I know I'm jumping the gun a little.
We're going to be celebrating both Christmas (part 3) and New Year's this weekend. Pictures and stories to follow.
Have a happy and safe one out there, people, and hope you have an awesome 2012!
(Screw you, Mayans! 2012 is gonna rock!)
In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.
As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.
Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty four years later, Mbembe was walking through the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.
The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.
Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant looked at Mbembe as if could see straight into his soul.
The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.
Probably wasn't the same elephant.
I hope you are had / are having a very merry Christmas.
Okay, people, I know this is gonna break your hearts, but this is gonna be the last of Larry & Sarah for a while. But don't worry, people, like Frosty the Snowman, they'll be back again someday.
And here's a repeat of their conversation last year.
Have yourself a Merry Christmas. I not be posting tomorrow, but there will be a little gem going out on Christmas day.
And for those of you wondering, I had a great birthday, surrounded by love, presents, and some tasty Mexican food washed down with a couple of adult beverages.
Hey, another lap completed!
Happy birthday to me. We are going out for a nice dinner tonight.
Hope THAT doesn't happen tonight! ;-)
And just remember, one more lap, and the Mayans wave the checkered flag on this race.
Things have kind of piled up around here, so it's time for me to double up on your dose of everybody's favorite Christmas couple, Larry & Sarah:
It's a question we've always wondered…
And a two-fer in a two-fer!
Hope you are all having a great holiday season. I'm really enjoying it. Tomorrow's my birthday. We're going out for Mexican.
Last Sunday, (not this most recent one, but the one before it) was a pretty fun day around here.
The morning started off early. We drove over to the zoo and found some free parking right outside the gate. From there, we were going to take the bus into down town, and then back to the zoo later. I drove over there, so that when we were done with the zoo, we could just come home, and not have to deal with waiting for a bus.
The instant I parked the car, our bus showed up. Running on a Sunday schedule, we figured it would be a while before another one came along. "Hurry! Bus!" I tried shouting to the child in an effort to get her to move toward the bus stop. But the words must have come out, "Take your time. Put on you fingerless gloves. Decide whether or not to bring your water bottle with you. You have all the time in the world."
Standing at the cold bus stop, we were lucky that the next bus came along in only about 8 minutes, to whisk us down town. We were heading into the city for two reasons:
The Disney Store opened at 11:00, so we went into Macy's (henceforth called "Field's" in the rest of this post) first.
If you haven't been to Marshall Field's in Chicago at Christmas time, let me tell you, they go all out. Inside and out is done very nicely and very tastefully. They always do the animated window displays, and the whole place is decorated very nicely.
Once we got into the store, we headed up to the 8th floor? Furniture? No, silly, the 8th floor has a great spot where you can look out over their fancy dining room, The Walnut Room, while people enjoy the holiday tradition of having lunch by the beautiful tree. (FYI – It's not a walnut tree.)
After scouting out the tree in the Walnut room, we headed down stairs to see how long the line for Santa was going to be. RE-DIC-U-LOUS, and it was only 10:00!
Sigh.
We prowled around the store a bit more before heading across the street to the Disney Store to get good seats for the opening ceremony. The entrance to the store is inside a mall type building, so the 3 of us grabbed a bench and waited.
As part of the ceremony, a few "cast members" as the employees are called, ask a young member of the audience to turn a key in an oversized lock, unlocking their imagination, causing the velvet ropes to fall and the store to be declared open. Well, the cast member hoisting the oversized key above her head didn't imagine that a 5 foot long key would have any trouble going through a 4 foot wide door until "DONG!" and both ends hit their respective sides of the door frame, causing her to rebound slightly back into the store before rotating the key to fit through the opening and on to the ceremony.
Hopefully, the other cast members are still teasing her about it.
Afterwards, we went over to the Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza. It's a traditional German style market on the plaza. We stopped in there to see if the Christmas tree that we have this year was a bad as they were suggesting mocking on the radio. (Hint: Oh yeah!) And we had some roasted cashews and while we were looking around, saw a relatively short line for a pictures with Santa.
FREE. PICTURES. WITH. SANTA.
Not the best resolution in the world, but it was a pretty nice Santa setup.
After the picture, we headed over to Field's to eat at their basement restaurant Infileds. (Note: It ain't called "Inmacys"). After a very nice meal, we bought some fudge with one of the gift cards we've had for a while, did a little shopping on State Street, then hopped the 151 (aka the "Bacardi Bus") back to the zoo.
