Given that this year both my husband and I got raises at work, even though we're still burdened by our student loan and credit card debt, I felt better off than others in this economy. So I wanted to share some Christmas cheer.
Our neighbors, with whom we share a driveway, are retired and home almost all day. They get up early and when they go out to the front of the driveway to get their newspaper, they grab mine as well and place it on my backdoor step. The first few months we lived at the house, I didn't know they did that and I, believing it was great service from my newspaper delivery guy, sent him a nice Christmas tip with a letter saying "thanks for the door delivery." I bet he was confused. Now, knowing its not him, but my neighbors, I still send a tip, which I suppose at least keeps my papers coming to me dry (wrapped twice on rainy/snowy days), but no note.
Its nice that by the time I'm up, dressed, downstairs getting coffee, my newspaper is right on my backdoor step so I don't have to go outside to get it. A few times, I happen to be the first one outside, so I reciprocate for my neighbors, but its me 10%, them 90%.
Similarly, our neighbors help with the trashcans. Our trash is always picked up after both Stephane and I are gone to work. Instead of coming home and hoping our trash cans are still in the vicinity of our house (even if the trashmen leave them in the driveway, sometimes the wind can blow them away), my neighbors will grab my trash can and bring it back to our backyard when they get their own trashcan.
I really appreciate their help, so I wanted to buy them something for Christmas this year. Not really knowing their tastes, I thought to buy them something from a gift-food place. They used to have a local store at our mall (which I frequented every few months for cocoa, chocolate covered cherries and other items), but it closed a few months ago. So I had to use their online service.
I inadvertently got my neighbor's address incorrect. I only ever knew their first names, but I needed their last names for the delivery. So I went to look up their last name via whitepages.com since I knew the address. However, I put in the wrong number, I mixed it up with the address of the house on the other side of us (which is also a nice family, btw). Later than night, I realized I put in the wrong address on the order. I tried to call the place, but the "on-hold" time was more than a hour because "Christmas is busy." I didn't have that kind of time, so I sent an email, which promised to "get back to me within 24 hours."
The next day, I got an email saying they got my email and would respond "within 24 hours." Already slow. Another day passes and I get an email that said "Hey, you know it's Christmas and we're busy, so we'll respond to you as soon as we can." I'm thinking, ah oh, problem. I tried to call again. Now its "so busy" the customer service can't take more calls, try back later or go on our website for responses "within 24 hours."
Well, sure enough, the next day I get an email saying my order has been shipped. :p Great. Now my other neighbors are getting the gift. Now, they're nice people and all, and we've exchanged pleasantries, they have a boy just a little younger than Elise, so its entirely possible we'll eventually get to know them better. But still, I think they're going to be quite curious as to why out of the blue they're getting a fruit/chocolate/cookie box from us. Oh well, guess we're being extra generous this season. Of course, now I wonder if this is going to cause them to feel they have to reciprocate (at least for next year) and we start some fake gift exchange because we feel we 'have to for appearances sake, even if we don't really want to' all because I made a mistake.
I went out and bought something from a brick and mortar shop for my retired neighbors (these wonderful chocolate covered apple slices and strawberries from Edible Creations) and delivered it myself. I should have done that in the first place, I know, but the other place offered free delivery and hey, I'm a busy full time working mom.
Several days later, I finally get an email from the on-line place. "Oops, sorry about your order, but its Christmas and we're busy and didn't get to it in time to cancel/fix your order. Hope you accept our apologies and Merry Christmas." :p Gee thanks. Only took you a week to respond to my email. Quite a bit beyond your "24 hour" promise, you think?
Yeah, I get Christmas is busy. Perhaps one of the busiest of year. You think I don't know that? Don't they know that too? These companies know (or should know, seriously) that Christmas is busy. Why didn't they oh maybe take a stab at lowering the unemployment rate (even if just temporarily) and hire more people so they could fix orders, or get orders out on time, respond promptly to emails, etc.? I'm sorry, but 7 days to respond to an email that was promised a response in 1? You're that busy and backed-up on responding to customer service questions?? Perhaps you should have hired an additional person, which could have cut that response time to maybe 3 days, or hire 2 to cut it down to the promised 1? Oh, and hire more telephone operators too maybe, so I could get through the telephone lines without having to sit around on my butt for over an hour, or even just get told to "call back later."
I know this food company isn't the only one that is using the "Christmas is busy" excuse either. I've seen complaints on other consumer websites as well about problems with other on-line order places. Seriously, there is no excuse for the "we're too busy because its Christmas" line for on-line companies that can friggin hire people in India for pennies if they don't want to pay Americans living wages (though I think those that do that should be taxed to make up for it).
Maybe these companies will make nice big profits this year, because they've cut their labor force to the bare minimum, but they're losing a lot of future customer orders in the process. I know I'm not exactly itching to place another on-line order with this company, which means they could loose at least few more orders each year (I've used the on-line service in the past for deliveries in CA and other places in PA). I haven't tried out the Edible Creations delivery service, maybe I'll do that next year (although I think its just local delivery, but that will work for most of my orders, or I can actually pick up my order at a physical store).
With unemployment bouncing against 10%, there's no excuse for the "its Christmas, we're busy" ploy to excuse poor service. Hire people! Companies keep saying they can't hire people because they don't have the orders, but then when they do get inundated with orders, for *surprise* Christmas, they can't provide the service. Seriously, you knew Christmas was coming, its the same date every year. Plan for it. Hire a couple more people, heck, even temporarily. People will take a decent paying job, then go back on unemployment afterward, if necessary.
Maybe if more companies quit thinking about bonuses for executives and CEOs and more about their employees and customers, we'd have less unemployment and more happy customers.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
More Bits
And another month gone by. Was busy this last month, had to write an appellate brief for the Third Circuit, which took pretty much an entire week of work. I'm pretty jazzed, my boss says I can do the oral argument in February. The damages at issue are in the seven figures, so chances are good that whoever loses will appeal to the US Supreme Court. The case involves the UCC, so it could have potential for acceptance. Now that would be exciting, to go to the SCOTUS.
Then I almost got to go to Germany for two witness depositions, that got canceled at seriously the last minute. I had always figured my boss would go, but the trip conflicted with a vacation he had and at least originally the depos couldn't be rescheduled. That only happened because my opposing counsel found out he had cancer and even then we weren't sure the German courts would allow the rescheduling. I was a bit nervous about going by myself, traveling a few states over for a couple of nights is one thing, going across the ocean for five days a bit more. So now the trip has been rescheduled for January (and may get rescheduled again for March). Not sure if I'll still get to go, or if my boss will want to do it. It will almost certainly need to be done, one witness is crucial to our defense and somehow I just don't see the plaintiff coming down in his settlement demands (currently in the seven figures) to anything near where the insurance carrier will consider paying (which is currently five figures, which may go up to low six, maybe). In the meantime, I spent several days getting stuff ready for the trip, that got canceled.
My Warcraft guild finally killed the main boss at the end of the current expansion. Always a fun accomplishment. A new expansion is coming out Tuesday, with level increase to 85. I expect to be spending most of my free time playing WoW over then next few months. New dungeons and boss mobs to overcome.
So trying to catch/keep up on my TV shows. I'm out of my Survivor pool now, my pick Brenda was betrayed by her alliance, one member of which then quit the next week. Bah! There's several shows I like, but nothing is OMG I MUST WATCH NOW the way Lost was for me. Couple shows are trying and I do watch, but sometimes several weeks are saved on my DVR before I get around to it.
I watched Dennis Miller's new show the other day. I really used to love his stuff, but he moved too far to the right, and I've moved more left, so half his show isn't funny to me anymore, since he got a bit more political in his comedy. I get my political comedy from Jon Stewart and Robert Colbert now.
Thanksgiving was "exciting" in that Cami fell against a table, cut her lip and needed three stitches at the hospital. :p
Now just a few more short weeks until Christmas. Kids' shopping is nearly done and I know what I'm getting Stef. I have my sister's family's list, so I just have to sit down and decide if I'm ordering on line or going shopping. So just a few other miscellaneous gifts to get and I'm done. Still need to get Christmas cards out, maybe this weekend.
Its a bit slower at work now, so maybe I'll have more time to write later.
Then I almost got to go to Germany for two witness depositions, that got canceled at seriously the last minute. I had always figured my boss would go, but the trip conflicted with a vacation he had and at least originally the depos couldn't be rescheduled. That only happened because my opposing counsel found out he had cancer and even then we weren't sure the German courts would allow the rescheduling. I was a bit nervous about going by myself, traveling a few states over for a couple of nights is one thing, going across the ocean for five days a bit more. So now the trip has been rescheduled for January (and may get rescheduled again for March). Not sure if I'll still get to go, or if my boss will want to do it. It will almost certainly need to be done, one witness is crucial to our defense and somehow I just don't see the plaintiff coming down in his settlement demands (currently in the seven figures) to anything near where the insurance carrier will consider paying (which is currently five figures, which may go up to low six, maybe). In the meantime, I spent several days getting stuff ready for the trip, that got canceled.
My Warcraft guild finally killed the main boss at the end of the current expansion. Always a fun accomplishment. A new expansion is coming out Tuesday, with level increase to 85. I expect to be spending most of my free time playing WoW over then next few months. New dungeons and boss mobs to overcome.
So trying to catch/keep up on my TV shows. I'm out of my Survivor pool now, my pick Brenda was betrayed by her alliance, one member of which then quit the next week. Bah! There's several shows I like, but nothing is OMG I MUST WATCH NOW the way Lost was for me. Couple shows are trying and I do watch, but sometimes several weeks are saved on my DVR before I get around to it.
I watched Dennis Miller's new show the other day. I really used to love his stuff, but he moved too far to the right, and I've moved more left, so half his show isn't funny to me anymore, since he got a bit more political in his comedy. I get my political comedy from Jon Stewart and Robert Colbert now.
Thanksgiving was "exciting" in that Cami fell against a table, cut her lip and needed three stitches at the hospital. :p
Now just a few more short weeks until Christmas. Kids' shopping is nearly done and I know what I'm getting Stef. I have my sister's family's list, so I just have to sit down and decide if I'm ordering on line or going shopping. So just a few other miscellaneous gifts to get and I'm done. Still need to get Christmas cards out, maybe this weekend.
Its a bit slower at work now, so maybe I'll have more time to write later.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Rant Bits
Wow, a whole month without writing something. I've been busy. But now for some little rant-bits.
Why is it that on some days when I don't get into work until just after 9, when pretty much every secretary and clerk is in, no one has bothered to make a pot of coffee? I have no problems making it the days I'm in the office first (or even second) at 8 a.m., but its incredibly annoying to find no coffee made when I arrive at 9:15. I know I'm not the only one who drinks the stuff.
Why does my boss ask me to find/copy documents for him for his deposition? Isn't that what secretaries or clerks are for? I know he keeps his secretary very busy, so get one of our clerks to do it. If he doesn't think they are capable (which is clearly possible, because I have the same gripe), then maybe we should hire at least one competent clerk? At least he doesn't complain when I bill time for "prepare documents for deposition, .4".
And speaking of clerks, really how hard is it to copy the pages with colored tabs on them and keep them in the same order? Is the phrase "copy all pages in the paperclip" that difficult to understand? Is the instruction upon being handed a 2 inch stack of documents to "copy everything" and not just the two pages with a color tab on them that hard to comprehend? Do we really need a file folder that says "Plaintiffs A, B, C, D's responses to Defendants' X, Y and Z (all completely spelled out) Expert, Fact and Witness Interrogatories" instead of just Plaintiffs' responses to Defendants' Rogs"?
I love that my husband has taken more of an interest in cooking because he really can cook well. But he seems to only want to cook the meat/fish, leaving me to do the veggies/pasta/rice/potatoes, etc. So now, instead of my planning everything and timing everything, I have to read his mind as to when to start cooking the veggies, which take 3 times as long as the meat/fish. Half the time, I just hear him start cooking and now I have to throw something together in 5 minutes or have us eat dinner in two parts. I love that he wants too cook. How about the whole meal, maybe? Its not really saving me time by him doing one small part.
And I'm so tired of people on the subway who make it difficult for other people to sit on the seats. Whether they completely block the seats with stuff or their bodies, or they refuse to move over, or they move over but then almost immediately make you get up again because they're getting off the next exit, or they make you stand up while the train is in motion several minutes before the next stop, or they insist on being the first person off the train so they block the door, etc.
