Digital Papercuts

Today Peter participated in the local Punt, Pass & Kick competition. It was a fun and informal gathering for him and several of his sports-minded friends. He was one of 3 kids from his football team competing in the 8-9 Boys division.

He made a good attempt, but did not place in the competition. He had fun and got an official NFL certificate with all the team football helmets.

Peter had his first football game today. As he described it to a friend, "We got creamed 25-0." This will be a very different year than last year. Peter has been playing back-up quarterback in practice, but did not take a snap during the game.

He only played on defense, mainly linebacker. He forced a fumble on one play.

As the coach said, this game points out what they need to work on.

Grace and I played a tough game of Pretty, Pretty Princess. It was neck and neck down the stretch. I had all my jewelry, plus the crown, but I couldn't win until I got rid of the black ring. All she needed was the crown. She beat me to it, got the crown and to the victor went the spoils.

Last night I removed a light bulb from Grace's light. It is a small fan light bulb, but that fits in a full size socket. It is the only use of this light bulb in the house, so we obviously don't have another one. When we moved into this house, every light fixture had unique bulbs, which we have strived to standardize.

Anyway, I came downstairs holding the lightbulb and I laid down on the couch. I wound up falling asleep, tightly clutching the lightbulb. I woke up with my fingers stiff and wondering what I was holding and why I was holding it so tightly.

Meg said she wanted to get a tattoo. When I asked her what kind of tattoo, she said there's a woman who has written a short story and it is being tattooed on volunteers one word at a time. She started a couple of years, but is not yet complete. If she would read all her email, she has enough volunteers, but she also said a new email might slide in ahead of others if she happens to read it.

The woman's name is Shelley Jackson and here is her web site. The name of the story is Skin. I was interested because I went to high school with Shelley Jackson and it is possible that it was the same one.

This Shelley Jackson:

was extracted from the bum leg of a water buffalo in 1963 in the Philippines and grew up complaining in Berkeley, California. Bravely overcoming a chronic pain in her phantom limb, she extracted an AB in art from Stanford and an MFA in creative writing from Brown.

If you like audio fiction, and are into thrillers, a new podcast called Shadow Falls is just for you. This is a professionally produced audio story, written for this podcast. Many other podcasts stories are like audiobooks, where the author, or another single voice reads the story, but Shadow Falls use actors and sound effects to achieve a higher level of drama and tension.

There have been 3 episodes so far, so make sure you go back to the first one and start at the beginning.

For every light that shines... a SHADOW FALLS. Podcasting's first professionally-produced original drama series, SHADOW FALLS tells the eerie tale of a remote Northeastern town that holds secrets some will kill to protect and others will die to expose. Settled 300 years ago by the survivors of a mysterious tradgedy, the people of Shadow Falls have become pawns being used by two supernatural forces seeking to win a war older than time itself, a war which many believe could trigger the Battle of Armageddon, and wipe out humanity as we know it.Those with alliances believe the time has come once again for the cycle to begin anew as two young women have vanished just as a pair of very mysterious strangers have come into town. This time, they believe this war will finally be decided once and for all and all their toil and sacrifices will be rewarded. What they don't know is that they're wrong.Dead wrong.Spun from the wicked mind of author and screenwriter Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, SHADOW FALLS is a fully-immersive and addictive mystery that will leave you gasping for breath and begging for mercy.Just don't expect to find mercy here.

Here's the iTunes feed. Go here if you need other feeds.

In a review about Valpolicella, an Italian wine, in the London (ON) Free Press, the reviewer stated:

What I love most are the contradictions in the wine -- is it love or war? Is it a kiss on the lips or a kick in the arse? The answer is it's all of these.

So the next time I go to a wine store, I think I'll ask the clerk, "Do you have something that is a kick in the arse?"

Peter was talking to a friend of his, and the friend said, "I know a secret about Anna and another friend of mine."

Peter asked, "Are they in love?"

His friend just grinned.

Peter's response was, "Most secrets in elementary are about being in love."

Earlier this week a 19 year old man, after allegedly shooting and killing his father, drove to his former high school in Hillsborough NC and opened fire. Two students were treated for minor injuries and the suspect was arrested. Several hours earlier he sent the following email to the principal of Columbine High School.

"Dear Principal. In a few hours you will probably hear about a school shooting in North Carolina. I am responsible for it. I remember Columbine. It is time the world remembered it. I am sorry. Goodbye."

