This was too good not to post-- apologies for all the puns (they're not mine)

Looking for a Job You Can Relish?
Here is a Job with all the fixings!

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Spokesperson

Can you cut the mustard?
Here are some of the Qualifications that we are looking for:

- Must love to travel!

- A willingness to learn.

- Drive to succeed.

- An appetite for fun and adventure.

- Want to explore the US through the eyes of a Hot Dog!

- Willing to work and communicate with kids of all ages.


Who? - You! We need outgoing, creative, friendly, enthusiastic, graduating college seniors who have an appetite for adventure and are willing to see the world through the windshield of an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

Applicants should have a BA or BS, preferably in public relations, journalism, communications, advertising, or marketing, though applicants are not limited to these degrees.

Se Habla Espanol? - Bilingual candidates are encouraged to apply.

What? - To represent Oscar Mayer Foods as a goodwill ambassador through radio and television appearances, newspaper interviews, trade visits and charity functions. To meat and greet people from coast to coast. To maintain company car (Oscar Mayer Wienermobile). To work with internal and external consumer promotions, marketing and sales professionals. To manage your own traveling public relations firm; organizing promotions and pitching TV, radio and print media.

Where? - The Hot Dog Highways of America. Wienermobiles travel through all regions of the country visiting big cities and small towns alike, bringing miles of smiles to millions.

Why? - The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile has become an American icon. For over 65 years, the Wienermobile has been able to provide a Wienerwhistle and a laugh for all. Oscar Mayer continues to use the Wienermobile at special events throughout the country and they need people like you to coordinate all aspects of Wienermobile travel and event management.

Condiments-

- Receive $500 per week, plus expenses, benefits and clothing.

-Experience of being your own traveling public relations firm.

-Experience in a self-managed position with many responsibilities.

-Be a mini-celebrity in small towns and big cities through event appearances and media interviews, and for being the driver of an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

I don't remember how long I clipped this but it's still incredibly true. 

As some of you know, I will be out of the country for the next two weeks and may or may not be able to get online during that period.

Though, if I am, I will certainly try to post descriptions of all of the great things I will be doing and seeing in Paris and Prague.

I'll be sending those people whose mailing addresses I have post cards but this is a bit more instant gratification.

Take a listen to this -- sound file (mp3) about the Weimar Republic.

It's really bizarre-- I had to listen to it twice before I could stop laughing-- but it still covers the history pretty effectively.

FYI-- I found this at the bottom of the
Wikipedia article on the Weimar Republic.

I've got a lot to write about, so more soon!

Anyone out there know of someone looking for a new place to live? I just got a message from a friend that offers a great opportunity for this-- Check it out!

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Hi everyone!
I have a room to rent in a two bedroom condo in Falls Church.
The rent is $ 725 a month, all utilities except electricity and cable
included. It would be a month-to-month arrangement until June.
The place is quiet and nice, with a small patio and large living room.
Please forward this to anyone who might be looking for a place inside
the beltway in Virginia.
Thanks!
- Ann
ann.bayliss@gmail.com
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I just got this message from a friend of mine from Dartmouth. It's a great way to contribute to such an important cause.

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Dear All,

One of my baby cousins is trying to raise funds for Tsunami victims on behalf
of UNICEF. His target goal is only $2,000. If you would like to help him by
making a contribution (ANY denomination, no matter how small, will be
appreciated!), please visit the following site:

Click Here

The fundraising effort is for a good cause and would only take a minute.

Happy New Year,

Saleela

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Happy New Year, Saleela, despite the circumstances!

Wow-- California is really getting inundated. We've gotten over 4 times our average annual rainfall. Ok.... ok.... I'm from the desert and we're only pushing about 5 inches for the year. But we barely get an inch a year and have mountains between ourselves and LA.

On the other side of the mountains, it's getting pretty bad. I remember driving through a pretty little town called La Conchita huddled on the coast when my father and I were driving along US Highway 101 from Ventura to Santa Barbara for his business.

I say the town was 'huddled' because it was built on a tiny piece of flat land that was barely the size of the DC mall, connected only by the ribbon of highway that often had sea cliffs on one side and steep bluffs rising on the other without much shoulder at all.

This was a tenuous existence at best and the little town had been pummeled before by the weather-- sometimes dramatically (like in 1995).

It's a real pity to see the area around the landslide get built up again, only to (predictably) be demolished again with the rains this winter. I'm even more saddened to hear that 10 people ended up dying this time...

