Mobile Lounge (read post below first if you don't want to spoil the surprise)

I researched a little more and it seems my waiting room on wheels is technically called a "mobile lounge." I've found a couple more pictures to help illustrate the strangeness of the lounges.

Is there any airport that uses a similar system? I don't know of any, but I'm curious where the hell they got this idea.

I volunteered to be reassigned when my Roanoke-Detroit-Mpls flight was full on Friday morning ($300 voucher to go one two jets instead of a 2-hour prop plane ride, then a jet? Yeah, I'll take it.) and ended up connecting through Dulles. I swear I had been there before, but have since determined I've flown into Reagan or BWI on all my DC trips.

Anyhow, the point of my story is I was absolutely amazed/dumbfounded/ concerned with the interterminal transportation at Dulles. First of all, they are super funny looking. I can best describe them as a waiting room on wheels. Seriously, they look like something out of Star Wars. Second, they get from terminal to terminal using the same paths as planes and baggage carts. Was that not a security concern to anyone? Our driver had to slam on the brakes once to avoid CRASHING INTO A PLANE.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when it was decided the waiting room on wheels was indeed the most practical way to move people around a major airport.

Book corner

It's been a while...I've apparently been a slow reader lately.

• Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut - Vonnegut is good. Me likey.
• 1876 by Gore Vidal - My first Gore Vidal book. It made learning about history muy interesante. Definitely recommended if your high school history teacher(s) were as incompetent as mine....and if you slept through the majority of your 9 am freshman history classes in Willey Hall. I'm not saying I did any such thing, I'm just giving you options if you happened to...
• City of Falling Angels by John Berendt - Did not disappoint. If you liked Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, you'll like this as well. Set in Venice.

When in Rome...

Since I'm in Appalachia, I figured I might as well try some real life moonshine. Front row L-R: me, Bandel's girlfriend Lea, coworker Carrie. Back row: Bandel, host and supplier of said moonshine.
The verdict - it's not that bad.

Best (Movie) Week Ever

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (rated PG13) opens Nov. 18. Then, a mere 5 days later, it's time for Rent. I don't know what I did to deserve this.

FFB Update

My Boys will be 5-2 after tonight's game, unless Alge Crumpler somehow gets negative points (note: not really possible in my league). Not too shabby, although I'm tied for first with 5 other ladies.

Turkey vultures

Birds scare the bejesus out of me, so you can imagine the fear in my heart when I saw a flock of these bad boys from not far enough away today.

If I wasn't in the safety of a car, I may have cried. Not even joking.

Concert Etiquette 101

Seriously people, I thought this was easy enough, but just to make sure we're all on the same page, some basic concert etiquette:

1. Don't use your flash when taking a picture at a concert. Not only is it hyper-annoying, but your picture's not going to turn out anyway. I've only taken 1/3 of a community ed photography class and am an admittedly bad photographer and even I know that.
2. No wearing the band's t-shirt to the concert. I think there are rare exceptions, but we're going to keep it basic. Just don't do it.
3. Yelling and cheering are great and recommended. Screaming like your hair is on fire or you're being raped is not. (This one's for the girl behind me last night.)
4. Go ahead, sing along. It's fun. But, DO NOT sing so loud you drown out the performer. (To my friend at David Gray.)
5. Go ahead, dance, but realize there are people around you. Stop flailing.

Hotz

Has anyone had the pleasure of seeing the comedian on Comedy Central right now - Jeremy Hotz? His delivery is hilarious.

Bad person

So my current and upcoming work trips, small town Virginia and Salt Lake City, are very much challenging the two prejudices I can't seem to shake:

1. The Mormon religion is as close to a cult as any mainstream religion can get (not considering Scientology mainstream).
2. Southern accents make people sound dumb (special shout out to the VA/WV/TN/SC nasal twang).

Multiple trips to the South have not helped me get over prejudice #2 and I sincerely doubt a few weeks in Utah will alleviate prejudice #1.

Apparently some people aren't too keen on Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Last weekend, one of our NASCAR-loving, Wisconsin-residing, WalMart-shopping tailgating neighbors was kind enough to give me a Dale Jr. Sucks koozie from his Dale Jr. Sucks (TM) line of products. In return for this kind act, I'm plugging his website, dalejrsucks.com, on my blog. It's a must see if only for his anti-Junior manifesto. The grammar, oh the grammar....

I can't proport to have an opinion on Dale Jr., as I think NASCAR in general, well, sucks.

CJ is a liar

I do not believe for a minute that Chelsea Clinton flies coach.

Bitch please.

B-list actors and Designer Imposters perfume

Tonight at Target I saw an Exclamation! gift pack. Is Exclamation! back or was it never really gone? I was thinking to myself it seemed crazy to bring back something that clearly had its heyday in the late 80's. Then I thought if Jason Bateman, James Spader, and Patrick Dempsey can have hit TV shows, who's to blame Exclamation! for giving it another shot?

Gimme an E!

Vague details remembered from commercial: Sometime soon, Isaac Mizrahi will be hosting a show on E!. Frequency/format/length of show unknown and E! online is strangely silent about the whole deal, even though they're running TV ads.

Bottom line is, I heart Isaac Mizrahi. I was sad to see the Isaac Mizrahi show on Oxygen go away and hope this will be a sufficient substitute. I'm sure it will be since all Isaac did on his Oxygen show was watch his dog with various celebrity guests.

Since I'm completely without handy info on this, I'll make it up to you by telling you to Netflix Unzipped. My little favor to you.

Deny, deny, deny

Let's all just pretend today's Gopher game didn't happen.

