Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

The Cove of Lake Geneva

2012-05-27T13:02:59-05:00

Somehow, in the last 24 hours I've managed to have two hospitality industry experiences that have eluded me thus far: a relaxing and enjoyable hotel room and a bagel store that doesn't suck--indeed, far from it. I'll start with the hotel. I booked a room at The Cove of Lake Geneva, which at slightly north of $200 was a splurge for me. However, the last time I paid $150 for a room (in Boston), I had to call the front desk to send security up because a couple was noisily having sex in the next room. So to pay $200 for a room that accomplished the mission of rest and relaxation seems like a square enough deal. Also, I booked with 72 hours' notice on Memorial Day weekend, so the room cost about half again as much as it would have otherwise.

Lake Geneva

2012-05-27T01:51:46-05:00

I'm in Lake Geneva catching up on trashy cable television (which I haven't seen since I was in Arizona) after spending most of the late afternoon and evening walking around town. I think it's pretty clear that this will be my new vacation hangout. This town lends itself perfectly to my purposes, as it is highly walkable--the downtown area soon yields to a picturesque residential area. A walk of a mile or so in certain directions takes you to the wrong side of the tracks. I thought Lake Geneva would be swankier than it is, but I'm not at all disappointed. Quite the contrary!

In Praise of Doing (Almost) Nothing

2012-05-25T21:35:00-05:00

On this Memorial Day weekend, I'm going to Lake Geneva and have two goals:

1.) To go to a coffeehouse and do less than the employees. A cursory online search shows that there is at least one interesting local coffeehouse in Lake Geneva, but also a Caribou Coffee location. I'm at a Caribou cafe right now, enjoying some of their current featured coffee, the Honduras.

2.) To learn how to do nothing for an hour or more--mentally and physically. This includes turning off the ongoing mental self-appraisal that would otherwise tell me I'm doing a poor job of relaxing and demand Eisenhower-like execution of my fun. It's easy to get into a cycle of being busy, while also busily mentally "watching the movie" as it transpires. This weekend, I hope to make some progress towards unwinding both.

Green Polka Dot Box

2012-05-24T20:58:38-05:00

In Milwaukee, health-conscious consumers can choose between a whole range of grocery store price points: outrageous, outrageous-er and outrageous-est. How great, then, my delight at discovering Green Polka Dot Box, a reasonably priced mail order service that sells precisely the products I consume most. It's an even better bargain than TJMaxx! Because it's unproven to me, I don't want to get too deep into praising it, but rest assured I will report back when the package arrives.

Milwaukee Narrowly Escapes Massive Economic Opportunity

2012-05-23T21:30:48-05:00

Just think, if we had high-speed rail to Chicago, we could offer our hotel room beds to a massive event of global significance like the NATO Summit. Oh well, at least we were able to offer shelter beds in case Chicago had to be evacuated.

SHTF

2012-05-22T21:08:35-05:00

I find myself fascinated by discussion of doomsday scenarios such as the earth being hit by an electromagnetic pulse from the sun. What fascinates me is not only the scenarios themselves, but how people discuss them, for example in this forum.

Divided We Stand

2012-05-20T19:07:49-05:00

Any Wisconsin Democrat who has taken advantage of the warm spring weather to take a country drive may well be anxious about the prospects for recalling Gov. Scott Walker. I've thought quite a bit of late about what may be at stake in the recall election beyond mere partisan politics. Inevitably, I think Democrats face a choice between two unpalatable outcomes: seeing Walker confirmed as a political superstar after emerging victorious from the recall effort or facing up to some awkward and politically incorrect perceptions.

My perception of these perceptions is as follows--and please note, I'm not really talking about my own beliefs:

1.) Democrats, statewide and nationally, need to throw the framed-diploma crowd under the bus once--just once--in favor of the sensibilities of Joe the Plumber.

2.) Democrats, nationally, have not maintained the enormous trust placed in President Obama by proving their fiscal policies are not about redistributing wealth to the shiftless and irresponsible.

