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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Miscellany: 8/31/16

Quote of the Day
If I only had three words of advice, they would be, Tell the Truth. 
If I got three more words, I'd add, All the Time.
Randy Pausch

Tweet of the Day
I got into a millennial Tweet war:
And Now a Public Service Announcement From Young Libertarians



No Doubt Bernie Sanders Thinks There Are Too Many Labels of Beer...



There's a Third Choice


Serfdom Has Arrived in Venezuela



 Statist Socialists Overthrown in Brazil: Impeachment of Rousseff



Corrupt Hillary



Anti-Competitive Regulation




Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bob Gorrell via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "Most of All"

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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Miscellany: 8/30/16

Quote of the Day
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tweet of the Day
Public Choice Economics



Libertarians on Foreign Policy



Choose Life: Seeing Your Preborn Granddaughter



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "Everybody's Out of Town"

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Monday, August 29, 2016

Miscellany: 8/29/16

Quote of the Day
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. 
Our antagonist is our helper.
Burke

Tweet of the Day
Remy Is Back Spoofing CNN



Imagine: Schools That Teach, Not Indoctrinate

I have a more libertarian perspective; Prager's rhetoric is a little too nationalistic, and I don't want to restrict the right to associate. But I do think he's on the right track in reinforcing virtuous behavior and individual responsibility.



More on Socialism by DiLorenzo



The Song Samples in the DiLorenzo Video

I honestly hadn't heard the Hawkins' parody before today, and it only took a few seconds to trace it down on Youtube.



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Lisa Benson via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

 BJ Thomas, "I Just Can't Help Believing". His third Top 10 hit and second #1 A/C. One of my all-time favorites.

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Journal: 8/29/16

The Verdict Is In: Tucker Duke Burger: Thumbs UP!   ((8/29/16)

If you haven't followed the saga of Tucker Duke, I got sidelined searching for the famous Niceville burger place, which has outgrown and moved from at least 2 other locations in recent memory. I nearly found it Saturday in a strip mall but I looked in the wrong direction from another place, Joey's, based on an inference from Google Maps. I then went to the corporate website, which seemed to have the inconsistent, invalid street address and map location. I messaged the corporate website to no avail. It was a tip yesterday from a hotel clerk that he had seen a "Tucker Duke's now open" sign at the entrance to the strip mall late last week that led me (after lunch) to go back to the strip mall and check the other side of Joey's. But Tucker Duke's closes early on Sunday, so I had to wait until today.

It didn't help this morning to hear another trainee brag how he found Tucker Duke's over the weekend and feasted there, calling it the best burger he had ever eaten. He also raved about a deep fried PB&J appetizer. An unplanned long lunch break gave me an opportunity to move up dinner plans at Tucker Duke's. Another colleague expressed interest in doing the same and left earlier than me.

This time I knew exactly where to go. I was mildly surprised not to see my colleague already in the restaurant. He knew about the strip mall like me, via Google. But he showed up about 10 minutes after me, noting confusion in finding the place. The waitress tried to recommend the daily special, but we knew we wanted the legendary $10 burger. We each tried an appetizer (for me, the peanut butter one; he did the hush puppies). The burger lived up to its hype. It's stacked several inches high, including multiple layers of onion rings; I peeled off a few onion rings before tackling the generously sized burger, while my colleague compressed the burger and cut it into halves. The burger is awesome, but it'll be a while before I order another burger.

Where does the name of the burger/restaurant come from? Evidently, according to the menu, it's the name of the chef's dog.          

Safety Razors Forever! (8/29/16)

I was sorely tempted to address this yesterday when the NYT published a Twitter-trending letter of recommendation. I've never really worn facial hair (like my middle brother), while my Dad and youngest brother have done so for decades. (I have gone unshaven for periods between jobs, but I don't have a heavy beard so I need to shave only 2 or 3 times a week.)

