Sorry. I couldn’t help it. My head tilts like this too when people offer treats, dinner and trips to the park.
July 10, 2009
This post is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
No, seriously. It is.
This video changed my life. Much like the guy demonstrating this technique, I have been wasting precious seconds of my life, struggling to free yummy banana fruit from its devilish peel through the stem.
Now, I can peel bananas with ease… and without frustration. Just follow along with this brief video tutorial and soon you too will be peeling bananas like a professional chimpanzee.
A special thank you to this Life Hacker blog post for original enlightenment.
July 9, 2009
Out of Africa
I am most definitely not in Africa. But from the projects I’ve been working on, I might as well be.
Nurses for Africa
At work, we’re helping out with a site for 16 nurses from St. Louis that are in Zambia, providing medical care and education and HIV/AIDS prevention. Zambia is in southern Africa. Each day, the team in Zambia sends us videos and emails about their adventures with the help of a satellite phone and Internet cafes.
We post them on http://nursesforafrica.net/. It’s so cool to get to work every day and learn about what adventures are transpiring half the world away. When researching for the project, I even connected with my old friend from middle school that was born in Zambia to find out about possible Internet service providers. Small world!
Books for Cameroon
While the nurses are in southern Africa, my friend Wendy is in Cameroon – on the western coast of the continent. She’s a Peace Corps volunteer. Yesterday I got a tweet from her, asking for some help spreading the word about her new project called Books for Cameroon.
Wendy lives in a small village where her house doesn’t have running water. But she does have the Internet! So, using her blog, Twitter and Facebook – she’s raising $11,500 to send 22,000 books from the US to Cameroon.
I worked with Wendy via instant message and email yesterday to write and edit press releases and pitch emails for her to send out to various local and national media outlets.
By the way, please donate to her cause if you feel so inclined!
I am continually amazed at the way technology makes the world a smaller (and better!) place. In a million years, I never imagined that I’d be IMing friends in AFRICA – working with the Peace Corps and volunteer nurses – to promote literacy and HIV/AIDS prevention. Even if my part is small, after all I’m not the ones in Africa doing the heavy lifting, I am so glad that I can contribute to their work in my own little way, from my own little home in St. Louis.
June 26, 2009
Test Drive with Google Apps
I am exploring Google Apps more and more for my projects outside of work.
While I am a die-hard WordPress fan for CMS and SEO reasons, I think that Google’s apps are awesome.
For example, I currently host all of my sites emails through Google MX and Gmail. In addition, I have started using Google Calendar and Docs and I love me some GChat.
Just today I was invited to join Google Voice. It’s a new app that allows you to have one phone number where all your calls are forwarded, free voice mail with transcription and probably another thousand features that I have yet to figure out. I will let you know how it goes and report back soon!
June 23, 2009
Busy busy busy me
I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the last couple months.
In additional to all of my personal projects, things have really been picking up at work. I am hoping that this upward swing is an indicator that people are regaining confidence in our economy.
I get the impression that a lot of companies are starting to shake the dust off and see that their first quarters weren’t as bad as they had expected and they are ready to invest in business again.
Of course, being in St. Louis gives me a different perspective. In a lot of ways, the city has been insulated. We haven’t seen the swings in real estate and financial industries that have shaken places like California, Florida, Las Vegas and NYC.
Sure, we lost AB to In-Bev. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia/A.G. Edwards. And the car companies are shutting down some St. Louis-based plants. As awful as it is to lose these companies, my friends are reporting seeing more job openings and business picking up at their jobs too.
So, I leave you now, busy and hopeful for continued busy-ness (and business!) for us all.
June 9, 2009
When I Grow Up I Wanna Work in Advertising
This video is a few years old, but it’s hilarious.
June 8, 2009
Third Day’s a Charm
Aside from the bubble bath, nice sheets and a warm breakfast, the best part of Billings was that we made it there alive.
Who does 85.5 gas?
We woke up, packed the car up and had a nice cook-to-order breakfast. Soon we found out they sell 85.5 gasoline in Montana. Who does that? (Well, people in Montana do.) But, I’m used to good ol’ Missouri gas that comes in 87, 89 and 91. So in Montana, our choices were 85.5, 88 and 91. WTF. After a brief pow-wow and a pop quiz for the gas station attendant, we decided on 88 and were off on our journey.