I have been in my new job less than 6 months, but I have managed to get myself completely overwhelmed with work in that short time. I have also become a bit of a bottleneck for my client and have wanted to push more stuff through (get more production jobs prepared, started and managed).

My bosses have offered hiring an assistant for me, and I have interviewed several candidates. We discovered that I needed someone more than an assistant. I needed someone with agency experience who could hit the ground running from day one. Well, we interviewed her today, and she starts on Tuesday. This is a tremendous relief to me.

I also got an intern today, dedicated to me, who will work 2 afternoons a week. She's a college student majoring in advertising, so in addition to "intern" type work, she will be shadowing me, and learning how things work.

My challenge is keep both of these people busy, and keep all of us happy. The team grows, and this is good.

With all this talk about Pluto lately, I just learned that Mickey Mouse got his dog in 1930, and named it after the former planet discovered earlier that same year.

Breakfast time reading


"The bus is coming!"

Our bus stop (in our driveway) has a tradition whereby the kids put their backpacks in line when they arrive and this is their place in line. No pushing or fussing when the bus arrives because they already have their places.


Getting on the bus

We have been watching a lot of the Little League World Series in our house and we keep seeing this KFC commercial where the Mom comes home with a "Make Your Own" Bucket with 3 different kinds of chicken. The other night we decided to have chicken and this is what I planned to order.

I went into our local KFC, which happens to be one of those rare fast food places where there aren't any tables, just an order counter for take out. I look on the overhead menu for the Make Your Own Bucket, but don't see it. I tell the guy behind the counter what I want and he looks confused. Let me see if we have that, and he goes to the back, presumably to ask his manager.

In the meantime, I notice a sign near the door showing the Make Your Own Bucket and listing what is included. The counter kid comes back out and tells me that they do have that and its called the variety bucket. I point to the sign and let him know all the details are on the sign.

I order Extra Crispy Chicken (4 pcs), Crispy Chicken Strips (4 pcs) and Honey BBQ Boneless Wings (8 pcs). He enters it into the register. I am ask him about the sides. I am reading a sign, so I know I should get two large sides. He says oh, I entered it in as chicken only, not a meal. What sides would you like? I ordered mashed potatoes and green beans. He totals my check and tells me it's $14.01. I look at my guiding sign, which tells the price is $15.99 (before tax). I pay him and look at the receipt he handed me. Variety Bucket of chicken, small mashed potatoes, small green beans. I didn't worry about it at this point.

He starts by going to the original recipe chicken and puts 4 pieces in the bucket. Yes, I can tell the difference from across the counter. I tell him I ordered extra crispy, so he takes out the four original pieces and puts in extra crispy. He gets 4 crispy strips and puts them in the bucket. This is the only thing he did right the entire order.

He asks his manager where the BBQ wings are and she points to a heater cabinet. He takes out what appears to be 4 popcorn chickens. I didn't say anything at the moment. He goes to get the sides and asks me what they were, even though there is monitor showing my order above his head. I told him mashed potato and gravy and green beans. He starts putting them in small containers. His manager told him all meals get large sides, so he gets larger containers for the sides. He puts the gravy in a smaller container, and again the manager points him to a larger container. He manages to get most of the gravy into the container, and only spills a little bit on the counter.

I ask him about the biscuits. They are listed on the sign I am reading. He puts 4 biscuits in the bucket, and hands everything to me. I ask him if I got my 8 BBQ wings, knowing full well that he only put 4 of something in there. He said yes, those are the boneless wings. I got them. For the moment I took his word for it. He also told me it was his first week on the job. This was not something he needed to tell me. It was painfully apparent.

As I carried the order out to my car I knew Peter would be disappointed if I came home without his BBQ wings. It would not be a big deal because the kids are used to fast food workers messing up their orders (We have ordered a bacon cheeseburger plain and gotten a hamburger - no bacon, no cheese), but he would rather have what he ordered. I checked the bucket and confirmed that, yes indeed, I had 4 popcorn chickens instead of 8 BBQ wings.

I walked back in and before I could say a word, the manager asked me what was missing. I told her I had 4 popcorn chickens instead of my 8 BBQ Wings. She told the counter boy that he needed to dip the wings in the sauce. He went to a different place in the back to get new chicken and dip it in the sauce. As I was waiting, I said to the manager, don't worry he'll figure it all out in time. I knew full well that that was a lie and he would never work out. I don't know what she thought.

