YCMTSU - Astronaut Version

Jill always does the "You can't make this stuff up" so I found one for me to post. It's fairly self explanatory.

 

Astronaut arrested in alleged kidnap attempt

Lisa Nowak waited in hiding for woman she considered a romantic rival

By Mike Schneider

ORLANDO, Fla. - An astronaut drove from Houston to Florida, donned a disguise and confronted a woman she believed was romantically involved with a space shuttle pilot she was in love with, police said. She was charged with attempted kidnapping and other counts.

Remainder of Article

Leaving aside the diapers, which is hilarious, my favorite quote is:

"If you were just going to talk to someone, I don't know that you would need a wig, a trench coat, an air cartridge BB gun and pepper spray," said Sgt. Barbara Jones, a spokeswoman for the Orlando Police Department.

More About Chocolate

Not sure if it's clear yet, but I like chocolate. I got this from my mother who is surely addicted to the stuff. I have trouble turning it down, although when my office mates bring it into work, I really try to ignore it.

So my mom sent me a story about my nephew, Mason. He is my sister's son and is carrying on the chocoholic tradition as well as any two year old can be expected.

Seems like Mason could be our next generation chocoholic!  I made lava cupcakes last night but we just gave him ice cream.  He wanted to taste what we were eating and kept saying "more' until he ate the entire thing.  Looked like he was in heaven too!

Chocolate Covered Bacon

A co-worker of mine showed up to work today with strips of bacon coated in Ghirardelli semi-sweet dark chocolate that he made at home. I must say that I wasn't sure I should eat any but I gave it a shot. He stood there watching my face laughing his butt off. It really doesn't taste bad - it's like an acquired taste that takes 40 seconds.

He just likes to see the facial expressions as you processs what he is offering in your mind. Then he likes to watch the additional facial expressions as your taste buds go to work. I have to say that the chocolate is the overwhelming taste while the bacon mostly provides the texture.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition in Seattle

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit has been in Seattle since September and the show is going away in about a week. We finally went to the exhibit today at the Pacific Science Center and it was a great thing to check out.

The scrolls are the oldest Hebrew biblical manuscripts known by over 1,000 years. It is amazing how much work they are doing to preserve them, piece them together, and learn about the people of Qumran near the Dead Sea.

Bellevue, WA is NO Brooklyn, NY

We've been having some problems with our blogging tool (Blogger), along with some other power/internet issues relating to this past weekend's nasty storm that hit the Pacific Northwest, so I am catching up on some entries - see last 4 or 5 entries, including this one.  Fortunately we only lost power for a short bit.  My boss, on the other hand, is going on day 6 and it looks like him and his family may not have power back until Saturday (today is TUESDAY).  Not good.  The biggest casualty cause seems to be related to carbon monoxide poisoning due to people bringing in their generators or BBQ grills into their homes to heat them up.  Dangerous stuff.

Switching gears to a more uplifting story, here is an odd one coming out of Monticello, NY.  It's along the lines of Scott Adams' problem being mysteriously cured.  In this case, odd means GOOD.

Top 10 funniest moments of 2006 by political blogger Howard Mortman.  Read the comments as well for more entertainment.  Thanks to the WSJ.com Washington Wire for finding this.

This little war between Judith Regan (publisher of the O.J. book) and News Corp. is going to be nasty.  Hope everyone's skeletons have been cleared out of their closets.

These 2 articles depress me about women in the workplace - one in science and one in corporate America.  Not that I am looking to be a CEO anytime soon, but still....

Mr. Westneat, Bellevue is no Brooklyn.  Not even close.  Don't even go there.  You need history, which Bellevue does not have.  Trust me, I lived in Brooklyn.  Stick to topics you have firsthand experience with.  I cringed reading this.

I've blogged in the past at what a joke (the 2nd paragraph in the link) I think the TSA is.  This article confirms it.  Check out what the Ph.D. student did in his spare time.  More on this from Scott McCartney from the WSJ.  I like his columns - they are informative.

No blog entry of mine would be complete without something related to Food and Wine.  Apparently Kosher food isn't just for people keeping Kosher anymore.   Interesting. 

