Thursday, 10/31

Well, I made it, just under the wire. I managed to watch “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” before Halloween actually occurred.

I'm so proud of myself.

As you may recall I was mentioning last week that I seem to have become a Halloween Scrooge, in that I don't dress up, I don't give out candy, I don't decorate, and I don't go to parties. In fact, the only Halloween tradition I do seem to have is a yearly viewing of “Pumpkin” assuming, of course, I can find the DVD. Well, I found it, I popped it in, and I watched it, continuing my one Halloween tradition. Unless, of course, you count my saying the lines along with the cartoon characters as a tradition while Loraine laughs and/or rolls her eyes in the next room. Then I have two traditions.

I say the lines along with the characters because I've seen the cartoon what...50 times in my life? And after you watch it that many times you tend to know what's coming up next. In fact, it's so bad that I bought a soundtrack CD for the show last year. All it has it the background music as it's presented in the show. Listening to it the first time I was actually saying the lines as the music cues came through the speakers.

And if you think Loraine rolls her eyes when I do that while watching the cartoon, you should have seen her when I was doing it while listening to the CD!

But now that's done, and that means that my one Halloween tradition for the year is complete. Although, if I'm being totally honest, I'm hoping to revive another one later today. When they were young, my sister used to bring her daughters over to show me their costumes. Because they're now in their 20s it's been awhile since that occurred. But now, my brother has two sons, aged 3 and 1. And guess who's coming to the station later today to show Uncle Jimmy their matching Hobbit costumes?

So there you go. Maybe I'm not quite as much of a Halloween Scrooge as I thought. On that note, have yourself a great Halloween. If you dress up, I hope you win an award. If you give out candy, I hope you get hundreds (or just a few, if you enjoy eating all the left over chocolate you have). All in all, I just want to say--

Happy Pumpkin Day!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 10/30

They’re still doing that sale, huh?

I noticed over the weekend that a local furniture store is continuing their long tradition of doing a “Homemaker Sale”, the central premise of which is that female homemakers need to spend money on new furniture before their husbands take all of that money and spend it on deer hunting. I don’t know exactly when or how this sale started, but it has always struck me as, well, weird, and that’s just not because I’m a guy who doesn’t deer hunt.

It just doesn’t seem right.

I mean, setting aside the fact that the premise of the sale is that the “man” is the hunter and the “woman” is the homemaker (in my little world, at least, those roles are often reversed), there just seems to be something strange about the central relationship dynamic that this sale is hoping to exploit. Are there actually couples out there in which one member, when they have extra money for things like hunting and/or new furniture, will try to spend the money either without the knowledge of their spouse or before their spouse gets to spend it on whatever they want? I know that I never buy anything big (especially furniture or a hunting camp) without first discussing it in depth with Loraine, and I would never certainly try to buy something before Loraine tried to buy something else, just to get it first.

That’s not what a real relationship is like, is it? Or am I just living in some sort of bizarre otherworld where people in a relationship actually respect each other? When I see something based on a premise like this sale, I kinda hafta wonder. I know I’m not a “normal” kind of guy, but I would be saddened to think that there are guys, that there are couples out there like that.

Now I know the concept behind the sale is merely fun; that the furniture store is just trying to move a few extra sofa-sleepers, and the fact that they keep doing it must mean that it’s been successful for them. So maybe I’m over-reacting. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened, after all. But every time I see a TV spot or print ad for this particular sale, those are the thoughts that run through my head.

Well, that, and the thought that I need to stop watching TV and reading newspapers for a while, especially when one ad seems to have this effect on me.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 10/29

Yes, I was serious yesterday when I wrote about enjoying a dark chocolate bar with blackberries & sage. Don't believe me?

One, it's chocolate, so I wouldn't kid about that, and two, it's sage & blackberry, so I wouldn't kid about that either. But that got me to thinking, which we all know is a dangerous thing—what are some of the other interesting chocolate flavor combinations I've had recently?

Well, how about a dark chocolate, lime, & mint bar?

Despite loving all three of those ingredients, the bar really didn't do it for me. I mean, I know they were trying to recreate a mojito in a chocolate bar, but no. Just no.

This one was a little more successful--

It's a Lindt bar with blueberry and lavender filling encased in dark chocolate. Once again, it's a case of three flavors I love separately. Unlike the mojito bar, they actually all work together.

While I'm not a fan of white chocolate (which, if we're being honest here, isn't really "chocolate", as it's missing the chocolate liquor part of chocolate), I could eat one of these in three bites--

The mix of lemon & buttermilk is really out of this world, and you really don't notice that you're eating white “chocolate” instead of, you know, real chocolate.