So here is a summary of his errors, many of which are training deficiencies:

• not knowing the name of a menu item advertised on national tv
  
• not entering the item correctly
  
• not adding the correct items to the order
  
• not knowing what the correct item contained
  
• charging the wrong price
  
• getting the wrong chicken
  
• not looking at the monitor for order details
  
• getting the wrong size sides
  
• putting the gravy in the wrong size container
  
• getting wrong type and number of the other chicken
  
• not knowing the difference between 4 and 8
  

Next time we want chicken, I may drive an extra 10 minutes to Hardees.

According to a Nielsen Analytics poll approximately 6% of the US population listen to podcasts regularly.

Cate Edwards (daughter of John) and friends have compiled "Urbanista Online--a rolodex of the top places in New York that will help an urban fashionista fulfill her most basic needs, from furnishing her apartment, to finding an eye doctor, to getting those perfect arches."

Check it out here

I have officially settled on Digital Papercuts as the current name for this blog and have registered the url www.digitalpapercuts.com. It is just a forward so the old address works, but update any links or favorites in case something changes about the location.

I also created an email address (again just a forward) jeff (at) digitalpapercuts.com.

My mother's cousin's grandson, a healthy, active 14-year old boy recently passed away in a tragic pool accident. He was swimming in his grandmother's pool and nobody realized he was drowning until it was too late.

I met him when he was a baby and learning to walk, but have not seen him since. He was my 2nd cousin once removed and was a third cousin to my kids. While that may not seem like a close relative, I grew up very close to his extended family.

Below is the obituary and a link to the guest book attached:

Skylar Sonn Tancredi
He was a resident of Hastingson-Hudson, NY. He passed away Saturday August 12, 2006 at the age of fourteen as a result of a tragic accident. Skylar was the beloved son of Dr. Heidi Sonn and Louis Tancredi. Skylar is also survived by his adoring sister Siena and idolized by his loving brother Sander. The members of the Sonn-Tancredi families are devastated by the loss of the light of their lives. He also leaves behind his grandparents Dr. Stanley and Sandra Sonn and Louis and Blanche Tancredi; his aunts and uncles Elliot and Eleanor Sonn, Jeff and Tracy Sonn, Karen Sonn & Bruce Koken, Lisa and Greg Eskow and Richard Tancredi; as well as his cousins, Elisha, Kian, Julian and Odessa Sonn, Reid and Savoy Koken and Michael Eskow. Skylar was about to enter his freshman year at Hastings-on-Hudson High School. He will be sorely misssed by his many friends, classmates, teachers and coaches. Skylar loved sportsmost notably basketball, football and lacrosse. He was a kind and caring human being. He had an unbelievable knack of making everyone he came in contact with feel very special. He lives on in our hearts forever. Family and close friends of Skylar are invited to call at the Edwards Dowdle Funeral Home, 64 Ashford Avenue, Dobbs Ferry, NY wednesday from 3-5PM. A funeral for family and close friends will be held at 5:00PM. A public memorial service will be held Tuesday August 29 at 2:00PM at MacEachron Park, Hastings-on-Hudson. The family requests that no flowers be sent, but to honor Skylar by making a donation to the Hastings Athletic Organization or Beckett YMCA Camp. Checks should be payable to Sonn Associates PC Escrowee C/O, 385 Farragut Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York 10706.
Published in the New York Times on 8/15/2006.

Link to Guestbook

when typing it in an email you make 2 typos. Isn't that what signatures are for.

I have updated the posts from my 4 trips in 10 days, traveling over 2500 miles (half flying, half driving). Scroll down to Thursday, August 10, 2006 and the entry called Travelogue Day 1 to see some pictures that have been added. It was a tiring week and a half, but it was nice to travel to the beach and get my 40th state (Michigan).

After living with "Papercuts on Her Fingers" I have changed it to "Digital Papercuts." This seems like a better blog name. I like this one. I'll see how it feels in a couple of days. I also changed the subtitle, and I imagine I may continue to tweak that too.

from NPR:

Robert Sapolsky, a distinguished neuroscientist in his 40s, had a young assistant who played different music every day, from Sonic Youth to Minnie Pearl. That made Sapolsky crazy -- and curious about why his aging ears still crave the music he loved in college. Is there a certain age when the typical American passes from the novelty stage to utter predictability?

A good, in-depth listen via Real Player.

Grace helped me come up with a new title for my blog. It all started when she told me that Big Bloggy Blog was stupid. I have been playing with the idea of moving my blog to blogger hosting, and the name bigbloggy.blogspot.com was taken, so I've been thinking of changing my title anyway.