Nice to get that stuff off my chest.
Why is it that on some days when I don't get into work until just after 9, when pretty much every secretary and clerk is in, no one has bothered to make a pot of coffee? I have no problems making it the days I'm in the office first (or even second) at 8 a.m., but its incredibly annoying to find no coffee made when I arrive at 9:15. I know I'm not the only one who drinks the stuff.
Why does my boss ask me to find/copy documents for him for his deposition? Isn't that what secretaries or clerks are for? I know he keeps his secretary very busy, so get one of our clerks to do it. If he doesn't think they are capable (which is clearly possible, because I have the same gripe), then maybe we should hire at least one competent clerk? At least he doesn't complain when I bill time for "prepare documents for deposition, .4".
And speaking of clerks, really how hard is it to copy the pages with colored tabs on them and keep them in the same order? Is the phrase "copy all pages in the paperclip" that difficult to understand? Is the instruction upon being handed a 2 inch stack of documents to "copy everything" and not just the two pages with a color tab on them that hard to comprehend? Do we really need a file folder that says "Plaintiffs A, B, C, D's responses to Defendants' X, Y and Z (all completely spelled out) Expert, Fact and Witness Interrogatories" instead of just Plaintiffs' responses to Defendants' Rogs"?
I love that my husband has taken more of an interest in cooking because he really can cook well. But he seems to only want to cook the meat/fish, leaving me to do the veggies/pasta/rice/potatoes, etc. So now, instead of my planning everything and timing everything, I have to read his mind as to when to start cooking the veggies, which take 3 times as long as the meat/fish. Half the time, I just hear him start cooking and now I have to throw something together in 5 minutes or have us eat dinner in two parts. I love that he wants too cook. How about the whole meal, maybe? Its not really saving me time by him doing one small part.
And I'm so tired of people on the subway who make it difficult for other people to sit on the seats. Whether they completely block the seats with stuff or their bodies, or they refuse to move over, or they move over but then almost immediately make you get up again because they're getting off the next exit, or they make you stand up while the train is in motion several minutes before the next stop, or they insist on being the first person off the train so they block the door, etc.
Nice to get that stuff off my chest.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Year of Change
When one is a new parent, each year seems to be one of change. Until the kids are fully ensconced in school, it seems like there's always something different going on from the year before.
This year brings many new things in my life, a bit more than in the last few years. Camille is starting kindergarden, so now we are firmly committed to family vacations only in the Summer. We can no longer do two-week Christmas trips to France (except in certain special circumstances, which must be rare), as the elementary school only gets 1 week winter break (actually ends up being a week and a day or two, depending on how the holidays fall). Camille can't just stay out of school for a day 'whenever' as we could in daycare/pre-school.
Also for the first time, the kids don't spend their days in the same location. Three days a week, Elise goes back to the pre-school Cami went too. So Cami gets dropped off at the sitter's (a neighbor mom) house first, then I take Elise to pre-school. This has been hard on Elise, to go to school without her big sister with her. Cami, at least, has gone to school/daycare by herself before, so its not as big a change. Two days a week, we take Elise to the sitter's as well, to help the transition. That way, they have the morning together before Cami goes to Kindergarden, and then the late afternoon after kindergarden is over.
Its not easy doing two trips now in the morning and afternoon. Only have to do this for 2 years, until Elise is in kindergarden.
This year, I also started the kids in their extra-curricular activities. Cami started with swim classes at the Y over the summer and now that Elise is 3, she participates as well. They're doing gym/swim for early fall and I plan to sign them up for ballet in late fall. Saturday mornings are no longer sleep-in relax time, and probably won't be again for several years to come. Soon I'll probably have to choose one day a week at work to leave extra early for other after-school activities.
Stef's and my job situation appears to have stabilized, which is a good thing, especially in this economy. Stef likes his job and got a raise. After several years of searching and bouncing around, I finally have a place to work that I like (at least 95% of the time, no place is perfect really) and that pays me sufficiently. I think I could stick it out here in the long term. I feel I can relax a bit and not worry about job stability for either of us.
We can see the light at the end of the debt tunnel. Its slow going right now, but things are starting to get paid off, so we can increase payments to others. We're hopeful that in about 3 years we'll be in better financial shape (along with the economy) for a home loan to do some remodeling/expansion of our house.
The girls are starting to get more independent. Elise is finally potty trained, so we no longer have diapers. Yippee!!! They can dress themselves (even Elise) and can turn on the TV. Still need mommy or daddy to turn on lights, get drinks (they can reach most of the food options), help with DVR/DVS (until Cami is better at reading). Of course, now we're starting homework too, another new thing.
Life is good right now, if busy.
This year brings many new things in my life, a bit more than in the last few years. Camille is starting kindergarden, so now we are firmly committed to family vacations only in the Summer. We can no longer do two-week Christmas trips to France (except in certain special circumstances, which must be rare), as the elementary school only gets 1 week winter break (actually ends up being a week and a day or two, depending on how the holidays fall). Camille can't just stay out of school for a day 'whenever' as we could in daycare/pre-school.
Also for the first time, the kids don't spend their days in the same location. Three days a week, Elise goes back to the pre-school Cami went too. So Cami gets dropped off at the sitter's (a neighbor mom) house first, then I take Elise to pre-school. This has been hard on Elise, to go to school without her big sister with her. Cami, at least, has gone to school/daycare by herself before, so its not as big a change. Two days a week, we take Elise to the sitter's as well, to help the transition. That way, they have the morning together before Cami goes to Kindergarden, and then the late afternoon after kindergarden is over.
Its not easy doing two trips now in the morning and afternoon. Only have to do this for 2 years, until Elise is in kindergarden.
This year, I also started the kids in their extra-curricular activities. Cami started with swim classes at the Y over the summer and now that Elise is 3, she participates as well. They're doing gym/swim for early fall and I plan to sign them up for ballet in late fall. Saturday mornings are no longer sleep-in relax time, and probably won't be again for several years to come. Soon I'll probably have to choose one day a week at work to leave extra early for other after-school activities.
Stef's and my job situation appears to have stabilized, which is a good thing, especially in this economy. Stef likes his job and got a raise. After several years of searching and bouncing around, I finally have a place to work that I like (at least 95% of the time, no place is perfect really) and that pays me sufficiently. I think I could stick it out here in the long term. I feel I can relax a bit and not worry about job stability for either of us.
We can see the light at the end of the debt tunnel. Its slow going right now, but things are starting to get paid off, so we can increase payments to others. We're hopeful that in about 3 years we'll be in better financial shape (along with the economy) for a home loan to do some remodeling/expansion of our house.
The girls are starting to get more independent. Elise is finally potty trained, so we no longer have diapers. Yippee!!! They can dress themselves (even Elise) and can turn on the TV. Still need mommy or daddy to turn on lights, get drinks (they can reach most of the food options), help with DVR/DVS (until Cami is better at reading). Of course, now we're starting homework too, another new thing.
Life is good right now, if busy.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Are You Ready For Some Football?
Yay, football season has finally begun. This year, however, isn't likely to be a good year for the Eagles. First they traded away their franchise quarterback to a division rival (WTF?) and now the supposed "new" quarterback is injured (and so far, he certainly isn't showing himself to be the new Peyton Manning either). At least the back-up is a former starter, albiet, not that great a one. Still, Vick almost pulled it out for the Eagles last week, but for yet another questionable play call by Reid. Seriously, WTF? with passing on 4 and 1 when you have a running quarterback? Hello!!!!????
So, I'm not holding out any hopes for the playoffs this year. Even if the quarterback situation works out, the Eagles still have many other problems, both offensively and defensively. Giving up 27 points doesn't make for a good defense.
In other football news, we have another example of why I don't believe that any reporters, not just women, should be granted access to locker rooms for interviews. Really, is the information that critical that you have to ask the guy while he's naked? Can't you wait until he has some pants on???
Of course, the issue currently brewing about Inez Sainz isn't just in the locker room (although that was a big part of it). She's claiming harassment outside the locker room as well, such as when she was on the field wearing jeans that if they were any tighter, she'd look like Mystique with her blue skin. She claims to have been wearing a "button down" blouse, but given the only photo we have is her from the back, we don't know how far "down" those buttons were undone.
A female football reporter for the Inquirer wrote about the situation today. She came right out and said, "look, if you want to be taken as a professional, you have to dress and act professional." Flirting (like sitting on players' shoulders) does not make one seem professional and then people won't treat you as a professional (or at least not as a professional journalist).
And finally, we've got Jimmy Johnson, former NFL two-time Super Bowl winning coach on one of my favorite shows this season, Survivor. Johnson is definitely the most famous contestant on the show, although there has been some quasi-celebrities previously. By "quasi-celebrity" I mean someone who has a shot at being known outside their personal circle of family, friends and co-workers pre Survivor (i.e. Elisabeth Hasselbeck doesn't count, she got famous after Survivor).
Former "quasi celebs" on Survivor include: Gary Hogeboom, a former NFL quarterback (backup only); Crystal, a former gold-medal winning US Olympic athlete (though she only ran the qualifying race and had to give her medal back after revealing drug use); Ashley (?) the female WWF wrestler; and possibly the biggest celeb prior to JJ, Jonathan Penner, an actor/producer (although I'll acknowledge that unless you were a big fan of his or the shows where he guest-acted on, you probably don't know him).
Thus just begs the question, how long until we have a true Celebrity Survivor season? Its been on the air for over 10 years now, we're going to get it soon, I just know it. But in the meantime, I don't think Jimmy J is going to last long. He's the oldest contestant (and they rarely make the merge) and he's not in that good a shape (unlike, say Rudy). So he'll probably stick around a few episodes, I'm guessing he's off by week 5 or 6. Motivational speeches only do so much when you can't otherwise contribute to winning challenges. Jimmy doesn't have Troy Aikmen on his tribe.
So, I'm not holding out any hopes for the playoffs this year. Even if the quarterback situation works out, the Eagles still have many other problems, both offensively and defensively. Giving up 27 points doesn't make for a good defense.
In other football news, we have another example of why I don't believe that any reporters, not just women, should be granted access to locker rooms for interviews. Really, is the information that critical that you have to ask the guy while he's naked? Can't you wait until he has some pants on???
Of course, the issue currently brewing about Inez Sainz isn't just in the locker room (although that was a big part of it). She's claiming harassment outside the locker room as well, such as when she was on the field wearing jeans that if they were any tighter, she'd look like Mystique with her blue skin. She claims to have been wearing a "button down" blouse, but given the only photo we have is her from the back, we don't know how far "down" those buttons were undone.
A female football reporter for the Inquirer wrote about the situation today. She came right out and said, "look, if you want to be taken as a professional, you have to dress and act professional." Flirting (like sitting on players' shoulders) does not make one seem professional and then people won't treat you as a professional (or at least not as a professional journalist).
And finally, we've got Jimmy Johnson, former NFL two-time Super Bowl winning coach on one of my favorite shows this season, Survivor. Johnson is definitely the most famous contestant on the show, although there has been some quasi-celebrities previously. By "quasi-celebrity" I mean someone who has a shot at being known outside their personal circle of family, friends and co-workers pre Survivor (i.e. Elisabeth Hasselbeck doesn't count, she got famous after Survivor).
Former "quasi celebs" on Survivor include: Gary Hogeboom, a former NFL quarterback (backup only); Crystal, a former gold-medal winning US Olympic athlete (though she only ran the qualifying race and had to give her medal back after revealing drug use); Ashley (?) the female WWF wrestler; and possibly the biggest celeb prior to JJ, Jonathan Penner, an actor/producer (although I'll acknowledge that unless you were a big fan of his or the shows where he guest-acted on, you probably don't know him).
Thus just begs the question, how long until we have a true Celebrity Survivor season? Its been on the air for over 10 years now, we're going to get it soon, I just know it. But in the meantime, I don't think Jimmy J is going to last long. He's the oldest contestant (and they rarely make the merge) and he's not in that good a shape (unlike, say Rudy). So he'll probably stick around a few episodes, I'm guessing he's off by week 5 or 6. Motivational speeches only do so much when you can't otherwise contribute to winning challenges. Jimmy doesn't have Troy Aikmen on his tribe.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Obligatory Political Post
Elections are coming soon. I've been watching some of the primary races, primarily the ones on the Republican side.
