tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-144839592024-03-07T17:22:21.087-06:00Random thoughts...Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-22791400238906870042016-01-15T15:08:00.001-06:002016-01-15T15:08:21.804-06:00Plays We Saw In 2015<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">We saw some great shows in 2015. I can't really choose a favorite, but I'd put My Fair Lady, Rocky Horror, and Valley of the Dolls up there.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: navy; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: navy; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">All performances were in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:city></st1:place> unless </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">otherwise</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> noted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Valley
of the Dolly</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">
(1/9) at the Off The Wall theater – Dinner at Kil@wat<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Good
People</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (1/22) </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci
Powerhouse – Dinner at Calderone Club<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">God
of Carnage </span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">(2/20)
at the Off The Wall <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Beautiful
Music All Around Us</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (2/25) </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Stackner
Cabaret – Dinner at the Calderone Club<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: red; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Book of Merman</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (2/27) at the Apollo Theater in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Chicago</st1:city></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Come
Back</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">
(3/7) at the In Tandem theater – lunch at Envoy in the Ambassador Hotel<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Five
Presidents</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (3/26) </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci
Powerhouse – dinner at The Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: red; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Hand
To God</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">
(4/11) at the Booth Theater in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">New
York</st1:state></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Hilarious</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">, by Present Music 4/24)</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at Turner Hall
– dinner at Wolf Peach<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">City
of <st1:city w:st="on">Angels</st1:city></span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (5/1) </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at Windfall
Theater on <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Juneau</st1:place></st1:city>
– dinner at The Modern<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Peter
and the Star Catcher</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (5/7) </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci
Powerhouse –<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Low
Down Dirty Blues</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (5/21) at the Stackner Cabaret – dinner at Water
Street Brewery<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Book
Of Mormon</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (5/29) </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">At <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Marcus</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Center</st1:placename></st1:place> for Performing Arts<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Into
The Woods</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">
(6/5) at the Skylight Music Theater<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Spring
Awakenings (7/31)</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Off The Wall theater – Dinner at Calderone
Club<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Moth Main Stage (9/16)</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at Turner Hall with Hans &
Bernadette Dawson -- Dinner at
Calderone Club<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">B<u>ack
Home Again: John Denver (10/1)</u> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Stackner Cabaret. – Dinner at
Wolf Peach<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Dream
Girls (10/22)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci
Powerhouse – Dinner at home<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Rocky
Horror Picture Show</span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <i>(10/30)
</i>at the Alchemist Theater – Dinner at home<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Guys
on Ice (12/10)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Stackner
Cabaret. Dinner at Calderone Club<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The
Mousetrap (12/17)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci
Powerhouse – dinner at the Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">A
Twisted Carol </span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">(12/19)</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the In
Tandem Theater. Dinner at Jacques<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">My
Fair Lady (12/26) </span></u></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Skylight Music Theater. Dinner at Red Dot after the show.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-72437402595798211512015-05-14T18:34:00.000-05:002015-05-14T18:35:06.290-05:00Dental Floss IssueHaving work for or with consumer products companies, I know how sensitive they are to customer complaints. It is rare for consumers to complain, and they therefore take it seriously. The assumption is that most people do not bother to complain, so if someone does, it's a pretty common problem.<br />
<br />
I complain if there's an issue and I always get a response from the company. They usually send a coupon to replace the defective product.<br />
<br />
