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  • 08 Nov

    The First Pick-le, The Angels Did Say

    It’s always interesting interacting with new people.

    You spend time weighing personalities and sort of testing people out in conversation. You also tend to come across things you’ve never heard of, like the Christmas Pickle.

    I like to think I know a lot about Christmas. After all, I am gearing up for my 26th yuletide season and 26 times is usually enough to understand just about anything. But at a Saturday night shindig, I was made aware of the Christmas Pickle tradition, one that sounded quite made-up.

    It helped the “that’s not real” case that the other four people within earshot of the Christmas Pickle tale had never heard of it either. It took walking to the other side of the room and soliciting more opinions before the tale was confirmed.

    Today at lunch I asked my companions, and they further cemented its legitimacy. Apparently it involves hiding a pickle ornament somewhere on the tree apparatus with a prize going to whomever finds it first. Some said they thought it had German roots, but during my Internet research I came across this article that says the Germans have no idea what they are talking about.

    You have to be somewhat skeptical of anything these days that doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page. I mean, global warming has an extensive Wiki entry and lots of people don’t think it exists.

    I think if you have a tradition that involves prizes, there should be a set of rules involved. So far, none of the Christmas Picklers have been able to explain contingencies for simultaneous findings. There also seems to be little concern about a prize-involved search involving kids, Christmas excitement and a tree full of ornaments. Seems to me that somewhere along the line there would be some sort of tree-toppling disaster.

    Then again, the tradition did lead to the creation of this wonderful piece of stop motion animation.

    Merry Pickle to all, and to all a good night.

    By cjhannas Christmas Uncategorized
  • 05 Nov

    Remember Remember My Former Employer

    I have worked for seven different companies in my life (not counting internships for which I was not paid).

    Today I learned that yet another of my former employers has apparently closed, making it the third to do so.

    My first job was as a house painter, working for my uncle during the summer before my junior year of high school. He moved onto other things shortly thereafter.

    Once the school year started I began selling shoes at Galyan’s, a sporting goods store that was bought out by Dick’s in 2005. I worked there until the very end, though at that point I was only working during college breaks.

    When I was at school, I started working for UWIRE, which apparently shut down last month. It was a college newspaper wire service that served as probably the greatest job I have ever had.

    I began there as a story enterer — basically working 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning copying and pasting articles from college newspaper websites into our newswire system. I’d assign them to different categories depending on their content, though I mainly handled sports for my first semester.

    Even with the hours, it was awesome. I would make a half-awake walk from my dorm, across the railroad tracks, and through a completely deserted campus center to the 24-hour computer lab on the lower level. The only people I saw were those who had tried to cram in a paper at 4 a.m. and had fallen asleep in the lab, and the custodial staff who took that opportunity to vacuum the carpet.

    Being in such a quiet environment so early in the day even led me to buy my iPod to help stay awake. I’m proud to report I still have it.

    The next semester I moved up to an editor position. That meant taking the stories entered by folks in my former position, conforming the text to our style and giving each story an appropriate headline. Then I would send the story off into the world.

    That was the truly great job. It meant working for 4-5 hours a day from my dorm room, which included easy access to the TV next to my monitor and the mini fridge a few feet away. My roommate, Jon, worked there too. We even had a sign on our door proclaiming our room as the UWIRE Selinsgrove Bureau.

    I’m not sure our boss was aware that Jon and I knew each other, let alone worked four feet away. I think there were only four or five student editors, so it should have seemed odd that two of them were from the same tiny school in Pennsylvania.

    But then again, our boss did live and work in California. Our only contact was through emails (that’s how we clocked in and out) or the occasional IM (for more pressing questions). She was also known to use the word “rad” a lot, which is always a great quality in a boss.

    The other advantage of not working in an actual office — being able to spring from your desk to check out the amazing play in NHL2K2 out in the lounge that has the rest of your suitemates screaming.

    There was also an arts section, whose editor frequently sent out opportunities to write original stories — mostly reviews of books or music. I wrote a review about a book by filmmaker Joe Berlinger, which recounted his experience making a documentary about Metallica. It was during this time I was making my own documentary about our college newspaper, and oddly picked up some perfectly timed insight about my own project.

