So what is nutritious?

If anyone keeps up on my facebook account, about 3 weeks ago I was complaining of having to take the glucola challenge again. For those who don't know, it's a test for gestation diabetes. Well, I am one of the few who did develope gestational diabetes late in my pregnancy. The good news is that I'm very mild, so all I have to do is watch my diet and keep an eye on my blood sugar. Well, this is all fine and dandy. I've been doing great. But what I've found very entertaining is trying to go out to eat. Usually, if I have a little warning ahead of time of where I'm going, I can pull up any number of webpages to look up the nutrition guides to check out the carbs. But once in a while, I get stuck in a situation that I have no idea. So what do I do? I ask the clerk behind the counter if they have a nutrition guide. I had a VERY interesting encounter with the girl behind the Culver's counter. They had numerous different brochures for their food, but none of them told me anything about the nutritional content. Now, I may be wrong, and I can't find anywhere that says it's a law, but I thought restaurants were required to provide that information. So I asked the girl if they had a nutrition guide. She looked at me blankly, and said, "I don't know. Let me ask." So she goes to ask someone whom I assumed would be the manager, and he says, "I don't know." She then comes back to tell me... wait for it... "Well, Culver's isn't really nutritious." And she was dead serious. I had to bite my lips to keep from breaking out in laughter as I returned to tell Troy the whole incident. Troy thinks I should email Culver's and tell them what their employees say about the food. Makes you wonder a bit, doesn't it?

Odd things people say.

In the past week, Troy and I have heard some things said that we're not sure why people say them. Aside from the fat/twins jokes I've been getting this week. For example, Troy at his work has to make forms for the callers to fill out when they call people. One form is for children and the other is for adults. On the adult form, there is a spot to mark that the person needs an alcohol referral. One of his coworkers actually asked why they don't have this on the children's form? I suppose there are some early drinkers out there, but seriously? Although, I have had patients tell me they started smoking when they were 4. And my other example was even at church. The worship leader, who I'm sure is a nice guys... he's just not Adam, was praying and actually said, "Bless God." Huh? I thought God did all the blessing. I was glad it wasn't just me when we left that thought that was odd. I mentioned it to Troy that afternoon and he was so glad it wasn't just him that thought that. What a week.

Snow melting?

...not in our yard. For some reason, our house is the only house in the subdivision that still has the front yard covered. This is not making it easy for Troy to remove the Christmas lights that are still hanging. I still have Christmas decorations that I have not been able to put away in the shed due to the foot of snow that has encompassed it. And for those of you that know me, it's driving me nuts. I am unable to have the perfectly clean house. There are things scattered about, and I'm about ready to add them to the trash. And most people enjoy snow. They get to play outside and watch children make snowmen... me no. I get a lousy cold. A cold that also knocks me out for my wonderful 3 day weekend. I get well enough to go back to work on the following Monday. Great. Now I get to catch something from all the sick people coming to the hospital. Sorry for the rant. I really hate snow. I'm also sorry for the lack of posts. There really hasn't been whole lot going on... that I can talk openly about. Now, my brother would post anything. His poor wife has to endure all the sarcasm and joking that my brother can come up with... AND post on the internet. I'm so thankful blogging wasn't around in high school.

We have been visiting some new churches here on the south side. Both Troy and I had been praying about if we should continue to commute to Common Ground every Sunday since our house church pretty much dissolved. So the first church we visited was a LARGE church that most of our house church had started going to anyway. Indian Creek is a nice church, but WAY too big for us. When you outgrow your sanctuary that was built to hold 3000 after adding additional services, you know you are just going to blend in. Well, Troy and I wanted something more quaint. Something that feels a bit more personal. Plus, the "baptismal cam" did me in. I always thought the whole point of baptism is to confess Christ before your fellow Christians and be baptized with lots of hoopin' and hollerin' afterwards. Not at The Creek. During the invitation, you see this video pop up of a guy in the corner getting dunked. Yeah, real personal. This led us to a small church called New Hope. TOTAL opposite. I think there were 15 people there besides us. We just didn't feel that that was for us. So for the past 2 Sundays (with a break inbetween for Troy to go to the Purdue Women's National Championship anniversary) we've been attending Grace Evangelical Church. Today we heard the actual pastor. Nice sermon, but halfway through, both of us couldn't keep our eyes opened. As we were walking out, I broke out into tears declaring, "I miss Common Ground!" So I think, after some prayerful considerations, we will be back to CG next Sunday. I don't know what we are going to do about a house church since there aren't any on the south side, but I don't think God will hold that against us.