I recently had the container on a package of dental floss fail. The cutting mechanism broke off. I complained to Johnson & Johnson and got a very thorough response from their supplier:<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dear Matthew,<br /><br />Thank you for contacting McNEIL-PPC, Inc., makers of JOHNSON & JOHNSON® REACH® Dental Floss. It is always important to hear from our consumers, and we appreciate the time you have taken to contact us.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Our company's long-standing commitment to providing high quality products for all our consumers is the foundation of our business. Therefore, we are sorry to learn of your experience.<br /><br />Since your particular situation requires a more in-depth conversation than is possible through an e-mail, we would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter with you further. You can call us toll free at <a href="tel:1-866-565-3567" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration: none;" value="+18665653567">1-866-565-xxxx</a>,<br />Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m - 8:00 p.m. EST. Please have the product available if you have it when you call and mention the reference number noted below. Your phone call will help us to quickly gather important information for our Quality Assurance department.<br /><br />In addition, we would like to have the product returned to us for Quality Assurance purposes. We have arranged to have materials sent to you for your convenience in returning the product. You can expect to receive these materials, along with instructions for return for the product, within the next few business days.<br /><br />The information you provide will enable us to continue to deliver the high quality products you should expect from McNEIL-PPC, Inc.<br /><br />We sincerely apologize for your experience and look forward to hearing from you soon.<br /><br />Mai X.<br />Consumer Care Center</span></i>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-81051585498051675892015-01-05T09:42:00.001-06:002015-01-05T09:42:51.177-06:00Theater in 2014<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Here's a list of the plays we saw in 2014. All performances were in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:city></st1:place> unless otherwise noted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">We started going to the <a href="http://www.offthewalltheatre.com/">Off The Wall</a> theater this
year. It’s a small venue, maybe 50 seats
and is really a lot of fun. We saw
“Rope” and “Cabaret” there and will see “Valley of the Dolls,” as a musical
done in drag, this month (January 2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<img src="http://www.gaelicweb.com/offthewall/2014-15/ValleyOfTheDolls/images/ValleyPoster.jpg" /></div>
<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">End of the
Rainbow</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (2/6) </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci Powerhouse – dinner
at Kil@wat<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Understudy</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (2/8) at Renaissance Theater –
dinner at home, drinks at Club Charlie’s<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Woody Sez</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (2/20) </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Stackner Cabaret – dinner at Water Street
Brewery<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Temptation’s
Snare (5/7)</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">
at the Next Act Theater – dinner at Prodigal Gastropub with Amy & Sara<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">An Iliad</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (3/13) </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci Powerhouse – dinner at The Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Rep Lab (3/29)</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Steimke Theater –
dinner at Ambassador Hotel with Andy & Edie<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ain’t
Misbehavin’</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">
(4/3)at the Stackner Cabaret – dinner at Water Street Brewery<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The History of
Invulnerability</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (4/24) </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci Powerhouse – dinner
at Calderone Club<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">1959 Pink
Thunderbird</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (5/3):</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> In Tandem Theater – lunch before at
Envoy in the Ambassador Hotel<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Rope</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Off The Wall Theater
(7/24) - dinner at the Calderone
Club<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Master Class</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (8/24)at the Milwaukee Chamber
Theater – lunch at <st1:place w:st="on">Benelux</st1:place> with Andy
& Edie<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Cabaret</span></u></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (9/19) at the Off The Wall Theater.
-- Dinner at the Calderone Club<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Doyle
& Debbie Show (9/30)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Stackner Cabaret. -- Dinner
at Wolf Peach<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Color
Purple (10/15)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci Powerhouse – Dinner
at The Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Complete Works of Shakespeare
(abridged)</span></u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at
the Milwaukee Chamber Theater --
Lunch at Taquera El Cabrito<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Liberace!
(12/4)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Stackner Cabaret with
Amy & Sara. Dinner at The Calderone
Club<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Harvey</span></u></i></st1:place></st1:city><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> (12/11)</span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Quadracci Powerhouse – dinner
at the Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Cudahy</span></u></i></st1:city></st1:place><i><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Carolers </span></u></i><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">(12/20)</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the In Tandem Theater. Dinner at Envoy<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-51733053616161687512014-06-05T18:09:00.000-05:002014-06-06T12:59:21.734-05:00Alice the Goon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtMNWZbFr42KwoPNP1OOOodz24yUTD8cTln1Yeb4ckg9aQptCL0RsCIb1rnugCHSwrEUv0KU7O4CsKrIzPLVz6On3_5BYw66sBfxAv7V22SJ34iwcrDk2qmFlrbgcV7L7uQ5p/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTtMNWZbFr42KwoPNP1OOOodz24yUTD8cTln1Yeb4ckg9aQptCL0RsCIb1rnugCHSwrEUv0KU7O4CsKrIzPLVz6On3_5BYw66sBfxAv7V22SJ34iwcrDk2qmFlrbgcV7L7uQ5p/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
For all you Popeye fans.<br />
<br />
<img height="400" 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" width="225" />Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-36498722993601494432014-04-25T07:32:00.000-05:002014-04-25T07:32:52.380-05:00Domestic Cat Problems in 1916<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I checked out a book from the library, <strong><i><span style="background: #FAFAFA; color: #444444; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://archive.org/details/domesticcatbirdk00forbrich">The domestic cat; bird killer, mouser and destroyer of wild life; means of utilizing and controlling it</a> </span></i></strong><strong><span style="background: #FAFAFA; color: #444444; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">(1916) by Edward Howe Forbush<i>.</i><o:p></o:p></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background: #FAFAFA; color: #444444; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i><br /></i></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: #fafafa; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-weight: normal;">The book was in storage at the
Milwaukee Central Library when I requested it.