I think I had a safety razor during my salad days, and I'm not sure why I transitioned to gimmick disposable or cartridge razors (maybe convenience, comfort/fewer cuts), but maybe a year back, I got fed up with running through hair-clogged blades or cartridges if I went 2-3 weeks between shaves.

I read various sources on straight-edge and safety razors, including one of my favorite websites, The Art of Manliness. I'm not quite sold on straight-edge, but a safety razor can cut through a few days of beard growth with ease with a single inexpensive blade.  The biggest problem is finding a safety razor and blades. Even at WalMart you might find only one or two brands and maybe a handful of razors in stock, maybe about $18. (I recently bought a second for my travel kit.) I laughed at the NYT author who mentioned buying what I call a lifetime supply of safety blades from an Amazon vendor for about $13, because I did the same.

I am also experimenting with shaving oil, including this one I found at WalMart. The libertarian Jeffrey Tucker writes against the shaving cream racket; I haven't tried baby or mineral oil as Tucker has suggested, but Shave Secret works fairly well. I still have some of the "new tech" razors, but they mostly serve as backup or specialized use (e.g., my upper lip).

Misleading Indexes (8/29/16)

I have a long-standing research interest in documentation and human factors, why technological solutions fail to be adopted, etc. I was particularly interested in the applied psychological research of Patricia Wright; I don't want to oversimplify her key insights and contributions, but among other things, she showed there's a human performance hit in combining information from different sources. I often address these and other insights in my Softdoc blog.

But today provided a key example that illustrates the point. I'm an a training site which functionally identifies classrooms. This is a contrived example just to illustrate the point: maybe you have some surgeon training rooms with simulation scalpels, etc., e.g., SURGEON ROOM 1,...,4, EMERGENCY ROOM 1,...,4, NURSING ROOM 1,...,4, EMT ROOM 1-3, etc.  The rooms also have an overall sequence, e.g, 1101-8, 1201-8, 1301-8, where the enumerated classrooms may be mixed functionally.

Your assigned classroom may change daily. Here's the issue: the classroom assignments are given numerically, but the halls are indexed at the ends functionally, e.g., the back hall might have SURG 1-2, NURS 3, EMT 2 instead of 1301-4.  So if I am assigned 1306, I don't know which hallway has my class. On more than 1 occasion, I traversed a hall, only to find out it doesn't have 1306, and I have to go down another hall. This is confusing enough for me to find the trainer doing the same thing. Why they simply didn't annotate the hallways using number ranges, I have no idea.

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Sunday, August 28, 2016

Miscellany: 8/28/16

Quote of the Day
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot

Tweet of the Day
A Debate on FDR

To be fair, I was predisposed against FDR before this debate, and I've cited Murphy a number of times over the history of the blog. I think Murphy got the better of the argument.



White Privilege?



HRC, You've Got Some 'Splaining to Do



Political Cartoon


Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". The first of 2 #1 hits on the Hot 100 ("...Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song") and a Best Song Oscar, undoubtedly BJ's signature song. Warwick and the Carpenters often covered David/Bacharach hits.

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Journal: 8/28/16

Elvis and Local Elections?  (8/28/16)

I've been meaning to mention this in one of  my journal segments, only to be reminded again while I was driving back to the hotel from WalMart: there he was again, Las Vegas Elvis, promoting a local candidate in the imminent election. I'm not exactly sure what an Elvis "endorsement" would do for a candidate; he passed nearly 40 years ago. (Maybe dead Chicago voters?)  What's next, a moonwalking Michael Jackson?

I suppose if I directly paid property taxes I would pay more attention to local races. For the most part, I don't follow or know local candidates, their records or policies. Of course, zoning issues and other policies impact individual economic rights, public safety and education are significant. My brother once ran for the local school board and lost. This was shortly after my sister-in-law uncovered evidence of local corruption in personal expenditures on the taxpayer dime and even made the local newspaper; it's not entirely clear why she didn't run herself, except maybe it was because she hadn't earned her college degree yet. At one point, he asked for my feedback, but what he wanted was a validation of his campaign strategy. I had channeled my inner Karl Rove, but he wasn't interested and never asked again. In fact, my brother's support was decisive in the only election I have ever won, to head the altar boys at our local base parish during my high school years.