I used to be a Republican, its how I was brought up. I was raised that no one should be granted special privileges, everyone should work hard for themselves and not expect anything to be given to them. In essence, I was very much an fiscal conservative and definitely had social conservative leanings. This really came to a head when I was in college and I was annoyed how certain special interests groups got anything they wanted because they were "special interests groups" (i.e. anything non-white). Suddenly, any attempts to enjoy other cultures in a party atmosphere were deemed "racist" and prejudiced. I was insulted. My friends, sorority sisters, fraternity friends, were not being racist or prejudiced, we just wanted to some sombreros on the wall and drink tequila. We couldn't even call our spring Hawaiian themed party "Hawaiian Luau" because any use of a culture that wasn't "white" or "American" was considered "racist" (despite the fact that, you know, Hawaii is kind of part of America) and therefore banned because of the special interest group protest.
I was also annoyed by what I perceived to be special treatment given to certain persons of color to get into classes ahead of me, solely because of their color (and my school was probably 40% or more "of color"). As I look back on it, I really have no idea if other factors were taken into consideration with this preferential treatment, its entirely likely that economics played a part as well. At that time, it just seemed to me that nearly everyone I knew that was "of color" (which honestly wasn't all that many) got that special treatment and it annoyed me even though I didn't see all that many people "of color" in the classes I actually attended.
As I continued to live in CA, I maintained my conservative opinions. I was annoyed at how much taxes I paid (mostly because I was a renter and didn't have kids), particularly because that money funded programs for which I wasn't eligible. I always thought that the Republicans were a bit smarter, they seemed to know about economics more. About the only items I disagreed with the Republican party on were abortion rights
(I've always thought a woman should have the right to decide what
she wants to do with her own body, up to a point at least, and I
generally agreed with Roe v. Wade on that point - yes abstinence is
better, especially for teens, but its not realistic to think it will
never happen - hello Bristol Palin - and besides, I think its better
fiscally for someone who can't take care of a baby and/or who doesn't
want it to abort it in the first 3 months, rather than give birth
and have society, us tax payers, pay for it for 18+ years)
and gay rights
(frankly, I don't care who people marry, finding love is hard enough
to enforce a one-sex only standard).
Then I moved to PA and married a Frenchman, who opened my eyes to a different way of life (yeah, the whole "evilness" of socialism). I continued to be a Republican for many years. Frankly, it was really only with GWB made such a mess of things that I started thinking differently. Part of it was that I finally had kids of my own and that really opened my eyes to the struggles families with children do have. I suddenly realized why there are policies for families, for kids. I experienced some economic troubles of my own, which made me understand why there's welfare, WIC, unemployment, etc.
And I heard more and more intolerance from the (primarily) far right wing side of the party. Intolerance towards anyone who wasn't like them. Hypocrisy over forcing women to have babies they didn't want, but unwillingness to help raise/pay for those babies. Contending that anyone who wanted a job, could get one, and it was just too bad if the only thing available was minimum wage, even if that wasn't enough to pay bills (including child care), you obviously weren't working 'hard enough.' Some even had the nerve to gripe about how much minimum wage cost the employer.
More and more, I saw religion being pushed into politics and I didn't care for it. The whole point of our country was separation of church and state, that the government was not supposed to support, endorse, or proselytize any one religion, but now it was. This country is made up of all sorts of people with differing religions, but our President and his supporters were pushing only one form of it on everyone as "the only right way."
Now I was always very tolerant of different religions. In fact, the religion in which I was brought up, Lutheranism, actively teaches its followers not to blindly accept what the priest/preacher tells you, but do have one's own faith, to do things that you believe are right, to figure things out on your own. Through this teaching, I conducted my own research into a few different religions and began to reject the verdict that just because one believes in God in a different way, doesn't mean that they don't believe in God, or won't go to Heaven. There is no "one way" to believe in, or worship God. All God cares about is that you believe in him and follow his principals. How you go about doing that, what methods you use to worship him, what aspect of him you follow, doesn't matter.
So it annoyed me to no end to see the Republican party began to focus more and more on religion and less and less on the economic principals I believed in. Now, it wasn't that poor people just needed to be taught better how to succeed, it was their fault because they didn't believe right. Other social issues also began to take more control over the party, the jihad against gays made absolutely no sense to me. I know the Bible has the whole Sodom and Ghemorrah story, but I also know the book was written by men, words and stories chosen by men to enforce certain "expected" behavior of their choosing, and designed to control/appeal to the masses. Like with other religions, I really don't believe that God is going to damn someone because the person they fell in love with happened to be of their same sex.
My disappointment with the hijacking of the Republican party by the religious right got to be so much, I finally had to leave the party. I just could not support anyone that stayed in political party so encompassed by standards and morals that were nothing but platitudes. I saw people who claimed to be "good Christian folk" spew hatred and vitriol and others, just because they had different beliefs. That's not how Jesus taught people.
I also began to see the greed that was running the party. How its all well and good to tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but then they hit that glass ceiling. People can only get by on 'hard work' for so long before it becomes a 'good ole boy' network, where one only gets ahead because of 'who you know.' Sure its still possible to be successful by oneself, but its much rarer than it used to be. And ordinary workers have a lot of difficulties getting by, struggling to pay the ever increasing costs of health care, child care, funding their own retirement, funding their kids college accounts, paying a mortgage.
Employers/businesses were becoming more greedy with limiting vacation time, sick time, maternity time, etc. Management and executive salaries were far and away outpacing those of workers, and more and more benefits were being cut. When people have to pay $12,000 a year in rent, $12,000 a year in child care and $6,000 a year in health care premiums (that is what I paid when when Cami was born), that's already $30,000 a year of my salary. Yet some places I applied for jobs wanted to only pay me $50,000 a year (and my others not much more). That meant after taxes, I had very little left for transportation, food, clothing, utilities, let alone something for savings.
I was annoyed that someone with a good education, with an advanced degree, was only being paid mid-five figures and working for people earning well into the six-figures. The bosses somehow expected me to be able to afford full time child care, plus a designer wardrobe with my measly wages. Considering my lower student loan payment, I had to wonder how any newer attorney, with significantly higher student loan payments, could get by without a high earning spouse or live-in relatives.
So I left the Republican party and joined the Democratic party. I began to see that it wasn't enough to just be a fiscal conservative, one has to realize the effect on society and how sometimes it really is necessary to cover some society costs because most people/businesses don't do it on their own. We need government to tell businesses they have to do certain things for their employees, because otherwise, they won't. They'll just make the employees work harder, and if they complain, fire them (good old at will employment) and hire someone who will be quiet and be "happy to have the job." We've already seen what happens when government isn't telling businesses how to treat employees. We get child labor earning pennies helping their parents pay the rent.
Republicans say they want less government, but really they only want less government taxes and business regulations. They want more government to regulate or stop abortions, (gay) marriage, immigration, welfare, etc. I love how people complain that our education system is deteriorating. That's because it has less and less government funding. Repubs don't want education funding, but they want the government to stick its nose into the schools and force prayer, Christian prayer only. This is why I can no longer vote Republican.
I can see why the Republican voters have been coming out in droves in the primaries. Its a battle between the right wing religious/tax fanatics and what's left of the moderates (those that didn't defect to the Dems, like myself). Apparently the results have been 50-50 for each side. I know everyone predicts the Dems will suffer greatly in November and there will be a big Republican resurgence. I'm not so sure. I think the Dems will come out to keep the tea partiers at bay (at least I hope they do, because God help us all otherwise) and maintain a majority in Congress.
I know that Obama hasn't been perfect, but he's far far better than the alternative and if he has any chance of trying to turn this country around after the last 20 years of damage, he needs a Democratic Congress. I have no "fear" that its going to turn in to a socialists paradise (although really, some of the policies are really pretty good), there are enough far-right Dems to join the Repubs to keep that from happening. But if the Party of No gets some control, I can't see much of anything happening over the next two years. I'm sure that will please everyone.
I used to be a Republican, its how I was brought up. I was raised that no one should be granted special privileges, everyone should work hard for themselves and not expect anything to be given to them. In essence, I was very much an fiscal conservative and definitely had social conservative leanings. This really came to a head when I was in college and I was annoyed how certain special interests groups got anything they wanted because they were "special interests groups" (i.e. anything non-white). Suddenly, any attempts to enjoy other cultures in a party atmosphere were deemed "racist" and prejudiced. I was insulted. My friends, sorority sisters, fraternity friends, were not being racist or prejudiced, we just wanted to some sombreros on the wall and drink tequila. We couldn't even call our spring Hawaiian themed party "Hawaiian Luau" because any use of a culture that wasn't "white" or "American" was considered "racist" (despite the fact that, you know, Hawaii is kind of part of America) and therefore banned because of the special interest group protest.
I was also annoyed by what I perceived to be special treatment given to certain persons of color to get into classes ahead of me, solely because of their color (and my school was probably 40% or more "of color"). As I look back on it, I really have no idea if other factors were taken into consideration with this preferential treatment, its entirely likely that economics played a part as well. At that time, it just seemed to me that nearly everyone I knew that was "of color" (which honestly wasn't all that many) got that special treatment and it annoyed me even though I didn't see all that many people "of color" in the classes I actually attended.
As I continued to live in CA, I maintained my conservative opinions. I was annoyed at how much taxes I paid (mostly because I was a renter and didn't have kids), particularly because that money funded programs for which I wasn't eligible. I always thought that the Republicans were a bit smarter, they seemed to know about economics more. About the only items I disagreed with the Republican party on were abortion rights
(I've always thought a woman should have the right to decide what
she wants to do with her own body, up to a point at least, and I
generally agreed with Roe v. Wade on that point - yes abstinence is
better, especially for teens, but its not realistic to think it will
never happen - hello Bristol Palin - and besides, I think its better
fiscally for someone who can't take care of a baby and/or who doesn't
want it to abort it in the first 3 months, rather than give birth
and have society, us tax payers, pay for it for 18+ years)
and gay rights
(frankly, I don't care who people marry, finding love is hard enough
to enforce a one-sex only standard).
Then I moved to PA and married a Frenchman, who opened my eyes to a different way of life (yeah, the whole "evilness" of socialism). I continued to be a Republican for many years. Frankly, it was really only with GWB made such a mess of things that I started thinking differently. Part of it was that I finally had kids of my own and that really opened my eyes to the struggles families with children do have. I suddenly realized why there are policies for families, for kids. I experienced some economic troubles of my own, which made me understand why there's welfare, WIC, unemployment, etc.
And I heard more and more intolerance from the (primarily) far right wing side of the party. Intolerance towards anyone who wasn't like them. Hypocrisy over forcing women to have babies they didn't want, but unwillingness to help raise/pay for those babies. Contending that anyone who wanted a job, could get one, and it was just too bad if the only thing available was minimum wage, even if that wasn't enough to pay bills (including child care), you obviously weren't working 'hard enough.' Some even had the nerve to gripe about how much minimum wage cost the employer.
More and more, I saw religion being pushed into politics and I didn't care for it. The whole point of our country was separation of church and state, that the government was not supposed to support, endorse, or proselytize any one religion, but now it was. This country is made up of all sorts of people with differing religions, but our President and his supporters were pushing only one form of it on everyone as "the only right way."
Now I was always very tolerant of different religions. In fact, the religion in which I was brought up, Lutheranism, actively teaches its followers not to blindly accept what the priest/preacher tells you, but do have one's own faith, to do things that you believe are right, to figure things out on your own. Through this teaching, I conducted my own research into a few different religions and began to reject the verdict that just because one believes in God in a different way, doesn't mean that they don't believe in God, or won't go to Heaven. There is no "one way" to believe in, or worship God. All God cares about is that you believe in him and follow his principals. How you go about doing that, what methods you use to worship him, what aspect of him you follow, doesn't matter.
So it annoyed me to no end to see the Republican party began to focus more and more on religion and less and less on the economic principals I believed in. Now, it wasn't that poor people just needed to be taught better how to succeed, it was their fault because they didn't believe right. Other social issues also began to take more control over the party, the jihad against gays made absolutely no sense to me. I know the Bible has the whole Sodom and Ghemorrah story, but I also know the book was written by men, words and stories chosen by men to enforce certain "expected" behavior of their choosing, and designed to control/appeal to the masses. Like with other religions, I really don't believe that God is going to damn someone because the person they fell in love with happened to be of their same sex.