It still has the old “Date Due” card inside the front cover. The earliest date on there is October 1936
and there were about thirty stamps up to July 1945. There was only one more after that, 1975.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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<strong><span style="background-color: #fafafa; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-weight: normal;">That’s a pretty cool connection
with history.<span style="color: #444444;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></strong><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: #fafafa; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8SMEgflKHluouoU9EFMSh9S9dgYiQ5PG8JfWifKXFtoxpd8TaXLhP1rYtHLRGo9MP2uaD2_XqrfsX07Kgm0__aiqfvlQVr9AwrQ_BJ8NB4Ht20y9aaWDQqShjaLHLOBC5-3wz/s1600/Lib+card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8SMEgflKHluouoU9EFMSh9S9dgYiQ5PG8JfWifKXFtoxpd8TaXLhP1rYtHLRGo9MP2uaD2_XqrfsX07Kgm0__aiqfvlQVr9AwrQ_BJ8NB4Ht20y9aaWDQqShjaLHLOBC5-3wz/s1600/Lib+card.jpg" height="247" width="320" /></a></div>
<strong><span style="background-color: #fafafa; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="background: #FAFAFA; color: #444444; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">(You can guess Forbush's recommendation for dealing with feral cats)</span></strong></div>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1517106544924728012014-02-12T15:57:00.002-06:002014-02-12T15:57:20.068-06:00Room 237<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/room_237_2012/">Room
237</a> is a documentary discussing various interpretations (maybe ‘conspiracy
theories’ is the better phrase) of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic film “The
Shining” with Jack Nicholson & Shelly Duval. 6 different people give their take on the
movie. We watched it last night.</div>
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One guy believes that it is Kubrick’s movie about the Holocaust,
which Kubrick was never able to make (the typewriter was a German Adler, and
the number “42” comes up frequently – <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>, 1942…). Another guy believes it’s about European
genocide of the American Indian. One
woman believes that the skier in a poster is really the Minotaur and there is
an Indian in a buffalo headdress, so along with the maze it means…I’m not sure.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Another guy says that the movie is actually Kubrick’s
confession, so to speak, of the fake moon landing footage that he did for
NASA. Recall Danny’s Apollo 11 sweater
as he enters Room No. 237 (Room No. = Moon Room). <i>“I’m
not saying NASA didn’t go to the moon, just that all the footage was faked.”</i></div>
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One guy superimposes the movie playing backward over
itself. Not surprisingly, key things
overlap in the center of the film. Actually, that is pretty cool.</div>
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<br /></div>
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They also discuss some of the interesting incontinuities in
the film, speculating as to whether or not they have meaning (they all seem
to).<br />
<br /></div>
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<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Room_237_(2012_film).jpg" /></div>
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It’s more interesting than what you’d think.
I haven’t see The Shining since the 1980’s (Stephen King hated it). We’ll have to get it again.</div>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-24205344438714626782014-02-04T15:58:00.001-06:002014-02-04T15:58:59.453-06:00F. BaconIn 2012 we were walking through some back "streets" in Venice, pretty far away from our hotel and the tourist crowds, if you can get away from the tourists in Venice, and we stumbled on an art show of Francis Bacon's works.<br />
<br />
I thought that was pretty cool. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon">Francis Bacon!</a> Here we randomly stumbled on an art exhibit of one of the top scientist of 16 century England, the guy who nearly single handedly invented the scientific method! I didn't even know he was an artist!<br />
<br />
I recall a story in a history of science class I took. Bacon was riding in his carriage and suddenly came of with the idea of preserving meat with snow. He stops the carriage, goes to a house and has the owner kill a chicken so he can stuff it with snow. He caught pneumonia and died. It was the only experiment he ever did.<br />
<br />
As soon as we went into the exhibit, it was obvious that this was not <i>the </i>Francis Bacon, but the other Francis Bacon. We were the only ones there.<br />
<br />
Serves me right for not knowing more about art. A triptych by Francis Bacon recently sold for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/arts/design/bacons-study-of-freud-sells-for-more-than-142-million.html">$142MM.</a><br />
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/11/12/arts/artsspecial/20131112AUCTION-slide-A5KM/20131112AUCTION-slide-A5KM-articleLarge.jpg" /><br />
<br />
I don't know what made me think of this.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-11314885452114312632014-01-27T13:01:00.000-06:002014-01-27T13:05:21.972-06:00Cube of the DigitsThere are four numbers, not counting the trivial examples of 1 and 0, where the sum of the cube of the digits equals the number itself.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
153 = 1<sup>3</sup> + 5<sup>3</sup> + 3<sup>3<o:p></o:p></sup></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
370</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
371</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
407</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank you James Randi.</div>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-80218296170499363862014-01-22T16:23:00.000-06:002014-01-23T19:14:04.554-06:00Diesel Truck Emissions<div class="MsoNormal">
New diesel trucks (at least big, commercial ones) need to
meet certain EPA emission standards.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One way some trucks are meeting the N-oxide specification is
with a Selective Catalytic Reduction (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_catalytic_reduction">SCR</a>) system that uses a Diesel Exhaust
Fluid (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid">DEF</a>). DEF is a 32.5% mixture of
urea, (H<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub>N)<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub>,CO, and
water.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The process is pretty simple. The engine exhaust goes through a filter to
remove the carbon particulates (AKA soot).