I listed off about 20-30 names and Grace thought they we all stupid. Most of them probably were (Bottom of the Chair, Hair on my Toe Knuckles, The Voice of Madness). When she showed me her papercut, I think we were both inspired.

After living with the name for a little while, I may either move my blog, or register a new URL and forward to it. I will keep my loyal readers posted.

This is the last day of our beach trip and my many-miled journey. We woke up early and finished packing up. After checking out of our condo, and breakfast at a local pancake house, we visited Fort Fisher, a Civil War fort at the end of Kure Beach. It was not on the way off the island, but Grace wanted to go, and the island is just not that big.



We read some history, walked around, visited the gift and hit the road. Grace rode with me, and we listened to Dr. Floyd, her favorite podcast. Other than the scattered heavy rain, and uneventful trip and the end of my travel for the time being. (Pictures still coming)

Drive: Kure Beach to Chapel Hill, NC (174 miles)
Total Miles: 2528

This was simple day with no travel. We spent some time on the beach, some time in the shade on the deck and some time napping. Ahhh, vacation. We even had pizza delivered for dinner. All the modern conveniences (but no internet).

Before breakfast I went to Port City Java, a Wilmington, NC based coffee house trying to take over the world, to check email. There were just things that I needed to check on.

Drive: Chapel Hill to Kure Beach, NC (174 miles)
Total Miles: 2354

I woke up and drove back to the beach. I left a little later than I was planning, and I got there after breakfast. We went out to the beach and played in the water. I tried Peter's new skim board and fell smack on my back. That wasn't even the one that hurt the most. It was actually the first one.

Skim board technique requires you to throw the flat board down in front of you to get it moving. Once it is moving, you need to jump on it to keep it moving. The first time I tried, only one leg got on and the other stayed in place, stretching it out. That hurt a lot.





A couple of hours on the beach wore out everyone. We all took naps in the afternoon, except Grace who watched Star Wars (Episode 4: A New Hope). In the late afternoon we visited the NC Aquarium, just down the road. Our favorite exhibits are the touch pool, the 285,000-gallon tank with multiple views in (where the lemon sharks and the sting rays swim with more than 450 other fish), and the storm surge marker (showing Hurricane Hazel with a surge 17 feet above sea level).


A fish just kissed Grace's finger in the Aquarium touch pool

We had a busy evening. We had dinner at the Cottage, a real restaurant on the island. Meg had tuna, I had crab cakes, Grace had lamb lollipops and Peter had low country fried chicken. Everything was delicious. We walked down the street to the boardwalk and got some fudge for dessert. We also played putt putt on the boardwalk. All four of us got holes-in-one, and Peter got 3 in a row.

During the round of golf, the fireworks started. Every Thursday in the summer, they have fireworks. It was a pleasant evening, made more special by the bursts of color in the air. The kids were happy when the fireworks were over, as they wanted to finish playing mini-golf.

Today I did not travel, but went to work for the only day this week. I also saw Jeff Tweedy at the NC Museum of Art amphitheater. It was a great solo show. I saw some old friends and met some new ones.


Photo courtesy of Charles Harris.

Fly: Grand Rapids, MI to Raleigh-Durham Airport, NC (663 miles)
Total Miles: 2161

Drive: Raleigh-Durham Airport to Chapel Hill, NC (19 miles)
Total Miles: 2180

Uneventful trip back. It turns out the suspected terrorists in Michigan were not planning on blowing up the bridge, but no one said what they were doing there.

Please note: If you are reading this travelogue, there will be some pictures posted. I probably won't get to them until I return from the beach this weekend, and I will go back and put them in the appropriate posts. I will post a current entry when I have done that.

from Slate.com:

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more

The latest white rap on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0

Wink, Wink. It's really an ad.

Drive: Chapel Hill to Raleigh-Durham Airport, NC (19 miles)
Total Miles: 835

Fly: Raleigh-Durham Airport, NC to Grand Rapids, MI (663 miles)
Total Miles: 1498

I flew to Grand Rapids, Michigan for a business meeting. This is my first trip after the liquid ban. I, like many other of my fellow passengers, had to either check my luggage or not travel with toothpaste, shampoo, etc. This adds a little more hassle to the arrival (standing around waiting for luggage), but makes the boarding of a plane much easier. There just was not as many people cramming oversized rolling luggage into the overhead compartments. On each flight it was a breeze putting my laptop case in the bin.

Due to the foiled terrorist attacks in the UK, the terrorist level has escalated from yellow to orange. This is defined on the airport sign as a high probability of a terrorist attack. While that may be true in a general sense, it really is not true in every airport where they have posted these signs.

