NancyKay Shapiro is getting her 15 minutes of fame for noticing this sign at a local super market. I think it is hilarious, so I’ll give her a link!
My First Wedding Topic Blog
So I am in the middle of a planning a wedding with my fiancée. We’re about two months into our engagement and we got off to a pretty quick start. Within a month of being engaged, we picked a wedding date, reception site, church, minister, our wedding party, and the color. Two months in and we are down to a choice between 2 DJs and we have a photographer, as well as picked out 90% of our dinner menu. So we’re doing pretty good.
However, one thing that we noticed very quickly is how varied the customer service levels are among independent companies. While nearly everyone (myself included) complains about customer service operators being outsourced to India and other places where someone named "Mary" (ha!) tries to help you with your inquiry, perhaps we should be glad that we’re at least getting a response.
Nearly every business "guru" out there will tell you that the key strategic advantages for small, independent operators to differentiate themselves from the big, giant monster corporations is quality and service. If that’s the case, the wedding industry is in deep trouble.
Maybe its because it isn’t something you do very often (hopefully only once….) and they know they can drag you along, but so far, customer service and just general response has been pretty bad. Our best experience has been with the Hard Rock Cafe (a big company), where we might have our rehearsal dinner. Even our photographer, who we love, left us hanging for a few days after the Thanksgiving holiday, leaving us to wonder if we were really meeting with them last weekend or not. Clearly the culture of "customer first" is far more alive in corporate America than in entrepreneurial ventures.
A perfect example happened today – from a bridal gown company. Here is the exchange between my fiancée and whoever was answering this email (click to see the screen capture). As you can see, clearly no one was actually READING the email. So I called – you know, just for shits an
d giggles – and spoke with a heavily accented woman who explained that customer service doesn’t read the emails… the OWNERS DO! That’s just what you want to hear from a company that you’re looking to spend a couple of thousand dollars with on your wedding dress.
I like supporting local merchants and have myself lamented the loss of local stores and chains. My parents had a small bakery that eventually fell victim to supermarket bakeries, so I know the pain that comes with losing the local flavor. While I know that we didn’t always provide perfect customer service, I’d like to think that we tried harder than a lot of people out there.
So that’s the first of what I am sure will be many other wedding observations in the coming year or so. I won’t bore you with details – just try to entertain you with the silly and interesting stuff.
How To Get Pine Sap Off Your Hands
I know this has NOTHING to do with pop culture other than the fact that it is the Christmas season and people are putting up Christmas trees, but I wanted to share with everyone a great little tip.
If you get pine sap on your hands – or your clothes or car for that matter – the best way to remove pine sap is with alcohol-based hand sanitizer. You can do a search on-line and find recommendations for olive oil, peanut butter and nail polish remover, but I have found that hand sanitizer works fast, won’t hurt your hands, and it sanitizes them at the same time as a bonus! It is basically the same principle as removing it with rubbing alcohol, just easier to handle.
I’ve even used it to get pine sap off of my car as well. I don’t know what alcohol does to a car finish, so I use it sparingly and wax it right away after using it.
Let’s Hear It For Number One!
Just flipping through New Products Magazine at work when I came across an article about appetizer trends in restaurants. Like a lot of categories, the appetizer portion of the menu is getting more varied and exotic, with egg rolls getting filled with beans and chipotles, Asian-style lettuce wraps showing up in strongly American chains, and specialties like quesadillas and bruschetta becoming more common.
However, in the middle of the article is a chart from Mintel Menu Insights 2007 ranking the Top 15 Appetizers, ranked by the number of menu items that appear on chain restaurant menus in the second quarter of 2007. At the top, with 122 menu items… Buffalo Wings! It has a pretty good lead over the second place item, which is an "appetizer sampler" with 100 menu items and a very good lead over the #3 spot, mozzarella sticks. The hot n’ saucy contingency makes another appearance at #15, with boneless buffalo wings with 24 menu items.
Keep on keepin’ it hot!
