Obama's love of China's infrastructure

In the process of making their infrastructure "vastly superior" to ours, how many environmental impact studies has China had to do? How many worker's compensation claims have they paid? How many OSHA regulations do they comply with? How much private property did they have to buy to make way? How many lawsuits from environmental groups did they have to fight?

urinal rules

Here are the rules that guide me in public restrooms:

• Never use a urinal right next to one currently being used if another one is available
• Choose a urinal on the end of the row whenever possible
• Don't use the kid height urinal if others are available
• Don't use the urinal that a dude just finished with if another one is available

The rules often conflict with one another depending on the configuration of the restroom and number of users. Choosing which rule takes precedence in those situations can be challenging. For example: the kid height urinals are almost always on the end which makes them appealing since you have only one possible neighbor, but a little fishy because it is kid height.

I am curious whether other guys have divined the same or similar rules to these. Or additional ones? Do you ladies have rules for choosing your stall?

too much vacation

The vacation lack of normal routine is wearing on us. G is not sleeping enough, neither is J2. If the resulting grumpiness persists I will throw everything and everyone in the van and head home. I don't think J can take much more.

I think I figured out how I felt during the party here yesterday. It was not that I dislike the people who were here or that I could not enjoy their company, it just was not worth the effort and I did not see the point. Could I engage J's various relatives in conversation? Sure, but to what end? I am not going to see any but a few of them for at least year. So I was friendly and polite and all, but did not become involved in any substantive discussions.

another Christmas down the tubes

I felt very neutral all day today, neither happy nor sad, excited nor bored. Maybe just disconnected.

I seemed to be to blame for people not being happy with their digital picture frames. Why? Because I could tell them with a quick perusal of the specs what their problem is: aspect ratio! If you don't want to crop, letter box, pillar box or distort your pictures, then you need a frame with the same aspect ratio as your pictures. Don't get mad at me if the 2:1 aspect ratio picture frame you bought does not display your 4:3 pictures very well. I just know why it is a problem and can explain it to you, I did not cause it. If you had asked me ahead of time I would have told you. Or maybe you could have asked one of the two (nominally at least) computer professionals in the family (the other son-in-law and father-in-law). Oh wait, that wouldn't have helped because they don't know what the hell they are talking about, or couldn't communicate it clearly if they did.

ho ho ho

Funniest things I've heard this holiday season:

J: If you're good, Santa might get to come down the chimney...

J: Are you going to leave something under my fur tree...

holiday spirit

Thus far the holiday spirit has consisted of sleeping late and drinking beer. Certainly nothing about which to complain, but also not the most interesting or exciting vacation one could have. Tomorrow will be one of two large family gatherings during this trip: Christmas day with several components of J's extended family in addition to the immediate family. Fortunately this includes two of J's three hottest cousins, so in addition to the spirit of the season and family togetherness I have that to look forward to.

economic conundrum

Should I conduct my economic activity based on the pervasive feelings of doom? Or should I base it on my personal economic condition? How much of the downturn is based on people's perceptions and negative mood versus their actual situations? Do I, in fact, have a responsibility to maintain my economic activity level as a tiny, contrary sliver fighting against the tide of negativity?

lengthy family visit begins

Long drive to Detroit through the bitter cold. No complaints about the roads though. Arrived at J's parents' house in the winter solstice dark and were greeted by her uncle and aunt. J's parents were still out at a family party. Her uncle M is a very boisterous guy and loves J2 and G. Her aunt S is rather MILFy, especially for her age. M & S are staying with J's parents for a few days before going to stay with S's parents. J's brother and family will be staying here Christmas night. Then M & S will be back Saturday along with their daughter (a hottie following in her mother's footsteps) and son-in-law. It will be difficult to get enough time to myself while I am here. On the bright side, at least J's sister isn't still living here. If she were, that would add twin toddlers, her husband and his parents to the mix. That would be too full a house for me to take. I don't know if anything blog worthy is going to happen while we are here, not that that will necessarily stop me from posting.

deep frustration and furious anger

I went to replace the air filter in J's mini van this afternoon. There was much swearing. There is a special place in hell for the criminally stupid assholes who put the air filter box where they did. It required four hands and nearly destroying the new filter to get it in place.

sad news

Since 1995 I have had exactly two people cut my hair. My barber in Wisconsin that I went to for 10.5 years and the first barber I tried when I moved to Peoria. I called this morning to make an appointment and was told that she had been killed in a car accident just before Thanksgiving. The news has me rather bummed out. I guess it is just a little weird to find out that somebody you expected to see has been dead for a few weeks.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the PJStar snippet.

wasted wiper salute

Many vehicles in the parking lot at my work today had their wipers flipped up, away from the windshield in anticipation of the great ice storm that has not occurred as of this writing. I do not understand the point. If there is going to be an ice storm, the flipped up wipers are going to be just as coated with ice as non-flipped up ones. Granted, they won't be fused to the windshield, but it is not like you can just flip them down and wipe away, you would still have to scrape the windshield and chip the ice off the wipers. How does having them sticking up help?

memory lane

I finally got on the Facebook bandwagon a couple days ago. Mostly just to see what all the fuss has been about. It has been a sad and painful trip looking through the lists of alumni from the schools I went to. Every name I recognize represents a range of possibilities that are long gone, vaporized in the unreachable past.

