Aesop in the City

Posted on 31. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles

I love The New Yorker. I’ve recently re-discovered it, and I appreciate the writing as much as the cartoons.

I especially liked this month’s “Aesop in the City” feature by Yoni Brenner. It adapts Aesop’s fables to modern-day New York. Here’s an example:

The Mouse and the Donald

Ambling through Central Park one day, a mouse happens upon Donald Trump, trapped in a hunter’s net. The mouse asks the Donald if he can be of any assistance. “How could you help me?” scoffs the Donald. “I am Donald Trump and you are just a lowly mouse.”

Several years later, the Donald calls the mouse into his office. “Your division underperformed again, Johnson,” says the Donald. “Someone’s gonna have to take the fall.” “But, Donald!” cries the mouse. “Don’t you remember why you hired me? How I nibbled through that net and saved you from the hunters?” The Donald thinks for a moment, then replies, “I don’t remember it that way.”

Moral: Success is fleeting, so keep a paper trail.

I think this would be a great high school writing assignment!

We should have thrown a cast party

Posted on 30. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art, parenting

My son got his cast off today! Hopefully he’ll gain enough movement in his wrist to be able to write once school starts next week. It’ll be another month before he plays soccer, however.

Here’s an anonymous artist’s depiction of my son, before and after:

Even if he can write, it looks like he won’t be able to hear the teacher…

Don’t miss these movies: Catch A Fire, Inside Man and The Puffy Chair

Posted on 29. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in movies

Here are several movies I’ve seen recently that you won’t want to miss:

Catch A Fire

This film is based on the true story of Patrick Chamusso, a black South African who’s wrongly accused of a crime, but is so mistreated that he ultimately joins forces with the African National Congress to bring down apartheid. It stars Derek Luke as the accused, and Tim Robbins as the accuser.

We all liked it more than Tsotsi, which won an Academy Award in 2005, and it sparked some great discussions with the kids.

We Tivo’d it, but you can also see it on DVD.

Inside Man

Clive Owen plans the perfect bank robbery, and it’s up to a police detective played by Denzel Washington and a hired consultant played by Jodie Foster to figure out how to free the hostages and recover the loot.

I confess that until we watched this movie, I’d never heard of it. How can that be? These are all great actors, after all. I’m guessing it’s because it’s hard to describe how wonderful all the twists and turns the movie takes are until you see it.

Our teens also enjoyed watching this one.

The Puffy Chair

It’s a perfect movie for our times: a group of Gen-X’ers take a road trip to North Carolina to pick up a red La-Z-Boy chair one of them purchased on eBay to give to his father for his birthday. This movie is so realistic that I had to click “info” on Tivo several times to convince my husband and daughter it was fiction.

This film has won several independent film awards. My daughter and husband both liked it as much as I did, but my husband was really bugged at the irresponsibility and touch-feelyness of the characters. He says it’s his Midwest sensibilities shining through.

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People who are more special than we are

Posted on 28. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in education, my life

I spent the last two days volunteering at high school registration. I distributed the numbered forms required to start the registration process, and made sure that kids registered at the time assigned to them so that we wouldn’t have a bottleneck at the next station.

A person’s true colors often shine through when they face adversity. I wouldn’t exactly define waiting an extra hour or two to register as an adversity, but there were some people who just couldn’t stand it. I was amazed at the number of people who begged to be the exception to the rule, even though they knew that others right next to them were also denied. There were kids who told my daughter to tell me to let them go early, and there were parents who went to the registration chairperson because they didn’t want the inconvenience of waiting. It was as if they thought they were above the rules, and more special than the others who had to wait.

Of course, most students and parents were quite gracious. They either came when it was their assigned time or politely accepted our explanation as to why they’d have to wait.

These people gained my respect, while I’m afraid to say that the others lost some of my respect.

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Home Goods coming to La Canada. Yippee. Not.

Posted on 26. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in shopping

When the developers of the Sport Chalet complex wanted a variance on one of their buildings last year, I started an email campaign and pleaded with the city council to give it to them since it looked like that variance would probably convince a Borders or a Barnes & Noble to come to our fair city. This week’s La Canada Valley Sun reports that instead of a bookstore, that space will house a Home Goods store.

