. Five Future Strategies You Need to Know Right Now (George Stalk and John Butman)
7. Competitive Strategy (Michael E. Porter)
8. The Back of the Napkin (Dan Roam)
   

Other Business Titles

1. done Positioning (Al Reis and Jack Trout)
2. done 22 Immutable Truths of Branding (Al Reis)
3. The Wisdom of Crowds (James Surowiecki)

Family/Friends Recommended Reading

1. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
   
2. The Crimson Petal in the White (Michel Faber)
   
3. in progress When You Are Engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris)

Honest Foods Poster Entry

Design an ad for Honest Foods! Sponsored by Honest Foods

One day I'll own a hybrid, but until then...

Brickfish Gas Card Design Brickfish

Vote for my weird-ass clock!

Mysterious Mr. X's Circus of Strange Brickfish

Pee-Wee is still great after all these years

Kyle and I got drunk last night and went to a showing of Pee Wee's Big Adventure really late. And you know what? It was just about as fun as going to the theater to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Except, you know what? The script is actually very funny!

I recommend to you and anyone you know to get drunk and watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure on the big screen if ever the opportunity arises!

There's my plug. Also, I love Tim Burton and Danny Elfman!

900 miles to be ditched, straight up!

So did I tell yous that my friend B. got engaged? She got engaged two days before my marathon, and of course she's all excited... Anyway, she called to tell me, and then asked me to be her maid of honor.

Anyway, I knew I'd be going home for vacation for a long time, and so a month ahead of time I call her up. I had one day (Friday) that I would be in Chicago and then my fam and I were going to drive to Minocqua, WI, for the rest of the week. So, two weeks before she gets engaged, I tell her that I'll be in town and she "pens me in" to spend all morning and afternoon Friday together. The original plan was that we'd go to the beach downtown, as I'd land at 9 in the AM and then at 5 in the PM, I'd ride the train home with my friend W and hang out with him for dinner.

So then she gets engaged, and one week before I'm supposed to fly in she calls and says, how about we go looking at banquet halls for the reception instead, which sounded like fun because I'm always getting asked to be in wedding parties but then the b2b never wants me to help with anything... which is a mixed blessing of course, but I was still pretty excited to go look at halls with her and be on the inside track a little...

Now it's Thursday at 7PM Chicago time, and I just finished with that lab accreditation BS, and we were out having a drink. B calls and I say I'll call you in 15 minutes. We're about to leave. I call her back and she says her fiance's cousin invited her to a "cross-town" ball game (Cubs v. Sox) and she was going to go to that instead. She's saying, you know how hard those tickets are to get and how expensive they are and blah de blah de blah. And I'm sitting in the bf's car heading into Denver and all I can think is, " This is an OUTRAGE!" She says, let's hang out at night instead. I say I have plans with W. She says, can I hang out with yous? I say, call me tomorrow. And hang up.

Of course I'm LIVID! B is NOT A DIE HARD BASEBALL fan!! She doesn't know any of the players. She doesn't watch the games on TV. And I'm flying in from across the country, her fucking maid of honor, and available for one day only! To really tick me off, I start thinking, I could have called my uncles and made plans to have lunch with them. I could have called my cousins and said I'd drop by for an hour in the afternoon. But I cleared an entire afternoon for her, and now it's 10 pm Chicago time, and I can't call anyone!!

So I curse and curse in the car with my bf, inventing all sorts of great fun expletives. I eventually get disappointed as I'm realizing that my bf is not joining in on my curse-a-thon and that I have no way to get home from the airport tomorrow morning. I call my dad and say, "Dad, you'll never fucking guess what B did!"

He says, All right, let's have it!

I say, We've had plans to hang out tomorrow for longer than a month, and she just called me NOW to say she's going to a cross-town game instead.

Dad says, What?!

I say, yeah, what a bitch!

He says, Yeah what a fucking bitch!

