Global Wandering

Trunk-or-Treat in Idaho

It’s Halloween night and the house is quiet. The ten bags of chocolate I bought sit undisturbed in a basket next to the front door. I over bought. This is our first Halloween in this house so it was difficult to estimate candy demand ⎯ made all the more challenging because our street didn’t exist at this time last year. So despite the welcoming sidewalks, the lighted porch, the smiling pumpkins, I’ve had only two groups of trick-or-treaters ring the doorbell all evening. I refrained from giving them each an entire bag of Kit Kats.

Halloween has changed since I was little. Danger lurked in those days too, but it was mostly hearsay and rumor. Still, my mom inspected our candy for opened wrappers and refused to let us eat caramel apples (in case they were poisoned or hiding razor blades), but we were allowed to canvas the town from six until nine p.m. trick-or-treating, free from parental oversight.

In Idaho, they have something called Trunk-or-Treat. Parents park their vehicles in two long rows at the church parking lot, tailgates open. Then the kids stop at each “trunk” for candy. They even yell out “Trunk-or-Treat” instead of “Trick-or-Treat.” A strange call, given that trunks aren’t portable (and thus, unable to be gifted), and few families actually have trunks. They all drive minivans, pickups and SUVs.

Trunk-or-Treating is safe, quick and efficient. I have no idea if this parking lot giveaway is an Idaho tradition or a phenomenon that has spread across the country. I’m inclined to think it’s local ⎯ an adaptive response to the one impediment here to a safe and happy Halloween. No, not criminals lacing candy with methamphetamines, but the lousy weather. Last week it was sunny and seventy. A perfect autumn. But then, just like every year, on the 29th of this month Mother Nature turned ugly. The wind howled, the temperature plummeted and snowflakes fell. Our first Halloween here four years ago, it rained. Not drizzle. But sideways rain ⎯ the kind you get with 40 mile per hour wind gusts. The next year it snowed, and it was so cold I suggested to my kids we go trick-or-treating down the candy aisle at Wal-Mart.

My response to this inclement weather used to be to insist that my kids dress up as Eskimos, but they refused and continued to costume as princesses and tropical ninjas ⎯ without coats. Not wearing coats is another Idaho tradition my children have quickly adopted. Now I let them dress in whatever they want, park my car in the Trunk-or-Treat line with the other parents and send my kids scavenging for candy across the parking lot. The entire event takes twenty minutes.

A few more groups of trick-or-treaters have stopped by our door. I think I’ve given out one bag of candy now. LaPriel suggests I return the leftovers to Wal-Mart. I don’t tell her I’ve already lost the receipt. But I also made sure I bought only candy I like, just in case no one showed up. Which is of course what happened, because why would kids brave the frigid dark going from house to house in search of Halloween goodies when they can get all they want during the day at the Trunk-or-Treat tailgate party?

Posted by jd at 8:43 PM | Permalink

Terminal D Art

For Delta and ATA fliers tired of eating at T.G.I. Friday's and Dickey's BBQ in the half empty DFW Terminal E, the airport has opened a bunch of new shops and restaurants in Terminal D. Terminal D is only five minutes away via the new Skylink tram system (no need to pass through security again).

We were there a few weeks ago and everything was still closed. Hence, my kids could horse around in the picture above and not get reprimanded by overzealous security personnel.

Today I ate at Cool River Cafe at a noticeably busier terminal (apparently, American Airlines has taken over some of the gates).

The salmon was excellent. In fact, it's probably the best airport food I've had in a long time. Allow plenty of time for dining, though. Service at Cool River Cafe was on the slow side, but I assume they were still getting the kinks out.

Posted by jd at 2:19 PM | Permalink

The tech blogosphere is dominated by posts on a phenomenon called Web 2.0. There is no formal definition for Web 2.0 ⎯ the definition itself being part of the debate.