Tucker Duke Mystery Solved  (8/28/16)

While I was waiting out housekeeping at the hotel, I asked the hotel clerk/manager if he knew where Tucker Duke's is. He said, "As a matter of fact I do. I do my grocery shopping at Grocery Outlet, and the other day as I drove into the strip mall I saw a cardboard sign saying Tucker Duke's is now open." In fact, I made specific note of the same mall in yesterday's post (although I hadn't noticed said announcement):
Earlier at lunchtime, I found a Google reference to its location in a strip mall with a Grocery Outlet and a Dollar General a few blocks away from the Reynolds spot, and I recall reading one Yelp customer not happy with the idea of Tucker Duke's moving to a strip mall, so maybe that was the place, but I don't know why the corporate website wouldn't reference it. I went into the strip mall and couldn't find it--a vacant space for lease where I expected to find it. No Tucker Duke sign anywhere including the strip mall's registry of mall shops.
I mentioned the Reynolds intersection, and he said, "Oh, that's the original location. They moved from there to the Marina (a location on Sims right at the T intersection with the uphill 85N split); but they again recently moved. (The Marina includes a Greek/Italian restaurant where I enjoyed a calzone today.) Well, that explains why the Tucker Duke site gave a street address inconsistent with the map location--but both locations are obsolete. I have no idea why the Tucker Duke site shows old, irrelevant locations.

Here's a Google map of the strip mall in question:

Now what happened the other day, I thought Tucker Duke's was to the LEFT of Joey's heading into the strip mall or to the RIGHT of Joey's reading the map from right to left. I couldn't find it from Joey's to the end of the mall (Allstate). There is a minor problem with Google's strip mall map; I think they give Joey's and Tucker Duke's the same street address, and this contributed to my problem.

So after talking to the manager I headed out to the strip mall again. I don't see a cardboard sign but I did see a freestanding plastic sign with the message that Tucker Duke's is now open as the manager suggested. But where was it? I noticed again a vacant space near Joey's. I parked the SUV and started walking from the Allstate end. As I pass by Joey's, I notice a painted Tucker Duke's on the window of the next shop (to the right of Joey's from an inbound car's perspective or to Joey's left, i.e., in the direction of Dollar Tree). It was open with customers coming out as I found it, but it closes early on Sunday's, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow night to try it. Stay tuned as I pass judgment on whether it was worth the fuss.

More Fun With My Garmin (8/28/16)

I don't know what it is with computerized maps but at least a half dozen to a dozen times I've run into issue where they get a turn direction wrong. It happened most recently on my first day's trip to a federal facility in Yuma. The directions were to take a left at exit 3 on I-8 E.

As I mentioned in a recent Journal post, I got lost going down Route 20 the other day looking for Tucker Duke's. On my way back, I noticed a WalMart to my right. I made a mental note because I needed to purchase a few items like a notebook and some laundry soap. I felt I knew where I could find it but I brought my Garmin. The Garmin is noting I need to take a right at an upcoming intersection while I can see the WalMart complex to my left. The Garmin continues to insist I need to take a right, and I ignore it. Here's the kicker: I'm exiting from WalMart back onto 20 heading west (towards the hotel) when the Garmin comes back to life: "Now arriving at WalMart on your right." Right on except I was leaving WalMart on my right.
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Saturday, August 27, 2016

Miscellany: 8/27/16

Quote of the Day
He who praises everybody praises nobody.
Samuel Johnson

 Tweet of the Day
DiLorenzo On Socialism



Political Humor



 She Would Do Anything For Love, But the Government Won't Let Her Do That



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "It's Only Love"

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Journal: 8/27/16

In Search of Tucker Duke's  (8/27/16)

[8/28/16: Mystery solved. Look at today's Journal post.]