Have a good week everyone!

Tis the Season for Gifts

My company means well. Each Christmas they give the staff a Christmas gift. Now I understand that they do this because the IRS would tax them if they gave out bonuses. I'd still rather have the money though. Human Resources has pointed out time and again how hard it is to find a gift to please everyone. However, I'm still not sure they always come up with the best ideas. So here is a review of past Christmas gifts from my company. Keep in mind all of these products are emblazoned with our company logo.

Umbrella This actually seems like a practical gift since all of us (except HR and the CEO, of course) have to walk a mile from the parking lot. I don't actually own this gift. It was given out the year before I joined the company. I saw a few of these in my first year, but they've been gone ever since. Apparently they break very easily. Good attempt, but a cheap product.

Baseball Cap This is pretty useless. We can't wear it to work and I wouldn't wear it out anywhere (except maybe to mow the lawn). It' a greyish/brownish cap with a blue bill. It also features our old logo which is pretty much unreadable at a distance. The material looks like it's been through the wash cycle 50 times. I supposed it's supposed to be "distressed," but it looks more like the company we got them from had 150 extra hats from a previous project that they needed to get rid of, so they stamped our logo on them and called it a day.

Duffle Bag I actually like this gift. It's the perfect size to fit under an airplane seat and is made out of high(er) quality material. I've actually used this several times on trips. Props to the people who chose this gift.


Blue Fleece-Lined Jacket Two years in a row with sensible gifts. Wow! I actually wear this all the time. It a short jacket lined with fleece. It's perfect for fall weather. Completely useless in the winter, but it serves it's purpose.

Folding Chair Apparently someone in HR subscribes to the "Generic Logo-Placement Gifts Catalog." It's one of those portable folding chairs with the company's logo on it. No cup holder, footstool, head covering like the fancy models. Most everyone seems to already own several of these and I have never seen this item again since it was handed out. Presumably it's in my garage somewhere and gets thrown in my trunk when we go to an event requiring us to bring our own chair, but never gets taken out because everyone already has one from their company. Also I own a Purdue chair, so why would I promote my company when I can promote my school? Yeah, I need to grow up someday.

Blanket Again, reasonably good thought, bad execution. This is one of the fleece blankets that fold up in it's own pocket. "Perfect for carrying to picnics" I believe is the slogan for this one. However, when you fold the blanket up (which is near impossible) to fit in the pocket, you find the zipper for the pocket...is on the inside. So that doesn't make much sense. I assume most people use blankets to cover up in, not go on picnics. Unfortunately I'm 6 foot tall and this blanket is about 50" long. At least I can cover my feet with it.

Black Fleeced-Lined Coat I guess they were tired of seeing everyone wear those blue fleece coats around. So this one is black, slightly longer, and has a hood. Also, only the body is lined, not the arms. This makes no sense to me. If you wear this in the fall, your chest is hot while the rest of you is comfortable; if you wear this in the winter, your chest stays warm while your arms freeze. I'm seen a few people wear these, but mostly those blue fleeced coats are the main fashion choice in jackets around here.

Fire extinguisher To be fair, this wasn't a Christmas gift. Once a quarter, a $25 gift card was given out to those who hadn't taken a sick day. The IRS began saying that those gift cards would have to be taxed, that they were like additional pay. Only physical items could be considered tax free gifts. So my company decided to give out gifts for those with perfect attendance. After thinking long and hard, they came up with...a fire extinguisher. It's one of those little models you keep under your sink. I'm not sure if the gift was to imply that our old building was a fire hazard or that they just had given up deciding what to get us and happen to be in the fire extinguisher aisle. I've never seen anyone have these at their desks. When they were being handed out, even my usually reserved co-workers were chuckling at it. What in the world were they thinking? Who wants a fire extinguisher as a gift? This has got to be the worst gift ever. Fortunately, my wife (queen of the shoppers) was able to identify the item as coming from Target. They let us exchange it for something from the same department. Now we're the proud owners of a shop vac. Much better.