I say, she doesn't even pay attention to baseball and I'm flying across the country for one day only and she's going to a fucking ball game!

Dad says, Fuck her. Fuck her.

I say, This is an OUTRAGE! A Mother Fucking OUTRAGE! And you know what else? She just asked me to be her maid of honor and we were on the phone 2 times earlier this week talking about hanging out and she was telling me all about how she broke it to her other close friends that she's not having anyone else in the wedding party!

Dad says, And then she pulls this shit?

I say, Yeah, what a bitch!

Dad says, Fuck her. Fuck her! We'll pick you up from the airport and eat omelets and we'll go to the Japs for dinner.

(God bless him!)

The good thing about all of this is that I was planning to check on a bag so that I could bring her birthday/house warming (she and the fee-fee-poo are moving in together) present--it's a liquor carosel that holds 6 bottles of booze and dispenses a shot every time. Now that she was a confirmed huge fucking bitch, I didn't need to bother with checked baggage. Which was nice.

Anyway, I fly in and I end up having a very nice little day with my mom and dad (which was a moot point as we were destined to spend the next 7 days together anyway), and then I have a fabulous time with W, bitching about her... and at 1030 at night she calls and says she wants to meet us up.

Then I'm torn, right? If I were living in town, I would perpetuate this squabble for months and months until I'm satisfied, and then we could just meet up one evening and everything would be fine. Now I'm half way across the country, and if I'm going to hold this grudge, the route toward resolution is much less certain. I was trying to weigh these things with W earlier, because I knew she was going to call. W enjoys conflict and agreed that I should keep up the grudge. But when she calls, he says, Just have her come out. Now that she's making effort you've lost all the awesome upper hand. So she comes out to A BOOKSTORE reeking of booze, and wants to show off her ring and talk about the game, which "her side" lost, and I was feeling pretty righteous and smug having chosen to wear the other team's hat.

Anyway, she was acting all happy to see me and I was like, ho hum, and not intentionally either... but maybe just because I was ho hum...

It really makes you realize who your friends are, you know? I mean, I have guy friends who are religious about baseball, but I'm 100% certain that if they were presented with cross-town tickets when we had plans and I was flying across the country for these plans, they wouldn't go. W, for example, hates bars, and only goes to them when the Sox are playing, and I KNOW he wouldn't go to a cross town game if it meant canceling plans.

Fast forward to coming home from family vacation. I totally carried two frozen Chicago-style pizzas on the plane and invited my roommate to my boyfriend's house to eat them that night. At the bf's house my roommate notices the same liquor carousel I bought for B's birthday and says how cool it is! The next day I go home and give my roommate the boxed-up liquor carousel saying,"I was going to give it to B for her birthday/ house warming, but now she can just suck my ass!"

Then we got drunk and took out a sharpie and crossed out all of the kind words on the birthday card I had bought for B, so that all that was left was "Birthday". (Obviously leaving "Happy" on it would have been highly disingenuous...) I still haven't sent that card to her, but I'm thinking more and more that I will. Afterall, she's a bitch.

Birthday, B, Birthday.

Sore but Certified

To start with, the certification guy was this old southerner, who clearly had a problem with women. I don't like being one of those gals that thinks that everyone's against me because I'm a girl, so I'm only saying this because I had a feeling this was the case but then my boss brought it up, entirely unprovoked.

I kindda got the feeling immediately. The guy, my boss, and myself were having an "opening meeting". And every time I asked the guy a question, he would answer, without looking at me at all, and one time he finished by gesturing toward my boss and saying (notice the quotes) " so to answer your question, Boss's Name..." I wasn't super insulted by it at the time. I just thought this guy doesn't like women, and I thought it was kindda funny. Glasses that made him look like a fish. And all of the body language and mannerisms of someone who mail ordered a wife. The kind of mannerisms that no one would find endearing and only women sold into his clutches would tolerate. Uber dweeb with something to prove.