Washington merlots are starting to make some positive noise, and this is from the NYT - awesome.  Sideways killed Merlot and to a certain extent, they were right.  Lots of demand can lead to complacency but not with the producers mentioned in this article.  I have some friends who would definitely be into this - wine and yoga.  Me, not flexible enough although maybe wine would help.  :-)

Sports update anyone?

This made me fall over laughing.  You go, Natalie Gulbis!

So the Red Sox finally got their man, but here's something interesting about what the key stat is for Dice according to the Japanese culture.  Hmmmm.... I guess we'll find out if it means anything.  Anyone know what Hideki Irabu (aka Fat Toad according to George Steinbrenner) had for a blood type?

We have to have a minimum of one YCMTSU instance in this entry.  "Hi, uh, coach.  I have some stiffness in my elbow and I am not sure if I can pitch in the playoffs tonight.  Been working hard on my mechanics and technique.... just don't know what's wrong."  Well, how about not playing a virtual rock star on Guitar Hero on your PC?

More MLB pitching news - does anyone remember John Rocker and his comments about the No. 7 train on the NYC subway being in Sports Illustrated?  Well I guess Mr. Rocker is now writing a book and complains that Jeff Pearlman (author of said article) is a "liberal Jew from New York" and things were taken out of context, blah, blah.... whatever.  T.O. always claims that he is a victim of the press too.  Yeah, if you're not anti-semitic then tell me why you need to mention that Mr. Pearlman is a liberal Jew.  Good luck having enough intellect to get your book published.

Moving to the NFL, how about this?  A quarterback, who is picked as a No. 2 in the overall NFL draft in '98 (Peyton Manning was No. 1, I believe - good pick Colts), and has an awful career in the NFL, and now may have a movie being made about his life.  Yes folks, we are talking about Ryan Leaf.  Is there really nothing else to talk about?  I'm sure Marc's friend, Todd, will be lining up to see that one.  Todd is a big Chargers fan. 

Isiah Thomas, you make me ashamed to be a New York Knicks fan and I never thought I would say that about any team that I followed since I was a kid.  You must have some dirt on David Stern to not get any fines or suspensions in your role in last weekend's brawl.

Finally and I don't know if this falls into more of the sports or entertainment category, but the Sports Guy from ESPN has his opinion of which Rocky movie was the best of the lot.  His description of him seeing "Rocky II" as a kid is priceless because it was so spot on.  I guess this is to honor the latest installment, "Rocky Balboa", which is coming soon to a theatre near you.  Unbelievable.  Yeah, I'll be at the movie theatre to see that one.  NOT.

MSN Groups Product Support - You Get What You Pay For

So I've had an MSN Group (formerly MSN Communities) called TravelingMarc for a LONG time. I haven't really updated it in a while so every 3-4 months I get a message that it will be deleted for my convenience. There is a link to click to keep the group active. I clicked that link.

Dear Groups User,

Your MSN Group, Traveling Marc, has had no activity in the last 90 days. As a convenience to our users, we periodically delete groups that have become dormant. We hope you'll consider coming back. It's not too late!

If your group remains inactive for another 14 days, we'll go ahead and delete it. If you would like to keep your group, simply click on the link below and follow the instructions on the web page.

Keep my group

We hope your group is back in action soon,

MSN Groups

Clicking the "keep my group" link resulted in a page that contained the following:

Hmmm, We Can't Find that Page...
The page you're looking for might have been moved or deleted. Or, perhaps the Web address is misspelled?
Ideas to help you find what you're looking for:
Try refreshing the page (click Refresh or Reload on your browser).
Check the address for spelling and punctuation errors.
Go to MSN Groups Home and look around from there.

So I tried posting a new message on the message board of the group, I tried changing any group settings, I tried adding a new content page, I tried a lot of things. Every one of them resulted in the same error: Hmmmm, We Can't Find that Page...