But after spending several months reading blogs that focus on it (TechCrunch, Om Malik’s Broadband Blog, Solution Watch to name a few), I being a non-techy sum it up as follows:

Web 2.0 consists of lots of new web applications,
With most in beta form,
Most are free,
All use the same simple font with pastel color schemes (Times New Roman is definitely not part of Web 2.0)
All employ social collaboration as a distinguishing element,
Most use something called AJAX – which as I understand it allows some functionality to be embedded in the HTML that resides on the client rather than a need for constant updates from the web server,
Most rely on user feedback to determine enhancements,
Most are named something cutesy or nonsensical (Kaboodle, Rollyo, Riya, etc.)
Most either make money through Google Ads or have no idea how they are going to make money,

And some are quite useful. I suppose all are useful at some level. The problem is there are so many new applications, it’s impossible for a typical user to sort it all out.

Call it Web 2.0 Application Overload.

To date, there are four Web 2.0 applications I use daily that make my life easier:

1. Socialtext – This WIKI software has been around for a few years, and breaks some of my tenets for what defines Web 2.0 (i.e., they charge money, I don’t believe they employ AJAX, and Socialtext is not a cutesy name, but then again they named it before Web 2.0 was officially inaugurated). My colleagues and I use it as the collaborative workspace for our investment firm. We jointly edit documents, store important files, hold portfolio discussions, and dramatically cut down on e-mail. Socialtext needs a more attractive user interface, but it’s still worth the $500 annnual charge.

2. Backpack – This is where I track all my projects I don’t place on Socialtext. It’s simple, flexible, and the ability to have text reminders sent to my cell phone is phenomenal. My success rate at e-mailing my Backpack site from my Treo has been spotty, particularly compared to e-mailing my Socialtext site, but it’s still worth the $5 monthly charge.

3. Remember The Milk – I use this to store To Do Lists. I hate To Do Lists so I don’t like to clutter my Backpack and Socialtext sites with such minutia, and I hate keeping lists on my triad of Treo/Outlook/Entourage because I always forget to sync. Remember the Milk has only been up a few weeks and it lacks the functionality to access the site from mobile devices, but all in all, I am better organized with it.
4. del.icio.us – I have to admit, it took me a while to see the value of this whole social bookmarking concept, and I’m still not sure I totally get it. Since I keep most of my day-to-day bookmarks on my Safari toolbar, I couldn’t see why I needed to post bookmarks to Del.icio.us. I occasionally view LiveMarks to find out what other people are bookmarking on del.icio.us (that is how I found Remember the Milk). Recently, though, I’ve found del.icio.us useful for storing links to news items and journal articles that are too specific to place on a toolbar. The question is whether my tagging system is good enough to ever find them again.

So will Web 2.0 have a significant impact on the general populous? As of right now, I’d say probably not. Most of the Web 2.0 applications are trying to replace solutions that have existed in the market for 7 years or more, and while the interfaces are nice and there are a few new bells and whistles, the functionality isn’t dramatically improved over what established companies, such as Microsoft , Apple or Google already offer.

I’ve attended several private equity and hedge funds conferences this year, and from what I saw, venture capitalists and other institutional investors are not abuzz about Web 2.0. I don’t think it’s an issue of institutional investors not understanding Web 2.0. I think it’s a realization that there are so many me-too applications with so little added functionality, coupled with an extremely slow adoption rate by the general public that while a few individuals will make a nice living creating niche businesses, there will not be the dramatic wealth creation that characterized the original internet boom and bust.

And that’s okay. Sometimes incremental improvement is nice. It still doesn’t solve the VC overhang issue, but to date, Web 2.0 has made my life a little less cluttered.

Posted by jd at 8:26 AM | Permalink

I snapped this picture with my Treo at lunch today at Acenar, one of my favorite restaurants along the Riverwalk in San Antonio. This is one gutsy sparrow. It walked up to the bowl of tortilla chips sitting eighteen inches away from me, snatched a chip and then hung out at the corner of my table to eat. I'm surprised it didn't dip the chip in salsa first.