My disappointment with the hijacking of the Republican party by the religious right got to be so much, I finally had to leave the party. I just could not support anyone that stayed in political party so encompassed by standards and morals that were nothing but platitudes. I saw people who claimed to be "good Christian folk" spew hatred and vitriol and others, just because they had different beliefs. That's not how Jesus taught people.
I also began to see the greed that was running the party. How its all well and good to tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but then they hit that glass ceiling. People can only get by on 'hard work' for so long before it becomes a 'good ole boy' network, where one only gets ahead because of 'who you know.' Sure its still possible to be successful by oneself, but its much rarer than it used to be. And ordinary workers have a lot of difficulties getting by, struggling to pay the ever increasing costs of health care, child care, funding their own retirement, funding their kids college accounts, paying a mortgage.
Employers/businesses were becoming more greedy with limiting vacation time, sick time, maternity time, etc. Management and executive salaries were far and away outpacing those of workers, and more and more benefits were being cut. When people have to pay $12,000 a year in rent, $12,000 a year in child care and $6,000 a year in health care premiums (that is what I paid when when Cami was born), that's already $30,000 a year of my salary. Yet some places I applied for jobs wanted to only pay me $50,000 a year (and my others not much more). That meant after taxes, I had very little left for transportation, food, clothing, utilities, let alone something for savings.
I was annoyed that someone with a good education, with an advanced degree, was only being paid mid-five figures and working for people earning well into the six-figures. The bosses somehow expected me to be able to afford full time child care, plus a designer wardrobe with my measly wages. Considering my lower student loan payment, I had to wonder how any newer attorney, with significantly higher student loan payments, could get by without a high earning spouse or live-in relatives.
So I left the Republican party and joined the Democratic party. I began to see that it wasn't enough to just be a fiscal conservative, one has to realize the effect on society and how sometimes it really is necessary to cover some society costs because most people/businesses don't do it on their own. We need government to tell businesses they have to do certain things for their employees, because otherwise, they won't. They'll just make the employees work harder, and if they complain, fire them (good old at will employment) and hire someone who will be quiet and be "happy to have the job." We've already seen what happens when government isn't telling businesses how to treat employees. We get child labor earning pennies helping their parents pay the rent.
Republicans say they want less government, but really they only want less government taxes and business regulations. They want more government to regulate or stop abortions, (gay) marriage, immigration, welfare, etc. I love how people complain that our education system is deteriorating. That's because it has less and less government funding. Repubs don't want education funding, but they want the government to stick its nose into the schools and force prayer, Christian prayer only. This is why I can no longer vote Republican.
I can see why the Republican voters have been coming out in droves in the primaries. Its a battle between the right wing religious/tax fanatics and what's left of the moderates (those that didn't defect to the Dems, like myself). Apparently the results have been 50-50 for each side. I know everyone predicts the Dems will suffer greatly in November and there will be a big Republican resurgence. I'm not so sure. I think the Dems will come out to keep the tea partiers at bay (at least I hope they do, because God help us all otherwise) and maintain a majority in Congress.
I know that Obama hasn't been perfect, but he's far far better than the alternative and if he has any chance of trying to turn this country around after the last 20 years of damage, he needs a Democratic Congress. I have no "fear" that its going to turn in to a socialists paradise (although really, some of the policies are really pretty good), there are enough far-right Dems to join the Repubs to keep that from happening. But if the Party of No gets some control, I can't see much of anything happening over the next two years. I'm sure that will please everyone.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Julia Child and France Then and Now
These are various notes I made while reading Julia Child’s My Life in France.
Restaurant prices are obviously significantly different. Three dollars in 1950 bought a fantastic meal in Paris for two people. I don’t think that would buy the bread in 2010.
Even though Julia didn’t work, it was au naturel for her to have a cleaning lady, one that even lived with them. Her kitchen appears to have been quite roomy, although everything is either on hooks, on open shelves or on the countertop. There do not appear to be any cabinets. My belle mere (mother in law) has a fairly normal sized and looking kitchen and definitely doesn’t have a cleaning lady. Of course, they live in the south, not in Paris. Perhaps people in Paris still have servants? Or more than likely, it was just the way it was in those times.
Julia has plenty of time to cook and experiment. She didn’t work and she didn’t have children. That left her with lots of time to fill. The book mentions how she took up the cooking classes because she needed something to do and she liked food.
Although the French all go on vacance in August, apparently no Americans do. Its unclear if all of the Child’s friends also worked in government and thus didn’t get the same vacation time because they followed American holidays/vacation, or if that’s just the way Americans were used to doing. Already there is resistance in France to “American business principles” of working all day, or all the time. The French want to spend time on other pursuits and enjoy life. They work ‘hard enough’ to make a decent living, but not so hard as to be unable to enjoy their lives. So many Americans these days are forced to work 10-12 hours day (including commuting time) or more such that they don’t have the ability to enjoy what time off they do get.
Julia may be quite familiar with the French language, and even though I know a decent amount, I don’t understand many phrases she used in the book and no doubt most Americans know even less. Some of the phrases and sentences should come with a translation, especially when she’s trying to make us understand how funny they are. We can’t laugh at what we don’t understand. It seems to me that she always translates the easier words/sentences, but not the more complicated ones, and this is frustrating. I can easily understand “une maison sans chat, c’est la vie sans soleil (a house without a cat is like life without sunshine), but I had no idea what “nous, nous de la vraie Mediterranee, nous ne mettons jamais les tomates dans la bouillabaisse, nous, jamais” meant other than it has something to do with tomatoes in the Mediterranean bouillabaisse. Apparently it actually means that “true Mediterranean people don’t use tomatoes in bouillabaisse” (something said by a Marsellais woman which Julia said wasn’t really true).
The photos of Julia in her kitchen and with French women show how much she towered over everyone, and how especially tall she was, particularly during this era. Compare Julia, at 6’2”, with the French women, they appear to be a good 12 inches shorter. Most French women I have met in 2000+ have been what I understand is current average height of around 5’5” or so, so the French have grown taller. Considering that furniture was likely built for these short women, especially in the kitchen, it must have been quite hard on Julia to cook, or at least cause her more back strain. When Julia had homes built/remodeled for her, the kitchens were custom built taller for her size.
I found it interesting her mention of driving across the US in 1946 with Paul before they got married, nothing is said about separate bedrooms in the hotels at which they stayed. You mean in 1946 men and women sometimes slept together before marriage in the “golden family values age” of the US? Quelle horror.
There is a big difference between Julia Child describing her cooking and Julie Powell describing her cooking of Julia Child’s recipes in Julie’s blog/book. Julia Child discusses the taste, textures, flavors of the food. Julie described how hard it was to cook the recipe or find the ingredients.
Julia talks about how, at 40, she is now of “advancing age.” At least today, 40 is the new 30, so I don’t feel quite so “advanced age” at 45.
Julia apparently hates the pressure cooker because it ‘made everything taste nasty’ but it was “popular in U.S. households” so she had to adapt some recipes for its use. Quite a difference in 2010, where the only other person I know of with a pressure cooker is another mixed American-French household, and it was only through my belle mere that I learned to cook with one. If a pressure cooker was popular in the US in the 1950s, it’s definitely not now (most likely due to more frozen veggies that one just boils or cooks in the microwave). I think a pressure cooker is better. It’s so easy and I think it makes the veggies taste better, more natural. At least better than boiling or microwaving the vegetables. I’ll have to review Julia’s cookbook to see how she cooked the veggies, if she thought they tasted worse in a pressure cooker. I’m fairly certain she added butter to everything, so of course that would make them taste better, but I can still do that after using the pressure cooker, if I felt it necessary (which most of the time, I don’t).
Julia mentions the differences between French and American flour. In France, apparently the flour is (or was) more natural, and kept its fat. It would go bad if not used up in a fairly quick amount of time. American flour is more processed (I knew that in general) that takes away more of the fat, but allows it stay fresh a lot longer. Thus Julia had to scale her recipes for Americans to use more butter or other fat in cooking things like pastry crust. I wonder if the difference in flour still exists, and if so, if they sell flour in smaller quantities in France, since it must be used up quicker. I’ll have to ask, since some of the recipes for things I’ve asked from my in-laws use both flour and butter. Maybe I need to add more butter to my béchamel sauce, for example and perhaps that’s why it doesn’t taste as good as my belle souer’s.
When Julia talks about her first cooking lessons as a teacher, she’s charging 7000 francs, which she says is the equivalent of $20 (so about 350 francs to 1 dollar). I was floored. I went to France in 1988, when they still had the franc, and I’m pretty sure the exchange rate was about 7 francs to the dollar. So in 37 years, that’s quite a comeback for the franc. Of course now the French use the Euro, which is worth more than the dollar. So there you go capitalists, a couple of generations of socialism ruins an economy, eh?
Julia talks about how her book was to be the complete primer for French cooking, the preliminaries must be performed correctly and every detail must be observed. Certainly MTAFC is quite detailed and frankly I have problems sometimes trying to follow everything. It’s a lot of work to cook most of these recipes. The results are worth it, however. It’s just hard to find the time to devote to cooking when one has a full time job, plus young kids. Of course, Julia is writing this book at a time when most women aren’t working full time.
Before reading this book, I had no idea that Julia Child actually spent quite so much time living in France after her initial stay and definitely not in Provence. After they returned to the US and Julia began her cooking show, the Childs continued to visit friends in France. Her co-author, Simone Beck and her husband owned property in Provence, inherited from family. The property, five hectares of land (about 12 acres) was situated a bit north of Cannes. When the Childs wanted to find a place of their own, but could not find anything to their liking, the Becks allowed them to build their own home on a portion of their land. These was solely a lease arrangement, the house reverted back to the Beck family after the Childs stopped using it in the early 1990s when Paul Child could no longer physically visit. But with this home, the Childs now spent many months each year living in Provence. It is my hope that someday my family will be able to afford a home in Provence near my husband’s parents, so we too can live several months there when we retire.
I note she talks about by the time they quite visiting Provence it had become quite expensive, crowded and most of the small shops had given way to large supermarkets. While that may be true, it’s still closer to the “country” than in the US, or at least in most US cities. Its definitely harder to find butcher’s fruit/vegetable suppliers, bakers in US cities than in France, at least from what I’ve seen. OTOH, I generally haven’t seen my in-laws shop many places other than the supermarket, although I have seen smaller butchers and fruit/vegetable places. Certainly it is easier to do one’s shopping all at one place, I find it the same here. We do try to use the Amish farmers market more often, even if the prices are equivalent, the food is generally fresher than in the supermarket.
All in all, a very interesting book, certainly more so that Julie Powell's book.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
On a Reading Roll
I feel inspired to write more for a time. I was rereading some of my prior posts and saw that I was remiss in following up to my book review from a couple of months ago. So here is my review of some of the books I said I'd talk about, plus a couple others.
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert - This was the follow up to Eat, Love, Pray (which is now a movie that I've read isn't so good, especially if you haven't read the book). For those that liked ELP, you'll like Committed. If you didn't like ELP, well, why are you still reading her books? Committed follows Elizabeth's relationship with Felipe, they fly back and forth between the US and Felipe's business interests in Bali and elsewhere. After several multi-month long stays in the US, immigration finally says Felipe can't come in any more without a more permanent visa (especially in the post 9/11 US). So the couple has no choice. Either live outside the US or get married. Given that both Felipe and Elizabeth are divorced from prior unsuccessful marriages, neither of them, Liz in particular, is all that keen on getting married, but they want to stay together and be able to spend time in the US. So while waiting forever for Felipe's fiancee visa (I know what that feels like), the couple live in other countries, primarily very low expense southeast asian countries and Liz explores the concept and institution of marriage through other cultures.
What was interesting in this book was realizing that our current US (and western European) culture of "marriage for love" is really a very modern concept. The vast majority of our history shows that marriage has almost always been a 'civil' arrangement, primarily to breed children and/or combine family interests/business/money. In poorer cultures, marriage was just something you did with someone agreeable enough when it was time to have children. In richer cultures, of course, a lot of time it was a business decision by parents to combine money, land, titles, etc. Love rarely, if ever, factored into the decision to get married, but it may have developed over time. Most of the time, it was good enough if you liked the person, or at least could stand to be in the same room together and share a bed now and again. That's why hardly anyone ever got divorced. No one in Liz's travels mentioned this ideal of a "soul mate" or the "one true love" that seems to drive so many Americans to divorce when their marriage lives aren't perfect.
