Finding a care partner

May 31, 2007


I’ll tell you the truth. It was hard finding people we could trust to watch our dog.

There is a regiment that goes into taking care of someone else’s pet – one that takes practice, that takes an innate ability to sense when your special furry friend needs to be let out, or fed, or lavished attention upon. If you give someone your dog, you can’t be assured that your dog will take to him or her. You search out the right balance of temperament and attention, calmness and willingness. They don’t often go hand in hand.

We’ve seen hundreds of scare videos of animals being abused by someone. And when you’re searching for someone to watch over your pet, these images come flashing back, swarming your better judgment and causing an over-analyzation of outcomes. What happens if they bite? What happens if they run away? What happens if they choke on a biscuit and they are secretly replaced by a dog that looks somewhat similar - like some kind of half-baked sit-com?

Now imagine doing all of this again, except this time it’s going to be for the two-month old child that you’ve just brought into the world. The same child that, at this time, seems so fragile, so breakable. So perfect, and so difficult to let go of.

That’s what we’re doing now in anticipation of Baby Vilhauer. Daycare shopping. Eventually, the ten weeks of combined maternity/paternity leave will be up. We’ll need to find someone to baby-sit. We’ll need to find someone that will eventually become a very large part of our child’s life.

How’s that for pressure?

So we’re taking a grand tour of available infant-ready daycare homes and centers in the ten-mile radius of our home. You can’t imagine how many childcare providers there can be in an area of 150,000 people. But, at the same time, the numbers don’t lie. In South Dakota, 47% of children under six are in paid childcare. This is the highest in the nation – nearly double the national average (26%).

The choices are staggering. The safety and clinical sameness of centers – with their secure entrances and structured lesson plans and higher frequency of sickness – or the down to earth, more reasonably priced home daycares – bastions of indie ideals, yet many times lacking the entire breadth of opportunity. Do we go corporate and justify ourselves with easy to handle sick days and extra support? Do we go into the home and worry about what happens during the day?

Technology and information make some choices easier. Why worry about sub-par conditions when you have access to an Internet feed from inside each daycare room? Why fret about not knowing your child’s daily welfare and learning when reports are sent home every day?

Regardless, you’re sending your child into the world at a ripe young age. You’re exposing him or her to communication, to the beauties of social interaction, to the idea of play, of constant attention, to a structured learning environment based on educational ideals.

So no matter how hard it is to let go, you make the effort. You watch as your child is left behind, but you doing it that you’re working to bring them a better life. And you do it knowing that the interaction, the safety and the experience has already been approved, months in advance, by your watchful eye, your intense questioning and your ceaseless struggle to choose the perfect place.

So through the over-thinking and hyper-analyzing, you choose your child’s new daycare knowing that every option was considered, boosted up or knocked down by your visits elsewhere. And with that, you understand that even though daycare shopping is a draining, stressful experience – akin to buying a house or searching for a new career – it’s all worth it to ensure the development of that little person you’re soon to be responsible for.

With that said, it’s quite amazing how – two full months before Baby Vilhauer is born – I’m already having a hard time letting go.

Tags: Sierra |

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Honeycombing for truth

May 30, 2007


Finally — some real answers about Honeycomb cereal.

For those who don’t remember, Honeycomb boxes appeared on the shelves of fine grocery establishmets with a purple starburst claiming the cereal was “Now Better Tasting!” I thought to myself, “Better tasting than WHAT?”

From there, I went the logical route. I overthought. I analyzed. I wondered how Honeycomb cereal could justify their claims of being “Better Tasting,” how they could slap an subjective claim on their box without any sort of disclaimer. We all figured it was a focus group study or something. We all waited for the silly explanation and typical advertising tomfoolery.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one concerned. Reader Nathan Murphy sent me an e-mail describing his family’s experience with the Purple Starburst — and, the horrible truth behind the taste. See, it turns out they had royally screwed up the recipe. And they were making it up by going back to the old taste — the Better Taste.

From Nathan Murphy’s e-mail:

Dear Corey,

I read your postings on blackmarks.net concerning the marketing of Post Honeycomb cereal. As it turns out, “Now Better Tasting!” is actually a very truthful, but partial statement. Allow me to explain.

A few months ago, my wife and I bought a box of Honeycomb. Much to our surprise, it tasted like crap. What was wrong with it, you ask?

1. The texture was all wrong. If you’ve ever had Waffle Crisp
cereal, it was similar in that it was very crunchy, but sort of
airy and crumbly.
2. The taste was very different and bad, but hard to describe.
3. The color was more yellow than normal.
4. We could not eat it and resorted to filling the dog treat canister
with it. Considering the crap that dogs eat, we figured they
wouldn’t notice. They didn’t.