If you’re not familiar with Home Goods, you might appreciate the following pictures I took today at their Glendora store. If you’ve ever been to Marshall’s, Ross, or TJ Maxx, you’ll find that their merchandise will remind you of the housewares that those stores carry. It’s not surprising, as Home Goods is owned by TJX Companies, which owns TJ Maxx. I tried to have an open mind and an open wallet, but I found absolutely nothing I wanted to purchase.

Even though it’s August, you can already purchase Halloween merchandise at Home Goods. Here’s a happy pirate bear you probably don’t have yet. I wonder what the bear would have sung or said if I’d pressed its paw?

The mascot at my kids’ elementary school was a panther. Too bad I didn’t get this for the school office!

There were many of these torso statues throughout the store. They were scarier than the pirate bear and the panther. The torso must work out at Curves…

I bet these cages would be great for a really big bird. Or a pirate bear.

Too bad I didn’t see these pet beds when I bought one for my dog recently. The cheetah one is really soft. Unfortunately, it doesn’t match my decor.

There’s furniture for every taste at Home Goods. Just not mine, apparently.

I think the only thing my son liked in the store was the candy.

I was disappointed when I first heard that Home Goods was coming to La Canada. I figured there were about 30 stores I’d rather see here instead. Today’s trip confirmed for me that I’m not likely to be a frequent Home Goods shopper.

But when I analyze the situation, there aren’t many other retailers that would fit a space this size that would be much better. The space is too big for a non-chain store. Clearly, a bookstore isn’t coming here, and neither is another sporting goods store. Trader Joe’s could use a larger space, but they don’t need such a tall store. (Does that make sense?) Petco, Nordstrom Rack, Famous Footwear, Cost Plus Imports, Crate & Barrel, Staples, and Office Depot all probably think they have stores too close by already. What does that leave? Can the space be split up?

I look forward to hearing what other tenants are signed on. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a Camille’s or a Daphne’s. Or, my wildest dreams will be fulfilled and Soda Jerks will resurrect itself here. And maybe when Sport Chalet moves into its new store, Whole Foods will decide to build there. Imagine!

Of course, to put this all in perspective, is this is the hot issue in LCF, we’re pretty lucky…

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Breaking news: brush fire in Angeles Forest above Pasadena

Posted on 26. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in environment

My son just took this picture from the 210 Freeway. The fire appears to be at the top of Hill Ave. in Pasadena.

It just started to drizzle, so hopefully that’ll help the firefighting efforts.

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Pasadena Bloggers Picnic: The Official Picture

Posted on 25. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in my life

Many thanks to Debbi at Altadena Above It All for taking this fabuloso picture of the attendees at this afternoon’s Pasadena Blogger’s Picnic.

What’s with all those silly signs???

Hamster wheels and recumbent bikes

Posted on 25. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in health, parenting

My son rode our recumbent bike for over two hours this evening, and “travelled” over 35 miles. He’s trying to stay in shape for soccer season despite his broken arm. I’m happy not to have to worry about him falling off the bike, and he’s happy to watch the tv we set up in front of the bike.

It reminds me of this New Yorker cartoon. Maybe I’ll order the t-shirt for him!

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Pasadena Bloggers Picnic

Posted on 25. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in my life

Just returned from the Pasadena Bloggers Picnic at Singer Park. I met some really neat people, and will include a list of their blogs when it’s emailed to me. Can’t wait for the next picnic!

Two new sites launched: A&A Boltless & Model Mugging

Posted on 25. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in work

I’ve launched two new websites for clients in the past few weeks. The first, A&A Boltless Rack & Shelving, was an especially fun site to design.

David Gwennap took some great pictures, and Debra Doty designed a great logo. Most of the sites in their industry are pretty boring, but I think we found a way to make industrial racks, shelving and ladders look good.

The second site was for Model Mugging, a nationwide women’s self-defense school.

They gave me a logo to work from, but I only had the old, small, black & white pictures from their old site. That made it challenging, but I think I found the right balance of power and femininity.

I’m looking forward to actually meeting some of my clients for the first time at The Reynolds Group picnic tomorrow.