The only real flaw in Elizabeth's work is that the vast majority of her interviews and opinions are garnered from women, very little is contributed to by men, who are really half of the marriage equation. While the book explains why the women never seem interested in being with a man other than one's husband (at least for sex), there isn't a similar query made to the men, many of whom aren't always satisfied with just one woman. There was no research as to what happens if the man does go outside the marriage, did that have any affect at all? There also wasn't any inquiry as to whether homosexual interests ever arose and what affect that could have. So, a bit like EPL, you feel like you're just getting half the story, but its still a good read.
"The Nanny Returns" - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Krause (follow-up to "The Nanny Diaries"). The protagonist of The Nanny Diaries returns to NYC after about 10 years with her husband (whom she met in TND), who is the son of one of the NYC 'society women' whom Nanny derides. This book contains two stories, Nanny's relationship with Mrs. X and her new job at a private school funded by the X's, with a small subplot of Nanny's friendship with an old friend who appears to be a 'budding Ms. X.' The book continues on the same topic of how people in the X's circle are shallow, only interested in appearances, and don't give a damn about "the little people" who actually work. However, the treatment of the teachers at the school certainly isn't limited to the rich, we see that in middle-class public schools as well, except that there's a little less control over the teacher's jobs. Still an interesting look of how having a lot of money can change one's priorities, especially when children are involved.
"Think Twice" by Lisa Scottoline. Another book where Bennie's twin sister shows up to wreck havoc in Bennie's life. The twin is able to kidnap Bennie and assume her life for several days, while she tries to steal all of Bennie's life savings. Apparently the twin is able to do this because no one really knows Bennie well enough to see all the inconsistencies when the twin assumes Bennie's life and work. Eventually Bennie realizes this and vows to change her life so she will become closer to people. I suppose this was supposed to make people realize that they need others in their lives and not to be so isolated from people you work with and to make real friends. Frankly, I found it a bit inconceivable that Bennie had no close friend who knew her well enough to spot the fake and even those people that saw the differences just assumed Bennie wanted to act differently, even when these people knew Bennie had a con-artist twin sister. Also, lesson learned from Bennie: don't write your computer/bank/email passwords down in a Rollodex on your desk under the card marked "passwords." And this is supposed to be a very smart lawyer?
"Silks" and "Even Money" by Dick Francis and Felix Francis. These are the last two books written by (or with) Dick Francis before his death. His son, Felix, wrote with him. Its a bit unclear as to how much input Dick had in these books, given his age. Almost certainly he's not the one doing the bulk of the research, as his wife used to do it before her death, about 10 years or so ago (which nearly stopped the books completely, it appears, until Felix stepped up to the plate to help). The books are very much written in Dick's style and after reading all of his books (of which I think there are about 30 or so), they definitely have a pattern. The protagonist is nearly always a fairly meek man who gets caught up in circumstances beyond his control and a bit out of his depth, certainly violence wise. Almost always either the protagonist or a close friend ends up having some crucial skill that helps the protagonist defeat the bad guy. Almost always there's a 'thrill' scene where the bad guy threatens the protagonist's female companion. The main interests I've had in the books is how Francis combines horses (nearly always involving racing) with some other topic, such as photography, wine-making, banking, painting, or in the case of these two stories, bookmaking (i.e. gambling) and being an attorney. I'll be curious to see whether Felix Francis continues on writing the books.
"Blood Oath" by Christopher Farnsworth. I really liked this book. Its about a new vampire discovered by shortly after the civil war and "pardoned" by President Andrew Jackson and bound by a voodoo oath to serve only the President of the United States and men directly under his control. The vampire then helps serve and defend the US from other supernatural threats, which in this book are 'frankenstein' monsters put together from corpses of fallen soldiers set loose by radical Islamic terrorists. The book is clearly written as the first in the series, as all the necessary parties survive, and future encounters with involved villains are expected. I thought the book was well written, paced well and the characters well created. Looking forward to the sequel.
On vacation I read "The Alibi Man" by Tami Hoag and "Valhallan Rising" by Clive Cussler. Both were my 'throwaway' vacation books, paperbacks I had bought (at library sales) because they looked somewhat interesting, but knew I didn't want to keep them. So I took them on vacation with the intent of reading them, then leaving them for someone else to pick up and read on their vacation. Less stuff to take home, more room for souvenirs. Both were ok as diversions, but clearly just that. "The Alibi Man" involved a murder-mystery in Florida, which naturally makes you think its one person, but ends up being the completely no-way other person. "Valhallan Rising" was another story involving Cussler's main protagonist, Dirk Pitt, as he solves a mystery that starts hundred or so years before. I've read a couple of these books now and just can't really get into Cussler's world. I'm always a bit suspicious of the 'superman' who seems to be able to do everything and anything.
I'll be doing a separate post on the Julia Child book, as it's fairly extensive. I've also read through several of Wil Wheaton's books that I plan on posting about. Still working my way through Laurell K. Hamilton's latest, "Divine Misdemeanors." Its been taking a bit of a back shelf to other books I'm on a deadline with for the library, and frankly, some of her books are starting to plod a bit as well. Plus its big and hard to port around. I'm also in the middle of "The Passage" by Justin Cronin, another new vampire-type book (and this one clearly needed an editor).
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert - This was the follow up to Eat, Love, Pray (which is now a movie that I've read isn't so good, especially if you haven't read the book). For those that liked ELP, you'll like Committed. If you didn't like ELP, well, why are you still reading her books? Committed follows Elizabeth's relationship with Felipe, they fly back and forth between the US and Felipe's business interests in Bali and elsewhere. After several multi-month long stays in the US, immigration finally says Felipe can't come in any more without a more permanent visa (especially in the post 9/11 US). So the couple has no choice. Either live outside the US or get married. Given that both Felipe and Elizabeth are divorced from prior unsuccessful marriages, neither of them, Liz in particular, is all that keen on getting married, but they want to stay together and be able to spend time in the US. So while waiting forever for Felipe's fiancee visa (I know what that feels like), the couple live in other countries, primarily very low expense southeast asian countries and Liz explores the concept and institution of marriage through other cultures.
What was interesting in this book was realizing that our current US (and western European) culture of "marriage for love" is really a very modern concept. The vast majority of our history shows that marriage has almost always been a 'civil' arrangement, primarily to breed children and/or combine family interests/business/money. In poorer cultures, marriage was just something you did with someone agreeable enough when it was time to have children. In richer cultures, of course, a lot of time it was a business decision by parents to combine money, land, titles, etc. Love rarely, if ever, factored into the decision to get married, but it may have developed over time. Most of the time, it was good enough if you liked the person, or at least could stand to be in the same room together and share a bed now and again. That's why hardly anyone ever got divorced. No one in Liz's travels mentioned this ideal of a "soul mate" or the "one true love" that seems to drive so many Americans to divorce when their marriage lives aren't perfect.
The only real flaw in Elizabeth's work is that the vast majority of her interviews and opinions are garnered from women, very little is contributed to by men, who are really half of the marriage equation. While the book explains why the women never seem interested in being with a man other than one's husband (at least for sex), there isn't a similar query made to the men, many of whom aren't always satisfied with just one woman. There was no research as to what happens if the man does go outside the marriage, did that have any affect at all? There also wasn't any inquiry as to whether homosexual interests ever arose and what affect that could have. So, a bit like EPL, you feel like you're just getting half the story, but its still a good read.
"The Nanny Returns" - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Krause (follow-up to "The Nanny Diaries"). The protagonist of The Nanny Diaries returns to NYC after about 10 years with her husband (whom she met in TND), who is the son of one of the NYC 'society women' whom Nanny derides. This book contains two stories, Nanny's relationship with Mrs. X and her new job at a private school funded by the X's, with a small subplot of Nanny's friendship with an old friend who appears to be a 'budding Ms. X.' The book continues on the same topic of how people in the X's circle are shallow, only interested in appearances, and don't give a damn about "the little people" who actually work. However, the treatment of the teachers at the school certainly isn't limited to the rich, we see that in middle-class public schools as well, except that there's a little less control over the teacher's jobs. Still an interesting look of how having a lot of money can change one's priorities, especially when children are involved.
"Think Twice" by Lisa Scottoline. Another book where Bennie's twin sister shows up to wreck havoc in Bennie's life. The twin is able to kidnap Bennie and assume her life for several days, while she tries to steal all of Bennie's life savings. Apparently the twin is able to do this because no one really knows Bennie well enough to see all the inconsistencies when the twin assumes Bennie's life and work. Eventually Bennie realizes this and vows to change her life so she will become closer to people. I suppose this was supposed to make people realize that they need others in their lives and not to be so isolated from people you work with and to make real friends. Frankly, I found it a bit inconceivable that Bennie had no close friend who knew her well enough to spot the fake and even those people that saw the differences just assumed Bennie wanted to act differently, even when these people knew Bennie had a con-artist twin sister. Also, lesson learned from Bennie: don't write your computer/bank/email passwords down in a Rollodex on your desk under the card marked "passwords." And this is supposed to be a very smart lawyer?
"Silks" and "Even Money" by Dick Francis and Felix Francis. These are the last two books written by (or with) Dick Francis before his death. His son, Felix, wrote with him. Its a bit unclear as to how much input Dick had in these books, given his age. Almost certainly he's not the one doing the bulk of the research, as his wife used to do it before her death, about 10 years or so ago (which nearly stopped the books completely, it appears, until Felix stepped up to the plate to help). The books are very much written in Dick's style and after reading all of his books (of which I think there are about 30 or so), they definitely have a pattern. The protagonist is nearly always a fairly meek man who gets caught up in circumstances beyond his control and a bit out of his depth, certainly violence wise. Almost always either the protagonist or a close friend ends up having some crucial skill that helps the protagonist defeat the bad guy. Almost always there's a 'thrill' scene where the bad guy threatens the protagonist's female companion. The main interests I've had in the books is how Francis combines horses (nearly always involving racing) with some other topic, such as photography, wine-making, banking, painting, or in the case of these two stories, bookmaking (i.e. gambling) and being an attorney. I'll be curious to see whether Felix Francis continues on writing the books.
"Blood Oath" by Christopher Farnsworth. I really liked this book. Its about a new vampire discovered by shortly after the civil war and "pardoned" by President Andrew Jackson and bound by a voodoo oath to serve only the President of the United States and men directly under his control. The vampire then helps serve and defend the US from other supernatural threats, which in this book are 'frankenstein' monsters put together from corpses of fallen soldiers set loose by radical Islamic terrorists. The book is clearly written as the first in the series, as all the necessary parties survive, and future encounters with involved villains are expected. I thought the book was well written, paced well and the characters well created. Looking forward to the sequel.
On vacation I read "The Alibi Man" by Tami Hoag and "Valhallan Rising" by Clive Cussler. Both were my 'throwaway' vacation books, paperbacks I had bought (at library sales) because they looked somewhat interesting, but knew I didn't want to keep them. So I took them on vacation with the intent of reading them, then leaving them for someone else to pick up and read on their vacation. Less stuff to take home, more room for souvenirs. Both were ok as diversions, but clearly just that. "The Alibi Man" involved a murder-mystery in Florida, which naturally makes you think its one person, but ends up being the completely no-way other person. "Valhallan Rising" was another story involving Cussler's main protagonist, Dirk Pitt, as he solves a mystery that starts hundred or so years before. I've read a couple of these books now and just can't really get into Cussler's world. I'm always a bit suspicious of the 'superman' who seems to be able to do everything and anything.
I'll be doing a separate post on the Julia Child book, as it's fairly extensive. I've also read through several of Wil Wheaton's books that I plan on posting about. Still working my way through Laurell K. Hamilton's latest, "Divine Misdemeanors." Its been taking a bit of a back shelf to other books I'm on a deadline with for the library, and frankly, some of her books are starting to plod a bit as well. Plus its big and hard to port around. I'm also in the middle of "The Passage" by Justin Cronin, another new vampire-type book (and this one clearly needed an editor).
Monday, August 16, 2010
Concert Experiment Fail
I went to see Adam Lambert in concert on Friday night at a Musikfest put on by the city of Bethlehem, PA. Bethlehem is a smallish town north of Philly, a little bit east of Allentown (made famous in a Billy Joel song). Every year it holds this two week Musikfest, which is like a county fair with booths of food, drink, games, shopping and about five or six stages for musical performers. All of the performances are free except for the big main stage at the "RiverPlace," which turns out is simply a island in the middle of the river next to the town where they set up a stage and folding chairs.