For anyone who’s enjoyed the sweet honey goodness before, something sinister had obviously occurred. Suspecting a secretive recipe change scandal (someday to be known as Honeygate), targeted to undermine the taste buds of America, we emailed Kraft and confronted them with the truth: “Honeycomb sucks!”

Here is the response we received from everyone’s favorite Food Network Host……..uhh, sorry, I mean……..everyone’s favorite Kraft Foods Associate Director, Consumer Relations: Kim McMiller!

May 10, 2007

Dear Mrs. Sarah Murphy,

Thank you for recently contacting us at Kraft Foods about our Post Honeycomb cereal. We truly value your feedback and appreciate you taking the time to share your comments.

Over the past few months, Post has been working diligently to address the concerns of our consumers and has been keenly focused on improving the cereal’s taste, texture and appearance while incorporating key nutritional benefits to the product. We appreciate the relationship you have built with the Post Honeycomb brand, and are committed to providing
you with the consistently great tasting cereal you have come to enjoy moving forward.

A better tasting Post Honeycomb cereal will soon be hitting stores shelves, marked with a special purple burst highlighting the improved taste. We are confident that you will be pleased with this Honeycomb product, which is included in the package along with an additional product coupon for a future purchase.

Look out for the specially marked boxes of Post Honeycomb cereal on store shelves in March, and thank you for being a loyal customer.

Sincerely,
Kim McMiller
Associate Director, Consumer Relations

As this was the first time we had bought Honeycomb in a while, I don’t know how long the crappy version was out in stores. And unfortunately, we did not keep the box in which the crappy cereal came, so we can’t compare ingredients and nutritional information. Nonetheless, I still suspect that Kraft was monkeying with the recipe, thinking that nobody
would notice. If they indeed had changed the recipe, they have either changed it back to the original, or improved the new recipe to the point where there is little noticeable difference. The box they sent to us, displaying the “purple burst” marketing blurb, does taste very good.

So good, in fact, that we ate it for dinner instead of our planned meal of grilled salmon, fresh green beans, and baked potatoes. OK, so there’s really no way that Honeycomb should have conqured the mighty grilled salmon. Maybe we just needed an evening of emotional recovery and closure.

So I have reached two monumental conclusions:

1. The new “Now Better Tasting!” Honeycomb does indeed taste better;
that is, better than crap.
2. The new “Now Better Tasting!” purple burst blurb should actually
say, “Now Tasting the Same as the Non-Crap Recipe Version!”

To quote your original postings:

So maybe I’m a cynic when I say, “If it’s better tasting now, what was wrong with it before?”

“Why wasn’t it the best it could be previously? And how did you quantify a subjective claim?”

To answer your questions, no, there was nothing wrong with it before, and yes, it was the best it could be. Honeycomb was indeed at the pinnacle of its longstanding reign of supreme honey goodness. The Kraft marketing group isn’t stupid, and they knew they couldn’t put that purple burst on the box unless it was true. And for it to be a truthful statement, the cereal had to get worse before it could get better.

Sincerely,

Nathan Murphy, a fellow Honeycomb muncher

So there you have it — the TRUTH about Honeycomb. My favorite part is this side-by-side comparison:

Honeycomb Lineup - Nathan Murphy (c) 2007

See the difference? Honeycomb really DID suck for a few months!
Nathan Murphy (c) 2007

I wonder why my representative didn’t own up to the fact. I didn’t receive a “we screwed up OMG Sorry LOL!” message. Instead, I receieved a pre-packaged response designed by some robot with an archaic sense of “feeling” and “humanity.”

Instead of “Over the past few months, Post has been working diligently to address the concerns of our consumers and has been keenly focused on improving the cereal’s taste, texture and appearance while incorporating key nutritional benefits to the product,” we got:

We draft conclusions from studies that reflect consumers’ opinions on a national basis.

When appropriate, advertising is developed from studies. We take great care in the exact wording and overall impression of our advertising.

All advertising claims are reviewed before approval is given.

Thanks, robots. No fear, however — now, the truth can be known. Oh, Glorious Truth!

Thanks, Nathan.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing |

2 Comments

A literary funeral pyre?

May 29, 2007


Here’s an idea. To protest the decline in reading – both in numbers of book stores, books purchased, and a general neglecting of literature and other forms of reading – we should just burn our books.

It might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. But someone is doing it.

From Yahoo News:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero’s Books. His collection ranges from best sellers like Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October” and Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities,” to obscure titles like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910.