We could not have said farewell to Montana fast enough. We settled for about 80 mph, though.
Wy(welike)oming
We entered Wyoming rain-free and ready for a new state. The roads were red. So that was cool. Turns out, we like Wyoming way better. There are still mountains, but the highway doesn’t have to wiggle through narrow passes line in Montana. We drove near to Yellowstone and could see the Grand Tetons in the distance.
Along our drive through Wyoming, we’ve hit a lot more small towns. So it hasn’t seemed like the no man’s land that our trip through Montana appeared to be. At one point, there was a little group of hills with a cow on top of each one. Strange, but true.
The fog in Wyoming was unbelievable. So we took pictures. So believe it. After a quick stop in Gilette for refueling, we pressed on toward South Dakota. In Gilette, the fuel choices included 85, 88 and 91. Not to be confused with the 85.5 at the last station in Montana. Not usually one for the details, I am glad that I caught this difference. Otherwise I probably would have just put the cheapest stuff in and ruined Katie’s car in the middle of nowhere.
Gas Cap Winner
Being the winner I am, I also managed to drive off from the gas station without securing the gas cap. This resulted in a large thumping noise when we got on the highway and my general embarrassment for about 5 miles. Thankfully, we found an exit to pull off at. Katie jumped out of the car (without her shoes on!) and fixed the boo-boo and we were on our way again. Like usual, Elphie just looked at us like we were nuts.
Our goal for today was to make it to Sioux Falls, SD. After the perils of middle Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota were a breeze. We skipped stopping for lunch and chose to snack on a yummy selection of granola bars, fruit snacks, apples, oranges, etc. that Katie picked up at the grocery store before our trip.
Pickin’ Abe’s Nose
Due to the fog and drizzling rain, we chose not to stop at Mount Rushmore. I was mildly bummed to not get a photo picking a president’s nose. But hey, you can’t win (or pick) ‘em all.
Whew! In Sioux
We arrived in Sioux Falls around 8:15pm and found that our hotel was under construction. After a brief “what have I gotten myself into” we found out that it was only the front entrance being worked on and that the rest of the hotel had already been renovated. Our room was very nice – much nicer than I ever expected a Best Western to be.
The real bonus of the hotel, aside from super comfy beds, a flat screen TV and big bathtub, was that it was next to a Ruby Tuesday’s that DELIVERED! Katie and I were on it like white on rice. She got a bison burger (her third burger in three days) and I had a chicken quesadilla. We watched Titanic and enjoyed the fact that we weren’t in a car. I took another wonderful bath, where I reflected on the sheer ridiculousness that we would be home the next day.
June 8, 2009
My Route
Just in case you were wondering, here’s a map of my route. I left Seattle on Friday morning and arrived in St. Louis early Sunday evening. (Image courtesy of Google Maps)
My route from Seattle to St. Louis
June 6, 2009
Day Two: A Doozy
Over the River and Through the Woods
I was wide awake at 5am to start day two of my trip. Mind you, I am still on central time, so it was 7am in my world. I took a shower and packed up my stuff and by then Katie was awake and ready to go. After breakfast at the hotel, we hit the road at about 6:45am. I know it seems early, but it turned out to be the most perfect time possible to leave.
I volunteered for the first leg of the drive, since I was wide awake and all. We got out of the city without running into any traffic. And then all of the sudden there were MOUNTAINS. I had never even seen a mountain in person before. And now it’s 7am and I am driving through them. Needless to say, it was extremely overwhelming and a taste of what was yet to come on the rest of the trip.
Mountain Mama
Outside of Seattle, headed east on Interstate 90, we drove straight into national forests. The Snoqualmie portion of the trip includes beautiful mountains, waterfalls and lots and lots of evergreen trees. I have never seen so many “conifers” before in my life! Most of the mountains are covered in these trees. Silly Midwestern me figured that mountains were made of rock. All of them. So not true. Most of the mountains are green.
As I drove through the most ridiculous places I have ever seen, the scenery just took my breath awake. Katie kept snapping pictures so she could show them to me later. Sad, I know. But I just kept my “eye on the prize” – making it to Billings, Montana, 832 miles away before the end of the day.
Just about every man we know – Chris, Aaron, my brother Phil – told us that it could not be done. 800 miles through the roughest terrain of our entire journey all in one day. Since we didn’t really have any other choice due to time and the fact that we had a hotel room waiting for us, we just kept on barreling through.