Like Crunch bars but want to kick them up a notch? Try this--

Or this--

Crunch bars usually use puffed rice to supply the “crunch”, but using either quinoa or sesame seeds just adds a little extra kick to it.

Finally, ever think of mixing dark chocolate and dark beer? Nope; I hadn't either, until I tried one of these--

Kostritzer is Loraine's favorite German beer, and when we saw the chocolates we weren't quite sure the two would go together. But you know what? They really do, and I'm not really even that big of a fan of beer.

Okay (and here's sentence I never thought I'd write) that's enough about chocolate for now (and I didn't even mention perhaps my favorite chocolate of all time, the dark chocolate/pink grapefruit combo I've written about before). I hafta go look out the window and see if Mother Nature “graced” us with any snow last night. That's NOT a task to which I'm looking forward!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 10/28

And happy National Chocolate Day, the most wonderful time of the year!!

I had no idea that there actually WAS a National Chocolate Day or that it was being celebrated today,

but thanks to the keen observational powers of my Dad, who noticed it on a calendar a few years ago, I'm now all set to go. So thanks, Dad!!

How does one actually celebrate National Chocolate Day? Well, I'm sure eating some is a big part of it, and I'll make sure I celebrate in that way. But what else do you do? Sing chocolate carols? Send out chocolate cards? Build a chocolate man out in the front yard? If that's the case, I'm ill prepared for the holiday.

Let's just hope that my overall love for the food is enough to carry the day.

It's funny; I've always loved chocolate, but I can't pinpoint an exact reason why. All I know is that even when I was a kid, I was a bit...particular about the kinds of chocolate I would eat. When I was really young, I had a fondness for Milk Shake chocolate bars. I don't know if any of you actually remember Milk Shake bars or if they were even available to people outside of Michigan, but they were kind of like a slightly less sweet version of a Milky Way bar. Or at least that's how I remember them; I haven't eaten one, or even laid eyes upon one, for almost 30 years now.

As I grew up, my tastes in chocolate (and chocolate bars) evolved, but it wasn't until I went to Europe for the first time that my tastes became what they are today. I don't wanna sound like a chocolate “snob” or anything, but for the most part there really isn't a comparison between what you can get here and what you can get there. Heck, some “chocolate” bars in the US don't even have chocolate in them (which is why you'll notice the phrase “chocolate-flavored” or “chocolate-flavored candy” on much of your Halloween or Christmas chocolate), but in Europe, especially Belgium, chocolate is a fine art. And once I experienced what you could taste over there, I was spoiled for life.

However, I do have to give credit to the burgeoning American artisinal chocolate market. Some chocolatiers like Endangered Species are doing amazing things with chocolate, especially dark chocolate. And as the health benefits of darker chocolate are becoming better known, I have a feeling that that trend will continue.

I, for one, can not wait!

So I hope you have a great National Chocolate Day. Grab your favorite kind of bar and bite off a big hunk; after all, if you eat chocolate on National Chocolate Day, the calories don't count, right? I think I read that somewhere on the Internet, and as we all know, everything on the Internet is true, right? Or celebrate it the way I'll celebrate it, by trying a chocolate you've either never tried before or one that's an all-time favorite (in my case, a dark chocolate with blackberry & sage bar I picked up at the Marquette Food Co-op). Either way, just make sure you celebrate.

After all, it's not National Chocolate Day every day, is it?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 10/25

You know how I've been mentioning/marveling at/whining about how strange, surreal, and busy things have been recently? Well, here's a little proof that I'm not totally incorrect about it--

I wrote a newspaper article a couple of weeks ago and totally forgot about it until I saw it in the Mining Journal Wednesday.

I mean, who does that? Who writes a newspaper article, submits it, and then totally forgets about it? I'm sure most newspaper writers don't do that. I'm sure other people who pen these articles for the History Center don't do that. I'm sure that freelance writers don't submit work to publications and then forget they did it. Nope; they don't, but I do.

I guess I'm just special that way.

The article was prompted by a story I told on my “And Put Up A Parking Lot” tour this past summer, the story of a local guy who suffered some horrendous injuries in World War II and then was kind of adopted by the rest of the community. When I told the story people had no idea that this had gone on, which made me think it would be a good subject for an article that thousands of people would read. So I wrote it up, submitted it, and then promptly forgot about it.

I'm glad I wrote the article, though. The story of Calvin “Jimmy” Bleau is one that more people need to know, a tale of both heroism and of a community coming together to honor him, and it also allowed me to give Loraine co-writing credit the story. She's done a lot of research on him, and (almost) everything I know about the story came from her, so from the very start I knew she'd share the byline.

And at least I remembered to do that.

At the moment I have a couple of other articles in various stages of research and/or completion. I'm now wondering if I'll submit those and then entirely forget about them. After all, I've now established a precedent for doing it, and nothing I do these days surprises me any more.