Just Call Me Mr. Lugnut
I should have written this a long time ago. I’ve already posted a review on Amazon.com 
Quelf came into our lives through a little bit of marketing when a magnet and sample card was included in an Amazon.com order that was shipped to my house. I actually had already thrown it away when I said "wait, did that say ‘Ninja Monkey’ on there?" and took it back out of the trash. Checking out the game on Amazon.com, it seemed perfect for my girlfriend’s family who loves board games, and in particular, Cranium. Right from the first time we played the game, it was the craziest, funniest thing I have ever seen. At that point I was just starting to become a true regular with Meghan’s family, but I quickly found myself trying to build a snorkel out of household items, and had to wear it the whole game. Other people were sitting on their hands and saying strange things.
The next time I wound up with the box stuck up my shirt for most of the game. Other things that have happened have included someone having to keep their elbow on the game board the entire game, rolling over and wailing like they were dying every time someone rolled a five and someone else having to rub her knees and say "there’s a storm a-comin’" every time someone moved backwards.
You get the idea – this isn’t for the shy, but even if you are, you shouldn’t be worried: everyone will be acting like a fool, so you’ll fit right in.
We’re not alone in our love for the game. A quick search on YouTube quickly reveals several results including some of people completing the cards like this and this.
So It’s True – They DON’T Care!
Reading this article on Reveries.com this morning, I felt a sense of calm coming over me. Finally, an article that tells the truth: airlines really DON’T care about treating you all that well. Yeah, they know they have to fix some personal interactions and flight delays, but dammit, they don’t care about giving you anything once you’re in that metal flying tube.
Its an interesting result of travel aggregate sites like Orbitz, Travelocity, and Kayak: by making it easier to search for the lowest price, the airlines need to compete on price, and often, on price alone.
My only beef with the cattle article is that it ignores those of us who fly regularly enough to care about service and amenities – not always shopping on price, but on schedules and getting mileage points – but not so regularly that we get consistent free upgrades and travel in business or first class all the time. I have a decent number of frequent flyer points – enough for some free tickets and upgrades – but not enough to throw them around willy-nilly. So I actually am loyal to those airlines that I have the most points with (US Air and Delta) and will fly with them so that I can use them for leisure purposes.
I also avoid those airlines that I don’t like. I really hate Continental. Every time I’ve taken a Continental flight, its been late, and if you look at this chart at SeatGuru.com, you’ll see that while Continental doesn’t have the SMALLEST seat pitch, it probably has the smallest on average, with other airlines having at least a few planes that go past 32 inches. When you’re 6′ 2", those things count.
While I understand that travel web sites have changed how airlines compete, it is too bad that they are abandoning service and quality because of it.
Reflections on Europe
So after 11 days of sightseeing and traveling in two of the greatest capitol cities in the world, we came home and eventually returned to our usual routine. We were smart enough to come back on a Thursday, take Friday off from work and catch up on email and voice mail then. Monday was like returning after a long weekend.
People ask what was the highlight of the trip. We went there for Jono’s Ordination as a Deacon, so that was a highlight. And we got engaged under the Eiffel tower at night – that is another natural highlight. Other highlights were seeing the Colleseum, St. Peter’s Basillica, the Arc de Triumph, and the Eiffel tower.
Another question is which city I liked better. I really enjoyed Paris, but wouldn’t return again without taking some French lessons. Rome was much more English-friendly, with nearly every restaurant offering menus in English as well as Italian. Paris had a more contemporary feel, like a modern city that was still changing and growing. Rome is more like a city-sized museum, but I don’t view that as a negative. It is a great city and an amazing place to visit. If I were to head back to Italy, I would probably explore other parts of the country, not just Rome. Paris though, I could easily spend another week in, especially if I knew more French.
As for the food, we definitely had more consistently good food in Rome than in Paris, but that may have also been a function of the English-friendliness of Rome: we were simply more capable of ordering what we wanted and knowing what we were ordering.
