Funny website

Just came across this website: Overheard in New York. Very funny stuff on there, and what makes this city great.

Back to work...

Today is my first day back at work after a week off. There is nothing worse than the first day back at work after vacation. I got into the office at about 8:30 (thank you, NJ Transit for the lovely train delays) and opened my inbox. Uh oh. 375 new emails awaited me. Not sure how many of you out there are familiar with Lotus Notes, but unread messages have red text in the inbox. My inbox looked like Lizzie Borden had spent the night. For the next 7 hours I was an email machine. I did little else but read and respond to emails. I am now mostly caught up, but my to-do list is a little longer and I have about 30 pages of documents that I'm planning to read on the train home tonight. Now that it's 4:30, I can finally start on the work I had planned to do today.

One bright point was walking to the bank at lunchtime, there was some woman on the corner of 42nd and Madison handing out leaflets advertising "Emergency Typing Services." I got a laugh out of thinking what constitutes a typing emergency. Holy Keyboard Batman! If we don't type this memo immediately all of Gotham will be destroyed! Maybe it's last minute typing for papers that are due, but it still seems to me any time saved by having your work typed by what I'm assuming are very fast typists would be more than made up for by the time to send your work to the typist, as well as the time to actually write out what you want typed. Maybe I'm missing the point. I don't know.

Oh, and let me tell you how uncomfortable NYC is when it's hot out. According to weather.com, it's 85 degrees today in the Big Apple, which means it's about 400 degrees in the subway. Needless to say I wasn't feeling so fresh when I got to work this morning. Oh well. Only 3 or 4 more months of this and it will start to cool off.

Natalie Portman is a gangsta rapper

Now I've got to say right off the bat that I am a big fan of Natalie Portman. You know how we all have that one celebrity that we would drop everything for? Well she is that person for me. So this may be biased, but when I found this clip of one of the bits from her appearance on SNL a few months back, I nearly fell off the chair from laughing so hard. You can judge for yourself, but I think it's clearly one of the best bits SNL has put on in a long time.

Fired for blogging, or something else?

I was watching the show Penn & Teller's Bullsh-t on Showtime the other night, and they mentioned the story of a former Delta Air Lines flight attendant who allegedly was fired because the company found out she had a blog and had posted personal pictures of herself in uniform on it. The company determined the pictures were inappropriate and fired her. Now Penn and Teller (who I normally like) suggested that this was completely ridiculous, that how should a company be able to fire you for posting pictures of yourself on the internet. The flight attendant (the self coronated "Queen of Sky") also has played this angle, and has parlayed the experience into TV appearances and a book deal. Take a look at the pictures in question here. I don't think the flight attendant is as innocent as she is made out to be.

Take the first picture. Now, I have spent my fair share of time in airplanes, both Delta and other carriers, and I have never seen a flight attendant uniform that is low cut enough that it would "accidentally" expose the wearer's bra, as Queen of Sky claims is the case in this picture. Flight attendants spend a lot of time bent over to offer you drinks and meals, and none of them that I've interacted with have exposed themselves in the process. The other pictures, save for maybe the last picture, are also somewhat suggesting.

Now on to my point. What does it matter? Shouldn't we all be free to post pictures of ourselves (clothed, naked or otherwise) on the internet? Doesn't the first amendment guarantee of freedom of expression protect us? The answer is generally yes. However, I'd have to believe that what really got Delta hot under the collar wasn't that one of their flight attendants was posting pictures that could be considered sexual, but rather that she was doing it in a company uniform, on company property (the plane). I think companies have every right to say how their employees must behave while representing the company, and have every right to punish employees who act in a manner the company believes is inappropriate while on company property or while wearing clothing that identifies them as an employee of the company. Would anyone think it wrong if a hypothetical Disney employee was fired for telling a kid to "F--k off" while wearing the Mickey Mouse costume? Now if the Queen of Sky were fired for posting pictures of herself in her apartment and not in a Delta uniform, I'd line up right behind her to defend her first amendment right to express herself. However, my hunch is she new what she was doing, knew the pictures were inappropriate, and knew what the repercussions could be. Unfortunately, in our celebrity-obsessed culture, she's another person who is famous just for being famous, and is taking advantage of her 15 minutes through the book deal and TV appearances.

Guilty as Charged

Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, the former CEO's of Enron, were found guilty yesterday of almost all charges against them. There is a good chance that if the convictions are upheld on appeal, both men will die in prison. Hopefully, with the end of this trial, we can turn the page on this particularly bad chapter in corporate history and move forward. In the five years since this all started, the people who were behind the improprieties and fraud were punished, but unfortunately many innocent people were also hurt. I think it's particularly fitting that Lay and Skilling's defense of "I didn't know what was going on" didn't work. Hopefully this will serve as a reminder to all of us that we are responsible not only for what we do, but also for what we allow to happen through our inaction. When he was mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani had a small sign on his desk that said "I am RESPONSIBLE." Maybe if Lay and Skilling had a similar sign on their desk (and belief in their head) they wouldn't be heading to prison, Enron would still be a major energy company, and Arthur Andersen would still be one of the world's leading accounting firms.