On the subject of disappointing weekend events, Laura and I joined Kristin Rodacker and crew at Lili's Burlesque Review Friday evening. The verdict: great idea, but horrible execution. Underwhelming. Amateur.

While reading Laura's favorite new blog, Pink is the new blog, I came across this nugget:

The Rollings Stones are doing a little cross promotion with Days of Our Lives

Yes, as in the soap opera. I simply do not understand this.

When I think Rolling Stones, I think sex, drugs and rock & roll. When I think Days of Our Lives, I think women with multiple cats and Gold Bond commercials.

Yet another reason for baby licenses

Arkansas mom delivers 16th child

The father's name - Jim Bob. I wish I could tell you I was kidding.

Favorite new Gopher

Taking the place of Aaron Hosack in my wide-receiver-cheering-for heart:

Ernie Wheelwright

He's only a sophomore, so I except great things to come. Plus, he's undeniably handsome.

I had a suspicion that Mike Myers saw the humor in the Kanye West "George Bush doesn't care about black people" comment....verified by his and Kanye's appearance on SNL

Fantastic Day in College Football

The Gophers beat Michigan for the first time in NEARLY 20 YEARS and the Badgers lost to Northwestern in what Laura and I termed "the battle of the MBA tour."

Recreating the press photo

Anyone who loves Craig Kilborn will remember the comedy bit "recreating the press photo" he did quite frequently. When Laura and I spotted Natalie 1's boyfriend's friend, who had an uncanny resemblance to Bob Schneider (at least after a night of partying in Chicago, he did), we decided to play the game ourselves. Notice we're both even wearing the same shirt. Definitely not as good as the Craigers version, but not bad for our first try.

This made me giggle

Link

Make sure you check out Laura's blog for pictures of our fun weekend. I would have more pictures, but I was carrying the D&B clutch my schwester bought me all weekend and a camera definitely did not "get in where it fit in" with that purse.

Stupid rain

So I have spent more time than I'd like over the past month planning a golf outing for finance employees and our external auditor...now thanks to the rain it's totally cancelled. I have mixed feelings on the deal because I think few so-called leisure activities are more boring than golf. I will have a much better time at the alternate event, bowling at the Park Tavern. However, this alternative event took approx. 10 minutes to plan compared to many hours for the golf event, meaning I wasted A LOT of time planning golf.

Moral of the story: Anyway you slice it, golf is a waste of time.

No pun intended on the slice thing. Golf jokes are really lame.

Wrong! Straight up wrong!

Most annoying college football tradition: At Texas A&M, the tradition is for dates to kiss EVERY TIME the team scores.
A) Who has dates to college football games?
B) PDAs and sports are mutually exclusive in my mind.

To copy Tom Hanks' "there's no crying in baseball," let me say there should definitely be no kissing in football.

Red letters all around: Fall 2005 MBA Tour

Starting with last Wednesday night, I have had a solid 5 red letter days in a row. I've decided to put together a quick synopsis of each day.

Wednesday
Location: Minneapolis/Burnsville (true)
Host: Myself
What I learned: Michael thinks my and Julie's music trivia knowledge is creepy
Restaurant highlight: N/A
Favorite new friend of the day: I'd already met everyone there, but "mad props" to special guest star Michael Krans

Thursday
Location: Madison, WI
Host: Christina and her roommate Mel
What I learned: State Street is cool, getting your MBA is cooler, Christina is apparently the prettiest girl at the UW Madison MBA party and, consequently, many people want to meet her visiting friends
Restaurant highlight: 2.30 am goat cheese Spinach pizza at Ian's
Favorite new friend of the day: Jennifer Becker, who Laura and I decided was our new best friend within approx. 5 minutes of meeting her, but didn't say anything because that's a creepy thing to say. Then she told me she was pretty sure we were sisters because we thought exactly the same.
Role of drunk girl played by: Laura

Friday
Location: Milwaukee Art Museum, SC Johnson Admin. Building, Northwestern University in Evanston, Chicago
Host: Zippy
What I learned:

• The MAM is a fantastic work of architecture with an amazing collection of art for its size
• I really really enjoy Frank Lloyd Wright. Oh wait, pretty sure I knew that if I was willing to go to Racine, WI (I missed the Home of Brad "Bejota" Johnson sign. When's that going up?) to tour the SC Johnson Admin. Building, it's pretty evident that I'm already a big fan.
• Kellogg School of Business TG (free drinks and apps at the school on Friday night) is super fun.

Restaurant highlight: Flattop Grill
Favorite new friend of the day: Laura's friend Amy; most competitive new friend competition since between Laura's friends, Natalie 1's friends, Natalie 2's friends, Amy's friends, Natalie 1's boyfriend's friends, etc. I met approx. 20 new people
Role of drunk girl played by: Me

Saturday
Location: Chicago, some bar in Skokie, Evanston
What I learned:

• I want FLOR for Christmas
• Evanston is a college town but only has five bars
• USC football fans are crazy (in a good way)
• The Gopher football team was an embarrassment, especially when watching the game as it runs concurrently with the ASU/USC game with USC fans. You're ranked #1, we tank. Nice to meet you.
  

Restaurant highlight: Cafe Ba Ba Reeba
Favorite new friend of the day: Jack Chang, who can imitate Kanye West on the Gold Digger video perfectly
Role of drunk girl played by: Zippy

Sunday

Location: Evanston
What I learned: Lots about Frank Lloyd Wright from the FLW knowledge cards I purchased at MAM = great way to past time on the drive
Restaurant highlight: Le Peep

Favorite new friend of the day: Although I met him on Friday, Josh put up with me, Laura, Zippy and Jen Meyer at Sunday brunch. That takes a big man.

Role of drunk girl played by: Nobody, thankfully