Another new iPhone user

I just found out my brother got an iPhone! Seems like he likes it a lot. What he doesn't know is that he is now the one person I know on the AT&T network. So I just might start calling him all the time for no reason. :-) Ha!

Happy Monday!

In spite of starting my day by splattering coffee down the front of my white shirt (and then not noticing for 3 hours, giving it time to dry, and walking around like that, oblivious), it's been a really good day! I had a fun but tiring weekend...it just so happened that we were invited to a variety of activities (lunch with friends, dinners with friends/relatives, a boat ride on Lake Michigan), all on the same weekend. We ended up missing one get-together, unfortunately, because of the jam-packed-ness of the schedule.

And the Cubs won--doesn't get much better than that!

you learn something new every day

After I heard someone at Starbucks order a "black eye," I had to consult Wikipedia when I got back to the office. It turns out that a "red eye" is one shot of espresso in a regular coffee; a "black eye" is two shots, and a "dead eye" is three shots. Ha, ha! So funny. I would feel a little funny walking up to a counter and asking for a black eye, though.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

Has anyone heard of this? It's been getting some press of late since it's being used to help find adventurer Steve Fossett who went missing in Nevada. The basic idea is that humans still outperform computers on certain kinds of analytical tasks--in this case, visually analyzing satellite photos. The term "Mechanical Turk" comes from a supposed automaton invented in 1769 by a Hungarian nobleman. By showing off its complex gears and machinery, he convinced people that it really was able to beat people in chess, though in reality there was a human chess master hidden inside. The idea behind Amazon's tool is that if you aggregate the observations of hundreds or thousands of people, you can not only observe a lot more data, but also sort out the totally useless pieces of information.

So in searching for Steve Fossett, users look at thousands of small square pieces of satellite photo and flag those that might contain a clue. There has actually been at least one plane found--where 10 people flagged the same square and then searchers can see if this is an old plane crash site, or what. I'm completely fascinated by this technology; I even logged in with my Amazon account and searched through a few images.

Thursday Afternoon "Adventure" (a.k.a. "The Most Expensive Lunch Ever")

Leaving the office for the day at 2pm would ordinarily be a really cool thing. But leaving due to an allergic reaction to mango that I didn't know was in my lunch salad was not so fun.

Starbucks Curry Chicken Salad...$6.00
Benadryl...$7.00
Cab Ride to the Hospital...$10.00
Copay for ER visit...$100
Prescriptions...$60.00
Learning that I have not outgrown my childhood food allergies like everyone thought I would....Priceless.

If you thought you were a Cubs fan...

....this guy's got you beat.

He's building a scaled-down replica of Wrigley Field in a public park in his hometown of Freeport, IL. It's got everything from the ivy-covered brick wall (Cubs officials sent him clippings of the actual ivy), to the Harry Caray cartoon over the WGN press box. Lucky little league kids (and anyone who wants to rent it for $35/hour) will get to use it starting next year. Here's my favorite part of the article:

"Like so many ideas - both good and bad - the concept for Little Cubs Field was born in a bar. Five years ago, Garkey and a group of friends took a road trip to a baseball mecca: Rookies Food & Spirits, a sports saloon and restaurant in Mazomanie, Wis., which - as its main attraction - boasts a professional whiffle ball field.

Garkey looked out at the field that day and thought to himself: "It's too bad it doesn't look like Wrigley." Then a thought occurred to him. Why not build a little Wrigley Field? A few days later, he sat down with his wife and said, "Honey, I've got a crazy idea." Judy Garkey - an endlessly patient woman - told her husband, "Go for it." (Five years later, she says she doesn't regret supporting her husband's idea, but she does acknowledge that he has become "obsessed with completing it.")"