Ahh...Vacation

Well, after three especially tough weeks at work, I am taking a week off this week. And let me tell you, this is the first time in my career where I really felt like I needed a break to recharge and decompress. I haven't had a real vacation since last Thanksgiving and in the past 2 weeks I've slept in my own bed only 5 nights and have been in three different countries (with very different time zones). I needed a break. I needed some time for my body to figure out what time zone I'm in.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks. As I mentioned in my last post, I traveled to Athens two weekends back. Just this past weekend I was in Vancouver for a friend's wedding. Last Thursday I became an uncle for the first time when my sister had her baby. I'm not going to steal the thunder from her and my brother-in-law, so you'll have to check out the baby's website at Baby Shetler for the full scoop. Nevertheless, I will say that my nephew Dylan is a very good looking kid (and more importantly a healthy kid)and I'm looking forward to meeting him. His mom and dad are doing well too.

There are many good stories from my travels over the past few weeks, but most are from my short trip cross continent to our neighbor to the north. I'll cover a few here. Even though this will be a long post, it'll make up for my recent absence. Note that I've changed the names to protect the innocent.

The Funniest Book I've Ever Read
My flight back from Vancouver included a 3 hour stopover in Minneapolis/St. Paul because I'm an idiot and can't read a flight schedule when I got the tickets. On the flight from Vancouver to Minneapolis, I had finished the (600 page) book I had bought in Newark before my flight to Vancouver so I needed to find a new book. I look around the airport bookstore and stumble upon a book called I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max. I read the back cover and think it'll be amusing enough to occupy me for the next 5 hours (3 in MSP and 2 in the air to Newark). I was wrong. This book didn't amuse me; it made me laugh to the point of tears. To summarize, and without doing the book any justice, the book is all about the author's experiences with his friends and with various questionably-moralled girls that he meets. (Shameless plug, you can read a lot of the stories in the book at www.tuckermax.com) Now anyone that knows me knows that when I start laughing: a) it's very hard for me to stop, and b) it doesn't take much to get me started laughing again. So here I am, nearly hysterical from this book, when I happen to look over at what the passenger next to me is reading. No joke, the middle-aged man next to me is reading Algebra for Dummies. That was all I needed. I take one look at his book and, due to a combination of already being on the verge of laughter and a sense of intellectual superiority (I got a 5 on the Calculus AP exam), I start laughing and look away, but not before I notice the dirty look he was giving me. Oh well, I don't fly to make friends.

Me and the Tree-Hugging Hippie
I met my friend "Joe", whose wedding I was attending, while both of us were participating in a program in Washington DC two summers ago. We became close and kept in touch in the time since we left. Of the people at the wedding, I knew him, his fiance/wife ("Julie") and a mutual friend that had also participated in the Washington DC program ("Bob"). Needless to say, there are a lot of people at the wedding I didn't know. At dinner, I am seated at a table with other co-workers of Joe and Julie (Bob was in the wedding party), and make pleasant small talk. They are nice people. After dinner, I am having a drink and talking to Bob and a couple I had been sitting with at dinner when Joe's mom approaches (I had met her earlier in the day during the reception). She puts her arm around my shoulder and says, "I'm going to break this group up. FinanceBoy, there's someone I'd like for you to meet." Uh-oh. I don't have a good track record with the women that my friends have set me up with - and here I'm being set up by Joe's mom that I had just met. Adding to this foreboding is the fact I've spent the past several hours scoping the room, and gather that there are not many attractive women there that aren't a) married or b) with a date. By the time my brain has had time to process all of this, I am facing Joe's father with a woman about my age. I have seen her earlier in the day. She is attractive except...well, I'm not sure how many of you have seen Family Guy, but you know how they portray the British in that show with very large front teeth and enough of an overbite so that their front teeth don't quite fit in their mouths? Yeah, I'm that shallow. So Joe's mom suggests that the girl and I dance and I find myself leading the girl to the dance floor. I may be shallow but I'm not rude enough to turn this girl down to her face. I introduce myself and ask her what her name is. She says something, but I can't quite make it out over the music. Not a good start. We dance, and in making dance conversation, I ask what she does. She says she's a grad student at UC-Berkeley. I can feel a very Cartman-like dislike of hippies waking up inside of me. I ask what she's studying, and she tells me Environmental Science, specifically studying air pollution. I move the conversation to the more neutral territory of music. This was a smart move, as it avoided some inevitable disagreements, which most likely would have been instigated by my use of the term "tree-hugging hippie". She and I danced a few more times over the course of the reception and had a good time, making the obligatory promise that we would look each other up if we found ourselves in each other's city. Ironically, she was one of the few who did not make a crack about President Bush (I was the only American in attendance and therefore people felt the need to talk politics with me). I can't say the same for the subject of my next story.

