Sunday, August 17, 2008
Y'all! I recently got back from a week at a conference in California, and I must say that overall it was FABULOUS.
My on-the-clock time was split between a research initiative and an organizational marketing effort, i.e., helping run my organization's booth in the conference exhibit hall. Apparently the common industry term to describe a cadre of attractive female sales reps in an exhibit hall situation is "booth babes", or if you prefer to get down to brass tacks, "booth boobs." While my coworkers and I weren't there in that capacity, exactly, I did notice that the male booth traffic got flirtier and weirder with each consecutive day of the conference. (By the last day it seriously felt like last call at the bar.) Towards the tail-end of the week, my coworkers and I had psychic readings done by a "clairsentient" who was brought in by one of the other exhibiting companies. Two of my coworkers weren't impressed with their readings, one thought her reading was okay and another one thought her reading was quite good. My own reading was scarily spot-on accurate, and that is really all that I care to say about it.
After business was over each day we hit the highways for a few side trips. Over the course of the week, we hit Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, a Disneyland property in Anaheim, Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The scenery was lush and amazing, the restaurants were amazing and all of the waitstaff was gorgeous.
While we were in L.A. we went on one of those bus tours through the neighborhoods of the rich and famous. The highlight there was seeing the door close at the Courtney Cox-David Arquette home. Might have been David! Or Courtney! Or their gardener! We were feeling pretty grumpy as the tour was wrapping up with nary a celebrity seen, and then, zipping around a corner came an army green SUV carrying a blonde-bobbed, sunglassed, red-lipped woman and a tousle-haired man. People, it was none either than TORI FREAKIN' SPELLING and her husband, Dean McDermott. And god bless the internet, because through the miracle of publicly-posted paparazzi videos, I was able to confirm that the vehicle I saw is indeed the same make/model/color of the vehicle owned by Tori and Dean. So that was an exciting, albeit long distance, brush with a celebrity.
Later that same evening we went to Santa Monica and had dinner at The Ivy on the Beach. Our table was a scant 5 feet away from the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard and Jackie Collins. Also some portly dude in the back whom we couldn't quite recognize but gathered that he was important based on the way he was holding court at his table. I swear to you, there was a beam of light from the heavens shining right down on him.
Readers, I am drained and have not the energy to go back and forth weaving the above snippets into a more comprehensive narrative, so I will just wrap it up here. I leave you with a recipe, the original of which I came across over the weekend and tweaked a bit to add flavor. Enjoy.
Chocolate Orange Zucchini Bars
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp finely grated orange peel
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
In a mixing bowl, combine oil, sugar, egg and vanilla. Stir in the zucchini. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to zucchini mixture and mix well. Divide batter in half. Add cocoa and chopped walnuts to half; spread into a greased 13x9x2-in. baking pan. Add grated orange peel to remaining batter, pour on top of chocolate batter in pan and spread out evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until bars test done. Cool completely before cutting into bars. Makes 24 bars.
# posted by Amanda at 9:23 PM |
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Monday, August 04, 2008
It is August and I Am Into:
- Greek yogurt with honey
- Bouquets of fresh flowers for my desk at work
- Coveting a next-step-up camera
- Living With Ed
- Stuff White People Like, which, ironically enough, I heard about through a Jamaican friend
- Workaholism
- Stressing about an upcoming birthday which will put me in the final year of [Ed. note: Warning! Research geekery ahead!] a typical "lifestyle survey" demographic question response category, and which also - judging from what I've seen among the general public - puts me ever so much closer to developing an errant nose hair problem.
# posted by Amanda at 9:46 PM |
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Saturday, August 02, 2008
Her Resume Reads, "Excellent problem-solving skills."
Imagine that you've asked a couple of five-year-olds to help prepare the day's snack for their camp program. The task that you've assigned to them is counting out cups and stacking them in sets of 10. After a minute or two, you check on their progress with the task.
One of the kids has built a neat stack of 10. The other kid has built a stack of well over 20 cups. It turns out that this child - let's call him Brady - very honestly cannot yet count to 10. Brady's older sister confirms this.
Given this challenge, how would you handle it? Would you find a way for Brady to complete the task or give him something else (easier?) to do?
The above scenario is a true story. Sophie came up with a good solution to the dilemma. Her suggestion to "Brady" was, "Make your stack the same size as my stack. If your stack is too short, add some cups. If your stack is too tall, take some cups away."
That worked!
# posted by Amanda at 8:20 PM |
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