While I loved Adam's performance, I was not happy at all with the venue. Had I known he was going to have another date near Philly (which was the night before in Upper Darby, 5 miles from my house, /sob), I would have waited to buy tickets there, as the temporary RiverPlace was a hassle to get to (normally its about an hours drive, but Friday night traffic to the Poconos, plus the concert traffic made the drive 2 hours), the venue is not a real good place to see the stage if your seats were back beyond the first section, not to mention the nightmare of parking (or I should really say, getting back to my car after the concert - that took longer than Adam's concert). But the Musikfest tickets went on sale a month or so before the Tower Theater performance was announced, so I thought it was my only chance to see him (and money is tight enough that I couldn't justify two concerts in two nights). I have to wonder if that was intended, in order to up the attendance at Musikfest, since it was a much larger venue (about 6,500 seats, plus lawn seating, compared to the Tower Theater at about 2,500 seats).
And waiting nearly an hour after opening act Orianthi for his less than a hour performance was annoying as well. I don't know who's fault that was. The stage appeared to have been done in 20 minutes, so why was there a delay? The delay also caused concerns getting back to our car, since we had to park way off site and take the shuttle bus to the festival grounds, which were supposed to stop at 11:30 p.m. (but obviously kept going after midnight to get everyone back to the parking areas). I think Adam had to cut his encore to just one song because of the bus schedule, since I understand at other concerts he did two songs.
My only other quibble was with the whole camera thing. I've been going to concerts for a few decades now, so I know that in general one can't bring in cameras. Obviously some of that had changed to some extent with phones having cameras, I haven't heard of any place that keeps one from bringing your phone into the concert, even if it has a camera in it, but I haven't gone to a whole lot of concerts in the past couple of years (kids will do that).
With Musikfest, I thought seriously about bringing my small camcorder and my sister-in-law did bring her camera, which was a little bit larger than a phone, with a protruding lens (i.e. it doesn't easily slip inside a pocket, but its not a 'professional' type camera either). I tried to find information as to whether such was allowed at the Musikfest concert, since the rest of the festival was free, had a lot of music, games, other entertainment for families, who one would expect would naturally bring their camera. But I couldn't find any info.
In the end, I didn't bring my camcorder, which I guess was a good thing. We're in line to get into the venue when we see the sign that says "no cameras". Its now 6:40 (the website said the concert was to start at 6:45 - although it actually was an hour later) and since we had parked a long ways a way and taken the shuttle bus, we had no easy way back to the car. Neither of us had pockets, so I did a little trick with my purse and got the camera in (lets just say I've had a little bit of experience with that). Of course, inside the venue, we see that 90% of the people have camera phones and most aren't even bothering trying to hide them. So why is there any restriction at all on cameras, if everyone has a camera phone these days? Turns out, we couldn't even get any decent pictures because of our seats.
But despite all that, I loved Adam's show. His voice was absolutely wonderful and he puts on a pretty good show (at least what I could see of it). He was beautiful on Soaked and I liked the acoustic change up for Aftermath. I was sorry to miss out on Whole Lotta Love, but 20th Century Boy was pretty good instead. I'll definitely plan to see him again, but next time in a real theater.
While I loved Adam's performance, I was not happy at all with the venue. Had I known he was going to have another date near Philly (which was the night before in Upper Darby, 5 miles from my house, /sob), I would have waited to buy tickets there, as the temporary RiverPlace was a hassle to get to (normally its about an hours drive, but Friday night traffic to the Poconos, plus the concert traffic made the drive 2 hours), the venue is not a real good place to see the stage if your seats were back beyond the first section, not to mention the nightmare of parking (or I should really say, getting back to my car after the concert - that took longer than Adam's concert). But the Musikfest tickets went on sale a month or so before the Tower Theater performance was announced, so I thought it was my only chance to see him (and money is tight enough that I couldn't justify two concerts in two nights). I have to wonder if that was intended, in order to up the attendance at Musikfest, since it was a much larger venue (about 6,500 seats, plus lawn seating, compared to the Tower Theater at about 2,500 seats).
And waiting nearly an hour after opening act Orianthi for his less than a hour performance was annoying as well. I don't know who's fault that was. The stage appeared to have been done in 20 minutes, so why was there a delay? The delay also caused concerns getting back to our car, since we had to park way off site and take the shuttle bus to the festival grounds, which were supposed to stop at 11:30 p.m. (but obviously kept going after midnight to get everyone back to the parking areas). I think Adam had to cut his encore to just one song because of the bus schedule, since I understand at other concerts he did two songs.
My only other quibble was with the whole camera thing. I've been going to concerts for a few decades now, so I know that in general one can't bring in cameras. Obviously some of that had changed to some extent with phones having cameras, I haven't heard of any place that keeps one from bringing your phone into the concert, even if it has a camera in it, but I haven't gone to a whole lot of concerts in the past couple of years (kids will do that).
With Musikfest, I thought seriously about bringing my small camcorder and my sister-in-law did bring her camera, which was a little bit larger than a phone, with a protruding lens (i.e. it doesn't easily slip inside a pocket, but its not a 'professional' type camera either). I tried to find information as to whether such was allowed at the Musikfest concert, since the rest of the festival was free, had a lot of music, games, other entertainment for families, who one would expect would naturally bring their camera. But I couldn't find any info.
In the end, I didn't bring my camcorder, which I guess was a good thing. We're in line to get into the venue when we see the sign that says "no cameras". Its now 6:40 (the website said the concert was to start at 6:45 - although it actually was an hour later) and since we had parked a long ways a way and taken the shuttle bus, we had no easy way back to the car. Neither of us had pockets, so I did a little trick with my purse and got the camera in (lets just say I've had a little bit of experience with that). Of course, inside the venue, we see that 90% of the people have camera phones and most aren't even bothering trying to hide them. So why is there any restriction at all on cameras, if everyone has a camera phone these days? Turns out, we couldn't even get any decent pictures because of our seats.
But despite all that, I loved Adam's show. His voice was absolutely wonderful and he puts on a pretty good show (at least what I could see of it). He was beautiful on Soaked and I liked the acoustic change up for Aftermath. I was sorry to miss out on Whole Lotta Love, but 20th Century Boy was pretty good instead. I'll definitely plan to see him again, but next time in a real theater.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Mexican Vacation
We did a family vacation to Mazatlan last week, which included my French in-laws (mother, father and sister). Overall, it was pretty good.
I was expecting slightly better prices and deals, considering Mexico is still somewhat recovering from last year's swine flu and this years crime reports, but prices weren't too bad. No great deals on food, unless one went for the small taco stands and un-air-conditioned restaurants. Merchandise also wasn't a significant savings, even with bargaining (and some places were clearly not interested in doing that, or at least with 'tourists'), but didn't get ripped off at least.
Mazatlan is apparently quite ripe for developers, or at least trying to be. They were doing a lot of hard sells for these new Private Residence Clubs. A bit similar to the time share bit, except that they want to "lease" you the space, with the hope that you'll eventually want to buy a whole vacation home. The biggest problem we had (besides the large upfront payment) was being tied to just a few areas (the one we went to was offered in about 5-6 places in Mexico, but nowhere else). We like to travel and see new and different things. We're not interested in buying a vacation home in one place.
Weather was good, flight decent enough (Continental was ok, free food that was good, free checked bag back to the US). It was more humid than I expected, we definitely needed to do laundry during the trip. I was also a bit annoyed at the seat assignments, it was a real effort to try and get seats together 2 at a time, so each parent could sit with a child.
My main surprise was the price of sun lotion. $15 a bottle. If I had known that, I would have checked a bag full of it. I didn't bring any because I thought I could buy it for a comparative price and didn't want to pay $25 for a checked bag. I thought I would have had to pay the bag fee for the Philly to Houston flight, but since we went onto Mexico, I may not have anyway (since I didn't get charged to check a bag coming back). But it still would have saved money to pay $25 to check a bag with the 4 bottles of sun lotion we went through at $15 a piece.
We had checked one bag in Mexico all the way to Philly (everyone else had carry-ons). The one bag was selected to carry all the liquids we were taking home (a bottle of tequila, two bottles of vanilla, suntan lotion, after-sun lotion, etc.). My father in law then bought some duty free Tequila at the Mexico Airport, which he carried on the plane.
After going through immigration in Houston (which had its own issues), we had to collect the "checked bag" from baggage claim, take everything through the final customs check, then "recheck" the "checked bag". At that time, we were told that we had to place the duty free tequila bottle in the "checked bag" or we couldn't take it through the security screening we had to go through again to our connecting flight. Fortunately we had room to do that, although I was somewhat concerned with protection for the bottle, especially since we were a bit rushed because immigration took forever.
My question is what could we do if we hadn't previously "checked" a bag so that we had one available to place the duty free bottle inside? There were no areas set up to do a formal "checking" process for a bag after immigration/customs, you had one area to give the already "checked" bag, then you had to go through security.
I'm told we would have just had to throw away the duty free bottle. That makes no sense. Isn't the point of duty free with it being in a special sealed bag supposed to serve the security purpose? I'm glad we had room for the bottle, but what if we had bought more or didn't have an already "checked bag"? I'm told that this is the wonderful TSA v. Duty Free issue and TSA wins. So be warned. If you are flying internationally, make sure you check a bag if you intend to buy duty free liquids and go through customs in a different city than your final destination.
We had another wonderful issue, this time with immigration. I'm just so fed up with the obvious lack of training and/or poor training provided to employees. No one ever seems to know the rules or the correct way to apply them.
My french sister in law has a B2 visa she got a few years ago when she lived with us for five months while providing some child care. The B2 visa is valid for 10 years. Even when she's just visiting a few weeks, now every time she comes to the US, she had to fill out a special form that allows her to remain in the US for 6 months, even though she doesn't stay that long now.
She filled out this form when she entered the US a few days before our Mexico vacation, and kept part of it in her passport as required. When we went to Mexico, no one removed it from her passport, although apparently someone was supposed to do so. When we came back to the US, she had to fill out the form again, even though she still had the part of the form from the prior week. The immigration officer practically accused her fraud and worse because she still had the part form from the prior week because someone else didn't do their job and remove it from her passport. She didn't know that was required, she didn't remember what occurred the last time she visited.
So when she returns to France, she has to be sure someone takes both of these forms back out of her passport. Otherwise, she could be barred from visiting again. I just love our wonderful Homeland Security's failures at training.
We're constantly learning new rules in air flight. I guess I'm becoming an expert on this.
I was expecting slightly better prices and deals, considering Mexico is still somewhat recovering from last year's swine flu and this years crime reports, but prices weren't too bad. No great deals on food, unless one went for the small taco stands and un-air-conditioned restaurants. Merchandise also wasn't a significant savings, even with bargaining (and some places were clearly not interested in doing that, or at least with 'tourists'), but didn't get ripped off at least.
Mazatlan is apparently quite ripe for developers, or at least trying to be. They were doing a lot of hard sells for these new Private Residence Clubs. A bit similar to the time share bit, except that they want to "lease" you the space, with the hope that you'll eventually want to buy a whole vacation home. The biggest problem we had (besides the large upfront payment) was being tied to just a few areas (the one we went to was offered in about 5-6 places in Mexico, but nowhere else). We like to travel and see new and different things. We're not interested in buying a vacation home in one place.
Weather was good, flight decent enough (Continental was ok, free food that was good, free checked bag back to the US). It was more humid than I expected, we definitely needed to do laundry during the trip. I was also a bit annoyed at the seat assignments, it was a real effort to try and get seats together 2 at a time, so each parent could sit with a child.
My main surprise was the price of sun lotion. $15 a bottle. If I had known that, I would have checked a bag full of it. I didn't bring any because I thought I could buy it for a comparative price and didn't want to pay $25 for a checked bag. I thought I would have had to pay the bag fee for the Philly to Houston flight, but since we went onto Mexico, I may not have anyway (since I didn't get charged to check a bag coming back). But it still would have saved money to pay $25 to check a bag with the 4 bottles of sun lotion we went through at $15 a piece.
We had checked one bag in Mexico all the way to Philly (everyone else had carry-ons). The one bag was selected to carry all the liquids we were taking home (a bottle of tequila, two bottles of vanilla, suntan lotion, after-sun lotion, etc.). My father in law then bought some duty free Tequila at the Mexico Airport, which he carried on the plane.