An Ariel Sharon insight into life:

The best thing to do when you've been stung by a wasp is to follow that wasp back to its hive and start whacking the hive with a stick.

Keep whacking the nest with a stick until they've learned their lesson.

If they sting you again, whack it harder.

(Andy Sultzman, BBC, "The Now Show," March 2004)

One of many reasons why it's important to study Geography...

Schoolgirl saved family and others by recognizing signs of coming tsunami
Jan 02, 2005 MacLeans, Canada

LONDON (AP) - A British schoolgirl who recognized the signs of a coming tsunami thanks to a recent geography lesson saved her family and some 100 other tourists at a Thai beach, a British newspaper reported.

Tilly Smith, 10, realized they were in danger when she saw the tide suddenly rush out -an indication earthquake-driven tidal waves are only minutes away -and told her mother, The Sun said in its Saturday edition.

She explained that she had studied tsunamis only two weeks before at her school in Oxshott, just south of London. Her parents, Penny and Colin Smith, warned nearby vacationers and staff at their hotel in Phuket, and the hotel swiftly evacuated Maikhao beach, minutes before the devastating waves struck, the newspaper said.

The Sun reported that the beach was one of only a few in Phuket where no one was killed or seriously hurt.

"I was on the beach and the water started to go funny," Tilly was quoted as telling The Sun. "There were bubbles and the tide went out all of a sudden. I recognized what was happening and had a feeling there was going to be a tsunami. I told mummy."

Penny Smith, 43, said that she ran off the beach after Tilly explained what was going to happen.

"I dread to think what would have happened if we had stayed," she was quoted as telling The Sun. "Minutes later the water surged right over the beach and demolished everything in its path."

Craig Smith, general manager of the JW Marriott Hotel where Tilly's family were staying, said the 10-year-old was a heroine.

"I think it's phenomenal that Tilly's parents and the others on the beach are alive because she studied hard at school," Smith was quoted as telling The Sun.

Tilly learned about tsunamis in a lesson with geography teacher Andrew Kearney at Danes Hill School, a private school in Oxshott.

"It is an incredible coincidence that our class were learning about this type of tsunami just two weeks before Christmas," Kearney was quoted as telling the newspaper. He added that Tilly "was particularly captivated by this force of nature and its effects."

© The Canadian Press, 2005

If you haven't noticed, I've been working a lot recently on coordinating work for a big conference, so I thought I'd put a link to the conference website just so the few people who hadn't realized what had been sucking away all of my free time....

Eisenhower and National Security
for the 21st Century

I know.. I know.. Those of you who know me are asking 'What free time?"

Check out this cool idea:

Researchers Compost Old Mobile Phones and Transform them into Flowers

A researcher at Warwick University in the UK has developed a cellphone cover including a flower seed that will decompose to create mulch and grow a flower when discarded.

Bananaz Burns Down

The Bananaz restaurant that we used to play NTN against burned down early Friday morning. I'm spending a few days at home for Thanksgiving, a few towns away from Bananaz and I read this story in the local paper (photos are available with the link):

Bananaz: Up In Smoke
Financially troubled club burns; probe of fire’s cause ongoing
The Desert Sun November 27, 2004
By Lois Gormley and Ferdie De Vega

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PALM DESERT -- A bar and grill that has wrestled with bankruptcy since 2003 went up in flames early Friday.

Bananaz, at the corner of Highway 111 and Fred Waring Drive in Palm Desert, quickly became engulfed when firefighters arrived on the scene of the 5:31 a.m. blaze, said Battalion Chief Dorian Cooley, Riverside County Fire Department/California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Nearly 50 firefighters and supervisory personnel responded to the scene with at least nine engines and a ladder truck, he said. The cause of the two-alarm fire at the 15,000-square-foot restaurant and bar was still unknown Friday evening. Fire investigators teamed with insurance investigators in an effort to determine the what started the blaze, Cooley said.

The fast-moving fire, which caused an estimated $2.5 million in damage, took place at a time it would be noticed, he said. By late Friday afternoon, investigators had not yet determined where in the building the blaze originated.

Nestled in the heart of some of Palm Desert’s busiest shopping hotspots, the club blaze was quickly spotted by post-Thanksgiving pre-dawn shoppers. A portion of Highway 111 was closed to traffic for seven hours.

Raylene Clark of La Quinta said she watched the firefighters battle the blaze at Bananaz for about an hour early Friday morning from behind a wall at the edge of the Desert Crossing shopping center parking lot across the street just before 6 a.m.

