I was in Target this week and spent a few minutes digging through their assortment of chocolate. Most of it is not so very special, but I spotted a new variety from Mars, more specifically, a Dove product.

At first they looked like the regular Dove chocolates, but then I noticed the packaging looked different. The “smooth” milk chocolate was now labeled “Beautiful” and the “rich” dark chocolate was now labeled “Vitalize”. Closer inspection revealed that these two chocolates were the same as before only now they were VITAMIN FORTIFIED!

I’m kind of on the fence about vitamins these days, especially since that Copenhagen study came out saying that people who took multivitamins were more likely to die early than the non-vitamin folks. I don’t know why we all feel we need more vitamins. Maybe if all we eat is french fries and doughnuts, then adding vitamins is warranted.

Apparently, the milk chocolate has extra vitamin C and E in it. I checked the old label and indeed it has more. Plus the ingredient list shows it has been added. So now you get 10% of the US RDA of each of calcium, vitamin E, biotin, vitamin C, niacin, and zinc in 5 pieces of the milk chocolate. Swallow down 50 and you are good for the day (just ignore the 2200 calories). So how does it taste? I don’t care for it. There’s anodd fruity smell to the chocolate, like its a filled chocolate candy. It almost smells like the chocolate candies you get in a box. Like the chem lab smelled in college when they were doing ester synthesis. It lacks that familiar taste of Dove milk chocolate. The flavor seems really bland. If the regular Dove milk tasted like this, I would think it was spoiled or very old.

The dark chocolate has “energy releasing B vitamins”. The label says you get 10% of calcium, thiamine, B6, pantanoic acid, riboflavin, and biotin. Same 5 pieces per serving. The dark is pretty bad. It has a strong medicine taste in the background which lingers in your mouth long after you are done eating it. Not pleasant, not at all.

Some time in the past 10 years, marketing departments decided we all need lots more vitamins. They vitamin fortify everything. There’s even water with vitamins and people buy it by the 6-pack and chug down bottle after bottle. Its become a completely frantic marketing frenzy. I think by adding vitamins to candy, it somehow feeds (pun!) our need to justify what we are eating, rather than eating better. We feel good when someone tells us we don’t have to change a thing to eat better. Chocolate has become health food, and now people feel like they are eating themselves healthy. It just doesn’t work like that.

I’m really disappointed to see Mars take the low road like this. Its a stupid gimmick and the chocolate came out pretty bad in the end anyway. They need to just stick with good chocolate and fire the doofuses in the marketing department. I’d be happy to go help them out. Mars? If you’re reading this? Call me. We’ll do lunch.

Betts stared up at him for a moment and then lifted his hand, holding up the report, and tossed it into the trashcan without breaking eye contact with George.

George sat down in his chair, sulking. His head was spinning. He kept trying to remind himself that it was just a report and it didn’t matter what Betts did with them after they were out of George’s hands. It wasn’t his report. It wasn’t even his place to care about it.

Yet, it felt wrong to watch it be thrown away. He knew his work was important. Why else would they pay for the reports? He knew they had to be done correctly. Something wasn’t right, obviously, but it seemed to George that it was more than just the reports being thrown away. Somehow there had to be important information missing that would make it all make sense to him. Betts didn’t seem to the type do things mindlessly. There must be a real reason for all of this.

The next day, George worked on his report at usual. He gathered the data, analyzed it all, and compiled his report. It was a good report, as always, but he wasn’t very happy about it, knowing where it was going to end up. It made him angry just to think about it.

As George leaned back in his chair scowling at the ceiling about the report, his phone rang.
“Yes?” he said into the speaker.
“George, Mr. Stanton is not in this afternoon. He wanted you to give the report to the client for him.”
“What?” George stammered leaning forward in his chair.
“The report, George. Give it to the client?” she said slightly condescendingly.
“Uh, ok.”

George sat back in his chair again after hanging up the phone. He supposed now he would get to see Betts’ reaction in person, which made him a little bit nervous.

