I heard a really nice interview with playwright August Wilson on NPR today. He had some great things to say about an individual's potential and that he was only successful after he decided that he could picture himself the same category as other famous playwrights; after all, they are only humans, working with the same vocabulary he has.

This quote stuck with me:

"Any person standing in front of a blank canvas is Picasso until proven otherwise."

What do you think?

We have new picture up in both the staci & todd secion and the cat section.

Just click on the orange personal tab above.

So this is just a quick blog to ask readers what they think of the new blog system?

Of course since my return to the US after almost two & a half years in Senegal, I have a million observations�the number of choices Americans have for everything, the predictability of the questions people ask about my experience (the most popular first question hands down is about my readjustment to the US & what has been the hardest thing to get used to), the annoying emergence of low-carb everything, & the incredible amount of water in American toilets (I remember thinking the same thing after I came back from France�what is the point of all that water anyway?).
But one of my most shocking realizations is that the vast majority of people I talk to (these are people I know & have kept in contact with throughout my Peace Corps service) somehow believe that Pape & I dated & decided to spend the rest of the foreseeable future together through hand signals or some other form of non-verbal communication. Here�s how the typical conversation goes. Person I�m talking to says, �So how�s Pape�s English?� I respond, �Pretty poor but he�s working on it.� Perplexed look on person I�m talking to�s face & then some comment like �Well, how do you guys communicate?� I respond very non-chalantly, but secretly seething inside �um, French mostly, but also Wolof & now sometimes English.� Then perplexed, annoying person says, �Really? You picked up the native language while you were there? Can you really speak it?� So now I�m sick of having the conversation & answer back in a really snotty, annoyed way by saying something like �Well, the key here is that I speak French--fluently�like really good & the government even gave me a test & determined that I speak one level below a native speaker. But yes I also speak Wolof & no, I didn�t �pick it up,� I STUDIED it for 3 months during training & then throughout my service, so yes I can speak it. How do you think I was able to work & live in Senegal for over 2 years if I didn�t speak their languages?�
So my question is, why this response? If it had happened once I might have chalked it up to a small brain cramp on the part of the person I was talking to, but I�ve had this conversation with many, many people since my return. What�s going on?

So, this is a question mostly for the economist in our midst, but I'm interested in everybody's ideas...

Do we really need all the choices we face when we go grocery shopping? Yesterday, I had to spend 10 minutes reading different boxes of decongestants because there was literally 20 million different kinds. The other day, I tried to pick out toothpaste and they didn't have my normal kind, so instead of a quick grab-n-go, I was faced with half an aisle of choices, piled mile high.

I asked my sister, who was with me, "Do we really need all these choices in toothpaste?" and the crazy lady in the ghetto Safeway came up to me to tell me that Hitler used flouride to control people's minds so she only uses the organic brand.

How does a company benefit by having SO many different choices? Why not just go with the 5 most popular types of toothpaste, scrap the rest, save money by not making unprofitable types of toothpaste and make money by focusing your advertising on the ones that people choose anyway?

As a side note, I did get a toothpaste that I do enjoy, so rest easy with that one...

At work, we've been discussing things we hate, but that most people find perfectly normal. A perfect example is drying off after a shower. One particular Blogger just HATES dying off. What's yours?

-or-

What words or phrases are you afraid will die with the oldest generation? (Examples: "dilly of a pickle," "evidently," "see you 'round hte corner")

Check out the pictures of Chuck in Tucson. Personal, Staci & Todd section.

Painted the master bathroom. Check out the new look under the personal section: staci & todd.

These are states I have visited. Obviously I am much more traveled than my friend John.


create your own visited states.

So was it an accident or not?