Over the weekend, several suspected terrorists were arrested and it was thought they had targeted the bridge connecting the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. These Palestinian-Americans were from Texas and were riding around Michigan buying up pre-paid cell phones (there were reportedly 1000 in their van), and had pictures and video of the bridge.

All of these events made it an interesting time to fly to Michigan.

from the NPR Series This I Believe:

Temple Grandin is an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She has designed one-third of all livestock facilities in the United States with the goal of decreasing the fear and pain animals experience in the slaughter process.

Because I have autism, I live by concrete rules instead of abstract beliefs. And because I have autism, I think in pictures and sounds. I don't have the ability to process abstract thought the way that you do. Here's how my brain works: It's like the search engine Google for images. If you say the word "love" to me, I'll surf the Internet inside my brain. Then, a series of images pops into my head. What I'll see, for example, is a picture of a mother horse with a foal, or I think of "Herbie the Lovebug," scenes from the movie Love Story or the Beatles song, "Love, love, love..."

When I was a child, my parents taught me the difference between good and bad behavior by showing me specific examples. My mother told me that you don’t hit other kids because you would not like it if they hit you. That makes sense. But if my mother told me to be "nice" to someone, it was too vague for me to comprehend. But if she said that being nice meant delivering daffodils to a next-door neighbor, that I could understand.

I built a library of experiences that I could refer to when I was in a new situation. That way, when I confronted something unfamiliar, I could draw on the information in my homemade library and come up with an appropriate way to behave in a new and strange situation.

When I was in my 20s, I thought a lot about the meaning of life. At the time, I was getting started in my career, designing more humane facilities for animals at ranches and slaughterhouses. Many people would think that to even work at a slaughterhouse would be inhumane, but they forget that every human and animal eventually dies. In my mind, I had a picture of a way to make that dying as peaceful as possible.

I believe that doing practical things can make the world a better place. And one of the features of being autistic is that I’m good at synthesizing lots of information and creating systems out of it.

When I was creating my first corral back in the 1970s, I went to 50 different feedlots and ranches in Arizona and Texas and helped them work cattle. In my mind, I cataloged the parts of each facility that worked effectively and assembled them into an ideal new system. I get great satisfaction when a rancher tells me that my corral design helps cattle move through it quietly and easily. When cattle stay calm, it means they are not scared. And that makes me feel I’ve accomplished something important.

Some people might think if I could snap my fingers I'd choose to be "normal." But I wouldn't want to give up my ability to see in beautiful, precise pictures. I believe in them.

After sleeping late again, we had breakfast on the deck. It is great to be staying in an oceanfront condo. Seeing the crashing waves and feeling the ocean breezes are great additions to the morning menu.

The kids and I went out to the beach and played in the surf until lunchtime. It was high tide and the waves were very rough with a strong undertow. I told Peter the story from Garp about the Undertoad. We put up the boogie boards after Grace rolled over riding her brand new board. Peter was not interested in riding at all.

I stayed close to both of them, and when they got knocked down, I helped them up. After a little while Meg came out and we divided up and each of us watched a kid. She described her position as standing between Peter and Spain.

Grace spent a lot of time playing in the sand instead of playing in the water. When she was in the water, she yelled and cackled and generally carried on, since no one could hear her. The constant surf was pretty loud. She also referred to the water as chocolate milk, since it looks brown near the shore due to the sand.

After a restful afternoon of Animaniacs and naps, Grace and I went back out to the beach. The tide had gone out, and the water was calm. It was like a different beach.

For dinner, we went to Michael's Seafood where I had peel 'n' eat shrimp with Old Bay seasoning. Yum. Peter also forced me to share his Death by Chocolate dessert. After dinner I hit the road and headed for home.

Drive: Kure Beach to Chapel Hill, NC (174 miles)
Total Miles: 816

As I got on I-40 at its beginning, there is a sign saying “Barstow, California 2554 miles. Glad I wasn’t going that far.

Drive: Wilmington to Kure Beach, NC (11 miles)
Total Miles: 642

We woke up to a cloudy and rainy day. The original plan was to go to the beach in the morning to get a extra day at the beach before we checked in the condo. We wound up swimming in the hotel pool, going shopping at Walmart and eating lunch at McDaniels Dairy. By the time we were done with all of the that, we could check in to our condo.

There was a light drizzle, so we were not planning going out to the beach. The kids went down to the water and put their feet in. Somehow, I managed to keep them for getting their clothes soaked.