When it was time to meet Betts, George printed his report out and headed down the hall. When he reached the lobby, he found Betts waiting there for him.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Betts.” said George holding out his hand.
“Hello, George.” said Betts shaking George’s hand firmly.
“Here’s today’s report.”
“Thank you.” said Betts taking the report and stuffing into his coat pocket.
“Uh, did you want to look it over?” George was more than a little disappointed at Betts not even glancing at it.
“Oh, I’m sure its fine. I’ll have a look at it later.” said Betts, winking at him.
“When you throw it out!” George was shocked at his own outburst, like someone else was shouting out of his mouth for him. Betts only grinned.
“Perhaps.” he said “Is there something on your mind, George?”
“There is. What is the point of preparing those reports if you are just throwing them away? It’s a useless waste of time and money!” George blurted out. Betts continued to grin.
“It sounds to me, George, as though that is really something you should be asking of yourself.” and he turned his head ever so slightly to one side, and blinked both eyes in an exaggerated slow motion.

George was a little taken aback at Betts’ reply as well as the annoying facial gesture, and he there stood staring blankly at Betts.

“Come with me, George, I want to show you something.” George followed Betts out the front door to the edge of the parking next to the trash can. Betts pulled the report from his pocket and tossed it in as he stopped and turned around to face George. George started to speak, pointing at the report in the trash as Betts interrupted him.

“George, tell me what you do all day.”
“I analyze the data you send, put it in a report, and you throw it in the trash.” George replied rather testily.
“Excellent.” said Betts grinning again “Now, do you know what I do all day?”
“Generate data?” said George, grasping at straws and failing.
“Wrong!” said Betts loudly. “Let me show you.”

Betts bent down and picked up a rock about the size of his fist off the ground and, turning towards the parking lot, hurled it overhand directly into the lot full of parked cars.

to be continued…

I went out for an hour run this morning. My son had swimming lessons so I had to make sure I was back in time to bring him. I checked my watch I did the math and knew my plan. Half way out I checked the watch again and calculated another 15 minutes of running. But I somehow mixed up 15 total minutes with 15 minutes until the turn around. I got back with just enough time to get him to swim lessons while I ended up taking my shower at the gym. I guess that works out, but the water temp there is always boiling hot or freezing cold. I had cold today.

Not much else to report. Hope you all are having a fine Mother’s Day weekend. Oh, and Monday is my 18th anniversary. Egads. Seems like it all went so fast.

I ran a bit this week. I know I ran 3 miles one of the days during the week, but can’t remember which one. And Saturday I ran for an hour. Then Sunday I did cardio for an hour.

I found that the TV shows at the gym suck. One TV is always on news (o’bama/billary/mcdo-over, etc. etc. ad nauseum), another is always on sports (gag) and the third is on the food network (like us fatties need that). All the speaker jacks on the machines produce so much static in the headphones, you have to crank to the volume to hear the bad shows. I had thought it was going to be nice having 3 giant plasma TV’s there, and it turned out to be worse than the small tube TV’s they used to have.

One nice thing I saw today was that they now have new cybex stuff including the captain’s chair! My old favorite exercise that produced my former abs that you could stand on. I’d like to get back to some light weight training again. I’d like to dump the fat so it makes it worth while to strengthen those abs again too. I have plans to help this. :)

Tonight I went to a Cinco de Mayo party. I actually drank a beer, which was kinda coincidental. The last time I drank a beer was when that linked picture above was taken. Beer still tastes as miserable as ever. I always expect it to be different but its not. I guess I’m always hoping it will taste like fruit juice. Bleh. I drank to fit in. How very pathetic of me. See what I’ve become?

I signed up for the Boilermaker. I signed up for New Haven. I hope I’m not being too optimistic about either of them. I have alot going on this summer and I hope it isn’t going to kill running for me. We’ll see. Anyone else going to these?

Then, his brow began to wrinkle a bit, a look of puzzlement came across his face, and his mouth dropped into a small frown as he looked up at George.

“What is this you’ve written here, George? This doesn’t make sense.”
“Uh, what’s that, sir?” said George, feeling the color draining from his face.
“Right here.” George’s boss pointed his fat finger at a spot on the page, and he leaned the papers across the table towards George.