I decided to contact customer support from a link within the groups pages. Here is what I wrote to them:

Try to take ANY action such as (but not limited to) (a) post a message, (b) click "keep my group" link from an email you sent me, (c) change any managerial settings about the group, etc and I get an error page upon submission containing this:

Hmmm, We Can't Find that Page...
The page you're looking for might have been moved or deleted. Or, perhaps the Web address is misspelled?
Ideas to help you find what you're looking for:
Try refreshing the page (click Refresh or Reload on your browser).
Check the address for spelling and punctuation errors.
Go to MSN Groups Home and look around from there.

They wrote back as follows:

Hello Marc,
Thank you for writing to MSN Groups Technical Support.

My name is [XXXXX] and I understand that you are encountering the message, "Hmmm, We Can't Find that Page", when you try to post messages, click the "keep my group" link in the e-mail you received, and change your Group settings. I apologize for the inconvenience you may have experienced.

We have received reports from other customers regarding this. The server that hosts your MSN Group is currently undergoing maintenance or experiencing technical difficulties. With this, you may experience intermittent issues on posting messages, clicking the "keep my group" link, and changing your Group settings. Our product team is aware of this issue and is working diligently to fix this.

You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service. Thank you for using MSN Groups.

Sincerely,
[xxxxx]

MSN Groups Technical Support

I thought hard about this. I was wondering, will the group go away because I cannot do anything? Jill wondered the same thing and said I should ask. Here's what I asked:

So perhaps the most important unanswered question is this:
Will my group be deleted since I cannot perform the “keep my group” action to save it?
Inquiring minds would like to know.

The incredibly customized response posted nothing useful back to me. I don't think they read the original question which was still in the email:

Hello Marc,
Thank you for writing to MSN Groups Technical Support.

My name is [XXXXX] and I understand you would like to know if your MSN Group, "TravelingMarc," is on the verge of being deleted due to "Can't Find that Page" issue that occur when trying to reactivate your Group through the "Keep my Group" option in the notification e-mail. I am sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

While the situation is being looked upon by our Product Team, we encourage you and your Group members to keep the Group active by adding new content or maintaining activity by posting messages or pictures to the site to avoid automatic deletion of the Group due to prolonged inactivity.

You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service. Thank you for using MSN Groups.

Sincerely,
[XXXXX]
MSN Groups Technical Support

I wrote back again pointing out what I thought was obvious but perhaps missed.

Dear [XXXXX] (or whoever next responds tothis) –

That’s kind of the point. YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING to the group right now that involves posting anything. No one can postcontent, messages, photos, or anything else. Would love an answer to thequestion: Will my group be deleted since I cannot perform the“keep my group” action to save it?

Another templated response.

Hello Marc,
Thank you for writing back to MSN Groups Technical Support.

I am [XXXXXX] and I understand that you are not able to post anything in your group and that you want to clarify if your group will be purged since you cannot do any activity. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.

Marc, if you continue to experience the issue in posting any photos, files or documents and message in your group, the other option will be to accept a new member and edit your group pages or create a new one.
Please note that at 120 days of inactivity, we will assume the Group is inactive and delete it.

You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service. Thank you for using MSN Groups.

Sincerely,
[XXXXXX]
MSN Groups Technical Support

I was too frustrated to deal anymore. I especially like the note about assuming the group is inactive and deleting it. Wow -- THANKS!!! That is customer service. So I went back and clicked on the link in the original email. And this time it worked! It took 2-3 days to receive a confirmation email, but they did finally send one...

Dear Groups User,

Recent activity in your MSN Group, Traveling Marc, has restored it to "active" status. Your group is no longer marked for deletion.

We're glad you're back!

MSN Groups

Free product. Free support. You get what you pay for with this one. I haven't filled out the satisfaction survey, but that is next...

How did we do? Do you have 3-5 minutes for feedback on the support we provided to you? Your feedback will enable the Groups: Free Services Support team to improve your future support experience. We would love to hear from you!
Please click here to give us your feedback:[removed]] Sincerely,
Your MSN Support Team

Food, food and more food.....

