work

The tastiest part is the soul

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Over the weekend I had to trot, trot to Boston to do a little work.  While I was there, I was very bold and adventurous trying food that I normally wouldn’t try.  One night we were out at the Fisherman’s Festival and my boss stopped at a booth serving clams.  He was pretty excited because, being French, they ate a lot of fresh seafood growing up.  So he ordered a plate and convinced me to try one.  I had never had one before and figured I probably never will, since it is not something that would normally appeal to me.  So he squeezed some lemon on there and I ate it.  I was pleasantly surprised!  I mean, I like seafood quite a bit, so I don’t know what I expected, but it was good.  Saltier than I imagined.  I would like to try one with the hot sauce maybe.  Anyway, we continued walking along and I inquired what the difference between clams and mussels were.  He started explaining that (among many other differences) when the lemon juice hits the mussels they shriveled up.

I stopped cold.  “You mean they are alive??”  He laughed and said, “Yeah, what do you think you just ate?”  I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me, and it doesn’t change anything about the fact that I actually thought it tasted pretty good, but I’m sure glad he told me that after I ate it.  I was fairly horrified.  I just imagined me chewing and chewing and ending his little life.

I also had the opportunity to eat an entire lobster.  Again my boss was there to demonstrate all the tricky bits and how to properly dismantle him.  Again, it was super, super tasty but I just had to keep suppressing the knowledge that I was tearing this animal apart with my bare hands.  Especially when there was something disgusting, like the contents of its stomach.  The thing is, I have no problem with killing animals and I have no problem with the awful conditions of slaughter houses, etc.  I think if you eat meat or fast food, or wear leather, etc. you better come to grips with the fact that that’s what is happening.  I have no remorse over that, I’m no PETA lover.  But I don’t like to be reminded that my food came from an actual animal; I’d rather someone else took care of that part.  I mean, I want my garbage collected but that doesn’t mean I want to actually do that part myself!

I also tried clam chowder, which was ALSO delicious.  So, that was 3 adventerous forrays into the New England food world and 3 big hits.  Although I’m still not sure I could bite into another clam knowing that it would be that bite that ended his tiny life.

Work Stats

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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

Business Class

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And by business class, I mean the measure of my character, not the mode by which I traveled.

Today I had to fly to Washington D.C. to give a demo and then flew back the same day, all of this in a suit and tie.  I felt very important and very professional very hmm hmm hmm and very awesome.  The only thing I was missing was a blackberry that I could use to importantly send text messages and other business missives such as, “We’re here” “Yep, we just landed” “I’ll let you know when I get off” like the person sitting next to me where I could read over his shoulder.  But if I hadn’t been able to read I would have thought he was doing important business stuff, especially since he had to get right on it the minute the plane was on the ground.

The only bad thing was that I had to get up at 3:30 in the morning and I didn’t sleep on the plane.  So I should probably go to bed, huh?

Incomunicado

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I will be gone to a conference next week, so I won’t be able to update anything.  It will be interesting because this will be the longest I’ve been away from Evie and the longest Sara will be alone with her.  I know she is nervous about being able to get everything done and get to work on time, etc.  To all you single mothers out there (Hi mom!) I don’t know how you do it, because I can’t imagine not being able to hand her off for a second when you need to make dinner or uh…use the facilities.

Anyway, to hold you over I will leave you with this game.  It is the perfect balance between being slightly challenging so you feel accomplished, but not so challenging that I couldn’t beat it in one day.  Just make a path to get the ball to the box…simple!  All you do is draw lines and let gravity and physics do the rest.  So you’re like learning and stuff while you play!

If you get bored with that one, you can move on to this one.  It is a simple turn based RPG (remember how popular those used to be?)  I haven’t beat it yet, I’m on the one with the submarines.  And if you beat THAT one, you can hit up parts 2, 3, 4, and 5.

P.S.  The Office was off for so long, I almost fell out of love with Jenna Fischer

This is not the money you’re looking for…

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Okay, I know I’m a few days late on this, but this is one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard!!  Basically, a couple of armed guys tried to steal David Copperfield’s wallet and he thwarted them with magic!  Of course he did.  Don’t screw with David-freaking-Copperfield!  He should have been like, “How are you going to escape with no getaway car?” and then *poof* their car disappears.  Someone at work pointed out that if this was the 80s, Copperfield would get his own crime-fighting cartoon show.

So Sara is on her way to Chicago for a job interview and also to look at apartments.  This is the one and only job that’s seemed interesting in the past 4 months or so, so hopefully it goes well.  I’m not worried though…apparently the interviewer asked her boss, “What do we have to do to get her out here?”

So today was the annual Tredyffrin Library book sale.  Paperbacks are 3 for $1 and hardcovers are $1…seriously, it’s better than Christmas.  So, with no Sara to interfere and rein me in, I bought 26 books! 🙂 🙂 🙂  This is kind of a problem because I still haven’t read all the books I got for Christmas yet and also because we’re moving, but hey!  Buying 26 books would have cost me over $200 regularly, and instead they cost me $15!!  I also bought 4 books for Sara, so hopefully she’ll like them.

They had this book set there written by Vince Lombardi.  It was SOO cool!  It was actually written by him and it’s about how you play the game of football, including hand drawn diagrams about how certain plays should work.  It was full of full page color pictures of old school Packers like Bart Star, etc.  It was leather bound and in a protective box.  It was the coolest thing, but unfortunately it cost $50. 😦  I couldn’t justify that, so I didn’t get it.  It would make a great present though! 🙂

Finally, today is the day of the NFL draft!  (How was that for a segue from books to the NFL?)  The Packers have never drafted this high as far as I can remember (basically because they’ve never been as bad as they were last year as far as I can remember!) so this is more exciting than normal.  All of the pre-draft analysis is completely asinine, but despite that I’m still looking forward to it.  However, every year I’m all excited and then after a few hours I’m like, “Oh my god, could this BE any more boring.”  We’ll see how long I make it this year.

That is all.