However, more than the food or specific things we saw or did, what really made a difference was just the cultural learning and expanding my mind. To see how another culture lives; the cars they drive, the food they eat, where and how they shop, where they live, how they live. To see the places they worship and where they commit their sins…
Memories to last a lifetime, though I hope I do make it back someday. I feel that in some small way I am a better person for having gone overseas; not better than everyone else, but just better for having a greater understanding of how other cultures live. And isn’t that what travel is supposed to be all about?
Paris, Day Quatre et Cinq
We slept in again on Wednesday, and went to our favorite little crepe place down the street from the hotel. We then walked along the Seine to make our way to the nearest tour bus stop on our way to the Louvre. Along the way, we stopped at Shakespeare & Company, which was unfortunately closed for inventory.
We caught the bus to take us the rest of the way to the Louvre, but we got off far enough so that we could walk through the gardens.
Tackling the Vatican Museum AND the the Louvre in the same trip, less than a week apart, is a daunting task and will sap the fortitude of even the strongest museum-goer. We did the highlights tour of the Louvre: Venus Di Milo, Mona Lisa, Marley Horses, Dying Slave, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, Napoleon’s Apartment, the Virgin on the Rocks… and more. Much more. We were ready to move on.
We stopped for lunch at Starbucks (clearly we were ready to head back home) and hit the museum gift store. Afterward, we found our way to Libraries Gourmand, a bookstore dedicated to only cookbooks. It took a long walk, but it is a great little store where we found the perfect Parisian cookbook in English to take home as a memento of our trip.
We wound our way back to the Île de la Cité area and found the Magic Museum. Like the Crypta Balbi, this was an out-of-the way tourist attraction that had no line to get in and was a quick, manageable visit. My only wish is that the exhibit descriptions would have been in English as well as in French, but we got to see a magic show, so I guess we can’t complain. We saw a variety of illusion devices and magic tricks, as well as memorabilia from famous magicians like Houdini. And the whole thing is in the basement of a house where the Marquis de Sade lived.
We took a slow walk back to the hotel, taking in what would be some of the last sights we saw in Paris and our entire trip. We got back to the hotel, checked out email and meet another couple who had just come from Spain and were heading to Rome next. We chatted for a bit and they ended up being the first people we told that we were engaged. They were a really interesting couple, spending a few weeks in Europe while she was there for work (she teaches hydro geology). They were having a dinner of red wine, a baguette and Roquefort cheese, which I tried for the first time. Paris is a pretty good place to try Roquefort cheese for the first time.
We packed up our suitcases and then headed to the L’Authre Bistro next to our hotel. Our meal that night was good, though not quite as good as our first meal there (the onion soup was beef broth with basically fresh onions chopped and thrown in the soup), but we had crepes and red wine, so not too bad.
We went back to the hotel, finished packing and fell asleep for the last time in Europe.
The next morning, we got up, took showers, hauled our luggage down the umpteen flights of stairs and then went to the corner to catch a cab. It took us a while to get one, and we were starting to get nervous about the timing. It was a Thursday morning and we were basically heading to the airport at the tail end of rush hour. A cab driver took pity on us and ended his break early and got us on the road. There was a LOT of traffic but we got to the airport on time.
The flight back was less crowded than our flight going to Europe, but we had a British family behind us who were the last people to get on the plane and had three small children that they brought NO toys or games to keep them occupied for the 8 hour flight. Meghan spent most the flight with one of the kids kicking her in the back and shoving his feet in between the seat bottom and seat back. The real ugly highlight was when getting off the plane and realizing that one of the kids had crapped in their diaper and it smelled – no, REEKED – of baby poop in only the horrifying way that baby poop can smell.
With that, we landed back in the states, back on home soil, now officially a world traveler, engaged, and glad to be back, though already missing Europe. After nearly two weeks of traveling in Europe, I had to think about how to say "thank you" in English and we immediately jumped into the planning of a wedding.
Paris, Day Trois
After a busy day and eventful evening in Paris, we slept in until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, finally feeling like we’re on vacation! After waking, we stopped by our local crepe stand for crepes avec sucre and took the tour bus to the Arc de Triomphe. Seeing this up close was a personal highlight of the trip. I’m French by heritage and the Arc is such a symbol of the culture, I was in awe of seeing it up close and personal. I had read that the view from the top is spectacular, so we got in line to get tickets and then saw the sign: "There are 284 steps to the top. There is no elevator." This being our eleventh day of this trip and basically our 10th day of walking around major cities, we bailed. If it had been a week earlier we probably would have gone for it, but at that point, we just couldn’t muster up the strength.