Ever since I got to this job my primary role has been "operations development", meaning I was writing all of the Standard Operating Procedures and Quality Manuals and lab forms, etc. Basically, I set up the entire quality system at our company, and I did it following, from the point-of-view of someone who sits outside of the certification body, difficult as hell rules straight out of the Federal Registrar!

Part of the problem is that I was supposed to make a quality system based on the "guidance" of this certification body. But they (nor other certification bodies, as it turns out) never define the terms they use, and often times they uses the same term in about 3 different ways. The example that comes to mind is "demonstration of capability". This term means that our equipment is proven to measure we say it does. It also means that our analysts have demonstrated that they can perform our experiment in a statistically reproducible way. It also means that the laboratory has the infrastructure in place to handle incoming client samples.

So the guy says he wants to see our policy on demonstration of capability, and I ask, Are you interested in our policy on analyst DOC or the instrumentation? To which he rolls his eyes (in a VERY GRATUITOUS way) and repeats himself, raising his voice and getting in my face a little. Of course I have a problem in which I mimic behaviors, and this situation escalates for two more instances of his repeating himself. So I just pick one to show him. He reads it, and starts belittling me saying it wasn't what he wanted and he's never had such a hard time dealing with a laboratory and blah blah blah. And I say, It's not in my interest to give you a hard time. But it would be helpful if you could clarify a little more about what exactly you are interested in. Then I say, maybe if you show me your checklist so I can see what you're referring to I can save us all some time. (Of course I was trying to say diplomatic words, but I was saying them aggressively enough that it was making my boss, who was in the room at the time, nervous.)

So then after that day (Wednesday), my boss, our lab tech, and myself (the fourth of our crew was on his family vacation) went out for a few drinks, and my boss kept going on and on about how the guy really was out of line, which made me a little ok, but still really annoyed.

Anyway, the second day with the certification guy worked out fine. We refused to give him any coffee (he drank 16 cups within 4 hours the day before) and then he was a bit more personable toward me, at least.

In the end, we were certified, but I still don't know what lesson I should take away from all of this? Let people beat you up verbally and hope you get what you want out of the deal in the end? Even with all of my hard work paying off and getting our place certified, it still culminated into an emotional and disappointing end.

Landscaping at the Art Museum

I went to the Denver Art Museum with Kyle last month, and they have greeters at the front door who tell you about the new exhibit. Without fail, these people are foreign. So the guy says they have a new temporary "landscaping" exhibit. Well, I was perplexed. What are we going to see? Lawnmowers? Weedwackers stacked to look like lawn mowers? Nope. It was a LANDSCAPE exhibit featuring french impressionists. Blah-zay!

They Got the Gestures Down!

Brickfish Political Dream Team Brickfish

This is my response to the Brickfish Political Dream Team Campaign. For supporting links, visit the brickfish site, by clicking on the links above. Below is a copy of the blog entry for this contest.

Let's be serious for a moment. Jolie and Lohan in 2008? What a load! The real political dream team would be Venutra/O'Brien, with some famous, well-chosen appointees.

Jesse Ventura, former World Wrestling Federation Star, former governor of Minnesota, current political guru would make a great president. Not only would he body slam those competitor chumps all the way to the White House, he actually has some pretty amazing policy ideas, outlined in his book "Don't Start the Revolution without Me." For example, Ventura would work to make a governmental system that realizes its “for the people” pledge. In his book, Ventura discusses how the Democrats and Republicans took control of Presidential debates away from the unbiased League of Women Voters in 1996. Why? Ross Perot made such a showing in the 1992 Presidential election, the League of Women would have allowed him into the debates in 1996. Of course that would have taken votes away from republicans and Democrats alike. Rather than beat Perot in an open fight, the parties seized the debates from the League of Women Voters, effectively muscling out third party candidates. Another point Ventura makes in his book: Stop ignoring Cuba. During a visit with Fidel Castro, Ventura learned that Cubans import their milk from across the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand. Ventura's convincing argument: The U.S. policy to ignore Cuba was based on the idea that if we ignore them, the Cuban people will rise up and insist on a more American-style government. Clearly this policy is not having the desired affect. Instead, by ignoring Cuba as a trade partner, we are ignoring our American dairy farmers who dump milk on the streets in response to low milk prices. Clearly, Ventura is above the political parties, yet in tune with the real world globalization we experience in our modern world.