The holidays manage to up the ante on the social calendar, which has allowed us to check out some restaurants in downtown Seattle and Kirkland with some friends over the past few weeks:

  • Boat Street Cafe, with Ian and Maura, which was pretty good except they don't have a bar where you can grab a drink beforehand.
  • Restaurant Zoe (no relation to the one in NYC), which had a great wine list (lots of half bottles), and an excellent menu. Service was spot on.
  • Dahlia Lounge, with JoAnna and Mary, which was a really fun time. Especially because we decided to spring for the magnum - it ends up being the same as a couple of bottles anyway so it looks bad :-). It was a nice bottle though.
  • Purple Cafe, with Chris and Shelly, which is always a reliably good place to eat and drink. Their excellent wine list, combined with their lobster mac and cheese, makes it one of my favorite places outside of Seattle.
  • Waterfront Seafood Grill, with Lesley, Mathias and Stephanie, which did a proper Baked Alaska (known as an Emerald City Volcano). Lots of laughs and it was fun to make Lesley's run the next day a little more difficult given all of the tough runs she schedules for me.

Continuing on the food angle, I was reading the most recent issue of Food and Wine and noticed a dessert that my friends Ian and Sue would enjoy. :-) Ok, some background.

Ian and Sue happen to be friends of mine who are English, but know each other only through me. Other than the fact they are English, know me, and both worked at Merrill Lynch at the same time, they pretty much have nothing in common. Still when Sue decided to visit me over a long weekend and we booked a table at Babbo, I invited Ian, aka partner-in-crime, along.

So we're having the dinner, some laughs, excellent food, wine, as is the usual deal at Babbo, and then the server starts to talk dessert. They start describing the special, which is a lemony semolina cake with fruit, jam, etc. The look of anticipation and excitement on both Ian and Sue immediately changed to dread and horror. And it happened simultaneously. Clearly there was something that I was missing here because it looked like they were bonding something related to the semolina.

Turns out that as youngsters in the English school systen, kids were served semolina which sounded like it was some nasty porridge that Cindarella was forced to eat by her evil stepmother, or something. The things you learn about other cultures. Anyway, the server really decides to sell the semolina to Ian and Sue. Ian takes the bait, Sue passes because she is having too many flashbacks. Ian ends up loving the cake and wants to get the recipe. Can't find it anywhere - none of the Babbo cookbooks, not online. Nowhere.

And then it magically appeared in F&W this month. Ian, I expect a full report when you make it. Maybe something for you to try with your Mom when you head back to the UK?

Speaking of food and Babbo, Happy Birthday Sal!

Soccer Gauchos NCAA Champs

The Gauchos beat UCLA for their first national championship in a long time. Leave it to Jill to find on one of her favorite blogs a link to a hilarious YouTube video of fans in Isla Vista celebrating by carrying a soccer goal down the street and chanting.

After cracking up, my first thought is that there were probably some couches burning in the street. I haven't found any video of that for that particular day, but this proves that it happens regularly.

The deadspin link to the video doesn't show the students throwing the goal over the cliffs of Del Playa, but this story does. Good times...

No more gadgets for Kim Jong-Il. Too bad, so sad.

Random thought:  What ever happened to Jake Ryan from "Sixteen Candles"?  Now he was 'all that and a bag of chips'. 

Sorry for the delay in posts.  Marc and I took a few days off and headed down to the place where he popped the question - Bandon Dunes.  We golfed, drank some awesome wine and had some excellent food.  On one of the nights we were there, Marc and I unexpectedly ran into some people we used to sit near during Mariners' game when we had a package - JoAnna and Mary.  What a fun surprise - had a lot of laughs with those two down in Bandon.

 So if you are fortunate enough to be traveling by air during the 2007 holiday season, you can do a public service for you and your fellow travelers.  Sounds like fun so I'll just get right on that one.  That is almost as good as the U.S. government thinking that they can prevent Kim Jong-Il, North Korea's esteemed leader, from obtaining his favorite gadgets like iPods and Segways.  We hear that Kim also likes fine wine.  Unfortunately whenever I hear about him, I think back to that awful movie "Team America: World Police" made a couple of years ago.

 So someone will have to explain to me how Michael Irvin still continues to have a job at ESPN with all of his transgressions (recent and not-so-recent).  Anyone?