Wednesday's Biology teacher assigned her class a project where they needed to go to the zoo and observe some of the animals that were outside in the winter. With all the traveling that we'll be doing soon, we thought we'd better knock off the visit as soon as possible.
We had a blast at the zoo.
We saw my favorites, the seals…
And both types of leopards: Snow and regular.
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But the real treat. Correction, the realest treat was hanging out having a great day with my family. The second realest treat was Zoo Lights. They light up the zoo, and it's pretty awesome.
As the sun set and it started getting dark, but not dark enough to enjoy the lights, we retreated to the warmth of the car, conveniently parked right outside the front gate. As we sat there, engine running, the girls changed coats and reviewed the pictures for the project while Christmas music played on the radio. And the vultures lined up for our parking space.
Free parking over there is somewhat limited, so people were lining up, one after another to see if we were pulling it. First it was annoying. Then it got funny. Then it got annoying again, so we shut down the car and headed back into the zoo for the lights.
No, that's no one we know in silhouette.
It forever for us to get this penguin picture. There was a lady who sort of wanted to get her kid's pictures taken by it, but the kid really wasn't interested, so she stood there for like 5 minutes as the line kept growing, oblivious to anything but her darling son, wandering aimlessly around the statue. Never once barking instructions to him to just stand there and look at mommy like I would have gotten. No, she was more interested in nurturing his natural curiosity about the world around him while she totally ignored the world around here. Just as I was getting ready to loose my Christmas cheer, they wandered off and we got this shot.
And we got to see a sleeping gorilla up close and personal and thankfully behind some very think glass.
And here's a little video I shot of the light show…
and it stars Dancer & Prancer.
Well, it's Friday, and Larry and Sarah take the gloves off for this round.
"How are a man/woman better than a Christmas tree?"
Have a good weekend everyone and get those presents wrapped.
Continuing with the outtake from Larry's Interview with Sarah:
Yeah, it's an old joke, and?
Once again, the couple that is sweeping the internet: Larry & Sarah.
Yeah, you just saw that.
I HAVE NO SHAME!
Hey all, we at Scope-Tech have gotten our hands on some out-takes from a recent Larry King / Sarah Palin Christmas interview. Over the next two weeks, we'll do our best to bring you there worst. And who knows, maybe I'll even get around to writing a real post soon, catching you up on all the coming and goings and shenanigans around here.
Hope that all of you are enjoying the wonderful holidays.
Hey all, I have a neighbor here in Chicago who is also a blogger. She writes a food blog called, Elly Says "Opa".
She has a friend, Jane, who was bitten by a black recluse spider a while back. Jane's having a rough time (you can read about it HERE), and Elly is trying to help her out. She's donating all her blog's ad revenue for December to help Jane.
Her ads pay off for hits to the blog, not clicks on the ad. I know my readers are a good group of really caring, really wonderful people (who I also respond to guilt / flattery), and I know many of you would like to help. So, if you want to help Jane:
All this is going to cost you is a click. That's it. Click on the graphic up there and you're done. And if you could remember to go back the rest of month, that would be awesome.
And besides helping out someone, I know that some of you are "foodies" and you will probably really enjoy Elly's blog to boot. I'm sure you will find some great home recipes for you to try out.
I might be dating myself, but I remember when "Adele"…
… was called "Wynonna".
Before we completely trample Thanksgiving on our rush into the Christmas season, here's another one of my favorite Thanksgiving clips, even though I never watched the show.
To answer the post the other day about Einstein's Puzzle: The German kept the fish. Below is a full chart of the answers.
| LOC | COLOR | PETS | CIGAR | DRINK | NATION |
| 1 | YELLOW | CATS | DUNHILL | WATER | NORWEGIAN |
| 2 | BLUE | HORSES | BLEND | TEA | DANE |
| 3 | RED | BIRDS | PALL MALL | MILK | BRIT |
| 4 | GREEN | FISH | PRINCE | COFFEE | GERMAN |
| 5 | WHITE | DOGS | BLUE MASTER | BEER | SWEDE |
Wow. I've been blogging for a while now if this is the 4th Thanksgiving that I've run this. I'm not being lazy, and repeating myself, it's a TRADITION. :-)
This fairly long clip contains one of my favorite lines of all times: "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."