After going through immigration in Houston (which had its own issues), we had to collect the "checked bag" from baggage claim, take everything through the final customs check, then "recheck" the "checked bag". At that time, we were told that we had to place the duty free tequila bottle in the "checked bag" or we couldn't take it through the security screening we had to go through again to our connecting flight. Fortunately we had room to do that, although I was somewhat concerned with protection for the bottle, especially since we were a bit rushed because immigration took forever.
My question is what could we do if we hadn't previously "checked" a bag so that we had one available to place the duty free bottle inside? There were no areas set up to do a formal "checking" process for a bag after immigration/customs, you had one area to give the already "checked" bag, then you had to go through security.
I'm told we would have just had to throw away the duty free bottle. That makes no sense. Isn't the point of duty free with it being in a special sealed bag supposed to serve the security purpose? I'm glad we had room for the bottle, but what if we had bought more or didn't have an already "checked bag"? I'm told that this is the wonderful TSA v. Duty Free issue and TSA wins. So be warned. If you are flying internationally, make sure you check a bag if you intend to buy duty free liquids and go through customs in a different city than your final destination.
We had another wonderful issue, this time with immigration. I'm just so fed up with the obvious lack of training and/or poor training provided to employees. No one ever seems to know the rules or the correct way to apply them.
My french sister in law has a B2 visa she got a few years ago when she lived with us for five months while providing some child care. The B2 visa is valid for 10 years. Even when she's just visiting a few weeks, now every time she comes to the US, she had to fill out a special form that allows her to remain in the US for 6 months, even though she doesn't stay that long now.
She filled out this form when she entered the US a few days before our Mexico vacation, and kept part of it in her passport as required. When we went to Mexico, no one removed it from her passport, although apparently someone was supposed to do so. When we came back to the US, she had to fill out the form again, even though she still had the part of the form from the prior week. The immigration officer practically accused her fraud and worse because she still had the part form from the prior week because someone else didn't do their job and remove it from her passport. She didn't know that was required, she didn't remember what occurred the last time she visited.
So when she returns to France, she has to be sure someone takes both of these forms back out of her passport. Otherwise, she could be barred from visiting again. I just love our wonderful Homeland Security's failures at training.
We're constantly learning new rules in air flight. I guess I'm becoming an expert on this.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Greener Grass
I was reading an article about various panels and guests at this year's Comicon in San Diego and really for the first time in 10 years I was almost sorry I had moved from SoCal. I would love to see some of these panels and while I can most likely watch them later on youtube, its really not the same thing as being there in person and enjoying it with a whole bunch of other like-minded people. Thinking of that made me think about other things I miss from SoCal, and I came up with this list:
1. Disneyland
2. Good Mexican food
3. LA Art Museums
4. Tam O'Shanter (favorite restaurant that still exists)
5. Local gaming cons
6. So Cal Ren Faire
and now I add
7. Comicon - I would so go if I still lived there.
We have amusement parks in in PA and NJ, although I haven't actually been to any of them, which is rather surprising given my love of rollercoasters. I think we were just too poor and had other interests (EQ/WoW) so we never got to them, and now of course, can't go until the kids are old enough. Still, nothing is quite the same as D-land.
I've been to a couple of Mexican restaurants here, but lets face it. There are very few Mexican immigrants in this neck of the woods, so not only are there very few who could cook authentic Mexican food, there's very few who'd even want to eat it. I even have trouble sometimes finding enchilada sauce in grocery stores. At least I finally found a place to buy good chorizo sausage - the Amish market. Go figure.
Philly has an art museum too, but its not as good as MOMA or LACMA. Plus its expensive, although maybe the LA ones have raised prices too.
Still haven't found a "go to" restaurant that I love as much as Tam O'Shanter. I say "of restaurants that still exist" because my very favorite in Pasadena, Maldonado's, closed about 10 years or so ago. Whenever we visit SoCal, I try to go to Tam O'Shanter, best prime rib, best souffles, but we don't always make it. Some day, I hope to find a good "go to" restaurant here in Philly too. One that has good food that I can't get most anywhere else, and isn't too expensive.
Surprisingly to me, Philly doesn't have any gaming cons. LA has 3, at least. The closest is the Age of Enlightenment Con, which has a few games, notably one of my favorites, Age of Renaissance. However, that con runs during the week (plus the weekend), so I can't really participate, since I kindof have to work. The LA cons were always just weekends only, the 3 big 3-day holiday weekends during the year. I miss both the people there and playing the games. I had a whole lot of fun at those cons.
Philly has a ren-faire, but its much smaller than the SoCal one. Less shows, shopping, activities, food. Plus, beer is limited to one small area, you're not supposed to carry your drink with you throughout the faire. I'm not a huge beer drinker, but its that state of mind I miss. Without the beer, you get a lot less of other "ren-faire" type things, like the overall bawdiness and crazy fun that people have. Still, they have a nice end of the day production and sing along, which makes one want to stay till the end, which I hardly ever did at SoCal's ren-faire, unless I was with certain friends.
But, there are some things I like about Philly that LA doesn't have:
1. Seasons - I do like having an actual winter (at least when we don't have 3 huge snowstorms with 2+ feet of snow that wreck our travel plans). I love seeing the fall colors and so much green in the spring/summer.
2. Amish markets - Yes, CA has its own farms, but I really love the locally grown produce and butchers here and Amish food. Between Costco and Amish market, I rarely go to the grocery store now.
3. Eagles - One big thing about moving away from LA was the likelihood I'd find a place with a pro football team for whom to root. Luckily, I landed in a place with a very strong fan base for nearly all sports, including pro football, with a team that was finally pulling itself out of the basement and making the playoffs almost every year. Its been great rooting for the Eagles and really being able to get behind a pro team. LA never had that for me, outside the UCLA Bruins (which I do miss being able to watch the games all the time).
4. Better public transportation - Unless LA has drastically improved, at least Philly has more frequent buses and a more extensive train/subway/trolley system, so I never have to drive to work. Its also fairly easy to get information about schedules and routes. SEPTA is not perfect, but its a lot better than LA's system.
5. Proximity to Europe - This is probably the main reason we live on the east coast. Gotta be closer to Stephane's family, both for telephone calls (6 hours difference is big enough, 9 hours would be seriously problematic) and travel.
6. Proximity to NYC - We've only visited NYC a few times, but I like having it a 2 hour train ride away. I'm hoping that once the kids are older, we'll go more often to see plays/musicals as they don't come to Philly all that often. Plus I want to check out their museums. Similarly, its nice being a bit closer to other cities, like Wash DC.
7. Housing - Philly never went "really big" on housing prices, so we were able to afford to buy a house when our finances finally enabled us to do so. After the big bust, our housing value hasn't fallen as much either, its really been right at what we paid, give or take 5-10,000, which is a lot better than other parts of the country. Another add to the PA side is houses with basements. Its nice having all that extra room in the house (which storage wise, helps replace the fact that so few houses have garages - what's up with that btw, when there's so much more weather to put up with here).
8. Driving - This one is right on the cusp. Yes, there are less people here than in LA, so yes, there's less people on the road. But, the roads are smaller. Our freeways tend to be 2-3 lanes wide, compared to 4-5 lanes wide, but they still get crowded. Many surface streets have just enough room for one lane of parking and one for traveling, meaning you have to pull over when cars are passing in opposite directions. OTOH, most places are closer, so I don't have to drive as much. Everywhere in LA is an hour from anywhere else. In Philly, its about half that. My only gripe with Philly driving is that outside Center City, the roads are not grids, they curve all over the place. Buying a GPS was a must since we usually had no idea how to get somewhere if our main road was closed or there was an accident and trying to figure it out on the fly usually made us even more lost. But generally, with fewer people, it at least seems like there's fewer people on the roads.
9. French wine - granted we have to pay a bit more for any alcohol due to PA's blue taxes, but its still generally easier to get french wine here than in CA.
There's a lot that about equal for both. LA has the Rose Parade, Philly has the Mummers. Both have close beaches, although all are free in LA, whereas only a few are free in South Jersey (but we're not really beach people anyway). Both have a lot of well respected colleges and universities, perhaps a few more on the east coast, but I think they are more expensive here as well. CA does have a very good and affordable public university system, which isn't really matched here. Essentially, there are things I miss about living in LA, but then again, I'd miss it if I had to move from Philly too.
1. Disneyland
2. Good Mexican food
3. LA Art Museums
4. Tam O'Shanter (favorite restaurant that still exists)
5. Local gaming cons
6. So Cal Ren Faire
and now I add
7. Comicon - I would so go if I still lived there.
We have amusement parks in in PA and NJ, although I haven't actually been to any of them, which is rather surprising given my love of rollercoasters. I think we were just too poor and had other interests (EQ/WoW) so we never got to them, and now of course, can't go until the kids are old enough. Still, nothing is quite the same as D-land.
I've been to a couple of Mexican restaurants here, but lets face it. There are very few Mexican immigrants in this neck of the woods, so not only are there very few who could cook authentic Mexican food, there's very few who'd even want to eat it. I even have trouble sometimes finding enchilada sauce in grocery stores. At least I finally found a place to buy good chorizo sausage - the Amish market. Go figure.
Philly has an art museum too, but its not as good as MOMA or LACMA. Plus its expensive, although maybe the LA ones have raised prices too.
Still haven't found a "go to" restaurant that I love as much as Tam O'Shanter. I say "of restaurants that still exist" because my very favorite in Pasadena, Maldonado's, closed about 10 years or so ago. Whenever we visit SoCal, I try to go to Tam O'Shanter, best prime rib, best souffles, but we don't always make it. Some day, I hope to find a good "go to" restaurant here in Philly too. One that has good food that I can't get most anywhere else, and isn't too expensive.
Surprisingly to me, Philly doesn't have any gaming cons. LA has 3, at least. The closest is the Age of Enlightenment Con, which has a few games, notably one of my favorites, Age of Renaissance. However, that con runs during the week (plus the weekend), so I can't really participate, since I kindof have to work. The LA cons were always just weekends only, the 3 big 3-day holiday weekends during the year. I miss both the people there and playing the games. I had a whole lot of fun at those cons.
Philly has a ren-faire, but its much smaller than the SoCal one. Less shows, shopping, activities, food. Plus, beer is limited to one small area, you're not supposed to carry your drink with you throughout the faire. I'm not a huge beer drinker, but its that state of mind I miss. Without the beer, you get a lot less of other "ren-faire" type things, like the overall bawdiness and crazy fun that people have. Still, they have a nice end of the day production and sing along, which makes one want to stay till the end, which I hardly ever did at SoCal's ren-faire, unless I was with certain friends.
But, there are some things I like about Philly that LA doesn't have:
1. Seasons - I do like having an actual winter (at least when we don't have 3 huge snowstorms with 2+ feet of snow that wreck our travel plans). I love seeing the fall colors and so much green in the spring/summer.
2. Amish markets - Yes, CA has its own farms, but I really love the locally grown produce and butchers here and Amish food. Between Costco and Amish market, I rarely go to the grocery store now.
3. Eagles - One big thing about moving away from LA was the likelihood I'd find a place with a pro football team for whom to root. Luckily, I landed in a place with a very strong fan base for nearly all sports, including pro football, with a team that was finally pulling itself out of the basement and making the playoffs almost every year. Its been great rooting for the Eagles and really being able to get behind a pro team. LA never had that for me, outside the UCLA Bruins (which I do miss being able to watch the games all the time).
4. Better public transportation - Unless LA has drastically improved, at least Philly has more frequent buses and a more extensive train/subway/trolley system, so I never have to drive to work. Its also fairly easy to get information about schedules and routes. SEPTA is not perfect, but its a lot better than LA's system.
5. Proximity to Europe - This is probably the main reason we live on the east coast. Gotta be closer to Stephane's family, both for telephone calls (6 hours difference is big enough, 9 hours would be seriously problematic) and travel.
6. Proximity to NYC - We've only visited NYC a few times, but I like having it a 2 hour train ride away. I'm hoping that once the kids are older, we'll go more often to see plays/musicals as they don't come to Philly all that often. Plus I want to check out their museums. Similarly, its nice being a bit closer to other cities, like Wash DC.