George and the Gorge
The countryside in Washington is filled with farms – who knew? But even weirder, all of the fields have these crazy big water sprinklers on them. Katie informed me that these contraptions are called pivots. Turns out that Katie’s boyfriend, Aaron, used to build them. You learn something new every day. Of course, you do not drive by a place called George, Washington every day. But hey, you win some, you lose some.
One of my favorite parts of driving through Washington was going by these place called “the Gorge.” It is a huge outdoor amphitheatre set along this huge, well, gorge. When I saw the Dave Matthews Band concert DVD from the gorge, I was mesmerized by the scenery. And then I got to drive through it. It was unreal.
For those people that know me really well, they know I hate driving on bridges. Well, my friends. I drove over some doozies. And lived to tell the tale.
We got through Spokane around 11am and our time in Washington had come to an end. Next up, Idaho!
No, you da hoe
I was really excited for the next leg of our journey, primarily because we timed it perfectly to get to Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, just in time for lunch. Coeur D’Alene is a lake resort town nestled in the aptly named Coeur D’Alene mountains. The French named the town “Heart of the Awl” because of the Indians that inhabited the area. In the midst of these mountains, we found Coeur D’Alene on a 90 degree sunny day.
I first heard about Coeur D’Alene when my friend Darbye moved there in high school. I saw pictures and was in awe. It’s a huge, blue lake with mountains all around. Katie and I parked the car and hung out at the dock for a little bit, walked Elphie around and stretched our legs.
We decided to walk into town and find something yummy for lunch. There were lots of people out walking around and riding bikes – very picuresque. We found this little sourdough sandwich place and took our lunch back to the dock to hang out with Elphie. Lunch was just what we needed and we couldn’t have eaten in a more beautiful place. I would love to visit CDA again someday. Also in this town: the nicest, cleanest, most lovely porta-potty I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.
After the 300 miles to CDA, Katie took over driving duties. I talked online with some people and started to upload some of the five bajiliion pictures we’ve taken. Katie drove all the way to Butte, Montana, another 300 miles away.
Get out of my life, Clark Fork
Montana looked a lot like I expected it to, thank you Brokeback Mountain. There was a lot of “scrubby” landscape. And basically no one lived there. We drove through Missoula, which looked to be smaller than Chesterfield, MO. The mountains were more rocky than in Washington. They also put letters on the mountains. I’m not sure why, but whatever.
There was also a river called Clark Fork. It weaved along with the highway. I think we crossed the damned Clark Fork about 45 times. Then, Katie exclaimed, “Get out of my life, Clark Fork!” I think he got the picture. Because after that, we never crossed Clark Fork again.
Pain the Butte
By the time we got to Butte, it had started to rain a little. But the 20 minute power nap I took before we got there made me feel invinceable.
And invinceable I became as I took the wheel to drive the last 200 miles of our trip for Day Two. The rain was pouring down and we still had several mountain passes to make before the day was over. Visability was about 30 feet when there wasn’t a semi truck splashing copious amounts of rain all up in my business.
Basically those 200 miles to Billings comprised the scariest couple hours of my entire life. We were driving through narrow mountain passes with no sholder, around rivers and mountains and semis (oh my!) with no idea what lay ahead. Not really my idea of a fun Friday night. During this time my thoughts were very simple. “Oh shit – Just keep driving – Dear God, please help us get through this safely.”
After one particularly treacherous mountain pass, I accidently leaned on the window button. This misstep quickly led to the driver’s side window rolling down. As we travelled at about 75 miles per hour in the God-forsaken Montana maelstrom.
Water poured in on my face, and on Katie’s face, and on Elphie’s face. I screamed. Katie screamed. Elphie looked at us like the crazy people we are. After a brief panic, I got the window back up and Katie laughed.
I tried to laugh, but sorta of cried at the same time.
Of course, any sane person could have pulled over. But with Billings SO close and knowing that the next 200 miles were full of more rain clouds, we just wanted to get ahead of the storm, get a warm dinner and find our bed.
After three hours of the sweatiest palms known to mankind, Katie and I arrived in Billings, cursing Montana, rain and anything else in our way.
We stayed at a Quality Inn – which was very nice after a long day on the road. We munched on some Fuddruckers, each took a bubble bath and p-a-s-s-e-d out.