The exhaust is then sent into the SCR where it is mixed with the DEF,
where the N-Oxides are converted to nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I assume that the reaction would be:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2(H<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub>N)<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub>CO + 4NO + O<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub> = 4N<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub> + 2CO<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub> + 4H<sub><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2</span></sub>O</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If this works, it would be a pretty elegant solution to
nitrogen oxide emissions. I haven’t seen
any data, though.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems like it’s an awful lot to ask of a pretty
small reaction chamber.</div>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-45614981538595089692014-01-03T14:35:00.003-06:002014-01-03T14:35:53.833-06:00Winter 2013/14This has been a rough winter so far, with twice the average snowfall and cold weather. It was -12 when I got to work this morning.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow we may see 30F (and we might go to the zoo) but then it will turn cold. The high on Sunday will be 6 and a low of -18. Monday will be brutal with a high of -12!<br />
<br />
I don't mind the cold that much. If you're dressed for it, it's easy to deal with.<br />
<br />
But I'm glad I'm not going to the packer game on Sunday!Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-72592945373139281722013-12-30T10:07:00.001-06:002013-12-30T12:19:10.225-06:00Theater in 2013Our last play of the year was Les Miserables at the Skylight Music Theater. It was an outstanding performance. Luke Grooms, who played Jean Valjean, did a phenomenal job. That must be a hard role to play. The musical director is Robert Linder, a colleague of Skylight's new artistic director, Vishwa Subbaraman, from his days in Houston (Opera Vista).<br />
<br />
This is what we saw in 2013 (and where we ate):<br />
<ol start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Educating Rita</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Renaissance Theater –
drinks at Swig<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Mind over
Milwaukee</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at
the Stackner Cabaret – dinner at Wolf Peach<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><st1:place w:st="on"><u><st1:placename w:st="on"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Clyburn</span></i></st1:placename><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Park</st1:placetype></span></i></u></st1:place><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Quadracci Powerhouse<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Underneath The
Lintel</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the
Milwaukee Chamber Theater<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Ring of Fire</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Stackner Cabaret –
dinner at Wolf Peach<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Raisin in the Sun</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Quadracci Powerhouse –
dinner at The Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Judgment of Midas</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Helene</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Zelazo</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place> for the Arts
– dinner at Nessun Dorma<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Jeeves in Bloom</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Milwaukee Chamber
Theater – dinner at The Wicked Hop<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Porgy & Bess</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Skylight Music Theater
– dinner at Tulip<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>I Left My Heart</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Stackner Cabaret –
Dinner at Il <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Mito</st1:city></st1:place>
East<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Ragtime</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u> </u>at the Quadracci Powerhouse –
Dinner at The Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Radiolab </u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">at the Pabst Theater<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: red; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>I Hate Hamlet</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Haylofter’s Theater in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Burlington</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">WI</st1:state></st1:place>
– Dinner at the Charcoal Grill<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: red; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Mildred Fierce</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Theater 80, NYC<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Ghost Brothers of
Darkland County</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">
at the Riverside Theater – Dinner at home<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Forever Plaid</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Stackner Cabaret –
Dinner at Wolf Peach<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Noises Off</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Quadracci Powerhouse –
Dinner at The Rumpus Room<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>The <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cudahy</st1:place></st1:city> Carolers</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the In Tandem Theater –
Dinner at Juniper 61<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color: navy; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><u>Les Miserables</u></span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> at the Skylight Music Theater –