George looked down and scanned the page. He spotted the error and put his finger on it, and tried not to let his finger tremble.
“Ah, you see,” he started, “I’m thinking that maybe this-”
“What? No, not up there.” his boss interrupted, “Down here!” George’s boss was pointing to a paragraph farther down the page.
“Oh. Uh. Um. Yes, that’s the technology transfer assessment. I used quarterly summaries instead of annual accumulations. It looks unusual in the cost correction table, but the coefficients are easier to process when its merged with delta discrepencies.”
George’s boss sat back in his chair and thought for a moment.
“Brilliant!” he finally blurted out, “Another fine job, George.” He got up from the chair and took the report with him as he left the office.

George stood there, still facing the empty chair. He had sweat on his upper lip. He still felt all shaky about his Boss looking at the error. It took him a few minutes to collect himself again, to get his head thinking calmly again. What an incredibly stupid idea that was, he thought to himself. Not only did he feel as though he had barely gotten away with it, but the pressure was far more than liked to deal with in his job. Worse than that, now that his boss had let it go, he would have to make the change before it went…to the customer!

George’s alertness went from stunned shock to overload in a flash as he realized where his boss was heading. Once again, he found himself racing down the hall after his boss, trying to head him off before reaching the customer. Like before, George was too late to stop his boss before meeting the customer, but unlike before George did not stop when he rounded the corner, and came running right up to his boss as he spoke with the man in the dark coat.

“George!” his boss said, looked a bit startled. “I was just showing your report to Mr. Betts. George, I would like you to meet Mr. Eliot Betts. Mr. Betts, this is George Stapleton. He’s been preparing your reports for many years now. I’m surprised you haven’t met before now.”

George was still out of breath from the running and a bit embarrassed at looking so disheveled. “Good to meet you, Mr. Betts.” he stammered out, “Uh, about that report, I wanted to talk about the-”

“No need George.” his boss interrupted. “I was just pointing out the technology transfer assessment to Mr. Betts already.”
“Fine work, George.” said Betts slowly. He had the slightest of grins on his face as he said this, and stared at George with the most peculiar look, as though he were expecting George to say something funny.

“Uh, thank you, Mr. Betts. I’m glad it meets with your approval.”
“Oh yes, definitely. You can’t imagine how important these reports are to our company.” The grin was there again.
“That’s probably true. I guess that you need them for…?” George left the question hanging in the air, hoping Betts would answer, but George’s boss broke in.
“For business!” and he let out a big laugh. George and Betts each gave small chuckle, but George was certain that Betts looked as though he was pleased at not having to answer the question.

“Well, Mr. Betts, if you are satisfied with the report, we won’t detain you any further.” said George’s boss, stretching out his hand to Betts.
“Thank you again for your good work,” Betts said as he took George’s boss’s hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you George.” and he extending his hand to George.

“I’m glad we had a chance to meet, Mr. Betts.”
“As am I, George.” he said with the grin.

Betts turned and walked out the lobby door, and George and his boss headed back to their offices. George had forgotten all about the error he had put into the report. Apparently, it was not a concern to Betts. And there was something very peculiar about Betts’ behavior. Something about the funny grin. It was almost as if there was a joke running in his head and he was still going over the punchline.

George walked to the window as he thought. He looked out the window at the parking lot. His gaze drifted downward to the trashcan, and there stood Betts, looking up at him! George got a chill down his back when he realized Betts was looking directly at him. Betts stared up at him for a moment and then lifted his hand, holding up the report, and tossed it into the trashcan without breaking eye contact with George.

to be continued…

Then George saw his boss hand the report to the man with the dark coat.

He watched as the man read the flipped the cover page and read through the first pages. George grimaced waiting for the man to mention the error. He couldn’t imagine how embarrassed his boss was about to be. His boss had never yelled at him before, but being embarrassed in front of the customer may be just the thing that pushes him that far.

The man continued reading for a bit and then a broad smile came across his face. He looked up at George’s boss and they exchanged a few words. George couldn’t hear them clearly, but he could see the man mouth the word “excellent”. The man and his boss shook hands and turned and walked in opposite directions.

George almost fell over himself trying jump back out of view before his boss saw him. He ran down the hallway to his office again and looked out the window at the parking lot, trying to spot the man going out to his car. Shortly, the man emerged from the building and headed for the gate – and the trash can. George watched as he approached the can.