But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn’t even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society’s diminishing support for the printed word.

“This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,” Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.

Considering people are running down to purchase last minute deals - or possibly to save the books that are being burned, it might be one of the smartest ideas as well.

Still, it’s all a little 451ish to me – burning books to protest not reading them? It seems contrary to the cause, ironic in a stupid kind of way.

I don’t like it. But, then again, I read. So I’m not the target. I’m not supposed to like it. I value books. And I’m sure this guy does too. He’s just making a point.

(From The Powell’s Book Blog)

Tags: Books, Literature, Politics |

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Dual phonership

May 28, 2007


Yes. I have a blog.

That doesn’t mean I’m technologically advanced. At all. Case in point: Kerrie and I now have our own cell phone. Yeah, that’s right. We shared a cell phone. We had one phone between the two of us.

I know we weren’t alone – there are plenty of people who don’t have a cell phone at all, and numerous who have just one per couple. But I feel like we’ve broken through some sort of time warp, like we’ve been admitted into the 21st century, equipped with a modern mobile device and strong enough to handle it on my own.

We’ve decided to take the steps towards dual-cell-phone ownership because, well, we’ve got a baby on the way and we figure we should probably both be able to get a hold of the other at a moment’s notice.

Also, I wanted text messaging.

I have friends that only communicate through text messaging, and I’ve always been a big fan of the instant message culture – a quick, slam it through method of communicating without actually having to tolerate the other person’s voice. You can go away and come back minutes – hours! – later and keep the conversation going. It’s talking while doing, it’s connecting via time-lapse.

The thing I find so funny about cell phone culture is the need to equip a phone with everything deemed necessary. The first thing I did with my phone is make it an extension of myself. I painstakingly sought out the perfect ring tones, matching my personality with a mix of ironic and funny. I subscribed to all of my favorite sports team alerts, so now I’m instantly connected with the Twins or Pacers score as soon as the game is over. I took pictures. I assigned specific rings to specific people. I let the world know I was on the text message bandwagon.

I was a total dork, in other words.

It’s fascinating how much we try to tell the world about ourselves through a small piece of machinery. We really think that these phones – from ring to wallpaper to text message signature – is able to accurately depict our real life, as if someone could piece together our true worth by scrolling through a list of pictures and ring tones. And nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the exact opposite happens – we’re able to create a personality that’s exactly like the one we WANT to have, that we WISH we had, the perfections we otherwise lack, the taste we otherwise don’t have.

So with that, I took caution. I didn’t add rhinestones. I refused to purchase wallpaper with the Pacers logo on it. I even stopped short of running around, taking everyone’s picture and assigning it to a number.

But that “Drop It like It’s Hot” ring tone? Yeah. It’s on there.

Tags: Vilhauer |

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The great American highway

May 24, 2007


I-90, all the way.I’ve just finished reading Travels with Charley, Steinbeck’s travel narrative about his search for the true America. He purchased a truck with an RV fitted to the back and went on his way, braving the unknown. He disguised himself by growing a beard so he wouldn’t be recognized. And he found America, but not the one he thought he had lost.

I have this same dream. I’m an amateur traveler at heart. I like the open road, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my comfort to travel it. I love going overseas, but I can’t afford it. I’m a traveler in search of travel. A tourist with nothing to tour.

My biggest dream is a simple one - one I’ve mentioned before – to follow my personal Great American Highway: Interstate 90. I want to drive it from Pacific to Atlantic, from it’s origin in Seattle to it’s termination in Boston.

Now, I’ll admit – I love Seattle, and above anywhere else I want to visit Boston. So the trip has added benefits. At the same time, it’s not a scenic route by any means, winding through some of the most boring landscape our country has to offer. I get nothing of America on the Interstate – nothing but its billboards and exit signs, it’s sweeping turnpikes and its varying degrees of upkeep.

Still, it’s a feat I’d like to try someday. The list of great cities I’d pass through is immense: Seattle, Spokane, Bozeman, Madison, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Boston. I-90 is the longest road in the United States, touching 14 states and crossing over 30 additional Interstates. Its 3,100 miles are staggering. It would take me three weeks to really soak it all in, to stop every hundred miles and experience another slice of American city life.

Steinbeck did it with the basics, shunning the larger roads in order to keep his focus, seeing the land as it was, with roadside stands, homes, characters, sights and sounds. His feat took him around the country, from the Northeast and back. He tried to stay off of the superhighways, criticizing them by saying, “When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.”