3.) Democrats, statewide and nationally, do not communicate what they offer to white people who do not hold a degree from a major university. The view of that demographic of what is happening in said universities, and what comes from them, is highly skeptical at best.

A $10 Billion Proposal and $16 Billion Offering

2012-05-18T23:35:54-05:00

As someone who displays many obsessive-compulsive traits, I used to sometimes feel compelled to rinse off my change before running it through the change machine. After all, it would collect random bits of dirt and dust while sitting in whatever cup, jar or drawer waiting to be gathered up. Two current news stories about how money is made and spent make me think a couple of fortunes are in need of a good washing. About Facebook's $16 billion IPO, a comment on an online article has this to say:

Facebook isn’t just bad for teens. It’s bad for everybody.
It is desocializing and dehumanizing our culture. People communicate to each other with on-line pictures and text. The whole idea of human contact, human face-to-face speech, is being replaced by looking at a computer screen’s “rendition” of your friends. You don’t think that’s sick? I sure do.

This isn’t about reaching out and finding people or contacts far across the country or around the world, who you could never have met without Facebook. That would be all well and good. But it has REPLACED human interaction with the people who live close to you. Friends at school, girlfriends, family members, SPOUSES ! They are communicating via Facebook rather than face-to-face.

Try to view it using your mental "nursing home cam": when you're 85 years old and in a nursing home, having lost half your memory and rapidly losing the other half, how will you feel about the time you spent on Facebook and Fritter when you were healthy and in the prime of your life? You'd probably be willing to pay $16 billion, if you had it, to get that time back.

The Age of the Truck

2012-05-16T22:03:34-05:00

If I had to choose one thing as the symbol of the early 21st Century world, it would be the truck. Anyone who has ever driven from Madison to Milwaukee after midnight will surely know where the inspiration for that statement came from. Not drunks, but eighteen-wheelers are the primary obstacles to be avoided. Logistics--an area with which I have some familiarity--has gone from an adjunct of business to the end-all and be-all. No businessperson, and indeed no worker, dare fail to see himself or herself as being in the logistics business. In the Western world, the wealth-creating economic activity that is left to us is basically highly advanced manufacturing. Highly advanced logistics is part and parcel of that. Businesses of all kinds must process increasingly small units of work that are increasingly time-critical. What better example than that shown in this image--the dedicated truck dropping off supplies for Starbucks.

In what I call the "inburb" where I live and work--the island of relative homogeneity just outside this major city's Downtown--a UPS truck (not necessarily the same one) makes its rounds virtually throughout the business day. Need I even mention the ultimate example, Jimmy John's? In most cases, one sandwich at a time is shuttled from the store to some young-human warehouse like my apartment building.

Doesn't It Just Speak Volumes...

2012-05-15T21:24:19-05:00

...that Gov. Scott Walker feels relaxed and at home being interviewed by a radio station that describes an incredibly anachronistic role for women? We're so inundated by news stories proclaiming the alleged "decline of men" that we forget the threats to what women have achieved that come from within and without. As a result of policy and politics dominated by suburbia and exurbia, we ship massive amounts of wealth to a society that doesn't even allow women to drive. To appeal to a specific, highly motivated block of voters who deliver election victories, political conservatives are in league with people who advocate "boundaries" for women that would preclude even sending a personal e-mail to a married man without copying his wife. That's not boundaries, that's obsessional thinking--and religious bodies that instill such ideas are psychologically abusing their followers.

I have to admit sometimes thinking sarcastic thoughts about Alverno College's billboards; the young women don't look exactly pleasant. Yet women's right to pursue and excel in higher education and careers is what our American society has achieved. It's part of what I fight for as a citizen, and would die for if necessary. I think there's a powerful argument to be made that the Right is veering far from what the American flag stands for, and what soldiers have bled and died for. In my opinion, that argument isn't being made vehemently enough.

Perhaps liberal, higher-educated American society is failing--culturally, demographically, politically, religiously, and seemingly in every other sphere--because its claims aren't being backed up with enough balls (pardon that word choice). It presents itself as the kinder, gentler, more humane alternative--but it's equally something worth fighting and, where necessary, bleeding for.