This has become almost an obsession with me since a local corporate trainer recommended the burgers, claiming no visit here is complete without sampling them. She did mention that they've moved a couple of times, outgrowing their facilities. But even though I'm staying at a local hotel within a couple of miles of the restaurant's purported location, I haven't been able to find it yet.

The story: Brian Cartenuto, a celebrity chef who has won a major contest on the Food Network, created a massive burger complete with onion rings, secret ingredients, etc. which is a featured entree for Tucker Duke's Lunchbox. Remember the infamous Burger King jingle? "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us..." That doesn't fly at Tucker Duke's: you buy the signature burger as is, or you don't order it.

Now I have gone on 2 or 3 drives trying to find it.  Now Tucker Duke's has a corporate website which lists current locations, including the local Niceville location and at least one other I noticed in south Florida.  If you drill on the Niceville location on the website, they give a W. John Sims (Hwy 20) address and a "find directions" link which seems to link to an E. John Sims location at an intersection of Reynolds and 20. When I check the street address with my Garmin, it seems to indicating taking a right if heading south on 85N, across a Taco Bell, maybe 2 to 3 blocks east of the lighted intersection. There's a KFC and a Japanese sushi bar in that area but no burger place I can see.

I initially made a tacit assumption the other night that Reynolds was a major intersection and quickly overshot it. I did find Reynolds today which is maybe a block shy of a major diagonal intersection. But this soon became a puzzle. Most of the area to the left of me (towards the intersection seemed to be empty except for a corner pawnshop (I think). To my right seemed to be a huge faith-based complex/campus; if it was located on the campus, I saw no sign of it. The map pin suggested it was at the corner of Reynolds and Sims, although the map had outlined the length of Reynolds. It didn't make sense that the address would have Sims if it was further down Reynolds, but I went down Reynolds anyway only to find most of it residential and probably not zoned for a restaurant anyway. Just to make sure, I crossed 20 to the other side of Reynolds and didn't find a restaurant there either.

Earlier at lunchtime, I found a Google reference to its location in a strip mall with a Grocery Outlet and a Dollar General a few blocks away from the Reynolds spot, and I recall reading one Yelp customer not happy with the idea of Tucker Duke's moving to a strip mall, so maybe that was the place, but I don't know why the corporate website wouldn't reference it. I went into the strip mall and couldn't find it--a vacant space for lease where I expected to find it. No Tucker Duke sign anywhere including the strip mall's registry of mall shops.

The Tucker Duke website had a "contact us by email" link, and I sent an unacknowledged "where are you guys?" email several hours back, no response as of the publication of this post. It should not be this hard to find a restaurant; who knows how many people have run into similar problems and the restaurant has lost potential customers. Maybe the trainer knows, and I'll find out Monday; I'll follow up if the mystery has been solved. In the meanwhile, I paid a second visit to the Cajun restaurant French Quarter where I enjoyed a blackened catch of the day. Life is good.

Tom Thumb and Invalid References (8/27/17)

I love my little Garmin (although I have occasional complaints when I unknowingly shoot past a necessary turn and it doesn't warn me: I may have mentioned in a softdoc post how I shot past the strip mall I needed to return my cable equipment in WV and found myself on a one-lane road in the WV countryside.) With a single click you can get a list of  distance-tagged local gas stations, restaurants, etc,, with linkable directions.

Oddly enough, on my normal commute, I haven't run into a gas station. So I checked my Garmin and noticed a Tom Thumb up the street. Now just to explain: I lived in Irving, TX in 1992-3 and did grocery shopping at Tom Thumb.  I didn't know they operated in Florida; I wasn't sure why they were listed under gas stations, but I've seen Kroger, Safeway, etc. with affiliated gas pumps. Well, surprise, surprise, it was just a typical gas station/convenience store. I did pick up a pricey muti-pack of Diet Coke (but it still beats paying up to $2 a can in vending machines (when they're working)). I wanted to pick up a few other items but now know where the WalMart is in the area.
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Friday, August 26, 2016

Journal: 8/26/16

The Failure of Authentic Health Care Reform (8/24/16)

The hubris that federal government bureaucrats can micromanage the health care industry is beyond a fatal conceit. The real issue that most of us have is the idea that in a split second we could be forced into filing bankruptcy by a low-probability event. That's the real purpose of insurance. I've paid far more into auto insurance over my lifetime than I've gotten back (and I hope that remains true for the rest of my life).

