A New Home on the Web

All the cool kids are doing it, and darn it, I want to be cool, too!

After 73 posts on Blogger, my blog has moved to a new location:

http://moopdog.vox.com/

Vox is much more reliable than Blogger, and has many cool functions, including video and audio playback. I'll continue to post sports-related stuff on Bang the Drum Slowly.

San Francisco, Part II

Before we made the trip out west, I brought home a DVD from the library that featured San Francisco. It was a Globe Trekker episode (Jenny's favorite travel show). It was from a few years back, but it gave us some ideas of neat things to check out.

Near the end of the episode, the host joined in a Crtitical Mass bike demonstration. Steve had told me about a similar massive bicycle protest that's often held in Portland. (I guess they're actually held all over the world, and originated in San Fran.) Basically, a ton of cyclists get together, and bike as a huge group, intentionally blocking traffic as they go. Fighting for bike advocacy seems to be the main purpose. Here's a Wikipedia article, a Critical Mass Web page, and a SF Gate article, if you want to learn more. After watching the DVD, Jen and I both had the same thought- how cool would it be to witness that?

After Matt and I got back from our mountain bike ride (which I wrote about a couple weeks ago), we showered, and got ready to head out to dinner. Since there were six of us, Matt, Meredith, and I got in one cab, while Joy, Jen, and Erika rode in a second cab. On the way to Enrico's, our guy took us through a tunnel. Wrong choice. We got halfway through, and traffic came to a halt. As we were sitting there, I saw someone on a bicycle up ahead. No way- could this be it?

When it became apparent that we weren't going to be moving for a while, I started lobbying for us to get out and walk- we were only a few blocks from the restaurant. Both Matt and Mer thought it would be mean to ditch the cabbie. The meter was running, and we weren't moving. After a couple minutes, they agreed, and we hopped out, and finished the tunnel on foot.


As we came out of the tunnel, there were hundreds of bicyclists on the road. Just when the light was going to turn green, a few would stop immediately in front of the first cars waiting for the light to turn, and stop. There was some honking and cursing, but the motorists couldn't really do anything. After a few minutes, the group moved on to a different part of town, and the cars once again owned the road. I just wish I could have been riding in it...

Librarians! Your personal travel agents

I think it's great that lots of people come to the library to use our computers. However, more and more companies are scaling back on in person & telephone customer service, and simply telling people to "go to the library and use a computer."

Many of the people come in, and ask us how to transfer money between bank accounts, book flights, buy retail...

I've helped two different people recently who came in to book flights on Northwest. The first woman was told to go to the library, because it would be cheaper online. The second woman was told she'd have to book online to get travel insurance (which isn't true- I found a toll-free number). If people were skilled Internet users, this wouldn't really be an issue. However, many are clueless when it comes to computers, but the person on the phone says "they can help you at the library." People come in expecting us to know how to navigate every Web page in existence, and many of them have no desire to learn how to do it themselves- they simply want us to do the work for them.

Sure, we can help. But it's not part of my job to sit down with you for 30 minutes, and book flights for your upcoming trip to Seattle. It's really a shame that companies have completely abandoned the concept of excellent customer service. They cut costs all over the place, but the product still costs the same.

Rough start to the weekend, great finish

After work on Thursday, Jen and I thought it might be nice to go grab a bite to eat somewhere with outside seating. Since we hadn't been there in a while, we chose the Chatterbox Pub. Thus began a 12-hour string of misadventures and blunders. These events probably don't quite rival Joy's recent awful day, but it was a bad way to start a holiday weekend.

A waitress came by and took our order. When Jen ordered a veggie burger, she informed us that the "fryer is down," so french fries were not an option. D'oh! I'm rarely in the mood for fries, but this was one of those times. I ordered a spinach-artichoke dip and a veggie wrap instead. Five minutes later, the waitress returned, and the exchange went like this:

Chatterbox Waitress: You can't get a veggie burger, because the fryer's not working.
Jon: You guys deep fry your veggie burgers?!?!?
CW: Yep.
Jon: Whoa. That's weird!
CW: Hm. [Waiting, with pen in hand, for Jen to order]
Jenny: I'm going to need a menu.
CW: They can do chicken, instead.
Jenny: That's not going to work. I'm a vegetarian.
CW: Oh.

Jen looks over the menu, and notices that the grilled cheese comes with a cilantro-pumpkin seed pesto. Yum! A little while later, we overhear another server explaining that one of the substitution choices for the fries is roasted red pepper mashed potatoes. That sounds good! Too late to change it, though...

After a fairly lengthy wait, we get our food. There's no pesto on the grilled cheese, and it looks like they simply toasted the bread, then put some shredded cheese in between slices. The stuff was hardly melted at all. At this point, we just wanted to finish dinner, and get home, so we could pack for our weekend in Ely. (On the bright side, my cole slaw was the best I've ever had- plenty of cumin.)

Immediatley after finishing our food, our slightly wobbly table jerks violently in one direction, causing Jenny's nearly full glass of beer to topple. Some of the beer spills onto her, and the rest pours off the side of the table, directly into her purse. About 16 ounces of beer splashes all over everything inside. The small pocket holding her cell phone is filled to the top. We move quickly, getting everything out of the purse, trying to dry everything off. The cell phone didn't work for about 10 hours, so we thought it was fried. After some scrubbing and Febreeze, there's no evidence of the mishap.

My day Friday morning began with plunging a toilet, packing for Ely, and then making coffee. One problem- I forgot to put the coffee grounds into the filter. After leaving for work, I was pretty certain that our weekend was doomed, but we had a good drive up to Ely, and a great couple days enjoying the trees and lakes of northern Minnesota. Jen wrote about it on her blog, complete with pictures.