Conan O’Brien, your next Vice President of the United States of America—What a smart choice! Before you laugh off the suggestion, consider this: Conan O’Brien graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard (our current President Bush graduated a straight C student from Yale). Being witty and personable, Conan O’Brien could definitely find ways to bring the opposing parties of Congress together to make the important decisions and compromises we need here in the U.S.

So who is the logical choice for Secretary of State? Why George Clooney, of course, and by all accounts, I suspect Clooney would be happy for the new role! Already he has standing as an international diplomat. He has spoken in the U.N. as well as organized others to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur, Africa. Clooney is routinely described in articles as wanting to make his company comfortable. A charismatic people-person, such as Clooney, would surely help mend the U.S.’s broken international reputation.

On to Internal Affairs with Oprah Winfrey. Through her shows and missions, Winfrey has proven herself a compassionate billionaire, with a big soft spot for charitable work. Her dedication to helping those less fortunate would make a great contribution to the Office of Internal Affairs. With all of the discussion over illegal immigrants, I believe that having Winfrey as the Internal Affairs head would help our Congressmen remember the humanity of our nations immigrants and perhaps help to level out the conversations, discussing immigrants as people instead of just numbers and dollars.

Not pictured here, the Director of the EPA, Harrison Ford. Ford is a real nature-lover, and after the gutting of the EPA during this last Presidential administration, the environment could sure use a little lovin’. Ford organizes other celebrities to pool money together to buy up wild lands, keeping them in their pristine form, and saving them from development and sprawl. Surely he would be able to help guide the EPA in their efforts to better monitor our nation’s environment.

Make way for the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Wyclef Kean (also not pictured). Beyond the rap, we have a truly outstanding statesman! Kean is completely engrossed in his charity to help Haitians. His main focus is food and grain shortages and a lingering economy. This would make Jean perfect for helping develop an agenda for America’s Department of Agriculture. Maybe he could find a good use for all of that grain that grows moldy in American silos every year.

The SCARIEST statistic I ever heard!

Question
Last year there were more than 200,000 bats in a specific cave in southern Vermont. How many were there this year?


Although I am probably most concerned with the HONEYBEE CRISIS at the moment, the mass die-off of bats is beginning to muscle it's way to the front of my interest.

I had been trying to get in touch with people who study bats for the past month or two. Essentially, our laboratory had recently (and indirectly) made headlines when one of our clients got published in Science using data our lab generated. We were able to do mercury speciation of single spiders. So then I thought, what other animals eat insects? Bats.

So I called up the gal who edits Bat Research News, the premier scientific journal for bat research, because if anyone should know who in the bat science community researchers what, well it should be the editor of the only bat-exclusive journal.

Although she didn't know whether any researchers were looking into mercury in bats and bats' diets, she did offer the few names of people who conducted studies in the past.

She said it was difficult to get research permits right now because of the bat crisis. Apparently to do analytical studies, researchers have to kill the animal and analyze its organs, and with more than 90% of all bats in America having died this year, the government wasn't too interested in trace metal studies of bat kidneys.

I had heard of the White Nose Syndrome. It's a fungal infection that seems to have been the cause of death of many bats that have been found dead. However, according to my contact, there have been instances of bats being infected with the fungus, but otherwise appearing unaffected. The scientific community, she said, is now starting to question whether the fungus is an opportunistic infection. Like how people infected with HIV do not die from HIV itself, their demise is usually due to another infection that can get a foothold in the body due to a weakened immune system. Perhaps the bat's immune system is weakened due to other infections or contaminations and under these weakened conditions the fungus does the worst damage.