Somehow the government feels that it has to intervene to "save" us from the free market. The basic idea is if the government gets stuck with the costs, it feels it needs to manage the industry, hence it thinks by mandating certain preventive measures in conjunction with purported economies of scale, it can minimize aggregate costs. It furthermore ensures the efficiency by ensuring standardization of procedures, qualifications of personnel, etc.

I will simply point out that the monopoly State doesn't enable creative destruction and innovation in the competitive marketplace; there are vested interests with stakes in the status quo (including the bureaucracy). Michael Cannon pointed out in a recent Cato Institute podcast, for instance, that insurers had introduced policies that would insure young people against the risk of preexisting conditions--at a fifth or so of the cost of carrying full-fledged insurance policies, which would allow younger people with fewer resources to get the benefits of true insurance. (One would then be allowed to purchase a policy at regular rates if a relevant hardship surfaced.) There were also policies written to be guaranteed renewable (e.g., vs. vendors who might drop you if you developed a costly condition). Cannon pointed out that many of the points that reformers were promising were already available in much of the marketplace already because the market was addressing the underlying consumer preferences; this is much like the fact that purported labor laws (say, child labor  or union policies were mostly reinforcing ongoing trends and market realities sparked by the competitive, innovative policies of Ford and other entrepreneurial capitalists). It is not the intent of this segment to outline a free market reform alternative to the status quo, but the interested reader can start with this policy analysis by Cannon.

I recently met a highly competent, personable corporate trainer, a mother and grandmother, maybe a decade short of retirement. (As is my current blog policy, I do not specify names of personal contacts without their knowledge and permission. It is not my intent to violate their privacy or to imply that they share my political view; I'm simply referencing a real-world example relevant to discussion.) Her husband and she were looking forward to a comfortable, well-deserved retirement having raised a family with multiple incomes. Over the past year, their world turned upside down. On a vacation in Texas, her then healthy husband suddenly came down with acute pancreatitis, an often fatal condition. Her husband has since had multiple stays in the ICU (including sepsis, a condition that my own father died from) and surgeries, including removal of a pancreatic cyst and parts of his intestines and colon. (There is a likely future surgery as well; apparently local Florida surgeons are wary of doing it, and the wife has basically exhausted company leave time; she may need to take unpaid leave, not to mention foot the likely hotel bills in TX, etc., to accompany him.)

The company has a decent health care insurer, but she got bad news this week that her husband's doctors, unsatisfied with what the insurer had reimbursed for their services rendered, sent her an invoice for an additional $25K. She's already paying off another medically-related loan. She's openly speculating since they don't have the resources, they might need to consider declaring bankruptcy. Don't get me wrong; she realizes that if her husband had not receive the quality care he got in Texas, she would likely be a widow today. But few people, beyond perhaps the wealthy, have the resources to write a check for $25K; I know I can't. There are also a few things, though, that irked her about the invoice over and beyond the aggregate amount; for example, she noted that the doctors were charging about $500 a shot just for brief casual post-operative visits to look in on him, maybe listening to him cough.

Let me point out that there are complications if one has to file for bankruptcy. For example, if you have a government clearance, financial issues are considered to be a potential vulnerability for foreign adversaries to exploit.

The point I am raising here is how the Democrats have failed at the fundamental job of healthcare reform; it's not just that you have major insurers withdrawing from ObamaCare (there just aren't enough profitable health care risks to offset below-cost insurance for others), but people not only have to pay sky-high prices for insurance but high deductibles and co-pays. In this case, high out of pocket expenses are faced by a household which has paid into insurance and high taxes for decades, and they could face uncertain golden years wiped out by these bills they thought would be covered by insurance.