"I was dropping off my stepdaughter at Circuit City," she said. "We came all the way down Fred Waring (Drive)," Clark said, adding that they saw the billowing smoke in front of the mountains. "When you got to Monterey, you could start seeing the glowing," she said.

By 7:15 a.m., ash from the fire had landed on cars and trucks parked at the shopping center, and several onlookers had snapped photographs of the blaze with their cameras and cellular phones.

Charles Shamash, the Beverly Hills-based attorney who represented Bananaz Grill & Bar Palm Desert Inc. in its federal bankruptcy filing, refused comment Friday. Neither club owner Tom Budniak, nor office manager Craig Marlar nor club manager Randy Adams could be reached for comment.

The fire was fully controlled by 9 a.m., but fire crews remained on the scene throughout the day conducting extensive mop-up and overhaul. Charred debris were piled in the empty parking lot that was blocked off by yellow tape. At 4 p.m. temporary fencing had arrived be erected around the building; a few firefighters remained at the scene.

Formerly one of the busiest nightclub restaurants in the area, Bananaz was put up for sale for $3 million, according to a Baxley Properties listing early this year. The sale listing came after the mortgage holder on the building and the land sought to foreclose on the property and its owners filed for bankruptcy protection.

Bananaz Grill & Bar Palm Desert Inc. filed for Chapter 11 protection on June 24, 2003, after Zion National Bank of Utah started foreclosure proceedings. In June 2003, according to federal bankruptcy court records, the business filed for Chapter 11 protection. In September 2003, the case was dismissed and the file with the bankruptcy court closed in October 2003. In January 2004, the sale offering was reported. The Chapter 11 filing listed 25 creditors, ranging from the Internal Revenue Service to music-licensing giant BMI.

Oy--

Taking a break from a really crazy day at work to observe that one of the last things I need is someone supposedly called "Umbraged L. Vegetative" emailing me to buy into some sort of penis-enlargement scheme...

I feel like I might be a character in some kind of updated Kafka novel...

They say that hard work never killed anyone, but I'd rather not take a chance.
-Ronald Reagan

George W. Bush is giving him a run for his money.

Incredible! I had to push them to send me my absentee ballot but Riverside County lost no time in sending me a Jury Duty summons...


On a completely different note, here's something that's mildly amusing:

The Real Hussein II

A Flash video parody of Saddam Hussein to the tune of Eminem's "Without Me."

It hangs together relatively well with one major caveat. His statement that he "never even made a WMD" is false in that he used relatively simple (although extremely nasty) chemical weapons in the Anfal campaign, particularly on the village of Halabja in 1988. All the data I've seen shows that any WMD stockpiles or capabilities were destroyed or nonexistent at least from the end of the first Gulf War.

As the dog of complacency cocks its leg at the electrified fence of fate....

How's that for a transition?
(from a BBC comedy show)

I recently stumbled upon this Flash and have mixed feelings about it. So, I thought I'd put it up and see what other people's reactions are:

War

(Beware-- It's pretty dark. It's also pretty loud.)

What do you think?? I look forward to reading your comments.

It occasionally dawns on me how much people who pilot vehicles like airplanes, trains, buses, etc. along set routes must get incredibly bored with what they're supposed to tell their passengers over the millions of times that they do a particular route each day.

Like when I hear the following:

-- The pilot of American Airlines flight 3834 from Houston to Dallas comes on the PA at the beginning of the flight:

This is your master and commander of this aerospace vehicle speaking, His Excellency the Captain. Our airspeed velocity and cruising altitude will be....

-- And the operator of a Washington, DC metro train:

This is the Red Line to Glenmont, servicing downtown Washington, DC, Metro Center..... and beyond.....

Here's a really interesting and potentially fun contest that I recommend y'all try your hand at.

I used to work for an organization from which Citizens for Global Solutions was founded.

Check out their homepage! They do some interesting work...

Happy United Nations Day!



The United Nations was founded on this day fifty-nine years ago. Parts of it have received the Nobel Peace Prize eight times over that time though it sadly gets even less respect than Rodney Dangerfield.

I would be hard pressed to name another organization that has done as much demonstrable good for so many people around the world.

Look at the UN website and I guarantee you'll find lots of things that you didn't realize the UN was responsible for-- both in solving huge global problems and in ways that benefit your own daily life.

Take a look and actually speak up when people say manifestly incorrect things about the UN. Yes, it has a lot of flaws but those are nothing in comparison to what good it has done for the world.