It turns out I could recycle twice as much as I am

Posted on 24. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in environment

I called Athens Waste yesterday to find out what I could recycle, and I was shocked at how many things I could recycle that I’m not. Here’s what I can recycle:

• Plastic: All types, as long as they have a triangle symbol on them. The number doesn’t matter.
• Glass: All colors. Labels are ok, and items don’t need to be rinsed first.
• Metal: Aluminum cans, but not tin (steel) cans. Thank goodness the vet recently switched my dog away from canned food!
• Paper: All types, including newspaper, white paper, colored paper, corrugated cardboard, cereal boxes, phone books, waxed milk cartons and catalogs. We can’t recycle window envelopes, however. The woman I spoke to said that it’s ok to put the paper in a plastic bag; I was concerned that the shredded paper might wind up being confetti all over my street on trash day.

I was inspired to check by Becky, who commented on my recent junk mail posting that I must be kidding that I threw my catalogs in the trash. I had checked on these recycling guidelines several years ago, but clearly things have changed. Now I’ll probably have to get an additional recycling bin!

Check on what you’re able to recycle in your area. Each trash collector has its own guidelines.

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What I want on my headstone

Posted on 23. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in my life

I love this story that I received from my mom:

I got this from a woman online. A friend of hers died who had a great sense of humor and always used to say that when she died she wanted a parking meter on her grave that says “Expired”.  So her nephew got her one on ebay!  She said that her grave is right by the road so everyone can see it and many people have stopped to get a chuckle.

If I die before Windows is obsolete, here’s what my gravestone could say:

In the unfortunate event that this does happen, hopefully one of my loyal blog readers will let my husband / family know about this. They don’t read this blog.

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Lamaze breathing finally comes in handy when the kids are teens

Posted on 23. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in my life, parenting

I didn’t need my breathing exercises when my kids were born, as I wound up wanting/needing an epidural for each of them. But boy, are those techniques coming in handy now that I’m teaching my daughter to drive! She’s a fine driver, but it sure is nerve-wracking teaching her.

Breathe in s-l-o-w-l-y, breathe out s-l-o-w-l-y…

Brainstorm to help people who forget their cloth grocery bags

Posted on 22. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in articles, environment, my life

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve forgotten to bring my cloth grocery bags to the supermarket. If I’m lucky, they’re in the car and I can run out and get them. But there are many times when I completely forget to bring them. This would be a problem in San Francisco, which recently passed a law outlawing plastic checkout bags.

I clearly need to get my act together. But for those times that I don’t, here’s my proposed solution:

Grocery stores should rent out cloth bags. If they charge $1.99 to purchase a cloth bag, they could charge $3.00 to rent one out. Then, when you return it, you get a $3.00 credit. So you wouldn’t get the $.05 that some stores give you when you bring your own bag, but you’d have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped the environment.

I’d probably wind up using this service quite a bit.

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Caltech webmasters blogging forum

Posted on 21. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in technical

Even though I’m not a Caltech webmaster, I thoroughly enjoyed Jill Davis Doughtie’s presentation today about how and why to blog. I’ve mentored clients and some of my church’s ministry partners through the same issues, so it was good to see what points Jill covered. I even learned a few new things!

I’m looking forward to this weekend’s Pasadena blogger’s picnic. I think I’ll be the only one there from La Canada. If you’re a local blogger interested in attending, please contact Jill.

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How many trees were wasted in our mailbox today?

Posted on 21. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in environment

We received eight catalogs and two non-profit solicitations in the mail today. That was it. No letters, no bills. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I received an actual letter. Anyway, it all went straight into the trash. What a waste.

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A great public education isn’t free

Posted on 21. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in education, my life, non-profits

We’re ready for high school registration next week. Thankfully, my daughter likes filling in forms, so I paid her (!) to spend over an hour completing the registration forms for her and her brother. I wrote nine checks totalling $534, and that doesn’t even include the money we already paid to Boosters, our Educational Foundation donations, or the athletic fees we’ll pay once the seasons begin. And it doesn’t include the $194 in school supplies we purchased at Staples yesterday, or the core literature books we’ll purchase soon.

I don’t remember this hassle and expense when I was in high school. As I recall, we paid for yearbooks and pictures (though I never let my parents purchase mine) and that was it. As for school supplies, I got a new blue binder each year to replace the one I doodled on the year before. I never needed a binder for each class like my kids do.