Lunch at Swig<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></li>
</ol>
Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-84350040959713712282013-12-23T12:39:00.001-06:002013-12-23T12:39:18.695-06:00Back in ActionI think that I'm going to start using this blog again.<br />
<br />
Stay tuned for future posts.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-76127059257582705432008-01-23T08:07:00.001-06:002008-01-23T08:10:29.758-06:00This Blog Has MovedPlease go to my main <a href="http://www.matthewpiette.com/matthewpiette/">website </a>for my latest postings.<br /><br />Or, go to my <a href="http://pietterecipes.blogspot.com/">recipe website</a> for the latest on what we've been cooking.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-43748419522263661412007-10-31T07:46:00.000-05:002007-10-31T07:49:43.859-05:00Floor Issues<span style="font-style:italic;">The plumber put a large scratch in the floor when he moved the freezer, necessitating the entire floor to be redone. The work is not acceptable. Here are the latest correspondences.</span><br /><br />Jill--<br /><br />I don't think a spot repair will suffice. The more that I look at the floor, the less satisfied I am with their fix.<br /><br />There are light areas by the 'fridge and ovens, by the entrance to the back hall, and near the dining room passage way. The dinnette area has some wide dark and light stripes running parallel to the grain.<br /><br />The whole floor has a mottled look. I think that the entire floor needs to be redone.<br /><br />The repair people are coming this Friday to replace the freezer door, so if they can't start today we should wait until next week.<br /><br />Please call to discuss.<br /><br />--Matt<br /><br />----- Original Message ----<br />From: Jill Doss<br />To: Matthew Piette<br />Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 10:09:55 AM<br />Subject: FW: details<br /><br />Matt:<br /><br />The floor technician will return tomorrow to perform a touchup on the area of the floor by the sink. Yes, I could see the area was lighter, as could the floor rep that was at the house with me. <br /><br />They will tape off the areas in question and heat up the area with a heat gun to lift the polyurethane. The areas will then be restained. Should all be done when you get home tomorrow evening.<br /><br />Let me know if you have any questions.<br /><br />Jill<br /><br /> <br /><br />From: Jill Doss<br />Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 9:42 AM<br />To: 'Matthew Piette'<br />Subject: RE: details<br /><br /><br />No, I wasn’t able to get into the kitchen when I stopped by, as the floor was still wet. I have contacted the flooring company; I will be meeting with them at 9:00 am tomorrow morning to take a look. I have told them that no one was in the house since they were there on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. I will let you know what I hear. <br /><br />I hope you had a pleasant trip.<br /><br />Jill<br /><br /><br />From: Matthew Piette<br />Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 8:55 AM<br />To: Jill Doss<br />Subject: Re: details<br /><br />The tile does look great, but there's a big white spot in front of the main sink. Did you notice that? I think it needs another coat of stain.<br /><br />----- Original Message ----<br />From: Jill Doss<br />To: Matthew Piette<br />Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 3:25:43 PM<br />Subject: FW: details<br /><br />Hey Matt:<br /><br />Here are some updates:<br /><br />I stopped at the house yesterday—the floor has been refinished and looks great. John completed the tiling and that looks wonderful, also.<br /><br />The exterior storm door is due the 6th of November. The interior door is due the 16th of November. Both may arrive sooner. We will schedule the installation once both are here. Any final touch up painting can be finished at this time. <br /><br />I will have my sketch of the pot rack/shelves scanned and e-mailed to you. <br /><br />Cheerio for now, enjoy you weekend.<br /><br />JillMatthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1161268815788333762006-10-19T09:39:00.000-05:002006-11-02T06:19:10.970-06:00BrusselsCheck out the photos of our trip to Brussels, Amsterdam, and Bruges <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/MJPiette/BelgiumTheNetherlands2006">here</a>.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1161221144702069692006-10-18T20:19:00.000-05:002006-10-18T20:25:44.733-05:00Beginning of the end of America<div class="head"><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/">'Beginning of the end of America'</a> </div><div class="abstract">Olbermann addresses the Military Commissions Act in a special comment</div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;color:#cc0000;"><b>SPECIAL COMMENT</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;"><b>By Keith Olbermann</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;">Anchor, 'Countdown'</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:78%;">MSNBC</span></div><div class="updateTime"><br /><div id="udtD">Updated: 7:33 p.m. ET Oct 18, 2006<br /><br /></div></div><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have lived as if in a trance.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have lived as people in fear.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have been here before—and we have been here before led here—by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">In times of fright, we have been only human.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or substitute the Japanese.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or the Germans.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or the Socialists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or the Anarchists.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or the Immigrants.