    When I went on to graduate school, I went back to being an enterer. After the fall semester I wasn’t able to fit it into my schedule anymore and had to bid farewell to UWIRE.

    What a rad time.

    By cjhannas shoes Uncategorized writing
  • 05 Nov

    Orange You Glad

    It’s always nice to achieve long-term goals.

    In March, I ran a half-marathon in Washington, D.C., in a time of 1:49:45. That was 15 seconds better than my goal, and I was happy.

    I planned to focus on shorter distances for the summer, try to set a new 5K personal best, and see if I could make a run at a 1:45 half-marathon in November.

    The 5K record fell in my first attempt in June, followed by a blazing new 4-miler record in July.

    I woke up on Sunday in rainy, windy Raleigh thinking I might be able to get close to 1:45, but would at least beat my time from March. I ran with my sister-in-law, Bethany, for the first seven miles (we had the same goal time). Through 7, we were about 25 seconds behind that pace.

    As the rain fell even harder, I broke away, finishing with miles of 7:46, 7:44, 7:51, 7:42, 7:18(!) and 7:40. Add that all up (plus the 34 seconds to cover the final .1 miles) and I came in at 1:43:08.

    Needless to say, I was pretty happy with that outcome as evidenced by one of the photos here. Note that I look somewhat miserable during the others, and one is clearly not me.

    Of course I need to give credit where it’s due — to my awesome orange shoes. So far this year they have been on my feet for four races, all of which were new personal records.

    Next up, a Turkey Trot 5K on November 21. Can the orange shoes go 5-for-5 in 2009?

    By cjhannas running shoes Uncategorized
  • 02 Nov

    The Smell of Cheap Living

    Before the meal was finished cooking, it was the smell that took me to another place.

    I didn’t have to taste it. That smell is so distinct it has a permanent place in my memory.

    All of a sudden I was taken from my kitchen in Virginia back to the tiny thing in our Maryland apartment that fit the loose definition of a kitchen. I’m still not sure how more than one of us stood in there at the same time.

    The trip back to College Park was made possible by the meal that quite literally got me through grad school — hot dogs. Or more specifically, Bar S hot dogs.


    The absolute cheapest hot dogs you can buy

    I’m not sure I want to know how many of those things I ate during my time at the University of Maryland. I was working two part time jobs and subsisting on a steady diet of peanut butter & jelly, pasta and Bar S.

    The hot dogs — at 10 for 99 cents — were such a staple that I didn’t even write them on my grocery lists. I automatically picked up two packs of hot dogs and two packs of buns. I’d say I easily went through at least a pack a week between lunches and dinners (and snacks).

    Since I lived there for a year, that would work out to eating more than 500 of them.

    I was at Giant last week and actually had hot dogs on my list. Since none of the quality brands were on sale, I thought I’d take get nostalgic with a nice pack of Bar S (which now come in packs of 8 and cost more like $1.50).

    It only took about 20 seconds in the microwave for that very distinct smell to come wafting through the kitchen. I’m sure my roommates at Maryland, Jon and Jason, would immediately recognize it as well.

    Though they’ll probably live much longer lives having not ingested so many of the “quality” products. I think I will give Bar S some more time before trying them again. Nostalgia needs a break.

    By cjhannas food hot dogs Uncategorized
  • 30 Oct

    Five Friday Thoughts

    I have a post I’ve been meaning to write all week but definitely didn’t get around to. Look for it Monday.

    In the meantime, here are Five Friday Thoughts:

    1. If you buy a product that has a “patent pending” label, they should send you some sort of notice if the patent is approved or rejected.

    2. If every auto insurance company can save you hundreds of dollars by switching to their service, why don’t they all just lower their prices by hundreds of dollars and stop wasting the ad money.

    3. DVRs should have an option to add your own labels or notes to your recorded shows so you can let others in your house know you haven’t watched that one yet and they shouldn’t delete it.

    4. Jay-Z, because you keep asking in your song “Run This Town”, nothing’s up with me. Sup with you?

    5. Twitter should follow Google’s lead and do special features for holidays by creating trending Tweet lists for historical events. Wouldn’t it be entertaining to see how the Boston Tea Party, Moon Landing, Nixon’s resignation or Elvis’ death would have trended?