 I have friends who do this, which is probably illegal.  The moral of the story is - don't move to Singapore. 

 Continuing the legal angle, McDonald's wants to patent how to make a sandwich.  No folks, I am not making this up.  There is some serious intellectual property here.  More from the WSJ.com Law Blog, Slate is suggesting some new rules for your company's holiday party.  Worth checking out.  And my final WSJ.com Law Blog reference of the day, apparently there is enough content to have a symposium called "The Law of Beer".  Appropriately enough, it took place in Oregon, which is home of some of the world's best microbreweries.

 Someone want to tell me if this is a good thing or not?  Kind of freaks me out.
Just so we have a little bit of everything in today's post, let's shift gears towards the entertainment world.  And it looks like Jessica Simpson had a bad day at the office on Sunday evening.  Was it as bad as her sister's when she got busted for lip sync'ing on SNL a year or two ago?

An ice cream pioneer died a few days ago.  For anyone who knows me and the rest of the Consor Clan, you know that ice cream is a big deal in our family.

 And finally, here is a great article on how NOT to see New York as a tourist.  More soon.

YCMTSU - Sports Edition!

Maria Sharapova, watch out.  Your freedom to grunt is under attack.

Deadspin asks the question, "what would Jesus call?" in this situation.  Great example of ethics in this article.

It seems kind of unfathomable to me that Terrell Owens has written a children's book.  His antics make 5-year olds seem mature.

English fans can now prove who has the biggest 'weapon'.  I'm not making this up, I promise.  Is it really that bad over across the pond?

This is a nice motivational speech to use before a game.  NOT.

OK - not exactly sports related although you can play sports on this machine.  Thanks Marc for finding this one (scroll down to the bottom).  BTW, Business Week, WSJ and NYT all have comparisons on the latest between Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3.

Tartufo

On our honeymoon in Santa Barbara, we had some cheese at a restaurant called Wine Cask that included a cheese called (something) Tartufo. Jill really loved it and we have been getting versions of Tartufo cheeses from Whole Foods almost every time we go now. For those of you in New York, they have some at Artisanal. I think Jill likes it because it basically contains mushrooms (or fungus depending on which one of us you ask).

Jill seems to like this so much that I have determined that her new nickname is Tartufo. Refer to it often.

Hawaii photos and other musings....

We got the Hawaii photos up.  Check them out here (scroll to bottom).  If you look carefully, you will see some pictures of me attempting to do some Tahitian dancing (as opposed to doing a hula).  Hilarious for everyone in attendance, I can assure you, especially when the dirty old man tried to grab my waist and I was attempting to keep a straight face.  Some other highlights:

  • The Prince course at the Princeville was one of the hardest, if not the hardest course, I have played.  Beautiful but lost more balls there than I did during the 3 other rounds of golf played on the trip (combined).
  • Maui onions are awesome.  Lots of great local produce and seafood to be had on Hawaii.
  • Joanne at the Ritz took amazing care of us (even if she is from the Boston area).  Luckily she did not hold my affinity for the Yanks against us.  Thanks for the goody bag and the great hospitality, Joanne!
  • The Plantation course at Kapalua is as beautiful as it looks on TV every January.
  • Read 3 entertaining books - Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody (a Harry Potter satire), Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (thanks Sally and Dustin), and A Year in Provence By Peter Mayle.
  • New favorite "fruity concoction" a Lava Flow - a pina coloda with pureed strawberries.  Yum!

Domino's is attempting to do Brooklyn style pizza.  Whatever.  Interesting perspective on what makes a homemade bread really special.... I think Anthony Bourdain could have used this article based on his love/hate relationship with his baker in Kitchen Confidential.  The NYT decided to give everyone a turkey primer in the latest Dining & Wine section so if you are hosting Thanksgiving for the 1st time, you may want to check it out.

All over the place....

There was an interesting off-Broadway play review in the NYT that's a one-woman show chronicling a teacher's trials and travails.  Since a number of people in my family are in education, I thought I would mention it.

