Friday, July 10, 2009

An interesting class of words

I was thinking the other day about a class of words that seem to be coupled with only one specific other word. Two examples are to come, but before I give them, I'd like for you to let me know the first word that comes to your mind after you read these words. Ready?


  1. hyperbaric




  2. hermetically



Was there a word that you immediately associated or coupled with the above words? Can you think of any other words that might be in a class similar to the two words above -- in that you only hear them used coupled with another specific word?

Monday, May 11, 2009

Arctic Circle

If any of you visited the South Jordan Arctic Circle during the spring of 1999, I may have taken your order. If you had the patience to wait nearly 20 minutes for you food, regardless of what you ordered, you may have even enjoyed a decent "fast" food meal.

I love Arctic Circle's food, but the fact that they only employ irresponsible teenagers to operate their stores has made it hard to justify eating there. The possibility of having a drug-addict know-nothing fixing my cheeseburger was always a little disconcerting, but didn't always stop me from testing my luck at the place. The wait time is what really killed my desire to dine in or take out. How could I spend so much precious time waiting for a cheeseburger when another delicious—and efficient—restaurant option was just down the road?

Despite the possibility of wasting my time, I went with friends Spencer, Kyle and Kyle's brother-in-law, Nick, to the Arctic Circle in Riverton. As a rival store, I seldom ate there 10 years ago, but now those feelings have faded. Thank goodness they have, too. I've never had such customer service at a fast food restaurant ever. Let me tell you about it:

  • First, almost everyone working there was an adult. This goes a long way in the fast food business. Adults are better employees than children.

  • After ordering my small Lime Squeeze and not getting it right away, I was upgraded--for free--to a jumbo size Lime Squeeze.

  • Once it was clear that my party was finished with our meals, a server came by our table and said, "Are you guys about ready for your courtesy cones?" Wow! Free ice cream and none of us even had to ask for it.

  • A few minutes later, another employee came to our table and asked "Can I get those trays out of your way?" Wow! They totally bussed our table for us.

  • This is all in addition to the fact that the restaurant was spotless (including the bathroom).


If you don't mind a boiled hamburger, please eat at the Riverton Arctic Circle. I hope you have as good an experience as I did.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Picasa is available for Mac

I mentioned in a recent post that I was totally dissatisfied with the picture managing software that comes with a Macintosh computer (iPhoto). Just today, I remembered that I had heard Google had finally released Picasa for Mac, which I was thrilled to find out to be true. I don't know when Google did this; I know it had been rumored for a long time, but it finally happened. I'm sure this is old news, but I'm so excited. I'll be trying it out as my new picture manager instead of Adobe Bridge (which is wonderful).

So far so good. I've uploaded my first batch of pictures using Picasa and am now ready to do a little editing.

If you're interested in downloading Piacas for Mac for free, you can do so here

Sunday, August 31, 2008

One more Neko Case post


I took the color out of this picture (even though I thought that might be kind of a cliche thing to do), and I think it looks awesome, so I'm posting it. And just to be clear, I did take this one. It makes me wish I had my better camera...

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Neko Case

Neko Case was in town this past Thursday and I took video of her singing a couple of songs. She is unbelievable. So is Kelly Hogan, her back-up singer.

Here she is singing "I Wish I Was the Moon"




Here she is singing "Star Witness"




Here she is singing a new song that's going to be on her new album due out March 2009

Saturday, June 21, 2008

I've rid my life of iPhoto

Thanks to a terrific tip from my friend Matt, I've successfully replaced iPhoto as my photo manager with Adobe's Bridge. For those who don't know, iPhoto is easily Apple's weakest program; I've experienced nothing but frustration with it. Bridge, on the other hand, is absolutely terrific, although a little bit advanced for me right now. Ideally Google would release a version of Picasa for Mac. Picasa is the greatest base-level picture manager I've ever used.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

A really great deal

I've decided to take up tennis again and to show my dedication, I've purchase a new racket:



This is a racket that retails for $300, but I got a really great deal on it--$225 off the original price! I'm really excited to see how it will improve my game.

I've also started taking tennis lessons. I got these for free too, so I feel really great about that.

Let me know if any of you want to play.