People Giving Directions (8/23/16)
This is one of my pet peeves I've talked about in past blog posts. Most people can't give good directions. Things that I think are obvious signposts or markers apparently aren't so obvious.
One example I've given in the past was an eventually unsuccessful job interview back when I lived in Irving, TX back in the early 90's. I was given a street address, but many buildings were well off the street and numbers were not legible from the street, so I ended up having to drive onto the campuses. I eventually found the building I was looking for--behind a massive water fountain with a statue of men on horses. Think that anyone might have mentioned, "Look for a big water fountain on your right"? Of course not.
So I recently had to fly out to a regional airport in Florida to do some training at a government facility. The booked hotel wasn't that far away from the airport; it was technically on the same road in front of the airport, but it was one of those roads that merges then splits off at some point (the hotel gives directions but in a series of 4 segments). I had arranged a flight due in late afternoon, but my Phoenix-Dallas segment got delayed multiple times. Night had already fallen by the time my 2-hour later replacement flight touched down, plus the time we had to wait while the mechanics figured out how to fix an unacceptable gap in the jet bridge, waited for luggage and then to get my car rental and find it. (And why is it every time I book a compact or intermediate I end up with an SUV?)
I had my Garmin with me. Unfortunately somehow I still ended up overshooting the split. The Garmin doesn't tell you you missed it (I would like to hear a buzzer or something, so I know where I went wrong and double back); it's trying to recalculate how to get you back on course, like a series of turns. I inferred I overshot the split and u-turned back to the relevant intersection After I got on the split, I accidentally caught the hotel sign almost immediately on my right.
Long story short, it turned out that the merge and split segments were at consecutive lighted intersections, so all you really needed to know was take 2 lefts at the lighted intersections and the hotel is immediately on your right past the second left turn. (There is a sign visible to the right lane about the split maybe a couple of blocks before the intersection, but I didn't see it the night I came in.) The hotel's directions were accurate but not driver-friendly. We look for obvious markers that confirm we're at the relevant right place, e.g., there's a McDonald's across the street where you need to take a right. Some municipalities will alert you about major intersections, but others don't. It sucks having to slow down every intersection trying to read the street sign.
The government facility was a separate story; I knew I had to backtrack the next day past the airport but the directions were fairly vague, like "you'll see signs along the way; you can't miss it". Then even the satellite image of the facility with a highlighted toute doesn't have much beyond a reference to a plane mockup where you need to take your first left.
Well, it turns out there's an earlier entry to the facility but I had to go to the main facility for visitor processing, so I had to navigate my SUV around a narrow U-turn. It turned out, of all coincidences, I had to make lefts at two consecutive lighted intersections. And then where I had to turn left in the facility past the plane mock up? A lighted intersection. [By the way, I didn't even really see the plane until I was at the intersection--and I was looking for it.] And where I had to turn (left) for the training facility? Just past a big silo on my left.
Common sense isn't so common.
You Can't Make This Stuff Up (8/23/16)
I recently misplaced a one-night hotel receipt, and the beancounters don't want my credit card issuer receipt. So I emailed the hotel manager, and I got a response back: "Sir, I would gladly email you a copy of the receipt if you could just forward your email address." Dude--do you realize that you just sent me an email?
My Cultural Cousins and Their Cuisine (8/23/16)
As a Franco-American (we with French-Canadian ancestry use that term), I'm aware of our Acadian cousins, the Louisiana Cajuns. We have our own culinary heritage; in the past, I've written fondly of cretons and tourtieres. (They both utilized seasoned ground pork.) The former is perhaps my favorite food ever; Mom hasn't make it my last few visits for dietary reasons, but typically we use is as a chilled sandwich spread, and I would devour these sandwiches as a kid--nothing better I've ever had.
One of my fellow UH grad students, Rob, was a Catholic Newman member; we had a retreat every semester, and one of my favorite memories was his endless supply of Boudreaux & Thibodeaux stories (sort of the Cajun version of Aggie jokes). Unfortunately Rob graduated, got married (to wonderful Sheila), and moved home to start his professional practice. There were a couple of reasons I dropped out of Newman around the time I started my dissertation. One was the presence of a former girlfriend I met via Newman; the other was they made the mistake of letting some community college kids join the retreat, and they replaced Rob's funny jokes with disgusting baby blender jokes.
I had a sampling of Cajun cuisine over the years, and I'm up for spicy foods. I was going to work for a boutique Oracle database consulting company a couple of times. The first time they wanted me to visit their headquarters in New Orleans. They put me in an expensive hotel near the Superdome (this was in the latter 90's). Someone was supposed to meet me for breakfast but no showed. So I had to wing it on my own; the hotel restaurant would sell like a pastry and coffee for maybe $7 or you could order the breakfast buffet for $11. I was in for a full day of interviews so I chose the buffet.
I remember going to a place for lunch with my hosts, which had a fairly different buffet, including my first encounter with crawfish lasagna. Rob had made numerous references to crawfish, but this was my first encounter.
To finish off my story, someone blackballed me in the process and I didn't get the job. I submitted my receipts, including for breakfast, figuring at least they would pay for my out-of-pocket expenses; it wasn't a vacation. Some beancounter took exception to the breakfast check, saying it exceeded their employee per diem limit. Dude--for one thing I was not an employee; second, my interviewer should have put it on his company card, but he no-showed, and I had not been briefed on what to do if he no-showed. And why are you guys penny-pinching at my expense? You spent hundreds on airfare and hotel, and you're seriously pushing back on a breakfast check? I think I was working through an agency which ended up reimbursing me, maybe at their own expense.
Flash forward about 3 years later. I was ready to leave California, and the Chicago office of the same company offered me a job, not quite the same as the one I lost earlier, but I hated living in California and wanted to go back to Chicago if I couldn't go to Texas. Their process required an in-person, which they did out of Denver. (And to this day, they've never reimbursed some of my out of pockets like airport parking at San Jose airport, maybe rides to and from the Denver airport; I let it go.) This time I got and signed an offer. But hold on. Somehow the beancounter recognized my name and escalated the issue. Keep in mind it was THEIR company that reached out to me, not vice-versa. It may be the hiring manager didn't know past history. So they indignantly revoked the offer letter maybe 2 days after I signed, and we've never connected since then. But it remains the only time I literally lost a job over breakfast.
I've occasionally had Cajun-style fast food (e.g., Popeye's), but I don't do fried chicken often over the carbs. Of all places, I had heard of this little French Quarter restaurant in Niceville, FL. I like everything about this place. I had wonderful crawfish etouffee, but even the small touches, an a la carte side salad with Creole ranch dressing, wonderful palm-sized rolls, the service, were excellent; not cheap, but reasonably priced. I'm definitely going back before I leave Florida.