The man stopped right next to the can and held the report out as if he was going to drop it in, but froze in that position for a moment, as if he were reconsidering. Then he flipped the cover page over again and briefly scanned the first page which contained the error. George watched curiously, wondering why the man was hesitating. Eventually, the man flipped the cover page back over and tossed the report into the trash, just like before, and headed into the parking lot.

George sat back down in his seat and thought about all that had just happened. The report clearly had a glaring error, yet neither his boss nor the customer had made any comment about it. If the customer had indeed seen the error, he didn’t say anything to George’s boss. If his boss had seen the error, he would not have handed it to the customer. Yet, it did not seem likely that they would miss an error like that.

The entire situation set George’s mind to thinking for the rest of the week. At first, he went back and checked his previous reports for the past 3 months to see if other errors had gotten past him, but he found none. He even reread his most recent report to see if perhaps he had read it wrong, which of course he had not. This still left him with the question of why nobody noticed the error.

George decided he would do a test. It was risky, but the results would be worth seeing. He would intentionally put a mistake in the next report and see if his boss catches it. If his boss does not, he can simply stop him before he gives the report to the customer, since George will be standing right there. If he does catch it, George will simply make the correction and no harm will be done. It seemed harmless enough, but George still felt a slight twinge of guilt. Slight.

The next day, after he had finished his report, George searched for the best place to put the error. He didn’t want it so subtle that it would be easily missed, but didn’t want it to be so overt that it raised suspicions. Finally, he found a place which read “column 35 clearly indicates…” which George changed to read “column 35 dearly indicates…”. George was pretty pleased with his choice and even grinned a bit to himself as he printed out the pages.

He gathered up the report and walked down the hall to his boss’s office.

“Here’s today’s report.” he said, setting it down lightly on the desk.

His boss picked it up and scanned through it. George waited nervously as his boss read through the page with the implanted error. He seemed to be scanning over one section more than once. Then, his brow began to wrinkle a bit, a look of puzzlement came across his face, and his mouth dropped into a small frown as he looked up at George.

to be continued…

Back in February I got an email from Alex Rawal, asking me if I wanted a free pair of running shoes to try out. Despite the fact that I find Alex’s company’s advertising incredibly insulting, I decided to give them a fair shake and try them out. After all, Alex was nice enough to offer free shoes, so the least I could do is give them a fair and balance review. Alex asked if I wanted regular shoes or flats, and so I said flats because I run in flats now that I know regular shoes are made by Satan.

Well, I see that Vanilla received his new shoes about a month ago. What did I get?

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Maybe they don’t make flats and Alex was just kidding. Maybe they don’t like me because I don’t like their advertising and he was just teasing me. Maybe he just forgot. Either way, another empty promise from the-shoe-company-who-must-not-be-named.

I have to ask myself, would I spent $100 on something that was sold by someone who acts like this?

Dear stupid guy who was running on Kingsley Road last night,

I know you wanted to get a run in during the evening like I do (lately). That town is very small and makes a relatively safe place to run, however, there are some points you need to be aware of so that I don’t run your ass over.

1. Wear something reflective. A dark grey T-shirt, black shorts, and black shoes do not show up in the dark until my headlights shine on you when you are directly in front of my moving bumper.

2. Stay on your side of the road until after cars have passed. Deciding to switch to the other side while cars are passing you is not only stupid, but often times it is fatal.

3. Run on roads with a shoulder. I know this is not always possible, but deliberately picking roads that are very narrow (because they have been there since the 1700’s) and have no shoulder whatsoever, is incredibly stupid. I know you don’t like to run on the grass, but running in the road leads to massive trauma and flying body parts.

4. Carry a damn flashlight. See number 1 above, you moron.

5. Buy more life insurance. Given your low level of intelligence while running, your life expectancy is about 6 more months. I would not be surprised to see you in the obits this morning after being run over last night.

Sincerely,

Jon-who-almost-ran-you-over-because-you-jumped-in-front-of-my-truck-like-the-flaming-idiot-that-you-are

PS
I hit my horn and gave you the finger because I wanted you to know how proud I am of you for being out there running. Seriously. Rock on.