Sigh...

If you'd like to check out the article, just CLICK HERE. Otherwise, have a great weekend, and get ready to celebrate one of the best holidays on Monday. What, you don't know which one? Come back then and I'll talk all about it!

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 10/24

Well, it's now official. We're going over twice in 2020.

I think I've mentioned in here before about how Loraine & I were pondering heading to Europe twice next year. The first would be to see another spring soccer game in Germany, and with the exception of getting the tickets to the game itself (something you can't do until six weeks or so before the match) everything's all booked and ready to go. Then we were also considering going back to France for the first time in four years, during our usual late summer window. And we've now bought the tickets for that.

Just not the way we thought.

At one time, we had been thinking about using frequent flier miles to get over to Paris. After all, we both have a lot of them built up from all these trips we've been taking, and we figured that this would be an economical way of going to Europe twice in a year. However, while you can fly anywhere in the US for a mere pittance (as far as miles go), and you can go to other places in Europe without needing hundreds of thousands of miles, you can't do that to go to Paris.

Just let me say this—if you ever wanna use frequent flier miles to go to Paris (at least on American) make sure you have 200,000 or so.

Here's the funny thing about it—we both have around 150,000 miles (give or take a few for me, because I've already used some). American's website said I could buy enough extra miles to allow me to use them for a flight to Paris, but to purchase the 40,000 I need would cost around $2,000. Or I could just pay $1,300 for a regular ticket and not use any miles at all.

You can probably guess which option I chose.

I did have to laugh, though. I mean, really? It costs more to buy a few frequent flier miles than it does to just buy an actual airline ticket? It's almost like, you know, they don't want you to use the miles you've accumulated. And even when you do, you get weird things like this. I could use some of my miles to get a ticket from Marquette from Chicago. Or I could use fewer miles to fly from Marquette to Chicago and then on to Washington DC, to Savannah, or to Melbourne Beach, Florida (just to name three examples). Yup...it actually costs less (in terms of miles) to fly FARTHER away from Chicago than just to Chicago itself.

Tell me how that makes ANY sort of sense at all.

But that's neither here nor there. Airlines are stupid. I think we've established that over the years. And if you ever want to fly into Paris, even if you're not staying there, be prepared to shell out a premium no matter what you're using to pay. It's not logical, but that's the way it is. All that matters is that we are now set for two trips to Europe next year. And we've discovered that we each have enough miles saved for two or three flights to various locations around the US, should we so desire. After all, we have the miles. We might as well use them, right?

Now, if I could just get my boss to give me an extra week or two of vacation. And find someone to get all my work done for me. And someone to pay for all the extras like hotels and food.  And...and...

Okay. So there are still a few kinks left to be worked out. I'll keep you updated on that.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 10/23

I keep forgetting that not all of you have read every one of these over the past eighteen or nineteen years. My bad.

This came up because of a nice note I received yesterday from semi-daily blog reader Cassandra from Ann Arbor, a former Marquette resident who stumbled upon these little things just a couple of months ago. Cassandra's like a a lot of people who read this—they either comes across this and start reading it, they've read it in the past, stopped for a bit, and then started again, or they read for a week or a month, skip a week or a month, and then start up again. There are some of you who read this every day, and then there are some who flit in and out.

And that's fine. That's cool. I just need to remember that.

Cassandra, after reading yesterday's babble, wondered just what the heck a “Jim Koski ™ History Center tour” is. Because she hasn't been reading these for a long time, she was a bit understandably confused as to what I meant. And that's my fault. Oftentimes, when I'm using a running joke like the phrase “Jim Koski ™ History Center tour” I'll explain what it is for people who might not know. I didn't yesterday, that's why Cassandra sent the note, and that's why I have to remember to do it.

So for the benefit of Cassandra, and anyone else who might wonder just what the heck I was talking about yesterday, here's what a “Jim Koski ™ History Center tour” means. It's a slightly sarcastic phrase we came up with a few years ago to describe the types of things I do for the History Center. Most people think of a history program as dry & boring, but when I do one, it usually seems to be anything but, especially if it involves killers, hookers, bootleggers, or any combination thereof, which most (if not all) of mine usually seem to do. So if you were confused as to what I meant, Cassandra, that's what I meant.

And now you're in on the running joke. The next time I employ one, I'll be sure to explain what I mean!

Speaking of a “Jim Koski ™ History Center tour”, I know have the list of everything else I'm doing next year aside from the “North-South”. Let's just say it's gonna be a busy 2020. And let's just say that there are a few things to which I'm looking forward. Hope everyone who attends these things will, too!

(jim@wmqt.com)