christmas 2007 trip update

I apologize to anyone who has been expecting updates with the frequency that I normally provide. I have not had too much opportunity to sit down at a computer for long enough to post anything worthwhile for a few days, and I do not expect to have another opportunity until the middle of next week. There is a small chance that I will be able to post something before then, but don't hold your breath.

I leave you with a few updates on my trip.

• NJ has actually done very well in the car so far. He has been a handful when he is out of the car, though, so I think that he is acting out the frustrations I expected to see in the car elsewhere.
• When we have gone anywhere even remotely noteworthy I have forgotten the camera. This happened on a visit to Silver Dollar City and to the Big Mac Museum (which is basically a dolled up McDonald's, but still worth a few pictures).
• When I was growing up my parents couldn't afford to spend much at Christmas time. Now, as an adult, I am amazed that they spend so much on gifts for me and the rest of the family. I make out like a bandit with getting gifts from both Golden's and my family. We probably need to increase our immediate family gift budget just because we receive significantly more than we give.
• I have been reminded one reason why I cannot live in Pennsylvania. I always get car sick if I am a passenger in a car that is travelling around the rolling hills in western Pennsylvania. That is not such a problem in Kansas.
• Everyone keeps reminding me that I have gained some weight. That's what family is for, I guess.

I am sure that either I or Golden will have more information on our trip later, but that is what I have for now.

if the holidays were perfect

Christmas time and summer are the best times for me to see my parents because my dad works with a school system near where they live. He is kept busy even when school is not in session, so if I visited during the school year I would barely see him at all.

This year I am taking six vacation days from work plus two weekends and the two holidays off so we can see Golden's family then my family. As we have been out in the cold some this weekend I have been asking myself why such a major holiday is held when it is so cold outside.

It almost feels like a waste of a vacation day to take it when the temperature is about twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit outside. There are so many wonderful spring and summer days I spend in the office, but when it is freezing outside is the time that I travel to see family.

I think that the holidays should be concentrated more in warmer months (to accommodate me, of course). Christmas and New Year's Day should be celebrated on consecutive days in May. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President's Day, and Memorial Day should also be celebrated that week so American workers can get a full week off in Spring.

If we had this setup, I could have sixteen Spring days off in a row for the price of five vacation days. That would be time worth taking.

dumb moments in business

I don't have anything too original this weekend. We leave to see family for the holidays tomorrow morning, so rather than taking the time to compose something fresh I am leaning on an article I read recently.

Fortune posted its list of 101 dumbest business moments of 2007, though I have to say that calling all of them business moments is quite a stretch. Even so, here are some of my favorites.

#7: Toilets Combust
A Japanese company named Toto offered repairs to thousands of its customers' toilets after three of them catch fire.

#13: Not Such a Small World
The "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyland has to be closed so that the water channel that passenger boats travel on can be deepened. This has become necessary because the ride has been getting stuck when loaded with heavier passengers.

#22: Death of Cold
A funeral home in Scotland has to address reports that employees used the ashes of some of the dearly departed to spread over slippery sidewalk ice. The employees didn't go as far as Keith Richards (#28) claimed he did, though, when he stated that he snorted his father's ashes.

#38: Is Your PC Running Too Well?
An IT security consultant takes out a Google ad with the text below. Over four hundred people click on it.

Is your PC virus-free?
Get it infected here!

#51: They Took Candy from Her Too
When a nine-year-old girl sent a letter to Steve Jobs with ideas of how to improve the iPod Nano the response was a letter from Apple's legal counsel telling her not to send any more letters.

#53: Ouch
A Japanese arm wrestling game breaks three people's arms.

#58: Which Border Should We Head To?
Taco Bell advertises in Mexico City that it does not pretend to serve Mexican food.

#59: They Made It up in Volume
Radiohead puts an album online and asks people to pay what they think the music is worth. Less than forty percent of people who download pay anything.

#66: Your Other Left
Three different patients have operations on the wrong side of their heads in one hospital in one year.

#69: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
A whistleblower alerts Exelon Nuclear to people working on a security contract sleeping on the job. Exelon then gets rid of everyone on the contract, including the whistleblower.

#75: Can't Get Rid of the Old Man Smell
A homebuyer who got the house from a bank who had repossessed the house finds the previous owner mummified inside the house.

#87: It's in the Bag
SkyWest is forced to apologize to a passenger who had to urinate into an air sickness bag when he was disallowed from using the restroom.