The Republicans had floated a catastrophic healthcare alternative to HillaryCare some 25 years back. Government policies have often been morally corrupt and unproductive, e.g., the destruction of urban black families. I may have mentioned one of my best friends from UH back in the early 80s. Dr. Tim is an accounting professor in Southern California. (I actually had a campus visit where he teaches, but they declined to make an offer.) He was seriously dating a Latina in the 1990's when she got into an horrific auto accident, leaving her in a wheelchair permanently. They could never get married, because if they did, the state would bleed his assets dry before paying anything for her care. This is just wrong. They could live together without getting married, and the state would pay.

There is something fundamentally wrong with progressive policies that work against traditional marriage and family. We need to liberalize the health care industry from the grasp of the State.

Spoonerisms 8/26/16

While on my current business trip to Florida, I've adjusted to the Jeep SUV I've been driving surprisingly well. But I still find myself plopping down my left foot to set the emergency brake when I leave the vehicle when in fact the brake is set with my right hand to the side. I just know when I get back home to my 15-year GM car, I'll find myself applying Jeep nuances, whether it has to do with operating power windows or my windshield wipers. (In Florida, the weather can change on the dime. It was sunny when I started to drive back from lunch, when all of a sudden the rain pelted down, and my trigger response didn't work on the Jeep. It just took a split second to adjust.)

This process of reversing things is amusing when I catch myself doing them. One time, for example, I caught myself throwing tea bags in the trash vs. tea bag envelopes; I've even retained egg shells, while tossing the egg whites/yolks in the trash. People also sometimes mangle speech in a similar fashion (e.g., fighting a liar vs lighting a fire),
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Miscellany: 8/26/16

Quote of the Day
You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?
Benjamin Franklin

Tweet of the Day
Image of the Day

 Wikileaks and Hillary Clinton's Scandals



 Sowell On the Melting Pot v Diverse India



Conservative College Students in Progressive Academia



 Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Ken Catalino via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

 BJ Thomas, "Hooked On a Feeling"

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Thursday, August 25, 2016

Miscellany: 8/25/16

Quote of the Day
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, 
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, 
at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
Henry David Thoreau

Tweet of the Day
Privatize Parks, Mass Transit, etc.



Coulter and Trump's Flip Flop on Her Key Issue of Immigration



Let's Make Saving Lives Legal Again



Catholics v. Hillary



Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Ken Catalino via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "Billy and Sue"

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Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Miscellany: 8/24/16

Quote of the Day
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
Arthur Koestler

Tweet of the Day

Failures of Socialist Hubris





A Victory For Property Rights



DEAD WRONG: The Myth of Campaign Finance Reform



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Jerry Holbert via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "Mama"

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Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Miscellany: 8/23/16

Quote of the Day
The ultimate measure of a man is not 
where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, 
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tweet of the Day
There Is a Choice



Clinton Foundation Corruption





The Climate Change Inquisition



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bob Gorrell via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

BJ Thomas, "The Eyes of a New York Woman". My first college girlfriend (first girlfriend, period, since I graduated HS at 16) was from New York (I often say that only good thing that came out of NY). I was the campus geek, and I couldn't believe that an older (22 yo) sweet gorgeous blonde was interested in me (in fact, she asked me out first (even the dorm playboy was congratulating me)). It turns out some women are attracted to smart dudes. She wanted a commitment from me (I was just 18, still a year from my degree) or she would move to a Catholic Pentecostal commune in the Dallas area (I've written about our first, only fight--she wanted skeptical me to go to a Pentecostal service. When a guy started "speaking in tongues", I was like "Oh, come on!"--she was pissed and then got up and started babbling--and I was mortified and pissed); I wanted her to stay, but I wasn't going to take responsibility for her decision. I haven't heard from her since, but I loved her. I know it was the right decision at the time, but woulda, coulda, shoulda. We would have made beautiful, faithful children.

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Journal: 8/23/16

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.
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