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or the British.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Or the Aliens.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And, always, always wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Wise words.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">You, sir, have now befouled that spring.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">This President now has his blank check.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">He lied to get it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">He lied as he received it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Your words are lies, Sir.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">They are lies that imperil us all.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">That terrorist, sir, could only hope.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">Habeas corpus? Gone.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">The Geneva Conventions? Optional.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:85%;">And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.</span></p>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1160507549956617902006-10-10T14:09:00.000-05:002006-10-10T14:12:29.976-05:00DallasI am off to Dallas for a couple of days. Doesn't look like the <a href="http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USTX0328.html">weather </a>will be too hot. It's supposed to snow here, though.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1160070710387959552006-10-05T12:49:00.000-05:002006-10-05T12:53:28.873-05:00Natural Gas<p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday I was at natural gas seminar sponsored by <a href="http://www.wpsenergy.com/">WPS Energy Services</a> at Monona Terrace in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Madison</st1:place></st1:city>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.mononaterrace.com/">Monona Terrace</a> is a new Frank Lloyd Wright building.<span style=""> </span>He designed it in the late 1930s, but it was never built.<span style=""> </span>Amazingly, considering the location near the state capital and on the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">shore</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename st="on">Lake</st1:placename></st1:place> Monona, the land he designed the building for was never developed.<span style=""> </span>The main interior space is fabulous – it’s as though you were right on the lake.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The seminar was interesting.<span style=""> </span>Some highlights:</p> <ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="">We have 3.254 trillion cubic feet of gas in storage, a near record.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">Gas prices have been plummeting, currently about $4.4/MMBTU.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">Gas represents about 18% of electricity generated, but is about 42% of generation capacity:<span style=""> </span>not surprising when you think about it.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">LNG is expected to be about 16% of gas consumed by 2030.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">The annual world energy consumption is about 450 “quads” – quadrillion BTUs.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">The <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>, with about a quarter of the GWP, uses about 115 quads annually.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="">The U.S uses about half the energy per unit of economic output as <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the number 2 energy consumer.</li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the speakers, <a href="http://www.businesslab.mtsu.edu/fwp/faculty.cfm?facultyID=85">William F. Ford</a> was president and CEO of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank and served with both Paul Volker and Alan Greenspan.<span style=""> </span>He’s a pretty entertaining guy.<span style=""> </span>He sat at my table during lunch.<br /></p>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1159916208564974032006-10-03T17:56:00.000-05:002006-10-03T17:56:48.583-05:00Had Enough?Had Enough? <table class="contentpaneopen"><tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" class="createdate" valign="top"> Tuesday, 03 October 2006 </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" valign="top"> <p class="MsoNormal">The State Department has admitted that George Tenant and J. Cofer Black had an emergency briefing with then National Security Advisor Condi Rice on July 10, 2001 to warn her that Al Qaeda was planning on attacking the United States, as was disclosed in Bob Woodward’s book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/State-Denial-Bush-War-Part/dp/0743272234/sr=8-1/qid=1159904377/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3378413-0835307?ie=UTF8&s=books"><u>State Of Denial</u></a> .</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We also learned that the White House Press Secretary Tony Snow called the messages that Florida Representative Mark Foley sent to a 16-year-old page, “naughty emails.”<span> </span>When House Speaker Dennis Hastert was asked why the Republican Leadership did nothing more than warn Foley to “stay away” from the page, he replied “coulda, woulda, shoulda.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Weren’t <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300474.html">Jack Abramoff</a> , <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2124495/">Bob Ney</a> , <a href="http://matthewpiette.com/matthewpiette/">Claude Allen</a> , <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/28/leak.probe/">Scooter Libby</a> , <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-17-ralph-reed_x.htm">Ralph Reed</a> , <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/cunningham/index.html">Duke Cunningham</a> , and Dick Cheney and his <a href="http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/8.html">secret oil meetings</a> enough?