#99: She Must Not Have a Sub-Prime Loan
The senior vice-president of marketing at Century 21 predicts that the 2007 housing market will be one of the best in the past 30 or 40 years.

diamond and the rough

I don't know where in the country specific commercials have been showing, but one that has been driving me nuts is a Jared Jewelry commercial. In the commercial a woman explains that her new ring comes from Jared's and everyone makes a big deal about it and repeats, "He went to Jared." I looked all over online for a copy of this commercial, but it must be so bad that no one wants to upload it to a video website.

Most of the reason the commercial irritates me is that it is so overacted that it is embarrassing to watch. Beyond that, though, it does not seem to fit the target audience. In theory, the market for jewelry is mostly composed of men buying for their better half. I think that most of the Jared commercials I have seen would make more men not want to go to Jared than go to Jared.

I can imagine a commercial from a Jared competitor where two guys are talking. One would say, "He went to Jared," and the other would respond with, "Bummer." That commercial would probably be more effective than the current Jared commercials.

I am fortunate that Golden, despite her name, is not huge into jewelry. So, I do not feel pressure to buy diamonds every time I see this commercial. I will point out that, so I do not sound like a horrible husband, if she decides she does want jewelry at some point that will not be a big deal. The commercial would even be even more annoying if Golden liked to show off jewelry, though.

I think that, from a marketing perspective, Helzberg has a better idea with their latest commercial, which is shown below. This is a commercial that is well-designed for its target audience, though it may not be well-designed to it's secondary audience of the women who will be receiving the jewelry.



I can see how this commercial would make some women feel like the man was going through the motions in getting jewelry and also going through the motions in other areas of life. If the jewelry does not make the gift recipient feel special, then it is not a good gift.

So maybe, depending on your perspective, both commercials are rough.

* Note: I modified this post a little to address concerns made in the comments.

caviar dreams

A couple of days ago an executive in our department sent a big gift basket to the people in my office. It contained a lot of the typical stuff: biscotti, cheese and crackers, summer sausage, chocolate, etc. One part of that et cetera that I did not expect was a jar of caviar.

I have made it no secret that I am not a seafood person. I will eat seafood if I have to, but when I do eat it I typically end up choking it down. If given the choice I will almost always avoid even the few types of seafood that I do not dislike.

I was faced with the question of whether I would have some caviar so that I could say I have had it, or I would avoid the seafood because I am not a fan. I resisted for a while, but reasoned that I would probably not have many chances to have free caviar in my life. After dragging my feet on the idea, I finally scraped some on a cracker and ate it. I do not know if all caviar tastes the same, but this caviar tasted exactly like what it was—salty, raw fish.

This all reminded me of a question that I have always had. Do people really like caviar, or do people just say they like it because it is a high-class food? Furthermore, is caviar considered high-class food because people with sophisticated palates enjoy it or just because it is difficult and expensive to acquire? It blows my mind that someone somewhere once decided that collecting fish eggs and selling them at exorbitant prices as food would work as a business plan. It further blows my mind that the plan actually did work. There truly is no accounting for taste.

say you need love

Recently at our young adult group at church we were asked to think of a time when we had an "Aha!" moment about knowing God loves us. Immediately, a guy pointed out that he never really needed an "Aha!" moment because he never really worried that God did not love him. This did not get a good reaction in the group, but as I thought about it I really understood what he was talking about.

There have not been many times in my life when I worried whether anyone loved me. There may not have been any. I think part of this is that I have always known that there are people who love me. I think a much bigger part of this is that I do not have as strong a need to be loved as many other people do. Though I am sure there are exceptions, I think this is generally a gender issue where women are more likely to want to know that God loves them than men do.

I noticed that when guys in the group talked about when they determined that God loved them, it was not really about love. It had more to do with God having their back than anything else. If I had provided any examples, I would have provided one of these typical guy responses. I really felt like the men and women in the room were answering two different questions when they discussed how they knew that God loved them.

I think this can be enlightening regarding some of the general differences between men and women. I would probably never have even thought to ask the question of when did you determine that God loves you. To some others it may be the most important question in the world.

medicine cabinet surprise

A couple of nights ago I heard Golden give a startled shout from the bathroom. In our house that usually means that she either saw an insect or spider or that something fell onto Golden from a shelf or cabinet. Both of these are relatively common occurrences.

Because I hear this frequently, I barely react any more when Golden makes that noise. This time, though, was a little different. Golden walked out to the living room and informed me that my shaving cream can leaked in the medicine cabinet. This is not something I have ever seen happen.

On the plus side, this provided a good opportunity to reassess why we had some of the items in the medicine cabinet, and throw some stuff away. The picture speaks for itself.