Food

Food can be a great source of pleasure and joy. When I think of it an image comes to mind that connects with my taste buds and the aroma of that meal...

Driving along the coast road on a chilly and breeze Mid-october afternoon in Bretagne, France, we stopped along the road in one of the simple restaurants in front of the ocean.

Simple indeed in its architecture the restaurant is where fishermen bring their seafood catch every morning. The infinite assortment of oysters, mussels, shrimps, lobster....you name it, was impressive. This bounty was displayed in big, thick baskets and garnished with the gifts of the ocean. The smell or the sea and seaweed made the seafood look even more apetizing. Our selection was placed in a large tray on crushed ice with slices of lemmon. A chilled bottle of crisp white wine complemented the feast. Even today I can recreate in my mind all the wonderful sensations I experienced.

Today I'm at a client's house in Miami waiting for some deliveries. It was lunch time and I went to one of the chain restaurants that sell sandwiches, etc. nearby. I ordered (and eat, which is even worst) one of the worst-tasting and looking panini in my life. Described as a grilled chicken Tuscan panini (it should actually be panino in correct Italian, no panini: one panino, two panini) it was a microwaved piece of plastic chicken, a slice of melted Kraft "cheese", two slices of rubberized bacon and a cup of BBQ sauce, pressed between two pieces of pale and depressing imitation ciabatta bread. I guess it was, in its own way also a memorable meal.

So much so that I'm writing about it

Ughhhhhhh! Annnnnoying!

The dream machine

The dream machine

We all dream. Not all of us remember what we dream but we do dream.
I dream in technicolor and high definition! How about you?

The issue is what comes next. Let's say I'm having a great dream ...I'm on an island, at the beach, with turquoise warm waters......you get the picture, right? I wake up with a beatific smile on my face and a sense of peace and happiness and I want to stretch those images for a while. What annoys me is that the fabric of my dream starts unraveling in my mind as I regain consciousness and after a few seconds I can't remember what I was dreaming.

It gets even worst when I have a "serious" dream. The type of dream that I know has a meaning, that moves me, that has a connection with something deep inside me. I want to remember it. I want to come back to it and analyze it, find the meaning.

Sometimes I remember it when I wake up but the images are so fragile that fall like sand between my fingers.

why, oh why...

I have made a point to have a note pad next to my bed to write my dreams, but ever since the dreams elude me. I'm starting to reprogram my mind so that I remember. In the meantime dreaming has become... another little annoyance

Password?

How many times a day do you need to enter your user name and password to log in a site?

And in how many new sites do you have to register per week?

In my case I've counted 55 different websites I' m registered with. That means that I have many, and I mean many passwords or combination of elements to make them different enough.

Some sites require numbers, capital letters, eight characters, etc.

A friend of mine said to me that he has only one!!! That's easier, but what about hacking? I don't know why anyone would like to hack my accounts, but it has already happened to me, so I have a lot of combinations of elements to make my passwords.

I decided to write them all down. Most of the times I have to look them up. But at times I'm hyper-confident and trust my memory. If I'm lucky, it works right away. When not, I get really frustrated: I forgot the capital letter, it was the wrong combination of user name and password, or I forget that they required that I change the password 13 days ago.

Weren't computers supposed to make life easier???

I know, I' dating myself. I'm a pre-computer dinosaur

Love peanuts?

I don't like peanuts and I tell you why. Listen to what happened to me recently. I had ordered some stuff on line. I was awaiting the shipment since it was for one of my projects. Finally UPS comes with a fairly large box. I was surprised because I had ordered several small items. I concluded that everything should had been consolidated in one shipment.

I open the box and it's filled with green peanuts!

I'm not talking edible peanut here, I'm talking packing peanuts: that annoying peanut shaped foam stuff that clings to everything! So I had to "dive" into that tub of peanuts like a kid in one of those pools filled with multicolor balls but without the fun.

Let's think logically, I said to myself. I don't want that stuff all over my office floor but I have to make sure that I find all the small pieces I ordered. So I picked a plastic trash bag to start scooping the peanuts into the bag, right? Wrong. The plastic bag and the peanuts suffer of "too much attraction". They are statically charged and start attaching to the inside and the outside the plastic bag.

I decided to move the operation outside the office, next to the trash can, thinking that it would be easier to dispose of them. My guilt was killing me with the recycling and all that stuff but, I just don't like those peanuts.

The next attempt to scoop them out was worst than the first. IT WAS WINDYYYYY!

I had to run around like a maniac behind every peanut that floated happily away from me. After scooping them all out I was still missing one part. I had to do it twice until I had all my pieces.

No more peanuts, please

Brrrr!!!

Many of us have to go from time to time through long hours of seating for a whole weekend in a hotel meeting room during some type of seminar, be it a continuing education course, a preparation course for an exam, a training course or a working session.

Last weekend I took an interesting seminar. Saturday and Sunday from 9 am through 7pm. As interesting and engaging as it was, we all had to endure what I call the "battle of the thermostat". Boy, it was cold...Brrrrrrrr!!!!

Having been at both ends of the room, as an instructor and as a student, it's almost impossible to find the perfect temperature. While the instructor is active talking, moving around and thinking on his or her feet, students are just seating still fighting sleep. So right there there is a difference in temperature perception.

The bigger the room and the larger the group, the most difficult it is to reach the ideal temperature. While the front of the room is cold, the back is worm and vice-versa. He best suggestion is to go to those sessions dressed like an onion, in layers.

