A Visit from Vikings

/ Shane / 3 Comments

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.

An old friend from college stopped by on Thursday.  I was actually a little nervous to see her because I haven’t seen her in so long.  In that time she has lived in Austin, Beijing and currently Oslo.  A real world traveler this one!  Surely with all that life experience, etc. the two of us have changed quite a bit and probably have little in common.  Plus, she was coming with her husband whom I have never met.

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

Unfortunately I forgot my phone when I went to get them at the airport.  The one day I forget my phone!  I trusted the Internet when it said they would be 30 minutes late, but when I got to the airport all I knew was that their flight had landed.  I was nervous they ended up being on time and they couldn’t get a hold of me to see where I was.  I found myself trying to judge people to see if they looked like they had arrived from Brussels.  Unfortunately I only know 2 things about Brussels and since I didn’t think Jean-Claude Van Damme would be on the flight, I resorted to looking for people who were six foot four and full of muscles.

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

Eventually they came out and it was all good.  We stopped at Molly’s Cupcakes on the way home.   Then we ended up sitting at our house for a few hours before I dropped them off with their friend.  That part was kind of boring I’m sure.  It turns out it wasn’t really strange at all seeing her.  I guess our blogs sort of keep us in contact somewhat.  I guess if you get a long with someone on a personality level, that doesn’t really change over time.

Lucas was nice, I think we would get along.  We have at least 2 things in common: 1) we agree that when you are telling a good story, sometimes you might need to exaggerate a little bit to make it a good story and you don’t need someone else always correcting minor technicalities here and there and ruining your story. 2) I think we both tend to be a little oblivious and need the women in our lives to remind us of time lines, plans, etc.

So anyway, Meg (since I know you will read this), I’m really glad you came!  I enjoyed seeing you and I appreciate you taking the time out of your short trip to the U.S. to see little ole me.

My own fish out of water story

/ Shane / Leave a comment

The neighborhood blogs I read love to have “fish out of water” stories about white people moving to an all black neighborhood, particularly ChiKat and I Hate My Developer.  Sure I feel awkward sometimes and sure people treat me slightly differently or give me funny looks now and again.  There have been times when I wanted to explain to someone that I actually live in the neighborhood.  But nothing worth telling anybody about has ever happened to me.  Mostly things are sideways glances or other types of things that I could have just misunderstood, although I suspect I did not.

Today however, something decidedly odd happened.  I was walking over to the garden this morning and I heard someone speaking very loudly behind me.  An elderly black gentleman in an old beat up pickup was asking someone for directions and I could hear the man saying he didn’t live in the neighborhood so he wasn’t sure.  The man drove a little ways forward and asked the next person walking.  That person told him he didn’t know either.  The man then drove right past me without slowing and asked the next person who pointed him in the correct direction.

So there were 4 people walking and he asked all 3 of the others for directions (who all happened to be black), but pointedly skipped me.  I don’t know if he just didn’t feel comfortable talking to me or if he just assumed I couldn’t possibly live in the neighborhood and therefore wouldn’t be able to help.  I was actually anticipating him stopping to ask me and I was already hoping I would be able to help him out (I never actually heard the name of the street he was looking for).  I certainly wasn’t offended or anything that he didn’t stop, but it was certainly very odd.

Farmers’ Market Goes Corporate

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I’ve discussed before about the farmers’ market a block or so from our place.  We go there nearly every week and 99% of the time we purchase something from the Bleeding Heart Bakerybooth.  It is a little expensive, but everything is very delicious and very unique.  We get something new every time, anything from scones to rhubarb tarts to spinach and goat cheese croissants.  I’ve never been disappointed.

The last time we went there the booth wasn’t in the normal location.  Instead a booth from the Medici, a local restaurant and bakery, was in its place.  Eventually we found the booth further down and bought something there.  This week the booth wasn’t there at all.

Now I don’t know which company is actually bigger, they might be roughly the same size.  But in terms of Hyde Park restaurants, the Medici is definitely one of the heavy weights.  I like Medici a lot and in fact I have purchased bread from their farmers’ market booth.  So this isn’t against them directly.  But, especially considering that the Medici booth is in the exact (prime) location that the Bleeding Heart booth used to occupy strikes me as a corperate muscle job.  It would really be a shame if that was the case because 1) there is room for both booths since one sells mostly bread and the other sells mostly sweets and 2) the Bleeding Heart booth had so much more original things, instead of the boring old standards at Medici.

So maybe the booth will be back next week, but if not, my opinion of Medici will really go down.

Work Stats

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I stumbled across some stats about work the other day and since I’m always wondering stuff like how many people work there, I thought it was interesting:

Campus: 1,500 acres and 99 buildings
Workforce: 8,650 employees (including students)
Budget (2007): $412M Department Of Energy + $119M non-DOE + $20 M Dept. of Homeland Security

Almost jumped out of my skin

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I was working on the couch, minding my own business.  Evie was taking a nap and Nala was napping in the window.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bird flies into the window *TWACK* and somehow manages to grab onto the screen.  It’s flapping its wings like crazy *flip flip flip flip flip flip flip* and Nala says, “In all the windows in all the condos, you had to fly into mine” and starts meowing and leaping at the bird and batting at the window.  Finally the bird got loose and flew away.  This entire scene unfolded in about 2 seconds but let me tell you, in the silence that preceded it, I about leapt of my shorts.

Now I don’t think Nala can ever leave that window again, just in case.