This weekend my wife’s family was visiting, but oddly enough I found time to exercise. I got an hour of running in on Saturday. Sunday I went to the gym (early!) and got an hour on the machines there. AND last night I ran for half an hour. I think this is a new record for me. :)

I spent some time on Saturday repairing my old “picnic Victrola”, which is a small portable gramophone. I don’t think it is actually a Victrola brand. In fact, I have no idea which brand it is because there are no names or numbers on it, except for the number 87 scrawled on the inside in black crayon, which I think is a manufacturer’s label anyway.

Basically, its a small gramophone that comes in a little case, about the size of a small portable electirc typewriter. Er. Like a big purse? I don’t know. Its small. Anyway, it has a small crank that you wind it up with and it plays the old Victrola records (which I have dozens of). I bought needles on Ebay years ago. They were about $5 for 100 so I have alot (you can only use them once or risk destroying your records).

When we moved, the gramophone got thrown around (like all our stuff) by the movers and the arm flange shattered. Its made of metal but it just shattered like glass into tiny pieces. So, I spent the weekend gluing it back together with crazy glue, and then back filling underneath with Bondo. I had really wanted some cut glass fiber to mix in and give it more strength, but I think it held up well anyway.

I played it for the boys while the women were out shopping. I had forgotten how incredibly low it is. You have to hold your ears standing next it while it plays. It was just amazing how very loud music can be from a player that has no amplifier and needs no electricity. The very exciting thing about it is that these songs haven’t been heard in ages. I’m guessing most of the records were made in the 20’s and 30’s and nobody has them recording in digital form. Once the record breaks, its gone forever. I will try to get some in mp3 format and post them here.

George rolled over and closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be a very different day.

Over the next few weeks, George continued to work as diligently as ever. He prepared his report each day as always, and his boss always gave him the same approving review of his work. For a while, he was bothered by the thought of the report ending up in the trash when he was done, but he tried to focus on the fact that it was only important that the report was prepared and given to the customer. Whatever happens after that, is not important. Sometimes it was hard to keep that in his mind.

At the end of the day, George often looked out the window, wondering the man whom he had seen throwing his report away would come back. He wondered what the man thought about when he read the report. He wondered if he was ever curious about who exactly wrote that report.

Once, when it was raining, George was certain he saw the man standing in the parking lot. The rain on the windows may it hard to see outside as it twisted and distorted the images of the cars in the parking lot under the dark rain clouds. George squinted looking through the dirty glass, but eventually decided it was one of the lamp posts.

George sat back down at his desk and finished up the changes to his report. He printed it and stapled the pages together and slid it into a folder for his boss. The entire routine of preparing the report was very mechanical for him now. After years of practice, it was almost like he was running on auto-pilot. Type, print, prepare, and finish. Just like clockwork.

George walked to his boss’s office and handed him the report. His boss thanked and praised him as usual upon reading through it. Just like clockwork.

George returned to his office and cleaned up from the day’s work. His papers tended to get strewn about the room as he progressed through preparing the report. It wasn’t that he was messy, just that the work required a lot of printing and revising and as he worked he needed to spread it out to see it all. When the work was done, he could clean it all up.

As he was finishing, he noticed he had left the report open on the computer. He leaned over the keyboard to close the document, but as he did he happened to glance at the very first line of the report, which read:

“The accumulated data, for the mouth of October, conclusively demonstrates that…”

The mouth of October? How could he have written that? He read it over again to make sure he saw that right. It was definitely there. George had never handed in a report with a mistake on it like that before. Maybe years ago, and certainly not one recently that would reach his customer.

George ran from his office and down the hall to his boss’s office. He wanted to stop him from giving that report to the customer with a typographical error in it. Especially in the first line!

George skidded to a halt in front of his boss’s empty office. He stood for a moment and then ran down the hall to the meeting room where he was certain his boss was meeting with the customer. He stopped outside the door and listened. But there wasn’t a sound coming from inside. He opened the door slowly and looked in, but there was nobody inside.

Then he heard his boss’s voice down the hall. He ran down the hall and slowed as he came to the corner at the far end. He peered around it to see his boss talking with the tall man in the dark coat! The same one who had thrown that report in the garbage. His boss had his back to George and it was hard to hear what they were saying.

Then George saw his boss hand the report to the man with the dark coat.

to be continued…