Posted by jd at 7:35 PM | Permalink

Clifton Mill - Clifton, Ohio

We spent the last week visiting family, friends and the fall colors of Ohio. The weather was beautiful, but we were a week early for the peak foliage. On our return, the connection through Minneapolis was delayed five hours. I’ve learned it doesn’t do any good to complain about travel delays. All it does is tick off the gate agents, and I fly enough that they do their best to accommodate. So instead, we took the light rail train to the Mall of America (MOAM). Somewhere I never would have gone without Delta’s encouragement.

The Mall of America is like any other mall in the United States. Just bigger. 4.2 million square feet of building space according to their website. 520 stores, 50 restaurants, 12,550 parking spaces, and one LEGO Imagination Center (where we spent most of our time).

LEGO Imagination Center I didn’t see any stores that I hadn’t already seen at another mall somewhere in the country. Of course, one doesn’t go to MOAM to shop at unique retail outlets. One goes to find the familiar; hundreds of name brand shops under the same roof, plus a rollercoaster, Ferris wheel, and log flume for those who want to relax at the amusement park after a long day of shopping.

Breanna in Pink watching LEGO Races I don’t think I’ll go back ⎯ unless I’m stuck in Minneapolis again. MOAM already looks dated. The best malls today, such as Flat Iron Crossing near Boulder, combine both indoor and outdoor shopping, and incorporate a lot of natural stone and wood in their construction.

This unexpected side trip got me thinking about other interesting places I’ve visited courtesy of unscheduled flight delays or reroutings. Here are some of the more memorable ones:

My son, Bret, and I visited a near-empty Disneyland in late September 2001 after our San Diego flight was canceled and we were rerouted to Los Angeles.

I spent a five hour delay in Omaha during December 2000 finishing my holiday shopping at the mall.

A lengthy delay in Chicago several years ago gave me enough time to eat at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants – Topolobampo

Of course for every pleasant side trip due to a travel delay there were many more where I was trapped for hours in the air while the plane circumvented thunderstorms. I once spent six hours flying from New Orleans to Dallas. A flight that typically takes an hour and fifteen minutes.

By year end, I will have flown a million miles on Delta Airlines. Surprisingly, I still like to travel. I still prefer window seats. And I still get my best ideas and best writing done while flying across country. I loath the day when they permit cell phones calls while in the air.

Posted by jd at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It’s harvest time in Idaho. The potatoes are ripe, the nights are cool and the cottonwoods along the Henry’s Fork have turned golden. School is out so the students can head for the fields to harvest spuds. Okay, only a handful of kids actually work. Most just stay home to play. Except my kids, who attend a private school where the philosophy is if you can’t harvest it during summer break then don’t plant it. I suspect this hiatus from school is more to let the teachers pick up some extra income driving potato trucks. Educators are underpaid in this state.

This is my fifth harvest in Idaho. Unlike LaPriel, who spent a number of years separating potatoes from rocks on a combine and still gets teary-eyed each October reminiscing about harvests past, I’m a potato novice. In fact, I don’t think they say potatoes are “ripe”. I believe the term is “ready”. Not ready in the sense of ready to be eaten, although they can be, but ready to be hauled to the potato cellars where they will sit for 6 to 8 months while the farmers pray the price of spuds goes high enough to cover the cost of production.

In the five years I’ve lived in Idaho, potato farmers have only made money one year. This is a risky business and it’s getting worse. People don’t eat potatoes like they used to. I, for example, can recall eating one and a half baked potatoes all year; a half of potato a week ago in honor of the harvest and one this past March when the farmers co-op decided to dump 20% of the 2004 potato crop in hopes that it would spur prices higher. We drove to the potato cellar where we filled six boxes full of spuds and promptly gave them away to family members, except for the five potatoes we baked for dinner.

