During my three years in Omaha between college and the big move, I lived in an apartment complex called London Square. It was a great location, right in the heart of Dundee, one of Omaha’s most desireable neighborhoods, but my first unit there was the cheapest one that I could get: a basement apartment. The unit certainly had its faults in its first months: a dishwasher that leaked stagnant water, flooding that soaked the carpet of much of my living room, frightening insects that were at first sight, unidentifiable, and some extremely smelly old ladies that lived across the hall, that were known to wander the hallway in their diapers. These are all stories of their own, but nothing sticks out of my stay at London Square like “The Bat Story.”
One day I was doing my laundry in the London Square basement laundry room. I was transporting my clothing from the washing machine to the dryer, armful by armful, when a dead bat fell out of said clothing onto the floor. I thought that I had screamed, but I do know that nothing audible came from my lungs. I simply stared down at the tiny bat, wondering if perhaps one moment I would wake up, in my bed, in a cold sweat – but it did not happen. It felt like one of those traumatic experiences that has a surreal quality by virtue of it not immediately feeling nearly dramatic as you know it will sound when it is retold. “Is that what I think it is? Yes, it is a bat? Is it…whoo, yes, it is dead.” I of course transported what clothes that were now in the dryer back to the washing machine for a second go.
The call to the property manager was interesting: “Yes, this will sound incredibly odd, but the other day when I was doing laundry, I discovered that my clothes had been washed with a dead bat.”
The response of the typically customer-service challenged property manager was disturbingly nonchalant even for her: “oh, that’s funny, someone called and said they had seen a bat in the laundry room, but we went over there and ya know – we didn’t find anything.”
Hmmm. Bats live in caves – maybe they should have looked in the washing machine.
My mother recently sent me an article from the February 4th Omaha World Herald entitled Omaha: Creative, but intolerant. Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, and otherrelated books was the keynote speaker at Omaha’s first Young Professionals Summit. It turns out that while Omaha ranks 11th on the midsize city Creativity Index, and has a “strong technology base” (what?), Omaha ranks 155th on the tolerance scale of midsize cities. Florida(the author)’s research indicates that cities that rank high in technology, talent, and tolerance lead in innovation, and Nebraska’s being the first state to ban gay marriage doesn’t help Omaha out with that third “T.” Business leaders present and future gathered to hear what they could do about this problem.
I guess the trouble with text messaging is that when you dial the wrong number, there’s nothing to filter you from spilling your guts to the wrong person – thus nothing to prevent that person from publishing said guts on the internet.
Haven’t gotten invited to test the Alpha version of Meetro for Mac, but still want to try it out? A little birdie at SuperHappyDevHouse7 told me that you can download the Mac version of the Meetro Alpha here. Shhhhh…it’s a secret! Meetro is a proximity-based IM client that shows what users are on in your locale. Check it out!
Value to a user coming in any of a variety of forms, including personal effort, alterations to sense of self and personal worth, or social connections. A user is unlikely to invest Ego Capital if the return is likely to be a loss.
The startups of the late 90’s had the right idea in giving so many things away for “free”, but what they didn’t seem to understand was that if you give your users something, you should in turn get them to do something for you.
Keeping your old e-mail is useful for finding contacts that you don’t have in your Address Book, referencing information, and leaving something for historians to piece your life together when they write your biography. But having a mail file that is too large can make things a little slow, so try this to keep less-frequently referenced (older) mail in a safe place, while not letting its presence effect your enjoyment of reading your new mail:
Does anyone else feel like maybe grocery shopping is overrated? Since the big move, I have done real, old-fashioned, grab-a-cart-and-fill-it-up-with-all-of-the-stuff-you-think-you’ll-need-for-the-next-two-weeks (as well as everything else that catches your eye) grocery shopping a grand total of once. I have simply eaten out for every meal, or grabbed take-out from a place in the neighborhood. I have more time to work on the things that I’m good at and passionate about, I’ve been eating more rounded meals with all of those fruits and vegetables I had been hearing so much about, and I’m more apt to spend quality time with friends by virtue of wanting dining company. Now, I haven’t done a cent-for-cent analysis of the financial implications of this strategy, as my religion forbids it, but since I’m not making impulse buys, not eating unnecessary snacks, and not letting gigantic jars of pickles spoil in my fridge, I’d have to say I’m spending somewhere near the same amount of money on food, and I’m much happier not having to worry about cooking, or the phthalates being leeched into my preservative-ridden food by my TV dinner tray. And from an economic standpoint, I imagine a restaurant is far more efficient in utilizing its inventory and producing quality meals for cheap than I could ever hope (or care) to be.
I recognize that this philosophy is a bit single-with-cooking-skills-of-Ted-Kaczynski-centric, but dangitt, I really like life without grocery shopping. Anyone else tried it?