Cooler on wheels I really don't get this one. It's a flimsy material lined with that grey water/cold proof cooler stuff you see on those bags at Costco to store your frozen foods on the way home. It's the kind of cooler they sell at the Colt's Pro-Shop for tailgating. This cooler is on two wheels with an airport style handle on top. Now the only time I use those suitcases on wheels are at the airport. And I KNOW you can't take pop or beverages on a plane anymore. Maybe they think we're all transporting cold beer from our cars to the office. A side note: a coworker (I assume. I'd never seen her before, but she was getting a gift so she must work here. I doubt people are coming in off the street to get a cooler on wheels.) thought it was a laptop case on wheels. Well, it is on wheels, but the flimsy construction and cooler-material interior seem to blow that out of the water. Sometimes I wonder how people get hired here.

Earth-rise, Earth-set

Two months ago Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched "KAGUYA", a project that essentially consists of three satellites. The main purpose of the project is to data on the moon and research technology for moon missions. The coolest thing about this mission (at least in the short run) are the amazing HD pictures the project has sent back. Check out these great first HD pictures of an "earth-rise" and the lunar surface. Absolutely amazing. God is an amazing artist!

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your gloryabove the heavens...When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:1, 3-4)

Rolly Polly Fish Heads

Yes, that picture to the left is the view out of our window here at work. The fish wranglers have been brought in and our providing my coworkers with window cubes plenty to be interested in. Here's the full story from the Star.

Are you prepared for zombies?

Remember a few years ago when the government gave us all instructions on how to survive terrorists attacks with duct tape? Well, they left out a contingency for one thing: zombies. Yes, that's right, zombies (or the un-dead as they like to be called.). Some individuals on the web thought that the world was not prepared for a zombie attack. So they set up a website to warn us all. I personally haven't seen any reports of zombies heading to Indianapolis, but if you feel unprepared for the coming zombies, I felt I needed to pass this information on.

Harassed at Work

I just came from our annual anti-harassment training. This is always a humorous occasion for me. It's humorous not because the topic isn't serious, but because no one has effectively come up with a way to instruct 100+ people in an hour how not to harass people. This year the company ditched the speaker (who basically stands up front, reads Power Point slides, and answers embarrassing questions from the audience). Unfortunately, they did not ditch the cheesy After-School Special-type videos.

We were greeted by one of the HR women (no men in the HR department, I'm sure no stereotyping was involved though) welcoming us to "Harassment Training." Unfortunately she misspoke or that would have made the session much more interesting. On to the videos.

First up was the awesomely titled "Ouch! That Stereotype Hurts!" (With Vignettes!) It featured a bunch of actors/waiters (yes I'm stereotyping actors, but they're not my coworkers. Hopefully this is allowed for the sake of comedy.) commenting on why harassment hurts. (I think I learned this when I kindergarten, but apparently others are slow learners.) The main host finally gave us a 6 or 7 step process to use when faced with harassment. I won't bore you with the entire process (largely because I have forgotten most of them already), but one of them was "Ask a question." This could be done, the host pointed out, by asking "What do you mean?" when someone makes an inappropriate comment. This was proceeded by five random people looking at the camera and saying "What do you mean?" for those of us who are really, really slow. Another suggestion, as foreshadowed by the video's title, was to just say "Ouch!" If someone makes a comment stereotyping someone and we don't feel like asking questions or delving into the issue, we can just say "Ouch!" And if you thought this was immediately proceeded by over half a dozen people looking at the camera and saying "Ouch!" than you've caught the gist of this video.

The second video wasn't nearly as interesting. Titled "Harassment is..." it was basically a host talking with short vignettes shown in between. No 6 step program here. The one standout vignette was an American lady making fun of a Indian woman because the Indian didn't speak English. The American lady then said in a Real World confessional-style interview (in black and white, no less!) that "Those people can't even speak English good." Finally my coworkers were allowed to laugh. Apparently stereotyping Americans is still OK. Thank goodness!

Back to work. I'll try not to harass people.

Biscuits and Gravy Canal

There are more serious (and sadder) things going on in my life, but the trivial makes for much better (and more humorous) blog topics. So let me tell you about what they're doing to the body of water to the West of my office.