Just another opportunity to indulge my predilection for wallowing in the then and there instead of the here and now.

Dilbert hits the nail on the head again

This pretty well boils down what the "bundling of sub-prime mortgages into investment vehicles" was all about:

bar for Cory

The establishment I visited last night seemed totally unaffected by the Illinois Democrat smoking ban. It is not in Morton, but maybe Cory can make it there anyway.



So why do I call it a Democrat smoking ban? Because the Assembly, Senate and Governorship that passed it were all Democrat controlled. In the Assembly, Democrats were 45-19 in favor of the ban while Republicans were only 28-23 in favor. In the Senate, Democrats voted 24-10 in favor while Republicans were 12-10 AGAINST. You can see the votes here, or my compilation here.

While Republicans were not pure on this issue by any stretch of the imagination, they were significantly less totalitarian than the supposedly freedom-loving Democrats.

Dilbert on surveys

Perfect timing with this strip given my recent service survey posts:

excellent night out

Last night J and I got a baby sitter and went out. We met BTG at Old Chicago. BTG's boyfriend was sick so she came alone. Then BTG's friend M arrived. The four of us sat together talking, eating and drinking for a few hours and it was great fun. Hanging out with 2 MILF's (J and BTG) and a GILF (BTG's friend M was young when she had a daughter and her daughter was young when she had a child, so, while M is a grandmother, she is ~43 and looking hot) made for an awesome night! I asked J to dress sexy and she delivered! Tight, low-rise black pants and a somewhat low-cut top. It was the kind of evening that could make a religious man feel blessed. But if he was religious, he probably wouldn't get himself into that situation in the first place and if he did, he would have to feel guilty for having coveted chycks who aren't his wife...

survey follow up

I got a reply to my response to the hotel manager's response to my survey response. I had explained that on the 1 to 10 scale I was given I rated mostly 7s and 8s because that was identified as "satisfied" which I was. 9 an 10 were labeled "extremely satisfied" so I didn't check them since there wasn't anything extreme about the hotel experience. It was good. It was what I expected, but it was not "extremely satisfying". Apparently this survey is treated like eBay feedback. Here's part of her reply:

We definitely do read these as we are scored them. Anything below 9 or 10 marks us down so that why I ask.

If 9 and 10 are the only "good" scores and everything less is "bad" then why have a 1 to 10 scale? If that's how you are going to look at it then just have three options:

• good
• poor
• totally shitty and I will never return and would probably fire bomb the place if I thought I could get away with it

With that kind of scale I would have rated everything at the hotel "good", but instead I rated "satisfied" because that's what I was! It is unfortunate for the hotel manager that the words on their survey mean what they mean to most people, but mean something entirely different to the management of her company.

good jog, good trivia

Went jogging tonight at 16°F and rather enjoyed it despite the temperature. Jumping over snow drifts and continually having to watch the sidewalk to determine whether that dark patch ahead was ice or just a shadow while listening to a podcast made for a somewhat Zen-like experience.

Later this evening I began the holiday beer mini-tour at Old Chicago. While doing so, I scored my first ever perfect game of trivia. I wish there had been someone there with which to share that little triumph.

they actually read those surveys

After our get away in Grand Rapids last week I received an email from the hotel asking me to take a survey regarding my stay. When it came to the final free comment section I typed: "Had attractive female staff members wear sexier outfits".

It turns out they actually read these things because today I received the following email:

Dear Jack Orez:

I am wondering if you could explain your comment "Had attractive female staff members wear sexier outfits." I take each comment seriously as it is feedback on how to better do my job and I need to qualify if you thought that's what we were doing or if that's what you want us to do.

Also, I am curious as to why you rated our hotel mostly 7's instead of 10's. What could I do to make my hotel an outstanding one?

Sincerely,

Female Name Here
General Manager

I replied to her with the following:

I meant to type "have" so it was intended as a suggestion, but I was doing so whimsically to see whether these surveys are read. Obviously they are. Nothing substantive should be taken from it. Sorry for any confusion or difficulty it caused.

Some stuff about why I rated 7's.

I'll have to be more careful in the future to proofread my comments on surveys when requesting more hotties at a business.

another obligatory post

Jaded asked me to participate in another list thing in a recent post. I'll do it, but I am not going deep.

The mission, should you choose to accept it- is to list 5 of your favorite indulgences or even the 5 things you cannot live without.

• chocolate chip cookie dough - few things are more satisfying than eating a bowl of freshly made cookie dough
• Buzztime trivia - makes it less creepy to sit alone at the bar
  
• strippers - though it is all an act on their part, it is a nice fantasy in which to indulge
  
• Survivor - my reality show indulgence, I look forward to the new hotties in each season
• iPod - great tool to enable multitasking (e.g. listen to podcasts while jogging) and to allow one to isolate oneself from those around him