That night Meg and I went on a Haunted Pub Tour of Wilmington. First we ate dinner at a German restaurant, where she had a wurst platter and I had veal schnitzel. Both were delicious. On the tour we went to four bars: Paddy’s Hollow, Orton’s Pool Hall/Longstreet’s, The Liquid Room and The Blue Post. We heard about a theory of Jack the Ripper in Wilmington, a hotel fire, mysterious happenings captured on video and a large bar proprietress named Gallus Meg.

The tour was led by a local actor named John. He did a great job telling the stories, but it seemed like the stories were more attached to the locations where the bars were, rather than the bars themselves.

Drive: Asheville to Weaverville, NC (8 miles)
Total Miles: 238

We got up this morning in Asheville and went to the photographer’s studio (garage) in Weaverville to finish our hardware photo shoot. Today’s project was to shoot a studio shot of a craftsman working with a variety of tools, making hardware. This image will be used on the packaging, brochures, catalogs, web site and maybe even in ads. We need to show the connect of the product to the design and craftsmanship of artisans who have created the legacy of the company for over 100 years.

Drive: Weaverville to Chapel Hill, NC (230 miles)
Total Miles: 468

We left around lunchtime and had an uneventful drive home. Well, except for the rather large blind spot in our rented Jeep Liberty that almost caused me to merge into a Suburban. Luckily, there was enough room for the Suburban to move out of my way, while the driver was honking at me. I swerved a little bit moving back to my lane and everything was fine.

After dropping off the rental car, I picked up the kids from their last day of camp and we got ready to leave for the beach. Pizza for dinner, and some packing, before we headed off for the last trip of the day.

Meg drove in her car with the kids and I drove myself. We needed both cars since I would be leaving on Sunday. We were headed to hotel in Wilmington, so we would be at the beach in the morning.

Drive: Chapel Hill to Wilmington, NC (163 miles)
Total Miles: 631

Over the next 10 days I will be taking 4 back-to-back trips. I will be writing about these trips with photos and links as available. I will also track my mileage along the way. 3 of these trips are cars trips, while the fourth is an airline trip.

I am going to Asheville, NC, Kure Beach, NC (twice) and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Since I recently started a new job, I have limited vacation time. Meg and the kids are going to the beach for a week, while I am joining them on either end. In this same time period, I have 2 work related trips to Asheville and Grand Rapids.

There may be times that I am without an internet connection, so I will be writing this off-line and posing it when I get a chance.

Ride: Chapel Hill to Asheville, NC (230 miles)
Total Miles: 230



We left Chapel Hill around 6am to go to Asheville for a photo shoot. We needed to shoot several doors on high end homes in the area, some with new hardware, and some with existing hardware that will be Photoshopped out.

Things went well, and pretty uneventful. We got the shots we needed, but it was nearly 90 degrees. That's pretty hot for the mountains.

We ate dinner at a trendy restaurant downtown called Table. I had seared tuna that was delicious. There menu changes daily, utilizing many local ingredients including heirloom tomatoes and apples.

Sometimes I wonder where some companies draw the line between product development and marketing, and who takes the lead. Obviously every consumer products companies is trying to gain shelf space and sell more product. The marketing folks have a hand in helping to guide that process, but I think the Charmin folks have gone too far.

We have a package of toilet paper that boasts 8 Giants Rolls (8 Rollos Gigantes! in smaller print). Equal to 20 Regular Rolls* (Rollos Regulares). We follow the asterisk to the back of the package where there is a "Charmin Roll Size Guide," or what I would call a conversion chart.

1 Regular Roll (Rollo Regular) (100 sheets) = 1 Regular Roll
1 Big Roll (Rollo Grande) (200 sheets) = 2 Regular Rolls
1 Giant Roll (Rollo Gigante) (250 sheets) = 2 1/2 Regular Rolls
1 Mega Roll (no translation) (400 sheets) = 4 Regular Rolls

When my toilet paper package has a conversion chart to parse the marketing message and understand how much toilet paper I am buying, that sounds like marketing is steering the ship. Since this is a Proctor and Gamble product, that is definitely true. But they have created a package where it is virtually impossible to figure out how much toilet paper you are even buying, let alone how much it costs compared to others on the shelf, and you wind up overpaying for the Giant Rolls thinking a larger size is a better value and that's not always true. Sometimes confusion can drive a purchase decision and sometimes it can drive the consumer away.