If you are Jonesing to see the whole thing, it's available on HULU. And if you've never seen it, or weren't alive when it first aired, Herb's clothes were a joke even back then.
If you are celebrating Thanksgiving today, have a good one. And have a second helping of pumpkin pie.
If you aren't celebrating Thanksgiving, HAPPY THURSDAY!
And here's a little chart to help you with yesterday's puzzle:
| LOC | COLOR | PETS | CIGAR | DRINK | NATION |
| 1 | RED | DOGS | PALL MALL | TEA | BRIT |
| 2 | RED | DOGS | PALL MALL | TEA | BRIT |
| 3 | RED | DOGS | PALL MALL | TEA | BRIT |
| 4 | RED | DOGS | PALL MALL | TEA | BRIT |
| 5 | RED | DOGS | PALL MALL | TEA | BRIT |
Okay, there's no proof that Einstein created this puzzle, but that's what it's called. Face it, you're really not doing anything at work today besides watching the clock and waiting for the boss to let you go anyway, so here's a brain teaser for you. (Yes, you can Google the answer pretty easily, but there's no prize, so use your brains.)
Einstein's Puzzle
This was written by Einstein last century. He said that 98% of the people in the world could not solve it. Are you among the other 2%?
Facts:
Hints:
Question:
Who keeps the fish?
(Note: We all know Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes. Not the right answer.)
Poor gal has a right to be in a bad mood.
Her 72 day marriage blew up in her face.
The Kardashian Collection is on sale @ next to the Toughskin jeans @ Sears
People are looking at her askance at parties.
And now she's got crabs. 
Face it, life's not all beer and skittles when you're a big Kimbo.
(And did you ever notice that while most women named 'Kimberly' don't mind being called, 'Kim', that aren't so keen about being called 'Berly'. Go figure.)
Hey, I know it's the weekend, and reading is for suckers. So, here are a couple quick videos to get you thru the weekend.
We watch a number of cooking shows around here, and as a dad who has had to keep the child alive for a few days on his own, I'm going to add some of these to the list.
The only thing I can say about this next clip is that it has far too little violence.
Chris Brown might like to smack women around, but the fool has mad skillz with Paint! You may not want to play this with young children or old people in the room.
Okay, you've fooled around long enough. Get back to raking those leaves and cleaning out the gutters.
Well, for most of my American readers, that is. Daylight savings time ends this weekend, so Sunday you get an extra hour of sleep in the morning. But, it will start getting dark soul-crushingly early. Speaking of "soul crushing", how 'bout Tim Tebow and the Broncos?
I ran across this fun little video about DST, and thought you all might like it. My favorite bit is when it gets talking about Arizona.
Everyone have a good weekend, and FALL BACK Sunday.
I know what I was doing…
And I haven't stopped smiling since!
Thank you, Cora, for making me the happiest I have ever been.
E V E R Y D A Y!
And there's still time to get me to pay up on my donation to Susan G. Komen for The Cure. For more details, go HERE.
So, this weekend, we were in Southern Indiana at a family wedding.
But this post isn't about that. It's about what happened on the drive home.
The drive is about 300 miles. I would drive the first leg, and since I'm the only one who doesn't get carsick reading in the car, I would quiz our daughter on her homework in the backseat while Cora drove the middle section, and then we would trade off again, and I would drive the last bit. Cora doesn't really like to drive, but the fact that is was a divided highway through the countryside made it a breeze.
So, our first stop was McDonald's the Meth Lab McDonald's on the north side of Terre Haute, right by Indiana State University. When we pulled in to the parking lot, there was a sketchy/strung out dude, wandering the parking lot with his cup on McDonald's lemonade. We parked, but when he didn't really move on, we drove to the other side of the building, parked and waited for the daughter to get out of the car. (The child takes FOR-EV-ER!) When we got to the building, the sketchy dude, tweaking on meth met us at the door. He'd gone back inside and came out the other door!
Fine, we needed the restrooms, so we pressed on. The guys bathroom looked more like one you would expect to find in a dive bar, not McDonald's. Turns out, the women's was worse. There were reports of used toilet paper on the floor.
While waiting for the girls, I watched the counter, and knew we should have just left, but I ignored that voice, and we eventually ordered. Our order took forever. They kept serving the drive-thru, but didn't care about the people at the counter. They put my cup down on the counter rim down. They got Cora's order wrong. It was just awful.