Gary Sheffield, SHUT THE HECK UP and play out your contract.  You negotiated the contract yourself, so deal with the $13 million that you will be paid in 2007.  You'll make more money next year than most will in a lifetime, so just sit back and be thankful/hopeful that you don't end up like your uncle who once thought he was irreplaceable (scroll to Legal Troubles).

When I worked at Cisco in 2000, I was at a new hire breakfast with John Chambers and someone asked him why they would not sponsor a sports stadium (note this was at the height of the tech boom).  John responded that there was not a good return on investment typically associated with that kind of marketing.  Guess they changed their mind with the Oakland A's (or should I say Fremont A's of the Bay Area?).

History buffs - check this out as it tends to be rare to have history be as vivid as this.

A blog that I subscribe to published a journal from someone serving in Iraq.  Regardless of what is going on in Washington, we gotta keep supporting these guys out in the field.  Scroll down to the bottom of the link's page for some perspective on the election.

OK - JDRF is probably really happy with Tuesday's election results.  Gotta get that stem cell research bill through!!

In the continuing saga of 'you cannot make this stuff up', some Brit decided to light a firecracker in a creative place wth less than stellar results.  Unbelievable.

My father-in-law made a hole-in-one today.  Wow.  Great job, Bruce.  Too bad you were not keeping score.

Lots of publicity for Microsoft with Windows Vista being ready to ship (party tomorrow - I am told it will be crazy - glad I take the bus).  I work on a great team of people and some of the great work that the team has been completed has been featured in a couple of high profile blogs like Robert Scoble's (new networking stack) as well as Mary Jo Foley (IPv6).  Great job, guys!

Britney sacks K-Fed!

Wow.  This just came in over the past hour.  Britney Spears has decided to kick her husband, Kevin Federline, to the curb.  Hope she had a good pre-nup.  Man, these celebrity marriages must be tough to maintain.  Last week, Ryan Philippe and Reese Witherspoon decided to split after seven years of marriage.

My sister also informed me that 90210 came out on DVD today.  Big news day, I'm telling you.

Don't forget to vote.  :-)

VOTE.

I have this thing about voting.  If you have the right to vote and don't, then you don't really have a right to complain about the current state of affairs.  So get out and vote if you have not done so already.  I honestly don't care who you vote for, as long as you do it.  OK, maybe I care a little but I'd rather everyone just get out and exercise their right to vote.

OK, so Marc and I were offline for awhile vacationing in Maui and Kauai.  Great times and we'll post more on the trip once we get the pictures posted.  There are pictures of me doing some hula-like dancing at a luau.  Beware.  There was an article in the NYT that amused me about the liquids rule that we must all abide by when flying.   You need to scroll down a bit to see what I am talking about.  As a matter of fact, I was talking to Marc about this very same rule on Sunday as we were going through the airport security checkpoint.

So as technology evolves, there are now these video blogger awards called the vloggies.  One of the categories was Best Cooking Vlog and the winner was Wine Library TV.  Maybe it's not officially a cooking one, but I know that Marc and I manage to cook a bit with some wine.  Anyway, some good info here that you may want to check out.

Some other food and wine related tidbits - Frank Bruni talks a bit more about his recent trip to Italy and compares regions for food and wine.  Makes me hungry just reading it.  I guess I was not into cooking at the same level back in '97 because there was some big family drama going on with the family associated with "The Joy of Cooking" over style and makeovers, etc.  Crazy what could happen when it comes to family legacies and protecting their integrity but still keeping it fresh for the current audience.

Shifting gears a bit to the eerie sort - there was a developing story over the weekend about an indie actress who committed suicide in the West Village.  Turns out that this woman was actually murdered, and that Ms. Shelley was my former neighbor from when I lived in the West Village (see Abingdon Square link). Actually - 2 doors away.  The circumstances of the murder are what make this eerie.

Finally over the time we were away, we were informed that Team Bobby's JDRF fundraising efforts were tremendous and had the largest fundraising effort for the East Bay region.  Big shout out to my cousins Claire, Rebecca and Bobby for all of their hard work.

Upstate New York's version of justice.