In its latest same store retail sales numbers, Starbucks announced that its sales were not as high as anticipated. They attributed this to the increased sales of Frappachinos due to the high temperatures across the country. Since the Frappachino requires a blender, it takes longer to make, thus causing Starbucks long lines to get longer. Customers at the back of the line get frustrated and go somewhere else for their morning java fix.

Bizarre corporate spin or subtle marketing of Frappachinos? Every article mentioning the sales numbers mentioned Frappachinos as the cause for the reduced numbers. You decide.

from Slate.com
What your enjoyment of sleep-away camp, or lack of same, says about your character.

from Scenestars.net Lollapalooza Blog

Pre-teen rock band The Blisters played one if the most entertaining sets of the day in Chicago. If you haven't heard of the them yet, don't worry, you will. Consisting of Henry Mosher on vocals and bass, Hayden Holbert on guitar, Dylan Johnson on vocals and guitar and Spencer Tweedy, son of Jeff, on drums, the band played an extremely entertaining set consisting of songs like the Ramones' Blitzkreig Bop, The Flaming Lips' She Don't Use Jelly, The Beatles' Dear Prudence, Neal Young's Keep on Rockin' in the Free World, and to balance things out for an encore they played the Lynard Skynard classic Sweet Home Alabama.

I spoke with Henry after the show and he informed me that the band didn't just start - they've been around for three years and the Chicago-based foursome has already played shows at Second City and Millenium Park. They don't have a website or even a Myspace account, but the fresh-faced tween assured me that those to things were on the way.

I caught the drummer's father trying to make his way from back stage out into the audience. He stood in the back laughing and beaming with pride due to the crowd's reaction to the band. I have to say that Spencedr was obviously the best musician in the band - he was on-beat thoughout the entire set with no audible mistakes. That kid's gonna be a rock and roll star!

I was looking for Solar System models for Peter and found this:
http://www.umpi.maine.edu/info/nmms/solar/index.htm

Aroostook County, in Northern Maine, built a 40 mile (64.6 km) long scale model of the solar system, at a scale of 1 mile equaling the distance from earth to sun. The model extends along Route 1, between the University of Maine at Presque Isle campus and the Houlton Information Center at the end of I-95. The model has ten major components, those being the sun and the nine planets from Mercury to Pluto, with moons for Earth, Saturn, Jupiter (4) and Pluto.

I haven't really counted how many states I have been to in a while but I knew that I was close to 40. I just counted and found out that I have 39.

In June, I took a business trip to Wisconsin, which was a new one for me. I blogged about it here. When you get to such a high number, it is a big deal when you get a new state, they are pretty few and far between. If I haven't been there in 40 years, what would get me there now?

Later this month I am going to Michigan on business, and that will be state number 40. It is a pretty exciting milestone.

The official rules for counting a state are:
Visiting a destination in state
Spending the night in a state
Driving through a significant portion of the state
(Once I drove through a corner of Idaho that I used to count, but I have since enforced these rules and no longer count it).
Eating a meal in a state
(We have driven across many state lines to have dinner)

Things that don't count:
Landing in an airplane and never leaving the airport
Driving through a small portion of a state and never stopping

Since I have lived my whole life on the east coast, many of the states I have never been to are in the middle of the country.

Here are the states I still need to go to (in alphabetical order):
Alaska
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Michigan (but I have plane tickets in 2 weeks)
Montana
Nebraska
North Dakota
Oklahoma

Looking at the list, I do not wonder why I have not been to these states.

As I approach my 41st birthday, I need to make the occasion of 1 year of blogging. While blogging has not been on the top of my list the past month, I need to crank back up so I am not rusty next week for the historic post.

The blisters are already coming back on my fingers.

No only did the kids choose to bypass the traditional gorgefest that one would associate with a child-prepared Father's Day breakfast (or breakfeast), but I had to make Peter his breakfast as well as preparing my own.

We had strawberries from the farmer's market, so I was happy to have a bowl of cereal with strawberries for my breakfast. Since I don't normally have time for cereal, it was a nice thing to have. And when Peter asked me to make Cream of Wheat for his breakfast, I just couldn't refuse. This is the hot cereal my grandmother made me when I was little, so I do like to make it for my kids.

According to market research firm, Twentysomething, approximately 65% of this year's college grads will return home because of dim job prospects or low paying jobs.

from the News & Observer:

Orange County Commissioner Stephen Halkiotis shared a concern at a board meeting Tuesday night.

"I decided as I get older, I want something a little more royal in a toilet," he said.

Replacing the old toilet wasn't the problem. Figuring out what to do with it was.

Halkiotis pressure-washed it, then moved it into his garage temporarily.