So, we switched off, and Cora drove for a while. Near the end of her stint, she said she had a bit of an upset stomach, and wanted to hit the washrooms again. Well, we pulled into a town that looked like it had 1,000 people or so, but drove all over, and couldn't find a gas station. Finally, we got back on the highway, and there it was (arrg!), so we pulled in.
While I pumped gas, Cora went inside the restaurant / cashier building to use the facilities. The daughter and I then waited in the car until she came out. When she sat down, I could tell something was up. I asked what was wrong, and got the "Nothing" that meant it was something. I pressed, and got a "No, it's all right." I reached over and held her hand, and gave her the look that said, "I'm not moving this car until you tell me what's wrong."
And she broke.
Turned out, that the bathroom door didn't have a lock, the guy who was in there before her peed all over the seat, and after she cleaned it up, the stage fright of the "no lock" made it impossible for her to even use the toilet. I hugged her, and dried a tear. She just needed a moment, and then she was fine. We drove off, and pulled into another gas station a few miles down the road. I tried to get the daughter to go in with her to guard the door, but Cora made the fateful prediction, "What are the odds that two bathrooms in a row would have no lock." (Turns out, 100%!)
While Cora was gone, the daughter looked at me and said: (paraphrasing) "I'm so glad you married my mom. I could see by the look on your face when she got in the car that something was wrong and you were really concerned. I'm just really glad that she married someone who will take care of her."
And then I hugged her.
Later, after Cora came back reporting that she wasn't using a bathroom until her butt cheeks were planted on her own toilet, the daughter told the wife what she'd just told me.
And hearing it again, I cried a little.
How did I schmuck like me end up with such a great daughter?
You've heard of someone being "worth their weight in gold."
You've heard of someone being "worth their salt."
Well, professional golfer Elliot Saltman is worth his weight in…
HAM.
While golfing in the Madrid Masters, he got a hole in one on the third hole, which earned him his porcine plunder. And Elliot over there weighs in at a healthy 238 pounds, so that's a lot of salty meat candy.
Maybe too much.
How's he gonna fit THAT into his checked luggage, let alone through customs?
I heard this story over the weekend, and couldn't help but laugh.
What news with you?
Editor's Note – While the following rant will is focused on a person in a wheelchair (I will call her "Doris" since "wheel chair lady" sounds ruder than intended), I am not putting the blame on her (though her assistant should take a little heat. He should have recognized he was dealing with someone with an entirely different kind of "handicap" and acted accordingly). Rather this is about the Chicago Transit Authority's (CTA's) inability to handle what you would assume to be a routine situation: A passenger in a wheelchair. And why that situation made me 30 minutes late getting home Friday night.
It's Friday. I have a big I.T. conversion project that I'm in charge of that is scheduled for 4 weeks away, so there's a shit-tonne to do. Oh, almost all the REAL work is done. Now I need to spend 4 weeks documenting how the 8 hours of the conversion will go. But actually, everyone is going to want everything 2 weeks before hand, so I really only have 2 weeks. Oh, and we can start some of the pre-steps at the end of next week, so I need to churn out detailed steps for people who already know the detailed steps and can do it in their sleep. So, I'm putting in some extra time and didn't leave until about 5:30, hoping that some of the 5:00 crush would be gone, and I'd have a relatively easy commute home. Wrong.
I get to my subway station, Monroe, and it's slammed. Jam packed. Having been to this rodeo before, I hopped a train going the wrong way, so I could get on at a less crowded station, and maybe get a seat. I went two stops south, and still no train, so I pulled out my cell phone. The CTA has a "Train Tracker" website that will give you estimates of when the next train is due into the station. It listed the next two trains as "Delayed" and then a third was due in 7 minutes. So obviously, there was some kind of issue with a train, probably at the next station down the line.
A quick aside. As the train pulls into the station, they will announce it with a pre-recorded voice, like "This is Harrison" or "This is Monroe". Whenever they announce "This is Monroe" I have a vision of Jim J. Bullock saying, "No, THIS is MONROE, BITCHES!"
And if you got the joke from the picture, without having to click the link or Googling to find out that Mr. Bullock played Monroe Ficus on Two Close For Comfort, consider yourself either old, or extremely hip and knowledgeable.