However, the fungus itself does not kill the bat. Instead, it causes a chain reaction that ends in starvation. White Nose Syndrome, she said, infects the bat and causes an immune response. As a typical immune response, the bat's metabolism increases. This is a problem for hibernating bats. When its metabolism increases, it comes out of hibernation and starts looking for food. In the winter, there are not enough insects available to eat, so the bat starves to death.

So far, as many as 90% of America's bats have perished! And that brings you back to the question at the beginning of this entry.


Question
Last year there were more than 200,000 bats in a specific cave in southern Vermont. How many were there this year?

Answer
Five. That's right five. 5. Cinco.

That's the most shocking statistic I ever heard!

I like honey bees

So, in talking with my good ole chum pals, I'm getting more and more frustrated with how little everyone knows about Colony Collapse Disorder and the American Honeybee.

I recently signed up for digg.com, which is an interesting little place to post/rank and discuss news, and while reading a story about the extinction of the Caribbean Monk Seal, I found a little comment thread of the theme "how much bad stuff has to happen before humans take a careful look at how their activities lead to extinction?"

One of the comments said, maybe if the honeybees all die and we have a food crisis, we'll all start caring. The next commenter said, humans have nothing to do with honeybees dying. ::le sigh::

So I posted this on Digg, and I'm pretty proud of it, so I'm reposting here.
1. Last I heard (let me know if you've heard something more recent) Colony Collapse Disorder was more likely the effect of a virus, not a fungus.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/aaft-vna083107.php

2. Whenever you have viruses, you see that some individuals in a population are genetically able to resist them.

3. Most honey bees in the U.S. are kept by bee keepers and their hives are rented to orchards and other farms. These bees are genetically uniform, meaning if one of the bees in the hive can get sick form a virus, it's highly likely that all the others are susceptible too. (This has been demonstrated through the collapse, i.e. deaths, of 50 to 90% of the American honey bee colonies kept in the U.S. in 2007.)

4. Habitat destruction (humans) reduces genetic diversity. Not only do we breed genetic diversity out of the kept hives, when we destroy habitats, the wild honey bees suffer too because the majority of these bees end up dying off as opposed to relocating.

THE POINT
Human's attempt to control the honey bee population could be the ultimate reason honey bees drift toward failure.

Luckily honeybees reproduce like mad, unlike mammals. So that have that going for them.

A little off topic from monk seals... but still...

Political Cartoon Attempt

Immigration Illustration Brickfish

my new thing

Nick Greene came through Colorado last Sunday, and man! It was AWESOME to see him!

So awesome, in fact that I completely forgot to take photographic evidence of our reunion.

Anyway, one thing Nick Greene said was that he really dug my stupe blog :) Hurray for Nick Greene! Hurray for the blog!

I'll definately start posting more, but in the meantime, I've joined brickfish and I'm playing with that.

Vote for my picture and I could win Northface gear and finally fit in in Colorado!

Never Stop Exploring™ Photo Challenge Brickfish

Gay-dar by ring tones

Picture a morbidly obese man walking down the street with the smallest possible dog. The dog, as I imagine it, has little stumpy legs that give the impression of fluttering as it scurries to keep up with its owner. This vision appeared to a co-worker when he was flipping through ring tone options.

The ring tone, a fruity little number with (literally) bells and whistles that inspired visions of fat men with dogs waddling about town, was the ring tone the coworker chose. It is this same ring tone that, for others in the office, proved once and for all: The ring-tone-coworker is gay.

I'd say it was a Sherlock Holmes moment, but for these coworkers, there is no mystery to explain to Dear Watson. There was no real "Aha!" moment. The ring tone's evidence of gayness is too obvious to require further discussion. Like police who had all the evidence to a murder. The suspect was put in jail. Then they found the murder weapon in the suspect's pocket. Clearly, we're not surprised.