<span> </span>Wasn’t it bad enough that we were supposed to be greeted as liberators in Iraq, that Iraqi oil was going to pay for our effort, and that that there wasn’t even supposed to be an insurgency?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wasn’t letting Osama Bin Ladden go when we had him trapped in <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-wosc.html">Tora Bora</a> because we didn’t want to commit the troops enough of a reason?<span> </span>Aren't the emergence of Iran as a regional power, the increasing <a href="http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/israel_gives_up.html">prestige of Hezbollah</a> , and the total breakdown of the Israeli – Palestinian peace process reasons enough?<span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Aren’t the record <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11041190/">budget deficits</a> and huge Congressional “earmarks” by so-called fiscal conservatives that are our children will have to pay for and the disastrous relief effort by Heckofajob Brownie et al enough?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Look at your children, then Mark Foley and the Republican leadership and ask yourself, “Whom should I vote for this November?”</p></td></tr></tbody></table>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1159832276134558432006-10-02T18:30:00.000-05:002006-11-10T18:17:01.970-06:00Energy ConsumptionOctober 06: 20.62 kWh/day 3.59 therm/day<br />September 06: 28.97 kWh/day 0.72 therm/day <br />August 06: 34.2 kWh/day 0.63 therm/day<br /><br />We got our energy bill this week.<br /><br />Last month we averaged 34.2 kWh/day and 63,000 BTUs/day. That's about the same as last year. Our cost is $0.1165/kWh and $1.41/therm.<br /><br />Our gas bill is going to go up soon. We use about ten times more gas in the winter.<br /><br />I think it's important to be aware of these numbers in order to be a good energy consumer and steward of the Earth.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1159570771924675752006-09-29T17:56:00.000-05:002006-09-29T17:59:31.940-05:00Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="header">Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers</td> </tr> <tr> <td><img src="http://www.sefora.org/images/spacer.gif" height="20" width="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td><p> <table style="width: 100%;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: medium none rgb(236, 233, 216); padding: 0in; background-color: transparent;" valign="top"><p style="margin: 5pt 0in 6pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Effective government depends on accurate, honest and timely advice from scientists and engineers. Science demands an open, transparent process of review and access to the best scholars from around the nation and the world. Mistakes dangerous to the nation’s welfare and security have been made when governments prevent scientists from presenting the best evidence and analysis. Americans should demand that all candidates support the following Bill of Rights:</span></p> <ol type="1"><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">Federal policy shall be made using the best available science and analysis both from within the government and from the rest of society. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">The federal government shall never intentionally publish false or misleading scientific information nor post such material on federal websites. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">Scientists conducting research or analysis with federal funding shall be free to discuss and publish the results of unclassified research after a reasonable period of review without fear of intimidation or adverse personnel action. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">Federal employees reporting what they believe to be manipulation of federal research and analysis for political or ideological reasons should be free to bring this information to the attention of the public and shall be protected from intimidation, retribution or adverse personnel action by effective enforcement of Whistle Blower laws. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">No scientists should fear reprisals or intimidation because of the results of their research. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">Appointments to federal scientific advisory committees shall be based on the candidate’s scientific qualifications, not political affiliation or ideology. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">The federal government shall not support any science education program that includes instruction in concepts that are derived from ideology and not science. </li><li style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: justify;">While scientists may elect to withhold methods or studies that might be misused there shall be no federal prohibition on publication of basic research results. Decisions made about blocking the release of information about specific applied research and technologies for reasons of national security shall be the result of a transparent process. Classification decisions shall be made by trained professionals using a clear set of published criteria and there shall be a clear process for challenging decisions and a process for remedying mistakes and abuses of the classification system.</li></ol></td></tr></tbody></table></p></td></tr></tbody></table>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1158753954540911132006-09-20T07:04:00.000-05:002006-09-29T18:14:19.613-05:00Unwinding Bush<span style="font-style: italic;">From The Atlantic October 2006<br /><br /></span><span class="magsubrub">Comment</span><!