ADDENDUM: Turns out that the registration forms listed the wrong amount for the ASB fee, and we also need to write checks for sports transportation. So, I wrote four additional checks totalling $350 today. Current total: 13 checks totalling $884. OUCH!

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How do you advertise a youth group home?

Posted on 20. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art, non-profits, videos

How would you advertise a youth group home? Because of privacy considerations, you probably can’t picture the kids that live there. Also, it’s a pretty heavy topic, but you don’t want the ad to be negative.

A recent Santa Cruz Sentinel article mentioned talented illustrator Benjamin Arthur, and his breakout animation “.” When I clicked on “More from this user,” I found for Youth Homes, located in Missoula, Montana. It was made using a technique called rotoscoping, a “technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films.”

The ad depicts some of the kids that Youth Homes has helped, and you can hear them telling their compelling stories. It’s very poignant, but upbeat. This sounds like a great organization!

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Want to spoil that movie?

Posted on 19. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in cool websites, movies

My husband’s about 20′ away from me right now, watching “Flight Plan” with Jodie Foster. I’m too busy being productive (except for blogging) to join him, but I was curious to see how the movie ended, so I typed “flight plan ending” into Google. Lo and behold, there’s actually a website called Ruined Endings that lets you know how movies end! Vive les spoilers! If you don’t want to know the ending, but do want to know the plot, the site has most of those too.

I’ll have to remember this for the next time I’m a party pooper, or when I can’t remember how a movie turned out.

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Oy vey! So many new words to me in “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union”

Posted on 19. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in books

If you’re a shiksa like me, then you may appreciate this exhaustive list of definitions of the words I learned from Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.” Actually, I knew some of them already, but I wanted to make sure I understood them correctly. If you have any additions or corrections to the list, please send them my way. There are many words he uses in the book that actually are slang for other things, such as “noz” meaning cop instead of nose, so I may have missed some intended definitions.

I absolutely loved “,” but I’m afraid I didn’t like this book that much. At 400 pages, I think it was twice as long as it needed to be, and I think it skipped around too much. Also, since I don’t speak Yiddish, it was sometimes pretty confusing. All that said, I loved the premise of the book. According to an article in the Rocky Mountain News,

In 1938, President Roosevelt supported a U.S. Interior Department plan to admit Jewish refugees to Alaska to populate the territory’s land. Congress defeated this idea, but in his new novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon imagines that it passed, allowing Jewish immigrants to temporarily settle in Sitka, Alaska (a town on an island southwest of Juneau).

Today’s Sitka is home to fewer than 10,000 people, but in Chabon’s imagining, it became a flourishing metropolis of more than three million Jews and a particularly important outpost, because in this alternate history, the Jews were expelled from Palestine in 1948.

Maybe I’m just not the right target audience for this book. But if you’re reading it and struggling with the words, I hope my word list helps.

Discover which presidential candidate matches your positions

Posted on 19. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in cool websites, politics

Not sure who to vote for in the 2008 presidential election? Or perhaps you’d like to see if the candidate you’re supporting matches your positions?

Then check out Speakout.com’s VoteMatch Quiz. Just answer 20 quick questions, and the site will tell you how well you match all the presidential candidates. When you see your results, you can click to see more detailed information about each candidate.

When I took the quiz, it said I matched Biden slightly more than Obama. But I’m sticking with Obama – I think he’s a stronger leader.

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“It’s time for me to tell you what you’ve done wrong since I last saw you.”

Posted on 18. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in religion, videos

Is your church like ?

Thankfully, mine isn’t. But there were a fair number of people in the audience at Terry McGonigal’s talk at the LCPC church camp who said they grew up in churches or households like this. We should always try to do the right thing and live godly lives, but since we’re sinners, we’ll always fall short. Better to do our best and concentrate on showing God’s love than to get hung up on judging others.

I love it when Christians have a sense of humor – I think laughter is one of God’s greatest gifts. Too bad non-Christians generally have an impression of Christianity as being a humorless, judgmental religion.

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LCPC group hug video

Posted on 17. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in religion, travel, videos

I just returned from the La Canada Presbyterian Church camp at the Mission Springs Conference Center in Scotts Valley, CA. More about that in future posts. In the meantime, please enjoy this of everyone before the group hug this morning.