You can tell by the photos I took of the field near our house that there are a lot of potatoes left after the combine comes through. Most are too small to be marketable, or they are mutants with little potato arms and legs. My kids like to glean these forgotten spuds. Last year, they hauled home two burlap sacks full. We stored the potatoes in our private cellar (down the basement next to the canned goods and deep freeze). They seemed to like it there, because they quickly sprouted tentacles and by spring we had thick-armed potato monsters devouring our canned green beans. I finally got rid of the soggy mess when I had to empty the basement for our recent move.

Our friends brought us some potato donuts the other night. Apparently, this is a harvest tradition. Very tasty. In fact, perhaps if they injected potatoes with Splenda or chocolate they would sell better. They could call them something catchy...... like "sweet potatoes".

Posted by jd at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Netherland Plaza Hotel

This photo is of the Netherland Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati. I worked there for a year after I finished high school. It is a beautiful art deco building. Although when I worked there, I rarely saw the restored wood and marble. I was a steward. You could find me in the kitchen, tucked in the corner behind stacks of dirty dishes, spraying plates, silverware, and goblets and shoving them into the mouth of the Hobart. Or I’d be next to the utility sink, washing a mound of pots and pans that overflowed onto the floor and down the hall. Or weaving among the cooks with a broom or mop.

Sometimes when I’m in town, I have breakfast at the Netherland’s Palm Court Café and eat bacon and eggs off the china I used to wash and send back “clean” forks still specked with food.

These are my worst days as a Hotel Steward:

1. My first day of work when I found out hotel stewards were not messengers, but dish washers, pot washers and floor moppers. I have no idea why I didn’t research this ahead of time.

2. The day the Asian woman who handed out work uniforms stopped allowing stewards to wear chef coats. Apparently, the cooks complained the pot washers’ choice of dress was confusing the waiters. Plus, the tops were getting unsightly stains. We went back to wearing our steward smocks.

3. The day the chief steward prohibited us from mopping the floors with specially formulated pot detergent. Nothing cuts through floor grease like pot soap. But it’s expensive, so I hid a stash deep in the supply closet for when it was my turn to mop.

4. The day the forty-foot dishwashing machine used for banquets broke during the busiest weekend of the year. The train of dirty dish carts stretched down the hall. One by one the eight foot carts were rolled into the restaurant kitchen where I cursed them and then ran the plates and glasses through the Hobart with my regular load.

5. The day I knocked off the pipe from under the 100 gallon soup pot with my mop, flooding the kitchen with the soup du jour. The sous chef burned his hands refitting the pipe to save his onion soup. I’m surprised I didn’t get fired.

6. The day I spent in the sub basement of the hotel, sorting food scraps and shoveling them into the monster-sized disposal. This food grinder had been broken for a week, so the meat I separated from its bones had rotted. Days later and after numerous showers, the smell lingered. Even now, the smell seems to have not entirely dissipated. There are some odors that penetrate so deep, they last forever.

Posted by jd at 8:41 AM | Permalink

Forgotten Bungalow

Here are photos of my two favorite bungalows this month. The first is in Teton Valley, Idaho. The house needs a facelift, but it certainly isn't anything a new coat of paint can't solve.
Kitchen We've passed this house numerous times on our way to and from Jackson. LaPriel wants to buy it and have it moved, but I like it just where it is. The kitchen sink looks like the sink unit we had in the house where I grew up, a 1930's mail-order bungalow from Sears.

Power Source in Living Room The livingroom has hardwood floors under several layers of asbestos. Plus it comes with its owns power source. This picture reminds me of the shantytowns outside Mexicali, Mexico. Families would sit outside their houses and watch television by hooking their TV sets up to car batteries.

Backyard

My second favorite bungalow is in the North Park area of San Diego. I love this part of town. The houses are beautiful and the people are as varied as the bungalows. It is also the thrift shop capital of San Diego. There's a thrift shop near here where everything is organized by color. This works well for clothes, but in this particular store, they have also color coded the books. Red books on one shelf. Blue on another.

North Park Bungalow

Posted by jd at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)