7. Housing - Philly never went "really big" on housing prices, so we were able to afford to buy a house when our finances finally enabled us to do so. After the big bust, our housing value hasn't fallen as much either, its really been right at what we paid, give or take 5-10,000, which is a lot better than other parts of the country. Another add to the PA side is houses with basements. Its nice having all that extra room in the house (which storage wise, helps replace the fact that so few houses have garages - what's up with that btw, when there's so much more weather to put up with here).
8. Driving - This one is right on the cusp. Yes, there are less people here than in LA, so yes, there's less people on the road. But, the roads are smaller. Our freeways tend to be 2-3 lanes wide, compared to 4-5 lanes wide, but they still get crowded. Many surface streets have just enough room for one lane of parking and one for traveling, meaning you have to pull over when cars are passing in opposite directions. OTOH, most places are closer, so I don't have to drive as much. Everywhere in LA is an hour from anywhere else. In Philly, its about half that. My only gripe with Philly driving is that outside Center City, the roads are not grids, they curve all over the place. Buying a GPS was a must since we usually had no idea how to get somewhere if our main road was closed or there was an accident and trying to figure it out on the fly usually made us even more lost. But generally, with fewer people, it at least seems like there's fewer people on the roads.
9. French wine - granted we have to pay a bit more for any alcohol due to PA's blue taxes, but its still generally easier to get french wine here than in CA.
There's a lot that about equal for both. LA has the Rose Parade, Philly has the Mummers. Both have close beaches, although all are free in LA, whereas only a few are free in South Jersey (but we're not really beach people anyway). Both have a lot of well respected colleges and universities, perhaps a few more on the east coast, but I think they are more expensive here as well. CA does have a very good and affordable public university system, which isn't really matched here. Essentially, there are things I miss about living in LA, but then again, I'd miss it if I had to move from Philly too.
Monday, June 28, 2010
WoW, I'm Back
Started playing World of Warcraft again this weekend. Stef had been playing DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online) with our friend Jeremy for the last several months. They heard another old friend of ours, Rob, had started playing WoW again, so they decided to play again too. I've always liked WoW, so I reactivated my account as well.
Had a fun time this weekend. We played all Saturday night and then a few hours Sunday afternoon. There's a been some changes since we last played (which appears to have been about a year or so ago. No new expansion, but a few new dungeons, plus a change on pick up groups (PUGs), which is definitely an improvement from before. Now, instead of being limited to one's own server, you can get into a queue for a random dungeon with a group from any server, or get a person to complete your group from any server. So, since our group was only 4 this weekend, we put in to get a 5th for several dungeons, which worked out well most of the time. There was only one dungeon that we tried to do that didn't work out with the 5th we got, we really just needed a different class for that particular dungeon, which you don't really get to choose, the class or the dungeon. You only get to choose from Tank, Healer and Damage, which can be quite different in actual production. Most of the time, whatever you get will work, but some certain dungeons really require the right mix of classes to succeed.
Naturally, since we last played, there's been another set of "ultimate" equipment to strive for. Where we once had the top armor, we're now back at the bottom of the next totem pole. That's what the new dungeons are for. I think they also made some changes to some of the achievement requirements, because we got several achievements during the dungeons we did, that we struggled and failed to get after many attempts before.
Its nice to see that the game comes up with new things to do. We're hoping to get another friend to play again to be our regular 5th. Its always more fun to do things with people you know. I'm not sure how long we'll play this time, I know that we've got Stef's family coming in at the end of July and through most of August, so I'm guessing we won't be playing much during that time.
The only downside to playing again is that it cuts into the time I was going to spend this summer catching up on watching some movies and TV shows of which I've got on DVD but haven't yet seen. I was trying to clear a bit of backlog before the fall shows start (although there's less I'll be watching this fall too). But social interaction is a good thing, so I'll just enjoy it for now. At least I don't have to spend as much solo time doing daily quests and faction grinding as before, and I'm almost maxed on my profession skills. So mostly I'll only be playing when our friends are on, so it won't be quite the time consuming things as before. Plus, we both have to spend some time with our kids. They're not plugged in just yet.
Had a fun time this weekend. We played all Saturday night and then a few hours Sunday afternoon. There's a been some changes since we last played (which appears to have been about a year or so ago. No new expansion, but a few new dungeons, plus a change on pick up groups (PUGs), which is definitely an improvement from before. Now, instead of being limited to one's own server, you can get into a queue for a random dungeon with a group from any server, or get a person to complete your group from any server. So, since our group was only 4 this weekend, we put in to get a 5th for several dungeons, which worked out well most of the time. There was only one dungeon that we tried to do that didn't work out with the 5th we got, we really just needed a different class for that particular dungeon, which you don't really get to choose, the class or the dungeon. You only get to choose from Tank, Healer and Damage, which can be quite different in actual production. Most of the time, whatever you get will work, but some certain dungeons really require the right mix of classes to succeed.
Naturally, since we last played, there's been another set of "ultimate" equipment to strive for. Where we once had the top armor, we're now back at the bottom of the next totem pole. That's what the new dungeons are for. I think they also made some changes to some of the achievement requirements, because we got several achievements during the dungeons we did, that we struggled and failed to get after many attempts before.
Its nice to see that the game comes up with new things to do. We're hoping to get another friend to play again to be our regular 5th. Its always more fun to do things with people you know. I'm not sure how long we'll play this time, I know that we've got Stef's family coming in at the end of July and through most of August, so I'm guessing we won't be playing much during that time.
The only downside to playing again is that it cuts into the time I was going to spend this summer catching up on watching some movies and TV shows of which I've got on DVD but haven't yet seen. I was trying to clear a bit of backlog before the fall shows start (although there's less I'll be watching this fall too). But social interaction is a good thing, so I'll just enjoy it for now. At least I don't have to spend as much solo time doing daily quests and faction grinding as before, and I'm almost maxed on my profession skills. So mostly I'll only be playing when our friends are on, so it won't be quite the time consuming things as before. Plus, we both have to spend some time with our kids. They're not plugged in just yet.
Friday, June 18, 2010
French Work
I read an article the other day about France raising its retirement age from 60 to 62 in order to help maintain its budget, afford its services. I can understand that, since we have the same problem in America. I just had to both laugh and shake my head at some of the comments to this article. People that didn't understand why the French were protesting the raise, complaining that French workers don't work hard like Americans, that people have to keep working into their 70s and 80s or otherwise they get bored, etc. Some laughed that the French planned more protests, but only after the August vacation season.
People forget that the French live longer than most Americans and yet they still are able to afford pretty good retirement benefits, plus the ongoing health care, shorter work days and long vacations. The French have learned that work isn't the "end all, be all" of everyone. Sure, some people will always want to work for their entire lives, but that doesn't mean that those that don't are wrong. Most people can enjoy their work and still have other things to do outside of work. That doesn't mean they just "collect a paycheck." The French know that to enjoy life, you have to experience more of it than just your cubicle.
You think that Americans wouldn't be healthier and happier if we had more time to exercise, buy and cook fresh food, enjoy time with our families, educate ourselves after your college years are done? People always marvel at how the French live longer despite drinking wine every day and eating rich foods. Perhaps its the lack of stress and ulcers because they don't have to put in 60 hour work weeks 50 weeks a year. They get a good amount of vacation time to relax and recharge. They can go home and enjoy a nice meal with their families without thinking that they have to go back to work immediately afterwards. They don't have to worry about being taken care of when their retire, or being able to pay to see a doctor when they're sick, or having to choose between medicine and food.
Its really amazing how a pleasant work environment can change one's attitude, even about work. My last job was incredibly stressful. My boss was a micro-manager, always criticizing, always cutting my billable hours yet yelling at me because I wasn't billing enough, and was stingy in providing work to boot. He'd complain if I was 5 minutes "late" to work or left before 6pm even though he knew I had to pick up my kids at 6pm. At that job, I'd bristle over every little .10 that I wasn't allowed to bill for whatever reason, or when I had to take work home.
At my current job, my boss gives me a long reign to work as I see fit. He doesn't criticize every little thing (some things, yes, but not every thing). I come and go as I need. I bill for what I do and he rarely, if ever, cuts my time. Sometimes, pretty rarely, a client will complain and he'll compromise, but he sticks up for the work I've done and the time I've spent. He only compromise because its good business. I don't mind taking work home. I don't mind the occasional times that I spend more time and effort doing a project that I was authorized to bill and therefore cut my own time. For the most part, I take what days off I want or need.
Ok, there is one partner, not my direct boss, with whom billable hours, vacation/sick/family time is more of an issue, so I have to juggle that. But I'm (mostly) better able to handle the stress from that partner because my boss isn't so stress-inducing. So its not quite as good as working in France, but its far better than most of my prior jobs.
Its like my secretary. I don't really mind the time she needs to take off for family and such. I just wish she was a better worker when she was here. But because she's not that good a worker, sometimes I get annoyed at her time off. I like to think that my boss doesn't mind the times I not in the office because he knows I'm doing good work and a lot of the time, I'm doing work at home to make it up. The less stress makes me a better worker.
Perhaps if more businesses treated their employees better, paid more, gave more sick/vacation time, provided more respect, the employees would work so much harder and better that these extra benefits wouldn't hurt the bottom line. Plus they'd have healthier, happier employees to boot.
Even so, not everyone is living to work. Some people still like to enjoy life outside the office. So just because some people want to retire at 60 shouldn't mean that their lazy or living off other hard working people. There's so much more to see and do and learn, its no life to be cooped up forever.
People forget that the French live longer than most Americans and yet they still are able to afford pretty good retirement benefits, plus the ongoing health care, shorter work days and long vacations. The French have learned that work isn't the "end all, be all" of everyone. Sure, some people will always want to work for their entire lives, but that doesn't mean that those that don't are wrong. Most people can enjoy their work and still have other things to do outside of work. That doesn't mean they just "collect a paycheck." The French know that to enjoy life, you have to experience more of it than just your cubicle.
You think that Americans wouldn't be healthier and happier if we had more time to exercise, buy and cook fresh food, enjoy time with our families, educate ourselves after your college years are done? People always marvel at how the French live longer despite drinking wine every day and eating rich foods. Perhaps its the lack of stress and ulcers because they don't have to put in 60 hour work weeks 50 weeks a year. They get a good amount of vacation time to relax and recharge. They can go home and enjoy a nice meal with their families without thinking that they have to go back to work immediately afterwards. They don't have to worry about being taken care of when their retire, or being able to pay to see a doctor when they're sick, or having to choose between medicine and food.
Its really amazing how a pleasant work environment can change one's attitude, even about work. My last job was incredibly stressful. My boss was a micro-manager, always criticizing, always cutting my billable hours yet yelling at me because I wasn't billing enough, and was stingy in providing work to boot. He'd complain if I was 5 minutes "late" to work or left before 6pm even though he knew I had to pick up my kids at 6pm. At that job, I'd bristle over every little .10 that I wasn't allowed to bill for whatever reason, or when I had to take work home.
At my current job, my boss gives me a long reign to work as I see fit. He doesn't criticize every little thing (some things, yes, but not every thing). I come and go as I need. I bill for what I do and he rarely, if ever, cuts my time. Sometimes, pretty rarely, a client will complain and he'll compromise, but he sticks up for the work I've done and the time I've spent. He only compromise because its good business. I don't mind taking work home. I don't mind the occasional times that I spend more time and effort doing a project that I was authorized to bill and therefore cut my own time. For the most part, I take what days off I want or need.
Ok, there is one partner, not my direct boss, with whom billable hours, vacation/sick/family time is more of an issue, so I have to juggle that. But I'm (mostly) better able to handle the stress from that partner because my boss isn't so stress-inducing. So its not quite as good as working in France, but its far better than most of my prior jobs.
Its like my secretary. I don't really mind the time she needs to take off for family and such. I just wish she was a better worker when she was here. But because she's not that good a worker, sometimes I get annoyed at her time off. I like to think that my boss doesn't mind the times I not in the office because he knows I'm doing good work and a lot of the time, I'm doing work at home to make it up. The less stress makes me a better worker.
Perhaps if more businesses treated their employees better, paid more, gave more sick/vacation time, provided more respect, the employees would work so much harder and better that these extra benefits wouldn't hurt the bottom line. Plus they'd have healthier, happier employees to boot.
Even so, not everyone is living to work. Some people still like to enjoy life outside the office. So just because some people want to retire at 60 shouldn't mean that their lazy or living off other hard working people. There's so much more to see and do and learn, its no life to be cooped up forever.
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