For me, it’s just about doing it. It’s the perfect drive, in my opinion – giving anyone the chance to see both coasts, hundreds of cities and millions of people. I have a history that has revolved around Interstate 90. I was born in Sioux Falls, smack dab in the middle of the road. I spent nearly every vacation hurling myself down the road. When I went to college, I started every trip down the road in the opposite direction. I-90 spends more time in South Dakota than in any state aside from Montana. I-90 spans the state, gives it length, provides a cricual corridor - the only connection between east and west river. I-90 is as much a part of my life as my childhood address or the Big Sioux River.

Someday, I’ll do it. I’ll write about it. And you’ll all know that you heard it here first. Right here. Right in the middle of my journey, right in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Right on the intersection of Interstate 29 and my beloved Interstate 90.

Right at home on my native Interstate.

Tags: Travel |

4 Comments

RGIS

May 23, 2007


The van door slams. Uniformed minions file out from around the side, rolling large brown bags, ominous looking pieces of machinery wrapped up in an inconspicuous package. They look at each other as if confirming their target. They roll ahead, scattering the people in front of them, joining the others that had come before, leaning against the building and smoking. Some of they casually look to the side, knowing exactly what’s coming next. Others walk right in, prepared to do battle, charging down the aisles with their dollies filled with equipment.

This is what I ran into at Target today. It’s a sight I’ve seen many times. It’s inventory day, and these are the troops from RGIS.

As a Media Product Specialist at Best Buy (read: CD Put-away-er) I encountered these guys twice a year during our semi-annual inventory nights. We would push the customers out of the store at closing time, we would wait for free pizza, and we would assist the RGIS crew as they filed around the store, counting every single item of inventory, section by section.

It was a staggering feat. Our job was to get SKU numbers for products that didn’t have bar codes. The rest of the time, we simply watched, transfixed by the 80-or-so migrant workers that had descended upon our store – workers from all walks of life, bonded by their common goal of supreme accuracy. They held scanners at their sides, dutifully bleeping their way down the aisle, all nearly in unison, creating a universe filled with grey polo shirts and frantic beeping.

They seemed to come from everywhere. The RGIS office is in Sioux Falls, sure, but these people were as different and far driven as any group that could possibly been assembled. Some were college kids, working their way through college with an odd, yet non-stressful night job. Others were obvious computer geeks, hoping to get a glimpse at the software aisle. There were single moms, old widowed women, scraggly looking ex-alcoholics and recent ex-cons. I really didn’t know anything about them – we didn’t ask, and they didn’t talk. These were just the personalities I placed onto them.

A supervisor would walk around and make sure everyone was scanning. When it was over, we took their list and compared it to our list. The difference between what we should have and what we actually did have was called “shrinkage,” a retail turn for stolen or miscounted items.

Best Buy never did save any money by hiring RGIS. Our store was budgeted to have a certain amount of shrink. Any lost, stolen or misplaced items that landed under that budgeted amount were considered part of a normal electronics business. If we were under the number, each employee received the remaining shrink budget as a bonus – an easy way to pay employees a little something special without actually using extra budget and a brilliant way to keep us as employees cautious and looking for theft. Regardless of what was stolen that year, the budget was always the same.

With all that in mind, this odd group of people arriving at Target was a crazy blast from the past – a concept I had forgotten about and, really, never would have considered again. If not for this. This random meeting, like running into an old friend. Like stumbling upon a reconnaissance mission, filled with questionable people searching for lost merchandise.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Tags: Career, Random |

5 Comments

Steinbeck on Random - 5.22.07

May 22, 2007


It’s been months.

And now, it’s back. Back with a vengeance. For several reasons.

First of all, I’ve created a playlist that has 1000 of my favorite songs. It’s a pure cross section of my collection – there’s at least one song from nearly every artist available. And, it’s all of the best songs, so we wont be surprised by some deep album track I’ve never bothered to listen to.

So, after months, the waiting can stop.

Wait no more. Let’s random this be-otch.

1. Debbie Gibson – “Lost In Your Eyes”
Greatest Hits

Oh God.

How embarrassing. Listen, this is not my song. I swear. In college, Kerrie would sing drunk, loud and proud to this song with her roommates and friends. With that in mind, those same friends ended up giving her this Greatest Hits CD for her birthday. And so, just like that, it ended up on Steinbeck.

It’s my fault, really. I wanted the most complete experience, which meant putting something from EVERY CD on the iPod, and from there, on the 1000 Songs playlist. I just never thought it would come up in public. Oh God.

2. Fragma – “Toca’s Miracle (Radio Edit)”
Toca

Okay. The joke’s up, people. I get it. Steinbeck is taking advantage of my aloneness to rub in every single non-Corey song in the collection. Toca’s Miracle? Really? I mean, this song is so far from my collection that I can barely name the song.