Me and Stifler's Mom
At one point of the night, Bob and I were catching up over drinks and I leave to take a biology break. When I return, I see Bob talking to an attractive woman. I had seen her earlier with a kid, but dismissed the thought since there was a lot of family around and it could have not been hers. I file this thought under "obvious foreshadowing". Since they are one on one, I decide to hang back and leave them alone, but then Bob calls me over and introduces me to the woman, Liz, who is a cousin of Joe's (the groom). Now that I am closer, I notice that Liz is older than us, probably mid 30s. We talk for a few minutes, when Liz calls over her sister Jen. Her older sister. I assume the wingman position and make small talk with Jen while Bob and Liz talk. Here's a tip for all the ladies out there: Do not try to impress a guy by talking about something that you don't have a clue about. Especially if the topic about which you know nothing is the guy's profession. He will notice that you know nothing, and it will disgust him. Jen talks for a good 5 minutes about some international stock exchange (which doesn't exist), and how apparently her ex-boyfriend was trying to list a company on this (fictitious) exchange, but it was only to avoid regulation and defraud investors, and how Canada Pension was investing hundreds of millions of dollars in shady investments, and how people without a lot of money don't stand a chance (I'm not making any of this up - this accurately represents the course of our conversation). I am rapidly losing interest. Adding to this was the fact that every minute or so, she would introduce me to another of her relatives (which wouldn't have been so bad - except the nieces and nephews I met were only 5-7 years younger than I am). Just as I am about to stab myself in the eye with my drink stirrer, Jen and I both notice that Bob and Liz are making their way to the dance floor. Jen asks if I would also like to dance and, since I am obligated to stick with Bob by the Top Gun rule (never, NEVER leave your wingman) I follow Jen to the dance floor. As I am dancing with Jen, I begin to realize a few things:

• Jen is easily 40 years old
• The child I saw Liz with earlier IS her child
• Liz is very much into my friend Bob
• Bob has now realized what is going on, and that the woman he is dancing with is interested in him but 1) is significantly older than him and 2) has a kid already
• Jen is very much trying to talk her way into going back to my hotel with me
• Jen is not very intelligent, as evidenced by the following conversation:

Jen: So how do you and Joe know each other?

Me: We met when we both were working in Washington DC

Jen: Oh, you both were in that program?

Me: Yeah, we were there for 5 months together and got to be friends.

Jen: Oh that's nice. Joe must be pretty smart, eh? (She is Canadian)

Me: WHAT?!

Jen: Joe - he must be pretty smart to work where he does and to do that program.

Me: (stunned) Yeah....he's really smart.

At this point, my brain had had enough. Who asks someone they've just met whether their cousin is smart? Plus, besides the above conversation, she had already told me about the fictitious stock exchange, had made fun of President Bush and questioned the intelligence of those that would vote for him (NB: I am one of the tens of millions of Americans that fit into that category), and had filled me in on several of her loser ex-boyfriends. My only thought was: Eject...Eject...Eject. I could see that Bob is also looking for an escape plan. I tell Jen I need to use the washroom and before she can say anything I am off. Bob is not far behind me. On the way to the washroom (I really did need to go) I run into Joe and tell him "Joe, your two cousins are rather friendly." He laughs and says "Yeah, they're very friendly." I spend the rest of the night alternating between staying out of Jen's sight and making a point of dancing with the Hippie (whose name I had discreetly found out from Joe's mom) where Jen could see us.

There are more stories, but I think that's enough for now.

Jetlag blues

Well it's been awhile since I posted, mostly because I've been travelling or preparing to travel for the past few weeks. I just got back from Athens, Greece yesterday afternoon and am now suffering from a pretty bad case of jetlag. There's a seven hour time difference between the eastern US and Athens, so it's a pretty noticable difference. I've found the best way to overcome jetlag is to just force yourself onto the time where you're located, but it's easier said than done. When I went to Athens, it wasn't that bad. I took an overnight flight, connecting in Frankfurt, and landed in Athens in the early afternoon local time. By the time 10-11pm came around, I was exhausted from the trip and so, even though it was mid-afternoon to my body, I was tired enough to fall asleep. By the time I woke up the next morning, I had pretty much adjusted to the new time zone. Things didn't go quite as smoothly when I got home.

I left Athens at 9am local time (2am New York time) and landed back in the US at 2:30pm. I got home, unpacked, spent an hour or so dealing with the emails that had come in while I was on the plane (since it was a workday) and had dinner. I forced myself to stay awake until 9:30pm, so that I would hopefully adjust just as quickly to New York time. Not so much. I woke up this morning at 4am and was wide awake. I can only imagine I'll begin to get a little tired around 4 or 5 this afternoon. The worst part is I'm only in town for a few days and leave for a weekend in Vancouver on Friday, so I'm sure when I return on Monday, my body will have no idea what time it is.