So when Marc informed me that upstate New York received about 2 feet of snow a couple of weeks ago, I didn't get too nostalgic for my mostly cold days at SUNY Oswego.  Then in today's news, I came across a case where a Buffalo judge told a Buffalo teacher (a Canadian citizen who commutes to Buffalo) convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old girl he could avoid a one-year jail sentence by accepting a three-year exile to Canada.  WHAT?!?  Because Canada openly welcomes teachers who commit sexual abuse.  Unbelievable.

Speaking of issues at the U.S. border, this concerns me a bit especially given the lack of transparency as to reasons why it happens.

For you football fans, I read a pretty interesting article about how the NFL manages the questionable calls.  It's amazing with all of the manpower assigned to watching the referees that they still get really obvious calls wrong.  Also congratulations to the New York Giants for stomping on T.O.'s party in Dallas on Monday evening.

With election season in full swing, Marc and I have both lamented about why we cannot remove ourselves from the annual deluge of candidate solicitations over the phone.  Well the NYT asked the same question and poked fun at some of the more humorous messages played for voters.  I'm going to link to this article but I think it may unfortunately be part of the NYT's premium service so some of you may not be able to see it.  Sorry.

Lisa, my sister in the 2nd trimester of her pregnancy, had a tough time with morning sickness early on.  She seems to have battled through it, but in today's NYT there was an article about nausea and morning sickess.  It looks like doctors say that normal morning sickness generally indicates a healthy pregnancy, so hope that makes you feel better, Lisa!

Continuing on the health topic, I also read something today about the medical impact of 9/11's dust in NYC.  I was there on the day of, and lived and worked downtown overlooking the site subsequently after 9/11.  Let me tell you, contrary to all reports, the air was not at healthy levels.  We even received memos from Merrill Lynch telling us that they conducted their own tests in addition to the EPA, and that the air was good.  Then when I took a road trip with my friends Ian and Holly to Boston about 6 weeks after, we realized what fresh air actually smelled like.  It will be interesting to see how these lawsuits pan out.

Finally I saw a couple e-mails about this awhile ago, but never set my phone to do this.  Something to think about?

Catching up on some reading....

I actually had a bunch of interesting reads yesterday, but after Lesley's amazing day in Kona - we had to postpone some of those to today.  Then of course, you have the Sunday papers which give you a huge array of subjects to choose from.  So here goes.

The area that I lived in NYC for many years was the subject of a recent article in the NYT.  Abingdon Square, which no one seemed to know how to find unless you lived there, was actually at the corner of West 12th Street and 8th Avenue - the heart of the West Village with great restaurants and bars.  Anyway, it made me reminisce a bit....

Did you know that the current mayor of Paris is selling the city's much heralded wine collection?  Apparently the current party in power does not entertain as much as his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, so they do not need as huge of a stash.  Also there is some concern of the official wine cellar being at risk for a flood (last time there was a flood from the River Seine was 1910).  That must be some great wine. 

Hershey just purchased Dagoba Organic Chocolate.  Marc, do you have any analysis of this acquisition?  Lots of acquisitions by both Hershey's and Mars.  Interesting to see who ends up the winner here.  I am definitely a Scharffen Berger and Jacques Torres fan, but Marc is the authority in our household.

Continuing on the food theme, the NYT published another article by R.W. Apple Jr.  I talked about him a couple of weeks ago, and this subject is for those of you who love to combine travel with your love of food and wine.

Switching gears - think you can do a better job running the country?  In a takeoff on fantasy sports, we now have 'Fantasy Politics'. Sal, I know you have little interest in professional sports but this may worth checking out.  :-)

Keeping on politics, our friend Nat told me a few weeks ago about some of the blogs he reads including Andrew Sullivan's.  Mr. Sullivan, who just wrote a new book, was profiled in today's NYT.  Nat, if you get his book - let me know what you think.

Election Day is quickly approaching and it seems like absentee voting is definitely on the rise.  As it continues to become less than the exception and more the norm, look for changes in the election cycle.  Should be interesting.

Finally another holiday that I forgot to send a card to my loved ones about - Happy International Caps Lock Day!