Anyway, back to the story: The train finally showed up in about 7 minutes. My plan paid off. I got in and got a seat. While I was hoping they would announce the train would run express to get things back on schedule, that didn't happen. As the stops are made, more people pile in and pile in. But finally, we get to the Belmont stop, where I need to transfer trains lines from the Red line (which runs basically north/south) to the Brown line that zigzags in a northwesternly direction to my neighborhood. As I get off, they announced over the PA that the train would be sitting for a minute, and a CTA worker went up to one of the train doors and inserted a wheelchair ramp into the doorway, and Doris rolled off the train, trailed by a guy, most likely a husband, but not to assume too much on their relationship, I will just call him "Roy".
"Ah," I thought, "that explains the delay." I also thought, "Please don't transfer to the Brown line, I want to get home." (Probably going to Hell for that, but they could have been getting off at that stop, or transferring to a Purple line train, so the odds were 3:1, right?) They transferred to the Brown line. The next train was again, in another 7 minutes then another 5 after that, and during that time, all the Red line trains that had been backed up behind my delayed train kept dumping off more and more people at this extremely busy transfer point.
When the train finally showed up, probably 200 people tried to get into the 8 cars on the train. They all shoved their way in, and then the CTA attendant puts the ramp in the doorway for Doris, and the great shuffle starts. All the people standing in the vestibule need to either get off the train or get out of the way. And there's little room to get out of the way. Then the old Asian gentlemen (70? 80?) has to get kicked out of priority seating (reserved for the elderly and people with disabilities) because that seat needs to fold up so Doris can take the spot. (Some sitting did give the old man their seat). Wouldn't this had been easier if you boarded Doris FIRST instead of LAST?!?
Now, it's right in the middle of this that the train operator starts trying to shut the door. With her co-worker still on the train, and the ramp in the doorway. So the doors keep slamming into the ramp over and over, and finally she gets on the intercom and starts yelling at people to get their packs out of the doorway, and that there is another train right after her. (So, the 5 minute later train has caught up to us.)
Finally, Doris is set, and the CTA station worker takes the ramp away and off we go.
For those of you unfamiliar with the L trains in Chicago, there is a slight height difference and a small gap between the train and the platform. See the picture below. It's a about 3 inches high, and maybe an inch across. This will come into play soon.
During all the slamming and banging and the door chimes announcing "Doors closing" and the driver yelling at people to let the door close, Roy pressed the call button for the operator, and told here that they were boarding a wheelchair. She asked what car, and he told her the last one. "10-4", she replied. I'm now dead certain she has no idea what that term meant. The doors keep slamming on the ramp, and the chimes kept dinging. During the chaos, I texted Cora, because I usually do when I transfer, and she walks to meet me, usually just over half way. I warned her that I may be late.
Finally, the CTA guy takes the ramp away, and we depart. I say a small prayer, hoping that Doris and Roy are going to the end of the line. (ie - "Let me get the HELL OFF THIS TRAIN before we go thru that again.)
My God has a wicked sense of humor.
A handful of stops later, Doris's assistant again pushes the call button, and notifies the operator that they will be getting off at the next stop. Once again, she replies, "10-4". When we pull into the next station, the train doors open up, and the doors that Doris needs to go out have a huge box about 4 feet in front of them. And the ramp that the station attendant has is 5 feet long. So it won't work. Doris's assistant then gets on the call box again, and tells the idiot operator that they can't get out, and to pull the train forward a little, but not leave the station. (Here's where I toss a little blame on Roy. Sure, the ramp would be nice and smooth. And in a perfect world, wouldn't be necessary. But this isn't a perfect world, and this operator is obviously an idiot. If this were Cora and me, sorry, I say to my wife, "Hang on", pop a wheelie, and out the damn door we go.)
"10-4", the operator responded.
The doors close, but instead inching forward 5 feet, the operator starts accelerating like she's heading to the next stop!
Back on the call button, Roy and a chorus manage to get her to stop just before the final car cleared the station. And now, the guy with the ramp is like 50 yards down the platform. A couple of guys had all they could stand, and took the initiative. They hurled Doris's ass off the train assisted Roy in getting Doris off the train and onto the platform, to the cheers of their fellow passengers.
When my train finally arrived at my station, I hugged my wife. Sweet freedom!
And I hope Doris and Roy had a better luck the rest of their journey.
So, a word of caution to anyone in a wheelchair who plans to ride the CTA trains. Just because they are wheelchair accessible does not mean they have the vaguest idea what they're doing. They only got their job because they have connections.