If you haven’t been to this camp, I HIGHLY recommend it! It’s a great way to get to know fellow church members better, and really feel like you’re a part of the church family. It’s also a great combination of spiritual enrichment and fun vacation. It doesn’t matter your age or your family situation – everyone’s welcome!

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Google Maps tells you how long a trip will take with traffic

Posted on 16. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in travel

Here’s another cool new feature: if there’s traffic.

For example, here’s a screenshot of a potential trip from La Canada to Corona del Mar. I overlaid the Google Maps time estimate. Check out my previous Google Maps post to see how you can change your route by dragging the blue line. If you do it wisely, you’ll see that the estimated traffic time should go down.

What an awful commute that would be!

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Was Christ a mean-spirited bigot?

Posted on 15. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in politics, quotes, religion

While perusing the WikiWorld cartoons for my previous blog post, I noticed that the cartoon of Ann Coulter included the following quote from her:

I’m a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it.

OK, I won’t forget it. But how can she reconcile being mean-spirited and Christian, or bigoted and Christian?

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

1 John 4:20-21

I’m not saying I or anyone else is perfect at loving everyone. But when I’m not, I’m not proud of it.

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Translating Wikipedia into cartoons

Posted on 14. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art, cool websites

I’m a visual learner: I retain more information from illustrations than I do from printed words or speech. That’s why I love Greg Williams’ designs for the Wikiworld Archive. Williams, who’s an illustrator for the Tampa Tribune, has designed cartoons that include information from various Wikipedia pages. His illustration style and wit work perfectly for this application.

Here are two of my favorites:

Pet Skunk

Dr. Seuss

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Retouching turns kids into dolls

Posted on 13. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art, articles, feminism, my life, parenting

The photography studio that takes our school’s class pictures has an option to pay a few extra dollars to have a photo “retouched.” I’ve paid it a few times, figuring that if a stray hair or a blemish is removed, the picture will look much better.

I never imagined that a photo studio would retouch a kid’s photo as much as Pageant Photo Retouching does. You can email a photo to their website, and they’ll do everything from remove drool to add “doll eyes.” Some of the results are downright scary, and the girls (and all the examples they show are girls) wind up looking like porcelain dolls. Here’s one example:

I suppose that if your daughter is in pageants, this must be par for the course. I actually prefer the first picture in this example: although the color is flat, the girl has a more genuine smile.

I shouldn’t be too critical. I’m sure many of us wish we could retouch our driver’s license pictures.

Check out Salon.com for another take on this in “Airbrushing the Baby.”

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Scott Moore lithograph added to art collection

Posted on 12. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art

Thanks to my wonderful client Patricia O’Neil, my husband and some friends and I were able to attend the Laguna Beach Sawdust Art Festival last weekend. It was great to finally meet Patricia, and to see that her work is far more extraordinary in person than in photos. I was so impressed by how three-dimensional her house tiles are that I’m going to order one of our house!

My husband purchased a Scott Moore lithograph (pictured below) for his office. The office is located on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena, which is part of the legendary Route 66. (“Get your kicks…”) He has a Nelson De La Nuez painting that’s got a Route 66 theme, so this California Highways lithograph, with its reference to the Rose Bowl, fits in perfectly. I love how Moore uses collages to play with scale in his paintings. I liked all of his work. (Note: The actual art looks much better and brighter in person.)

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Creating beauty from Hurricane Katrina’s destruction

Posted on 11. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in art, environment

Instead of tearing out the formerly majestic oaks which lined Route 90 in Biloxi, MS, a chain saw artist transformed these symbols of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction into beautiful art.

See more pictures.

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Girls gone mild instead of wild

Posted on 10. Aug, 2007 by kchristieh in feminism, parenting, religion

If you’re a woman, and especially if you’re the mother of a teenage girl, you can appreciate how difficult it is to dress attractively and yet modestly. There’s actually a group called Pure Fashion which has guidelines which define modest dress. Other than the four-finger rule, I think my daughter and I do pretty well in following them. (Though it’s easier for me to find cute, modest clothes than it is for my daughter.)

I believe that standards of modesty are culturally-based. Clearly, our lack of a veil would render us completely immodest in many Middle Eastern countries. The fact that we insist upon wearing bathing suit tops makes us more modest than many Europeans.