--/SUBRUBRIC--> <br /><img src="http://www.theatlantic.com/images/1pt.gif" height="8" width="8" /><br /> <h1 class="artheadline">Unwinding Bush<br /></h1> <span class="artunderline">How long will it take to fix his mistakes?</span> <p> <!--BYLINE--> <span class="artbyline">by Jonathan Rauch</span> <!--/BYLINE--> </p> <p class="topgraf" style="margin-top: 10px;"> <span class="divider"> ..... </span> </p> <p><img src="http://www.theatlantic.com/images/issues/200610/rauchbush420x202.jpg" /></p> <p icap="on"> <img src="http://www.theatlantic.com/images/dc-h.gif" alt="H" align="left" /> istory judges good presidents by what they do, bad ones by how long they take to undo. Although history hasn’t yet caught up with President George W. Bush, midterm elections are about to—and those are often a referendum on presidential performance. Now is therefore as good a time as any to jump to a conclusion: the question history will ask is whether Bush’s presidency was as bad as Richard Nixon’s or only as bad as Jimmy Carter’s. </p> <p>Five years ago, with the ruins of the Twin Towers still smoking, many Americans—I should own that I was one of them—looked at Bush and thought they saw a Churchill, or at least a Truman: a leader fortuitously equipped for a difficult job at a critical moment. Bush’s partisans are still holding out for misunderestimated greatness, to be vindicated in the end. They think Bush will be to the war on jihadism what Truman was to the Cold War: the guy who established the course that will see the country through decades of peril. </p> <p>To those disinclined to suspend judgment for fifty years, however, Bush’s course is looking less like a long road than a dead end. Even many conservatives have lost faith; in a recent interview with CBS News, no less a conservative luminary than William F. Buckley declared, “There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush.” For the disenchanted—again, including me—the relevant points of reference now are not Churchill or Truman but Nixon and Carter. </p><br />The URL for this page is <a class="arc" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/bush"> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/bus</a>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1158421209675571172006-09-16T10:38:00.000-05:002006-09-16T10:40:09.676-05:00Gone for a weekSo I'm gone for a week in Atlanta (sprawl and traffic jams at their worst) and come back to find out that Claire prefers to eat off Ellen's floors (apparently E married a mop-enabler) than her table yet also hates taking off her shoes, Madeline and Noey are now both into 4" spikes, there will soon be a massive posting of people's colons, perhaps even warrenting its own website (people with colons...gosh!), AR had a disturbing "birthday colonoscopy" message to Cuz Randolph, and our pope (who was a Nazi, suceeding a pope who faught Nazis) insulted all 1.3 Billion Muslims, much to my hate-filled, dead-to-me, fascist nephew's glee.<br /><br />And, <a href="http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001011shopping_alert_le_creuset.php">Le Cruset</a> is on sale!<br /><br />Gotta love email!<br /><br />More about Atlanta to come.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1158420819251210862006-09-16T10:30:00.000-05:002006-09-16T10:34:48.626-05:00Spinach from our CSA<span style="font-style: italic;">Here's a message from Peter Seely, who owns <a href="http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M509">Springdale Farms</a>, our CSA.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Eat slow and local!</span><br /><br />Greetings folks,<div><br /></div><div>A few have asked us to comment on the recent outbreak of e-coli found in bagged spinach.</div><div><br /></div><div>We cannot claim with 100% certainty that our produce is free from e-coli, (or any other potential toxin, for that matter). We never test our produce for those items (though I'd be very interested if someone were willing to pay to have those tests done). We also do not have enough knowledge of the e-coli virus to know exactly under what conditions it is most prevalent, and how it is spread, etc.</div><div><br /></div><div>We do believe that our agricultural practices are much less likely to result in outbreaks like the current one as compared to the conventional practices, but more details than that are more than we can offer with any certitude.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M509"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">We</span></b> </a>certainly will not hesitate at all before eating what we produce here on our farm, and are not worried about this particular outbreak. But we would like to keep abreast of information, as it comes available, as to how best to minimize the chances of introducing something toxic like e-coli into our vegetables, and would welcome additional comments, and references, if any of you come across information that you feel may be good for us to know about!</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Peter</div>Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14483959.post-1157681469396557902006-09-07T21:06:00.000-05:002006-09-07T21:14:19.856-05:00Busy weekIt's going to be a busy week coming up.<br /><br />Tuesday morning I fly to Atlanta. That afternoon I am meeting with some of our JE Edwards experts to try to figure out some of the inventory issues we are experiencing. Tuesday evening I am having dinner with Michelle E., our head of Payroll.<br /><br />Wednesday through Friday is <span style="font-style: italic;">Advanced Products Training</span>. The syllabus looks pretty good: a lot of chemistry and theory.<br /><br />Wednesday night our group is going out to dinner. Thursday night I am going out with one of the engineers there, Joe S., who is also a UW ChE and worked briefly at my plant.<br /><br />I return on Friday. <br /><br />Saturday we go to Appleton to see Noey, then on to Green Bay. Sunday is our Packer game at Lambeau.Matthew Piettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15364262779927601187noreply@blogger.com1