Saturday, September 30, 2006

My Cubicle

my cubicle, a very funny and entertaining parody of james blunt's hit song You're Beautiful. video by Vic, song performed by JymBritton, lyrics by Morning Sidekick and musical arrangement by Scott Bennett

Monday, September 25, 2006

Back from California

So I have finally made it back to Chicago. Just in time to start classes. I am really glad to be back but I will miss California. Those wonderful sunny hills, exotic food at every corner, awesome lakes and parks, and of course the ability to bicycle everywhere. But hey at least I'm no longer camping in a really bad apartment.

I would like to link to a story I read from Patrick's blog. 10 rules for handling disagreement like a Christian written by the Bishop of Oakland. If there is ever a guy who has to handle disagreement a lot, he is it. There's something else I like more about Chicago than California, the Church. I could expound on this more and more but it would break rule number 1.

Anywho I have to get back to work. Being in Chicago I have a lot to catch up on. Oh and since I threw out one catholic link, if you want to hear some really great homilies check out Fr. Robert Barron at Word on Fire. You can get the podcast!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Food Adventures

If you've never been to a place where nobody speaks English (or whatever language you speak) and ordered for you probably won't relate very well to this post. But today Cheryl and I ventured out into uncharted waters with my minimal experience ("just enough to be dangerous") with Dim Sum.

The place we went was absolutely packed, so you know it had to be good. As we stroll in we don't hear a word of any language we can distinguish, and the menu (which was a yellow piece of butcher paper on the wall) was written in some Oriental language as well. Avoiding the riot for the first table, apparently a group of six had been waiting for a while, we got a table right away. Maybe the fact that the restaurant wasn't the cleanest place in the world, or that the host didn't say much, or that the place looked like was a cafe from 1970 and hadn't been redecorated since wasn't enough to tip my wife off that she wasn't going to like the food, but the fish tank with green water, a really ugly carp and several dead clown fish certainly did the job.

Immediately upon sitting down the waitress shows up with a tray of food and yells something that I don't understand. Time to resort to tourist food tactic #1 - what I like to call the "Point and Grunt" method. Okay so the first item we had appeared to be some sort of pork with a really slimy noodle wrapped around it. Maybe tactic #1 is failing me, go for tactic #2 "avoid the moving things" method. Okay so it is less of a tactic and more of a hard fast rule but I guess the real guidance was "Go for the thing that looked the most normal" which happened to be some tasty mushrooms and barbecued pork. Okay that satisfied Cheryl well enough now time to make tourist food mistake #2, try something exotic (#1 was going to a place where no one knows the language spoken). Our something exotic happened to be dumplings with seafood in them which led us to retreat to tactic #3 "Always know where there is something you might really like to eat nearby". Seeing how the bill was in a foreign language I have a feeling I committed mistake #3 "Not being able to compare the price on the bill with the price on the menu."

Well it looks like funky "recommended" dim sum place won this round. But nevermind that if I overcame the fear of sushi and ghetto vegan food, I am certain I will be able to conquer more strange food adventures. But for now dim sum is off the menu.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Importance of labor day

It seems that this year has been a year with more debates and news coverage on labor issues than any other. But most of these are directed at the issue of immigration. As today the US unilaterally celebrates labor day (the rest of the world celebrates labor day May 1, in response to the Haymarket Riot). So how do most people spend labor day ... doing something besides labor.

Anywho this day represents more people than any other day in the year. Almost everyone has to work (not even that many celebrate Christmas). But it represents the plight of our ancestors who would not let their living conditions be compromised to help line the pockets of the greedy business owners. I think this issue has lost a lot of steam, but it seems to me with larger businesses neglecting their workers (Even Apple for crying out loud) these issues could be coming to the front of everyone's mind in the near future. Provided that Iraq and the terrorism starts to cool down.

I wish I had more to say here since I don't really feel like I am getting any point across, but I wanted to point out that today is not just another day off work. It is a day that we should recognize the issues surrounding work.