So many things wrong with this product...

I've seen this "texting dictionary" at a few different airports recently, and today at DCA all the clerks were wearing little badges further advertising it. This product bother me for so many reasons!

1. It's $4.99! Really?
2. You could find this stuff all for free online! Or in the actual dictionary since apparently LOL, FYI, OMG  and “♥” have all been entered in the OED. (Side note: There are so many things wrong with the recent update to the OED but that's a different blog post for a different blog!)
3. Who buys this stuff???
4. How many acronyms are there (that people legitimately use) that you need a spiral bound dictionary?
5. Of all things in an airport store, this is the product you choose to hype??
6. How do the producers of this product really see it being used? Do you read it and memorize the acronyms? Or carry it around with you to look them up when someone texts you some funky symbols or letters?
7. How is it actually structured? Do you look up the acronym or the phrase? For example would look up Starbucks and find *$? Or look up *$ and learn that means Starbucks? Or does it have both, like a Spanish-English/English-Spanish dictionary?
8. Possibly the thing that bothers me most about this product is the amount of time I've spend thinking about it!

I want to know where this conversation started...and ended...

My colleagues and I were walking down a hospital hallway yesterday and ended up behind an older, white gentleman and a younger (than the gentleman) black woman. We only heard a brief snippet of the conversation but it was enough to want more!

Woman: Was she black or white?
Man: Oh she was definitely white
Woman: ...
Man: And she was taller, and more slender than you...

So where do you think he was going with that?

I'm not where where he thought he was going, but I'm guessing he didn't end up anywhere good!

I'm too OCD for my hotel room

The picture isn't crooked...the shower fixture is!

This bothers me to no end.

I love a spa treatment as much as the next person...

But this does not interest me!

Her walk has slowed to a stiff shuffle, her lashes are crusted with ice, and her voice is muffled by a surgical mask, but Amy Rosen still flashes a thumbs-up—not the sort of thing you’d expect from someone standing in a minus-110-degree freezer.
Welcome to Canada’s most unusual spa treatment: the cold sauna at the new Sparkling Hills Resort in British Columbia. “I wasn’t nervous at all until the spa director said I had to sign a waiver, have my blood pressure checked and wear a surgical mask,” says Rosen,
40. “Then I thought, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’”
Upon arrival, visitors don gloves, a headband and socks to ward off frostbite. They are led into the first room, which is kept at a toasty minus-15 degrees. After five to 10 seconds, they are directed via intercom into two progressively colder chambers: a minus- 60-degree room for another five to 10 seconds, and then the minus-110-degree room for up to three minutes. By then, seconds feel like hours and the thumping bass you hear is your heartbeat. “It was shockingly cold,” says Rosen. “Someone can say ‘minus-a-hundred degrees,’ but you can’t understand what that means until you feel it. My elbows felt like they were on fire.” European wellness specialists claim that everything from psoriasis to arthritic pain can be eased by the treatment, which costs $40 for an introductory visit. (Like roller coasters, it’s not recommended for pregnant women or people with high blood pressure or heart trouble.)
When Rosen emerges, she’s bright pink and giddy. “Once you go the distance you’re happy you did it,” she says, noting that the after- spa buzz is incredible. “I know a lot of people who’ve gone and then chickened out,” she says. Her advice: “Just do it.”—HEATHER GREENWOOD DAVIS

They have some interesting stories in airplane magazines!

I can only imagine they need this because it has happened before?

Do people really need to be told not to hang clothes from a sprinkler head?

Also that thing is like 8 feet high. Do people stand on the bed to hang their clothes on a sprinkler head that is almost on the ceiling?

I mean, for me, the closet works just fine.

And this would be why I always set two alarms.

Whenever I travel I always set 2 alarms. One on my cell phone and another on the hotel alarm clock. That paid off big time yesterday. I had set the hotel alarm for 4:50am and my cellphone alarm for 4:45 am because I noticed the clock was about 5 minutes off. What I didn't notice was that the time was actually 12 hours and 5 minutes off. When my cellphone alarm went off at 4:45 am and the clock alarm did not I finally noticed it was set to PM.

How does this happen? Who changes the alarm clock to 12 hours off?

I'm Free!!

I just received this email from my colleague and I kind of love it.

Unfortunate...

Unfortunate last name? Unfortunate restaurant name? Unfortunate experience with home cooking?

I think yes.

It's a Small World After All

Is that song stuck in your head now? It's in mine. Sorry!

Anyway...

I flew down to NC yesterday and drove to Emerald Isle to meet my cousin and his wife as we wait for their son (my second cousin, or first cousin once/twice removed or something like that) to arrive back on base from Afghanistan. Unfortunately his arrival kept getting pushed back, and pushed back again. He is now not supposed to arrive until 5pm today (as opposed to 8am and then 5pm Sunday). Instead I just spent the day with my cousin who I do not get to see very much as he lives in California.

My cousin is staying in the house of a friend of his from the Marines. It's a beatiful house with a very of the beach. I spent some time wandering around getting a lay of the land...only to stumble upon a picture of my very first boss! Apparently my boss and this gentleman's daughter were best friends from undergrad and she was in her wedding.

Such a small world that I could be more than 350 miles away from home, in the house of someone I don't know and stumble upon pictures of people I do know!

Do you really need....

an alert on your car to tell you that it's cold outside??

On the other hand, I guess this is better than the loud "beep" my jetta makes when the temp drops from 40 to 39 and 33 to 32. If I'm ever in an accident in the winter, it's going to be because my car startled me and I jumped out of my seat!

Here's a phrase you don't hear every day...

"when I'm at a death scene..."

So I just left the hotel bar where I had dinner. I ended up sitting next to this older gentleman who was a former RN and now works in forensics for the state. We were discussion our travel behaviors - ie I eat fish/pork/beef when I'm traveling and white meat chicken when I'm home, or I'll have a glass of wine with dinner when I'm traveling but not when I'm home because it's hard to open an entire bottle of red wine for 1 glass - the man made a comment to the extent of "When I'm at a death scene and someone says drinking is the cause, the first thing I check is their liquor, if there is dust, it wasn't alcohol related."

I love hotel bars...

Condiments.

Yep. I'm writing a post on condiments...I didn't think that would be a blog topic I would write about either...

But I've noticed, at multiple places now, that hospitals offer a veritable plethora of condiments. I've seen everything from your typical ketchup, mustard, mayo, salt/pepper, etc. But the hospitals I've been frequenting go so far as to offer packets of: vinegar, BBQ sauce, lemon juice, honey, Texas Pete, soy sauce, little packets of Dash seasoning mix, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some!

One hospital even gives away little containers of peanut butter, something for which I'm used to paying. I truly appreciate those because when you're back to back in meetings and don't have time for lunch the free peanut butter helps!

Unfortunately they also give away paper packets of Parmesan cheese....

Parmesan shouldn't come in paper packets...

 

Who knew??

KFC has an All You Can Eat Buffet...who knew!

I don't think I'm going to be investigating any further...

Consulting, it's a dangerous job...

but someone's got to do it...

I burnt my finger on the iron this morning....fortunately the rest of the day went better!

In case you were wondering...

you cannot, in fact, carry-on snowglobes on a flight

Do people really travel with snowglobes??