It's as obvious as finding a fully intact dead body with a name tag on its lapel that read "Hello My Name is Jimmy Hoffa". It couldn't be more obvious if this corpse would animate to slap your face silly if you or the medical examiner try to say he might be Paula or Jusef instead.

Yep. Gayness is now worn in your pocket in the form of a (bad) musical alert. Finally, a gaydar system that actually works!

Excerpt from an old email

I searched my gmail for the term "Borders" because I all of a sudden had an urge to buy a book with a 25-40% off coupon. Instead an email I wrote, titled "yo mama" popped up, and it included this little ditty.

Here are funny things that happened to me today:
1. I went over to Dufek the Designer's cube to talk work, and of course, I was there for 25 minutes laughing about whatev. And he pulls out this book called "Why did Grandpa die?" and then he opens the front cover which includes the inscription: To Abbey and Sarah Love G'ma and G'pa. And we laughed and laughed at the following: (1) Is G'pa distributing presents from beyond the grave and (2) Was G'pa alive when he and G'ma went over to Borders and G'ma said, "This looks like a lovely gift for the girls." Did G'pa agree? or (3) Did G'ma, with a wry smile and slanted eyebrows, sneak it into a shopping cart and say "Oh nothing" when G'pa peered in and asked, "What have you got there, Ma?"

Safari in the Denver Airport Savannah

African elephants, during the dry season, will travel hundreds of miles in search of water. In an episode of Planet Earth, I saw them circling through air-borne sand in their desperate search. When they finally get to their destination, the elephants find other elephants, lions, and various species all congregated around the waterhole, suspiciously eying one another. At any moment, the competition may try to displace someone at the waterhole. Ignore a lion too long, and your pride and joy becomes the meal of the pride.

Patrons of the Denver International Airport provide a parallel study in animal behavior. Thirsty, they prowl the waiting areas of the terminals. Hugging their possessions close to them they circle and circle between the rows of blue stereotypical airport seating. Mouths dry. Hungry. And for what? Juice.

I don't mean Welch's, Tropicana, or Motts. I mean precious electricity.

Some how the word got out that this circus tent in the western corner of the Denver-city limits houses more than just blue seats fused together at the arm-rests.

The DIA internet is free and wireless, accessible anywhere in the joint. The only trick is stalking out a good seat within power adapter distance from an outlet, of which there are shockingly few.

A technology-hungry business person takes two outlets, one for his blackberry and another for his laptop. A person employing two outlets becomes stalked by those with their own electrical hunger. As soon as that person moves to unplug one device or the other, the pack pounces. The outlet is taken down quickly, and the strongest of the competitors enjoy the spoils until satiated.

Prowling outlet-seekers routinely hold their laptop close to their chest. Usually it is in a hand, while the empty satchel swings from the other arm. Members of the searching pack do not keep their electronics stowed. They are alert to pounce at any opportunity.

When all of the other seats and outlets are occupied, a prowling lion will sit next to the person with the most lines into nearby outlets. At some point, their iPod will be charged and the lion will make his kill. Yet while it waits patiently, yet eagerly for an opportunity, it gets eyed as a predator getting a little too close to the herd. The power-hoarder knows what you're after, and hovers over his wire herd. If he's traveling solo, there is a twinge of panic in the way he monitors the lion's position. If he's traveling with a pack, he enlists them to keep the lion at bay with suspicious stares. As if you might snatch some of his personal junk. When in fact, all you really want is the outlet.

Animals around the outlet do not converse with one another. Times are tense. There's no room for pleasantries.

My 25th Birthday

A modest little birthday party.

Birthday dinner: One Giordano's Pizza

Birthday Snow

Birthday Precursors

Looking ahead to my 25th Birthday, Kyle asked what I wanted to do to celebrate. Aside from replying, "Not grow up" I had nothing.

We were talking about taking a pottery class, so we decided to try something similar. We went to a pottery joint, and I painted myself this fruit bowl :)

Good times.