Flights - of pancakes(?)

I wanted, but have kept forgetting, to mention a neat breakfast idea that we encountered on our trip to Chicago in August. Many restaurants or brewpubs are now offering “flights” of wine or beer – where you receive small servings of three (or more) different types of wine or beer. It’s a neat way to experience multiple tastes.

When we stayed at Nicole’s apartment in August, she took us to breakfast at a restaurant in her Wrigleyville neighborhood, I think it was named “Orange.” Anyway, this place does flights of pancakes (of all things), with a different flight offered each week. The theme offered during our visit was mangoes. I can report that this was a great idea, very unusual. No one would admit it, but I am pretty sure that my co-diners (Patricia, Nicole, Patrick, Paul) were secretly wishing they had ordered what I did.

Photos show the coffee-stained “flight plan” plus Nicole’s apartment building (she + roommates occupy the upper floors); the folks in the foreground are engaged in some sort of discussion over the finer points of our bocce ball game.

CPG's new wheels

CPG has been stringing along a badly behaving 1995 Ford Explorer for quite some time now. It has been an underperformer relative to its mileage and most other standards of car behavior. In the Phoenix market, at least, the new car deals have been pretty compelling recently. He found a deal on a 2005 Kia Sorento and moved on it (especially because for some reason the dealership seemed willing to give good value for the expiring Explorer). I think he did get a good deal. It helped that the dealers are anxious to clear out the 2005 models (though for this model there is no difference between the 2005 and 2006 versions). A review of the 2005 Sorento from a “leading publication” is at http://www.edmunds.com/new/2005/kia/sorento/100477310/review.html. Those Koreans have figured out how to make good vehicles (finally). But their problems from the 1990s keep the prices lower and the warranties longer than the competition, by a meaningful margin.

You might wonder why Patricia and I went along to the dealer? Well, sometimes we’re looking for something to do. And we thought we had fun. We got in on the first trip!

BTW, note the Cardinals’ logo on the rear window of the Explorer. Another reason to jettison the vehicle quickly.

Use of initials

I use initials for immediate family members mentioned in this blog. Most initials are easily interpreted but some have common letters, so FYI:

PSr = Paul Sr. (aka me)
PJ = Patricia (Joann)
NMG = Nicole (Marie Gales)
CPG = Chris(topher Paul Gales)
KHG = Kerry (Helen Gales)
EPG = (Ernest) Patrick (Gales)
PJr = Paul Michael Gales Jr.

Kelly receives full spelling in all instances, as she doesn’t understand initials.

Cutting it close

We have fallen into an embarrassingly cheap habit of not paying for Kelly’s dog food. The habit developed because we have “connections” in the pet food business, i.e. our own Nicole, marketing whiz for Nestle’s Purina business in the Chicagoland territory. Our primary (actually only) interface with Nicole’s work is to badger her every now and again for coupons for a free 20-pound bag of Purina’s premium ProPlan dog food (specially formulated for older small dogs) (product info at: http://www.proplan.com/product_detail.aspx?pid=138.)

Kelly is nearing 14 years of age (that’s of course 91 by standard dog-year math), and she looked pretty well used up just a few months ago. But now she seems to have adapted to life with PJ and me, and actually is pretty frisky again.

The problem is that we also fell into the habit of estimating Kelly’s anticipated remaining lifespan in terms of bags of food, instead of years. It once seemed that the current bag would be more than enough, and we didn’t make plans for a replacement bag (in this context, “plans” = hassling Nicole for another coupon). Kelly’s current bag of food is perilously low now, and she shows every sign of outlasting the bag. And Nicole hasn’t yet come through with another coupon.

We’re going to see Nicole for the ASU-USC game the weekend of October 1. Here’s hoping she brings along a coupon. Kelly could be pretty hungry by then.

The photos: one shows Kelly in her current dire circumstances, the other shows her in happier days surrounded by Purina bounty.

Something I did at work

When the kids were little, I never felt like I was able to do a very good job of explaining what it is that I do all day at work. They were convinced that I just played on a computer and talked on the phone. (They were pretty much right, actually.) At Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (www.ssd.com), where I’ve worked for the past 5+ years, a significant part of my practice has been corporate and governance matters. In case you’re interested, I’m briefly discussing here an example of things we do. (If you’re not interested, well . . . ) Anyway, we just put into place an updated “poison pill” for one of our clients. Basically, the pill makes it easier for our client to defend against certain types of unsolicited takeover attempts – it forces a so-called raider to negotiate with the company rather than just buy up a controlling stock position in the market. In theory, that permits the board to negotiate a better deal for all of the stockholders. (Cynics would say that the pill mostly permits the board and management to stop buyouts and hang onto their high-paying jobs.) Pills have been around since the days of the (in)famous corporate raiders of the 1980s. Most institutional shareholders profess to hate pills, but they do make sense for many companies. Here’s a link to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing disclosing the pill we prepared: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/906326/000119312505176426/d8k.htm. And here’s a link to the pill document itself (trust me, it’s pretty much boilerplate with very little original drafting involved): http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/906326/000119312505176421/dex41.htm.