Of course, name it is one thing. Recognize it? I can do that. This isn’t just some crazy House Brit-Dance song – this is, to me, THE House Brit-Dance song, a memory that Kerrie brought back from her trip to England, a single that was popular for just a few months, a track that peaked when Kerrie’s Englishness peaked, while she was at the climax of her Anglophilia. She lived England to its fullest. And I live England through her. And this song helps. I can imagine myself drunk, at Tanner’s Pub, on the tables in a stupor.

So, as dumb as the song may seem, I still feel a little twinge when it comes on.

3. Lily Allen – “LDN”
Alright, Still

Okay, I can admit this song as mine.

Not only is Lily Allen British, and not only is this song a welcome respite AND segue from the previous song, but it’s one of my favorites from the past year. The album as a whole isn’t much of anything. But, the first three songs make up for the rest of it. It gets tired after a while (yeah, you’re against authority and you hate dudes and you swear and it’s great fun because you’re cute and English) but until that “tired’ point, Lily Allen is great fun.

Overall, it’s pop at its greatest. I can’t imagine she’ll do much more, but this is enough for an entire career.

4. Built to Spill – “Carry the Zero”
Keep it Like A Secret

I’ve never seen Built to Spill live. There are three living bands I’d like to see live before I die. Tool. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and Built to Spill.

And here’s the thing – I could have. They opened for Modest Mouse in Minneapolis. And where was I? I was just one hour away, in St. Cloud, a “sort-of” fan of both bands but not yet aware of what I was missing. Instead, I continued my duties as a Resident Advisor, months after I had stopped caring.

With that said, “Carry the Zero” is one of my favorites – it’s got great lyrics, and it’s one of the better first-song album starters.

5. Outkast – “Roses”
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

Hey Ya! is a great song. But I have always like Roses a hundred times better – both for the Prince-esque lyrics and vocals and the mention of poo-poo.

So, yeah. A Grammy was earned for this song alone.

6. Jimmy Eat World – “Opener”
The Emo Diaries: What’s Mine is Yours

Okay. I’ll admit. Before Jimmy Eat World was a viable, superstar, MTV entity (which, after a few months and a few silver looking shirts, dropped off like nothing ever happened), I was a big fan. And, while I liked their Static Prevails album, the true love didn’t start until I heard this song.

This song – the first song on the first Emo Diaries album – the first instance of having a complete compilation set based around the idea of emo music, the complex and ultra-emotional cry-fest that I loved through all of college. Some of it still stands up, and this song is one of them. It’s a cast off from a real album, but it’s one of my favorites, and it makes me proud of supporting the energy and great music that came out of the poppy-emo scene.

7. Elvis Costello – “Shipbuilding”
High Fidelity (Soundtrack)

I love this movie. And I love every song involved therein.

I love Nick Hornby, as much as he’s reviled by the literary community.

So there you go.

8. Jimmy Eat World – “Digits”
Static Prevails

See? If you mention a specific album, Steinbeck will fetch it, bringing it back to you like a dog eager to please, like an automatic vending machine designed to deliver safe and effective products with the push of a button. My little machine brought this to me, thinking I was missing it, thinking I was going without my daily fix of Jimmy Eat World.

The song starts off with an extended instrumental, then blasts into a typical Jimmy Eat World rocker. It is, for the record, one of my three favorite Jimmy Eat World songs (and don’t ask me to rank them… I’m just guessing that there aren’t three JEW songs better.) So it’s fun, all the same, to hear it. Yay for college.

9. Face to Face – “Blind”
Face to Face

I never owned this album. Kerrie brought this into our relationship.

That’s not to say I wasn’t a Face to Face fan. On the contrary – I loved these guys during my EpiFat punk era. I loved the poppy, happy punk rock they executed to a brilliant precision. And, if I had stuck around for an extra album, I’d have placed this album high on my list of favorites.

This song, especially, was one of the best, an often overlooked masterpiece in fast, emotional punk, a song easily remembered and quickly recognized. So well, in fact, that I felt incredibly familiar with it after just a few listens, knowing I’d had already encountered it a few years before.

10. The Doors – “Break On Through”
Greatest Hits

The Doors were a fascination through high school, when I dabbled in what I considered the “Big Four” of classic rock – The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who and The Doors (which is not to contain others that could be included, like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin). So with that, I cling tightly to these songs. And, with age, I find them, for the most part, nostalgic relics.

Except for Pink Floyd and the Beatles. Both bands are beyond good, both in their smartness and their legendry.

Tags: Music, Steinbeck on Random |

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