He told the board and county staff that he was hesitant to take it to one of the county's salvage sheds where residents usually swap household items in good condition. That's because he and other commissioners have recently heard complaints from several residents who were directed by convenience center operators to throw items away rather than make them available to others.

Halkiotis wants to see more training so that items such as bed frames and lawn mowers that still work don't get directed to the trash bins.

"Can't we get these people in for overtime, feed them some sandwiches and do a program on what we're all about?" Halkiotis said.

He passed around a photo of his used toilet and encouraged anyone who would be interested in it to call him at home.

"I'll help you lift it up and put it in the truck," he offered.

Public Works Director Wilbert McAdoo assured Halkiotis that the convenience center staff were getting more training. He added that the toilet would be welcome in the salvage shed and wouldn't be the first to find a new home.

Halkiotis said anyone interested should call him by today.

Our local school district is building a new high school, its third, and as they began the process of re-districting for the high school, they announced they would consider spot re-districting for elementary and middle schools.

A new elementary school is 2-3 years away, but two schools are currently overcrowded, FPG (my kids' school) and Scroggs. The school board spent countless hours on this issue. Tons of emails were sent, supporting this plan or that plan or no plan. Parents went to school board meetings, committee meetings and generally filled their time with talk of this re-districting. It has been the hot topic of the neighborhood equivalent of the water cooler for the past few weeks.

One side of the story is that parents in the Scroggs district wanted to move lower socio-economic kids who didn't live in Southern Village (the large development where the elementary school is located) out of Scroggs. Shifting some of these kids to FPG would lower the socio-economic numbers of FPG, which is already the lowest in the district. We enjoy the diversity of the school, but if it moves further away from the average in the overall school district, that is not a good thing.

Anyway after all this uproar, they moved 12 kids from Scroggs to FPG and moved 16 kids from FPG to McDougle. Big deal. In the end, they should have just held tight for a couple years and moved nobody.

Hey, Dad, you want to go to the water park for Father's Day? It would be fun.

June 14 - Two 50-pound bricks of marijuana were found wrapped within a
bathroom vanity purchased at a Home Depot store in Tewksbury, Mass., according to the Tewksbury Police Department.

The marijuana had a street value of about $145,000 and was discovered by a contractor.

In a separate incident reported on Monday, a plumber found 3 kilograms of cocaine and 40 pounds of marijuana in a vanity purchased at a “local hardware store,” Southwick police officials said. The drugs had street value of $250,000.

Local police, along with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), are investigating both cases. All of the merchandise originated from a Texas location and was then distributed through a Massachusetts warehouse, police said.

In a written statement, Home Depot said, "The company is cooperating with authorities as they investigate this matter, and we will support law enforcement in any way possible to help bring those responsible to justice."

from Councilmember Mark Kleinschmidt's blog:

The Council did something else that is worthy of being called extraordinary last night. The Council took the first steps at creating the nation's first Public Art plan to be integrated into a community's comprehensive planning process. Chapel Hill's Public Arts Commission presented to the Council a Public Art Contextual plan that will make our community the first in the country (at least the first known to our consultant, Gail Goldman) to fully integrate public art programming into our basic town planning. The plan consolidates the many master plans (Park and Rec, Bicycle and Pedistrian, Transportation, land use, etc.) that have been adopted by the Council over the last several years and identifies appropriate intersections of those plans with our public art goals. Integral to the program are the incorporation of triggering devices that will require consideration of public art at almost every turn. As I said last night, the Council has learned many things during our own development project -- the redevelopment of our downtown parking lots. Among the things we have learned is the value of early integration of public art in the design of the buildings and the public space. We have long given lip-service to our interest in creating a unique community that recognizes the increased value to our quality of life that artists bring to our community, and now we are about to turn that interest into a well thought-out policy that will allow for that value to be added to one of our most basic town functions -- Town planning and development approval.

The plan calls for many things that will certainly spark interesting conversations. It contemplates eventually increasing our percent for art program to a 2 percent for art program, and it proposes that we extend application of public art into the private development sphere. Already, private developers in our community make art a priority in many of their developments, either in the choice of basic design elements or in placement of significant art work within their development. The Conceptual Plan will make our interest in this common practice an official town policy.

I look forward to the conversation our community is embarking on. This truly is one of the most exciting things I have participated in during my Council tenure. I serve because I love Chapel Hill and want to make sure it retains a high quality of life, yet doesn't settle for doing things the same old way. This new plan holds promise for ensuring both.