Speaking of work, I’m on the threshold of a change. Will discuss details in a future post.

We thought we were finished with Chaparral HS

But we aren’t. PJr graduated from CHS in May 2005, the last of our five to do so. Kelly already received a diploma in obedience from a Petsmart instructor. (However, if you’ve been around Kelly, you know her graduation must have resulted from extreme grade inflation.) Anyway, Kelly had no need of CHS.

So we thought we were all through with CHS. But now PJ is back at CHS one day per week for six weeks as part of the ASU Nursing school’s community rotation. Rumor has it that school nursing isn’t necessarily the most time consuming field within the profession (absent the occasional school cafeteria problem), and PJ reports that killing time might be the biggest challenge. But it is unusual, and kind of neat, that she can fulfill this requirement at such a familiar spot.

ASU Choral Union has three new members

Here’s something new: CPG, PJr and I have joined a choir! It’s named the Choral Union, and is one of the choirs offered at Arizona State University. (Sorry, all I have for now is the stock photo as shown.) Here’s the (unedited) website description: ”Founded in the 1950s, the Arizona State University Choral Union has an outstanding reputation, both nationally and internationally. Members are auditioned volunteer singers from the ASU community, including students, faculty and staff, and residents of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Most of the members are professionally trained and have had extensive choral experience. Intensive weekly rehearsals are held from August through May. International tours take place every second or third summer, with approximately 80 to 100 singers from the ensemble joining with outstanding orchestras from the touring area. Recent tours include Australia in 2000 and Italy in 2002. Choral Union’s repertoire includes works by Poulenc, Orff, Haydn, Brahms, Verdi, Beethoven, Mahler and Vaughan Williams. The 2004-2005 season includes Fauré’s Requiem, Bruckner’s Te Deum, and Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky.” (Editor’s note: we think this overstates the qualifications of many (at least three) of the choir members.)

More info on ASU choral music is at http://music.asu.edu/performance/ensembles.html.
In the future, I’ll post something about the music we’re doing for the fall concert. The conductor (David Schildkret) seems like he will be good to work with. He claims to know David Clarke Isele (ND Glee Club conductor back in the late 70s). We almost convinced PJ to try out since she does read music well and can carry a tune. Unfortunately, it’s too much of a commute for our other children to join with us at the moment. The group probably has similarities with the group that my sister Therese performed with in St. Paul; I think that group was associated with Macalester College and by happenstance I was in St. Paul for a fine performance in spring 2000 (featuring music by the aforementioned Orff). I haven't performed with a chorus since June 1978 so this is quite fun. If anyone happens to be in the Phoenix area on Friday, October 21, 2005, please feel welcome to drop by Gammage Auditorium at ASU for our inaugural performance.

Muller loses one on his own

In the interest of journalistic integrity, it must be reported that Gilles Muller got his butt kicked in the very next match following his incredible coup (see post of August 31, below). Straight set defeat against a pedestrian opponent: 1, 1 and 4. But in my opinion this does not reflect on Luxemburg as a country, it was just an individual shortcoming. I think he just needs to eat more, since he's 1.96 metres tall and only weighs 75 kilos -- how can he expect to compete at the highest level? More data on our ex-hero is at http://www.usopen.org/en_US/bios/profile/ms/atpma30.html.

ND Class of '78 grad makes good

At least for one game. Unranked Notre Dame handily defeated #23 Pitt on Saturday night in its opener.

PJ and I graduated from ND in 1978. Now there’s another famous(?) ’78 grad: Charlie Weis, ND’s new football head coach. He lived in Flanner Hall, though we aren’t holding that against him now that he’s become a big shot. You can enlarge the photo to get a peek at CW’s graduation photo (he's at bottom right), courtesy of our senior yearbook. I'm not sure because I've heard that TV makes you look heavier, but I do think he's gained some weight since the North Dining Hall chefs were in charge of his nutrition. And no, neither of us remembers seeing the guy around campus. But then again, he probably doesn’t remember us, either.

A game story appears at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=2151291.

BTW, Nicole’s roommate’s father attended ND long ago (we recently met he + spouse in AZ per post of August 21 below). They live in Pittsburgh, so Nicole + roommate drove to Pittsburgh from Chicago for the game. I heard they had fun. No word on gas prices they encountered along the way.

BTW#2 (since I'm thinking of gas prices), I bought a new desktop computer for PJ’s use on Sunday. It is a basic Compaq but “nicely equipped:” 160g hard drive, 512m ram, DVD player, CD burner, etc. The pricing on this thing was ridiculously cheap. IF we get paid back for the various rebates (and that is a big IF), the computer + HP printer + 17” flat-screen monitor will cost the same as 5.2 tanks of gas in my vehicle at current prices. Weird.