For those who are regular readers (hi mom!) you'll know that my new office building is on the East side of the Downtown Canal. Before being on the canal regularly, I thought it was a beautiful sight and would be wonderful to walk along on my lunch hours. Well, it is great to have the canal and walkways, but it isn't exactly beautiful. Algae, weeds, leaves, and debris clutter the canal. My office is at the North end where the basin is. Often that basin is so full of gunk that it looks like you could walk across it without getting wet. Thankfully the city of Indianapolis is going to clean the canal up. They are going to drain the canal and then scrape the bottom clean. That's the good news. Now the bad news. Today's Indianapolis Star reports the following:

- "[The project] will temporarily transform the urban waterway into a sludge pit."

- "Any non-native species [of fish] will be removed. 'Like if it's a piranha or something'"

- "It'll eventually get to a biscuits-and-gravy-type consistency"

Yes, that's right. Starting next month I can look out the windows or take a walk along a canal filled with sludge that has a "biscuits-and-gravy-type" consistency. Also, since this is a city-funded project and I happen to also live in Indianapolis, I get to pay for this as well. Woohoo! So if anyone has a gas mask or maybe just a clothespin to protect me from the smell of sludge, I'd appreciate it if you could lend it to me.

Extraneous Questions from Work

I thought I would share an e-mail I got from work. This is more a cathartic act to deal with my job than actually news to my readers, but I hope you'll find it amusing.

I sent my boss an Excel spreadsheet with various data. I made sure to label each of the column carefully. As you can see, the circled columns clearly show they are labeled "December 2002". I then get an e-mail from by boss asking if the data was from December 2002 or June 2003. This is the kind of extraneous e-mails I answer all day. It's not that it's hard to send an e-mail reply, but I just seems so useless to answer a question that should be perfectly obvious. *Sigh*

Thanks for letting me share my frustrations with you.

Indians Game

My company had it's annual picnic at an Indianapolis Indians game this past weekend. The weather was perfect, the food was good (and free!), unfortunately the Indians have one of the worst fielding teams I've ever seen. That combined with a horrendous outing from the pitcher (he had a 47.25 ERA for the game. Seriously!) combined for a 12-0 lead by the Durham Bulls in the second inning. We left shortly thereafter not needing to see any more of the beatdown. I almost forgot: we did get free hats as one of the first 4,000 fans. Always nice to get free stuff!

Only in Indiana...

This vehicle was in front of me on the interstate Friday. The picture's a little grainy (it was taken with my cell phone), but it's pickup truck with a coffin (yes, a coffin) in the back. Either someone passed away and the family couldn't afford a hearse or the truck's owner found a good deal on a coffin that day. Either way, this is just something I don't think you see to often outside of Indiana!

Notes from a Staff Meeting

I just came from our quarterly staff meeting and decided to share some humorous thoughts. (Note: if anyone from work is reading this, I put this here for more own amusement and do not wish to insult or embarrass anyone.)

- I believe the intent of the first announcement is that we need to check our internal intranet more often (why I don't know as the last time I went there for a software update I found the information out of date by a year), however we were instructed to "check your internet" when we returned to our office. Hence why I'm writing this blog now; I'd hate to disobey orders.

- The only free parking spot at our new building is about 1 1/2 miles away whereas at the old building you could park 100 feet away. In spite of this, we were told that the company was trying to replicate the old parking options at the new building. Only 7,820 feet closer and they'll have it!

- We were told that our new "anonymous" intranet suggestion box could be traced back to us if the administrator received any violent suggestions. That's fine (I don't want administration to have to read death threats or anything like that), but it kind of negates the idea of an "anonymous" suggestion box.

- The above-mentioned suggestion box included items like the fire alarm is too loud, could we get the company to pay for cell phones, and we need hypo-allergenic soap in the bathroom. This is from a company who's employees have to walk miles to their cars, received a pittance of a "standard of living" increase with no merit-based raises, and has seen it's amount of incoming requests for work dwindle. Yet hypo-allergenic soap is the biggest complaint people have? (I'd send my own suggestions in, but I don't trust the "anonymous" suggestion box.)