Stripping down and dressing up will keep you busy and distracted, especially if the course is mandatory or boring and you'd rather be doing something else. It is also an opportunity to show your fashion sense, by combining many pieces of clothing and accessories to protect yourself against extreme temperature conditions. So go ahead and be creative...

Word crutches

You now?, I'm starting to kind of writing this post, you know, and it's like trying to say something, you know?, that at the end of the day sort of makes you feel like, you know?, you said a lot but not really, you know?.

Would you use crutches to walk if you don't need to?

Why then do people use so many word crutches to speak?

It's a trend, I know. But an ugly one, like many of the horrible shoes ladies are using these days. The shoes make them look like they have swollen feet and the word crutches sound so repetitive, like someone's banging your head everytime you hear them: bang, bang, bang.

We do it unconsciously, like we do many other things. But for communication's sake, let's try to talk with a continuous flow of words to make communicating among us more pleasant. Maybe we could even get to try and listen to one another and put our heads together to get out of the confrontation mode we are all immersed in. Huh?

The world at your fingertips

It's been a while since my last posting. Life became a "big" little annoyance for a while. Too many things that didn't go as desired: Expectations weren't met, efforts weren't compensated, etc. At the end of the day (this is one of the verbal crutches that annoy me) it's all in ourselves. The river of life goes back to its course, or we get easily used to its new course. Whichever way it is, we go from one side of the river to the other without drowning.

It all goes well until your video on demand system doesn't work!

I know, I know. It sounds so vain, so empty, right?... Video on demand! Is that the worst thing that can happen to us? No, it is not, but it is one of those you can joke and laugh about.

It all started a lazy Sunday night: Preparing for the Sunday-syndrome night sleep one wants to unplug and immerse oneself in an easy viewing movie.

So, resigned to pay $6.99 for the privilege of watching a movie all for me, and nobody else, I pressed the button: SELECT.  NO WAY BACK!!! I Own it!!!

Ten minutes into the movie a window pops-up: "An error has occurred. Message SRM8114". Go Figure!!!!

It has happened before, so I unplug the cable box, and count to 20. Plug it back again. Wait 3 minutes. It's coming back...It's back... Go back to one screen, then the next, and the next. Here comes the movie,,, No. Not again. Message SRM8114.

Now is the moment to call the cable company. I dial it and get an upbeat music with all the offers for movies, games, etc. Then comes the first menu. I press 2, then the second menu, I press 4, then the third menu. At that point I press 0 and start yelling: Agent!, Representative!, Agent!

More music. This time more mellow..."Do you know that you can check your problems on line?"... More music.

Thank God for speaker phones. 18 minutes later, Shelly answers with her melodyc voice and her well rehearsed speech. "Thank you for calling Comcast. This is Shelly... How can I help you tonight?"

I go on explaining my frustration just to hear her ask me for my account number, my wife's social security number's last four digits, my password, my pin number and the answer to the secret question we selected two years ago when we opened the account!

All alarms go off. I don't know where all that information is. I want to watch my movie. That's all I know and that's all I want.

Shelly patiently helps me go through all the hurtles. She assures me that she's going to help me solve my problem and that she's really sorry for the inconvenience. All she needs to start is the serial number of the cable box. It should be in the back of the box on a sticker with a bar code.

I sit on the floor and start pulling out the cable box. There are fifteen cables behind it, all tangled up. I can barely turn the box 90 degrees. I am finally able to take a peek at the back of the box to discover not one, but five stickers with bar codes.

She needs the number that starts with MSN. The numbers are reeeeeally small and it's dark inside the cabinet. I start calling my wife, asking her to get me a flash light. All this time Shelly is waiting and I get all flustered and sweaty.

The flashlights that are where they're supposed to be have no batteries. Ten minutes later, here come the flashlight. I locate the number on the sticker. It is, as expected, the last sticker in the farthest corner of the back of the box. I read the number for Shelly four times until she gets it right.

Please unplug the box, she says.

NO, I say. I already did and it doesn't do anything. We argue back and forth and she says that she's going to send a "refresher signal" to my box. That will live me without "on-demand" for half an hour, but she assures me that everything is going to be fine after that.

It's too late now and I decide to go to bed. I'll watch the movie tomorrow.

Well, tomorrow is not much better: back to square one! This time it's not Shelly, but Shoshanna. We do the same dance. Same questions, same answers, but this time I refuse to go down and pull the box to give her the number. Shelly didn't write it in her report. Of course she understands that I'm frustrated. Of course it shouldn't happen, but she can not credit me the $6.99 for the movie I didn't see. I had a full 24 hours to watch it and I didn't.

More refreshing signals and reprogramming vibrations!. I have to wait again for the signal to come back. Another night without the movie.

One week later, here I am talking this time with Amy. She seems to know what she's talking about. I'm optimistic. She's making all kind of noises with the keyboard and asking the same questions that, by know, I know the answers for by heart. I even learned my wife's whole SS Number and who her favorite actor is (the answer to the secret question).

I'm able to convince Amy at this point that I'm so frustrated that she has to send a technician to solve the problem. She puts me on hold to get the appointment and....guess what....we get disconnected!!!!!!!!

AAAAgghhhhhh!!!! I'm going to kill someone!

One final phone call and I get Tony (from Bangalore, India...) on the phone. I yell at Tony. Scream, threaten to take my business somewhere else, and end up answering the same set of questions. This time, though, I get the appointment with the technician for the next day, get my $6,99 credit and get to lower my monthly bill $50.

I went to bed relieved. Got the TV box repaired earlier today and here I am writing this post, rather than watching a movie I'm not interested in watching any more.

So is life.....