    By cjhannas Uncategorized
  • 23 Oct

    Up in Flames

    “It was a pleasure to burn.”

    That’s the opening line to Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” describing the feeling of systematically destroying the world’s hidden caches of books.

    I wonder how our society would respond to a governmental anti-book policy. Sure, there are lots of us who love to read and consider books an important part of our lives. But what about those who could really care less?

    If Major League Soccer folded tomorrow, I honestly wouldn’t think twice about it while die-hard U.S. soccer fans might be devastated. The same goes for coffee — I don’t drink it, so I really wouldn’t care.

    Bradbury paints a world where leaders are scared by an informed public and sees banning books as an integral part of its control:

    “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.”

    It is a world of dulled senses and stilted emotions, one marked by living room walls made up of giant television screens assuring everyone that everything is OK.

    But like Winston in George Orwell’s “1984,” not everyone is content to buy into the system. Some people still think, still read those banned books even though they risk being caught and facing a fiery penalty.

    If you enjoyed “1984” you’d absolutely get into this book. In a post-story interview in my edition, Bradbury explains the difference as Orwell tackling the implications of governmental control while he deals with the societal fallout.

    The “bonus material” also adds a great tidbit about Bradbury renting time on a typewriter in the UCLA library in order to write the book. He says it cost 10 cents for a half hour, leading him to write the book at a furious pace — half of it (25,000 words) in nine days.

    Despite the novel’s themes of having to fight attacks against intellectualism and personal voice, Bradbury weaves in moments of individual triumph. He portrays humans as having a hopeful spirit, one that perseveres through obstacles that will eventually ensure their own failure.

    He writes: “It doesn’t matter what you do…so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching. The lawn cutter might just as well have not been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

    Here’s to hoping people never lose the desire to create and share and think.

    By cjhannas books Uncategorized
  • 21 Oct

    If You Say So, Netflix

    Netflix is my friend.

    At least, it’s trying to get to know me and give advice to improve my life.

    That’s what led to today’s recommendation — The Crow — which Netflix served up to me in a category called “Visually-striking independent films.” How very specific of them. Of course they had to base that recommendation on something, and in this case it was my high rating of Rachel Getting Married and Slumdog Millionaire.

    I would make more fun of them trying to guess what I would like, but they happen to be right a lot of the time. Even when it comes to movies they don’t think I’d care for, they have those ranked appropriately.

    Take for example the list of movies released in the last month. Netflix says I would give 5 stars to 30 Rock: Season 3, 4.25 stars to both Man vs. Food: Season 1 and Waltz With Bashir. I can confirm that I thoroughly enjoy the first two, and I’m pretty sure I’d like the third.

    But the system isn’t perfect. It puts Best of SNL: Amy Poehler (3.25) far too close to The World According to Miley Cyrus (2.75). Barney Fun on Wheels (2) isn’t all that far behind, though Netflix is correct that I’d be much more likely to watch a singing Miley than a singing purple dinosaur at this stage of my life.

    It even gives a suggested rating for movies that haven’t even hit theaters yet. I’m happy to report Netflix thinks I would really enjoy Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day. Considering that learning of this movie’s existence was the highlight of that particular day, I’d agree.

    By cjhannas movies Netflix Uncategorized
  • 19 Oct

    You May Ask Yourself, “How Did I Get Here?”

    I want you to know, I’m happy you’re here.

    How you got here isn’t important, but know that your path could have been pretty entertaining for me. Especially those of you who were just looking for information about pumas.

    Some people follow the blog and see every post that way. Others got here from a link on my Facebook page, while some more may have been referred by a friend.

    I could say I’m some kind of psychic so in tune with my content that I’m able to figure all of that out on my own. But my friend technology gives me a hand with some stats about readers.

    That’s how I know about the pumas.

    Another popular way people end up here is through a Web search, usually Google. When this happens, I can see the search terms that brought them here. There’s nothing funnier than seeing that someone visited your blog after Googling the phrase “amazing true facts on pumas.”

    My new favorite, “how often should you wear sweatpants.” The blog related to sweatpants doesn’t directly answer that pressing question, but wear them as often as feels right.