- Two new students employees were told at the beginning of the meeting that "we'll try not to bore you." After several department managers had no reports, those students were apologized to because they were being bored (True story. Honestly!) And that pretty much explains it all.

- There are times when we have visitors come for meetings. Fortunately we have a vistors lot for just such an occasion. At this meeting, however, we were told visitors who parked in the lot and signed in at the front desk "may or may not be towed" and "we can't make any guarantees" that they won't be towed. Good thing that visitors lot is there, huh?

Hope that I didn't bore you. But it was good to get that off my chest. Now I'm going to eat my second donut I got from the meeting (really the only good thing about staff meetings.) Mmm, donuts.

Split Personality

Up until now, my blog has been a hodgepodge of sports, ramblings, and family events. Starting today, I'm splitting them up. This spot, Troy's Cube, will remain to contain family pictures, vacation stories, and random thoughts on life. My new blog, tentatively title Stiffler's Sports Cube, will contain thoughts on sports including AAFL fantasy football details. So for those who only want to see pictures of Brian and Grant, keep your web brower tuned here, but for those of you who want to know what I think of Purdue basketball and football, the Colts, other sports teams, and, yes, perhaps even the Pacers, as well as complete AAFL details, go to Stiffler's Sports Cube.

Weddings and Open Houses

Unlike my globetrotting siblings-in-law, Rachel and I are usually content to stay within the vicinity of our house most of the time. This summer has seen us travel across the state to various weddings and open houses. I haven't wrote about them mainly since the pictures have been sitting on my camera or my home computer for the last few weeks. The purchase of a Sony Flash Drive this weekend has made it easy to transfer pictures to and from home, so I'm ready to start the updates in whatever the literary equivalent of a montage is. (Mini rambling: As mentioned I now own a 2GB flash drive small enough to fit in my pocket. In fact, it's smaller than a pocket knife I own. For someone that grew up with 5 1/4" floppy disks with less than 100 KB, that's pretty astounding. Yes, I'm getting old.)

May 26 - Susan King and Chris Thorpe wedding.

Rachel and I headed down to Bloomington for the nuptials of our friends Susan and Chris. Susan met Chris on a vacation in Jamaica. Just thought you needed to know that for some reason.Since we were going to Bedford the next day, Rachel and I decided to stay the night in Bloomington. I found there are relatively few choices for hotels for such a big city (West Lafayette/Lafayette has many more places to stay; again, just so you know). I made reservations for a non-smoking room (seriously, hotels still have smoking rooms in Southern Indiana?) at the not-at-all-luxurious Super 8. Luxury didn't matter since we mainly just needed a place to sleep. However, upon opening the door to our room, I rush of tobacco odor flooded our senses. We gave the room about 30 seconds with the door closed and then rushed down to the front desk to request a non-smoking room. Unfortunately, there were no non-smoking rooms left so the manager upgraded us to a "suite". Now, the jacuzzi tub was a nice touch, I must admit. However, calling this a "suite" is an understatement. Basically the room was the exact size as the rest, it just had the aforementioned jacuzzi. So, everything worked out fine there.

The wedding went on as planned with just a few showers before and afterwards. The wedding was at a chapel next to the Union building in the heart of IU's campus. In case you haven't been there, IU had the oak/birch/willow/dogwood version of Johnny Appleseed sprinkle tree seeds all over the campus. Everything seems to be covered in foliage. Maybe IU should be the Sycamores instead of ISU. Being a graduate of the much less tree lined campus of Purdue University, I'm not a fan of the jungle that is IU's campus. Someone remarked to me that I "had to" admit that IU's campus was better than Purdue's. Oops. Wrong person to say that too. Purdue may have made some bad choices in designing their campus (lack of parking, dorms 500 miles from civilization, "Indian burial grounds"), but at least they understand the word moderation when it comes to landscaping.

Anyway, the wedding was fine. I'd write more, but this is a blog about me and, well, it wasn't my wedding. The reception was fine although I must be the only person over 21 that doesn't drink. This was a wedding made up of mostly people from our church, and still nearly everyone was drinking. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that and people were definitely drinking in moderation, but I always feel odd to be the only one NOT drinking. Of course, I seemed to be the only one not making a salad and not partaking in the cheese course as well, so maybe I'm just odd.