Instead, we headed to another landmark that DID have an elevator (thank goodness!), the Eiffel Tower. We got off at the Trocadero where we searched for something for lunch. We were reaching the end of our trip and we – me in particular – were getting near the end of our rope of dealing with foreign languages while eating and we opted for some sidewalk food, a hot dog in a baguette. It was good, though not as good as the hot dog panini in Rome. We followed it up with a much more Parisian dessert: crepes with meil (honey) and chocolate.
The trip up the Eiffel tower was another highlight. We decided to go all the way to the third level platform, which costs more. I’m glad that we went up to the top just to say we did it, but wouldn’t do it again. The view from the top isn’t any better than the one from the second platform and you have to deal with more fog, clouds and smog the further up you get, and everything gets so small you really can’t see too much detail. But the view is phenomenal regardless – the grey-blue roofs of Paris and the Seine river passing through it all is a great memory to have.
We then got back onto our tour bus and took it to Montmarte, to see Sacre Coeur. This is the area that holds the Moulin Rouge, which turns out to be quite the seedy "red light" district. Lots of adult toy and video stores line the streets, and my favorite, the "gadgetierre," a French word that I’m not exactly sure of the meaning of, but pretty sure I have a good idea.
Sacre Coeur was like Notre Dame in that it was a holy place marked by a number of non-sacred features: a book store right in the church, a souvenir coin maker in the back of the church and several street performers on the front stairs of the church. We did get a chance to see some great soccer ball jugglers though.
The tour bus route ended and we took a subway back to our hotel and got ready to go out to dinner and our show at Moulin Rouge. We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, fulfilling our obligation to visit there. We then got to the Moulin Rouge about 20 minutes before show time. It was raining that night and we figured that 20 minutes before would be good timing to get in and get our seats. Unfortunately, apparently, the shows start late and we found ourselves standing in the rain for nearly 40 minutes. We did have a great little show in front of us though: this couple from Minnesota were fondling and making out with each other to the point of coitus. His hand was grabbing the underside of her ass, starting to "reach around" and they were hiding behind an umbrella, making audible sucking noises as they made out. Then we realized that her left hand was no where to be seen and his pants were bunched oddly. Like there was… a… hand… down… the… front…
Anyway – after that graphic show, we were finally ushered into the Moulin Rouge. I wish I could tell you how they figure out how to seat everyone, but I’m clueless. We showed our Internet reservation, and told us to follow them. We wound our way through all these close-set tables, reminiscent of the nightclub scene in Good Fellas, to a table on the far side of the club, close to the stage.
One of my favorite memories came next: the sound of champagne corks popping throughout the club. You get a bottle of champagne for every couple, so there were hundreds of corks being expertly popped by the busy waiters, who carried small penlights between their teeth once the lights went down.
The Moulin Rouge show itself was far more spectacular than I thought it would be. We could only understand about half the show, since it was split between French and English, but it was all enjoyable. There were a few juggling/magic skits and many singing/dancing numbers. The stage sets would changes so fast and seamlessly that you wouldn’t even notice that they had gone from a Middle-Eastern set to a Latin American set. One of the highlights was when a large water tank rose out of the stage – about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long – with three boa constrictors in it. A topless dancer (oh yeah – most of them are topless and it must be VERY COLD back stage) jumped in and danced and writhed with the snakes for 5 minutes.
After the show, we tried to catch a cab across town. One cab driver wanted 35 Euro for the ride, but another took us for 15.
Another busy and long day… but only one more day in Paris left!
Today’s Sign That the Apocolypse Is Near
From Australia: Santa Clauses (Clausi?) are being told not to say "ho ho ho" because it could be insulting to women.
This is why I write a blog. To share this crazy shit with everyone, because you just can’t make it up.