    Of course the first thing I do when I see one of those search terms that landed someone at cjhannas.blogspot.com is to Google the string myself. I like to see what their other options were for obtaining the information. Out of 344,000 results for the sweatpants query, In Defense of Sweatpants is the eighth link — just behind a blog by Anderson Cooper.

    Somehow I don’t see Anderson as a sweats guy. Maybe Google should rework the algorithm.

    By cjhannas blog stats Uncategorized
  • 12 Oct

    An Admirable Effort

    In August I wrote about a JetBlue offer where a mere $599 could buy you all the flights you want for a month. I hoped that with all of the nation’s unemployment woes, someone would seize the opportunity to fly to all of JetBlue’s 56 destinations.

    Well, it doesn’t look like anyone did. The promotion ended last week, but this Associated Press article does detail the efforts of two guys who at least got some fun out of the deal.

    They hit 30 cities in the span of 31 days, covering more than 50,000 miles, according to the article. One thing that may not have occurred to them–and I wouldn’t have thought of–the time they spent at hub airports like New York’s JFK.

    You can see their itinerary at their Web site, which also details their goal of spending no more than 12 hours on the ground before boarding another flight.

    With the number of flights available to and from major cities, there are a few curious entries in their plans. I do applaud their effort on September 23, when they flew from Tampa to New York in the morning, caught a lunchtime flight to Boston and capped it off with an evening jaunt to San Diego. I’ll even ignore that they wrote “San Diega” on the site.

    I think from looking at their list that there was some sort of aversion to using connecting flights. In fact, it seems like they took a lot of evening flights to New York just so they could take a non-stop morning flight to somewhere new. That’s how they spent the last nine days of the trip –San Jose to NYC, NYC to Raleigh, Raleigh to NYC, NYC to Phoenix, Phoenix to NYC, NYC to Denver, Denver to NYC, NYC to Portland, Portland to NYC, NYC to Rochester, Rochester to NYC, NYC to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to NYC.

    Having not taken the opportunity to try this out myself, I can’t say for sure there was a better way. Maybe next time JetBlue offers such a deal someone will make a better run at all 56 destinations.

    But of course that brings up another question–what did they do with all of their time in the JetBlue terminal at JFK? They took at least one flight from JFK on 22 out of the 31 days, including 29 total flights. Did they make friends with the gate employees? Is there a good sandwich shop nearby? By the end were they acting like snooty JetBlue regulars, or were they completely sick of looking at the back of a JetBlue seat?

    So many pressing questions.

    By cjhannas Uncategorized
  • 09 Oct

    Peace Out

    U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, becoming the 97th individual to receive the honor according to the Nobel Web site.

    The announcement coincided with 98 percent of Americans suddenly deciding they cared about the Nobel Peace Prize.

    OK, I don’t have any data to back up that second sentence, but from the looks of people’s postings on Facebook this morning the number can’t be that far off. The real question is why the new found interest in a prize that has been awarded since 1901?

    I understand that some people may question Obama’s laureate status given that he has been in office for less than a year (and ballots were due barely two weeks after he took office). On the other side, there is the fact that Obama has been pushing for many of the efforts cited by the Nobel committee long before ascending to the presidency.

    But none of that is really the issue today. What I’m curious about is the outrage.

    If you’re angry about the award, take a second and think back to who was given the Peace Prize last year. In fact, take another minute since I need to look this up…OK. Ready for the answer? Martti Ahtisaari of Finland.

    Here’s another test of your commitment to honoring the legacy and preserving the intergrity of the Nobel Peace Prize–name five laureates. Ever. If you’re reading this, there’s a solid chance you’re at least 25 years old. So that would be only a fifth of the winners in your lifetime, or you can select some of the slam-dunk names from before we were born to make things easier.

    I’d be willing to bet you can nail five Oscar winners for Best Actor a lot faster, and would probably agree that their work is slightly less important on a global scale.

    Give up? Here’s a list of every Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

    It’s OK to think an event or idea is odd, and want to seek out more information. It’s OK to talk about it and have a civil discourse. But expressing outrage at something that has never ever meant the slightest thing to you just makes it look like you wake up every morning with a plan to find something to complain about, and then do it very loudly.

    So congratulations, Mr. President. Now let’s all take a deep breath, take a step back, and move forward together to find solutions to some of those major problems affecting our world.

    By cjhannas Uncategorized
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