May 27 - Kate Hawkins open house.

Rachel and I moved on from Bloomington down to Bedford to celebrate her cousin Kate graduating from high school. Kate will be moving on to the tree lined campus of IU. Apparently my marrying into the family did nothing to change her allegiances in colleges. Again, everything went well. They had a nice spread of food and snacks which is always appreciated. Congratulations to Kate and, despite my teasing of college choices, good luck at IU.



June 2 - Tiara Clerk open house.

Onto Brazil for my cousin Tiara's open house to celebrate her graduation from high school. Again, proving that I am the black sheep of the family, Tiara will be moving on to IU. Apparently Tiara and Kate didn't aspire to graduate from Purdue and take a job where they would have time to write blogs all day. Oh well. Best of luck to Tiara as well.

Oh, and to all you guys at IU: Kate and Tiara are both taken (as last I checked; high school relationships aren't exactly chiseled in stone) so please stay away from my underage cousins. They'll be spending too much time studying anyway. Just like I was. Ummm, mostly.



P.S. You didn't really think you'd get through a post without Brian and Grant pictures did you?

Radio Math

Since Mike and Mike in the Morning decided to talk about Sox & Yanks, I flipped around the dials on the radio this morning. I caught a radio DJ (do they still call them DJs?) commenting on how album (do they still call them albums?) sales of Journey were up 100% since the song "Don't Stop Believing" was played on the Sopranos. She also commented on downloads being up 482%. She then commented that she "couldn't comprehend how that [482%] was calculated." Really? That's not that hard of math. Right when I was thinking about how funny it would be to bring this up in a blog, she further demonstrated her complete lack of match skills. She said something to this effect: "So, sales are up 100%. Does that mean there were 0 sales before because no one were buying them and now they're 100% because people are buying them again." I was dumbfounded. I think she actually believes there were 0 sales this week so whatever number of sales there were this week made it 100%. She may even believe that there were 0 sales last week and 100 this week, I'm not sure. Then again, she could still be doing the long division in her head trying to figure out what 482% means. So for every high schooler out there struggling with math, there could be a future in morning drive-time radio for you!

How Can You Not Know What a Twinkie Is

Just heard a coworker say "Not sure I know what Twinkies is." True, as you can tell from the grammar, she's not from originally from this county. But how could you live here and not know what a Twinkie is? I wonder if she's heard of Ding-Dongs or Ho-Hos? OK, now I'm just making myself hungry!

Half-Grass, Half-Clay Tennis Court

Isn't this one of the weirdest sights you've ever seen? It's just bizarre and when I first saw it I thought it was trick photography or Photoshopped. Nope. It's a real tennis court: half-grass, half-clay. Rafeal Nadal played Roger Federer to see who was the best: the clay court specialist Nadal or the grass court expert Federer. Nadal won, but I'm not sure that settles anything. Can't wait for this phenomenon to reach the states so I can play on it.

Brian Visits

Since Baby Grant is trying to dominate the internet with his pictures, I thought I'd strike back with pictures of my elder nephew.

Movin' On Up

When I first started at Regenstrief in 2000, I was told we were moving into a new building soon. Finally, 6 1/2 years later, we finally relocated to a new building. Originally called MISB II, we're now calling our new locations the HITS building. Someone already pointed out that we need to be very careful in how we order those letters. The building is brand new (just finished a couple of months ago; some tenants moved in last month) and still has a "new building" smell to it. Everything is fresh and clean. The pluses of the new building are that it was not previously used as a clinic, I don't have to ride up the elevator with Wishard patients and/or inmates, it's on the Canal (great for the fall, spring, and summer...don't know about the winter), and there's a lot more space. The downsides are that my assigned parking (the Clarian X Lot) lot is six blocks away (I found street parking this morning, but that may very day by day) and nothing is working quite right. My access card did work on the front door, but some of the doors still don't recognize it. My phone wasn't working and after it was fixed it was discovered my voice mail didn't work. My computer was updated when it was moved and now two of my commonly used programs aren't talk to each other (Excel and SAS). Other than those minor things, the move went well. All of my boxes were outside my cube and my computer was hooked up. I spent lunch sitting on a bench on the Canal, so I can't complain.

Old building.

New building.