Christian Studies

Yahoo! Mail ad seen on my login page:

Yes, you may pursue a degree in Christian Studies according to this ad. Better yet, if I were the pretty young lady above, I'd want to get my Master's degree in it in 10 months! What is Christian Studies anyway. It's obviously not a divinity degree. I'm guessing it's for reborn Christian stay-at-home moms who are bored out of their mind?

I personally don't know any nursing, marketing, technology (note: it's a nice and generic technology), business that's accredited by a trustworthy institution that lets you finish a Master's in 10 months online.

I wonder if those ads actually get a lot of clicks and have fools signing up at their website. Would be interesting to do a study on the ROI of Free-College-Info.com alumni, wouldn't it?

This American Life

I sat in the parking lot of Super 88 Market in Malden, MA to finish listening to today's This American Life episode on WBUR. The weather was extremely pleasant, sunny, very breezy perhaps even windy, low humidity, early fall like weather. I rolled down the windows, sat behind the steering wheel of Trogodor and listened. It was hilarious. Hilarious in the sense that life is so silly, reality is entertaining.

Since my car radio wasn't turned on until 3:30pm or so, I was able to catch the last part of the program. It was about the host Ira Glass tagging along a private investigator named "Jonathan" around Chicago suburbs. "Jonathan" was working on a cheating case that the husband was paying him $50/hr for surveillance on the wife.

Ira and Jonathan encountered a few things that you and I might find interesting in the world of the private eyesb. The wife left to meet her lover an hour late; she never noticed the PI's car following her even though it was quite a long drive and they were right behind her car; she took her time to reach the restaurant, a very un-romantic, large, family oriented place; and the guy she was meeting had rude table manners that made him not so attractive. Hmmm. Then it took Jonathan another 5 days to finally catch them going home together, completing his case. Of course, the husband was calling his wife "that lying bitch" when Jonathan confirmed his suspicions. Ira made this scene so satisfying with his cool and articulate delivery.

The best part was the demographic of this couple. They are like in their mid-20's! I was certain that, from all the PI scenes in the movies, people who hire PI's to spy on their spouses are almost all mid-aged couples who have been married for a while. Perhaps their marriage was getting dull, things weren't as exciting and one or another was looking for some fun outside of the marriage. I'm not sure why I found it so funny but perhaps I was entertained because it surprised me. Ira definitely made a note of that.

Listen by clicking on the link above if you want to hear it for yourself.

Lost and Found works!

Icelandair has moved up in my "Airlines to Fly or Avoid" book. I left my camera on their flight from Boston to Iceland about a month ago. Yes, it was the 3rd camera I've lost in the last 3 years. Doh! (I need a bionic camera)

So I emailed them 2 weeks after flying with them, via a generic email address found on their website. The Reykjavik Airport police wrote me back within a day and said they had my camera!

"Hello,

Your camera is here at Lost and Found keflavíkairport. If you want it to be sent to you by mail then we will need your address, full name and a mastercard number.

Kv. Daði H. Kristinsson
Iceland Police
Lost and Found

"

I did have to pay $32 in shipping charge but hey, it sure beats buying a new camera! It arrived in an international shipping box yesterday. With a population of 309,699 total, Iceland perhaps functions much more efficiently compared to large nations like the U.S.? Everyone probably knows everyone else and each other's business. I'd think it'd be hard to commit heinous crime too.

At any rate, I'm a big fan of IcelandAir. Hooray!

~ Cecily

Have you had enough of the Minneapolis bridge collapse? Me too.

Minneapolis bridge collapse. So far 5 people had died; 8 missing. Numerous cars fell into the river when the bridge collapsed. Maximum possible death toll: 13. Yes, 13, ok? How many people are dying in Darfur or Iraq on a daily basis?? Do they get an instant 250m dollars, heck no! Substance, please.

I just don't get it. Since day one of the collapse, we were informed structural engineers from state had raised questions about this bridge, more than once. It was not on the list to be fixed because the state simply didn't allocate enough money to maintenance.

The problem lies in where the money gets spent. Transportation bill hasn't been small, to be fair. However, large amounts of the money from those bills fund new constructions: building bridges leading to nowhere, highways facilitating more suburban sprawling and more vehicular traffic. It is politically popular to do new projects: it creats job; it makes places look like an American dream, concrete lanes diving up green space, packed with shiny roads and cookie-cutter houses. The existing transportation infrastructure, including roads, bridges, railroads and subways have been neglected as a result.

So explain to me why the hell do I need to be listening to breaking news such as these: "the governor is calling state wide inspection of all bridges", 'Massachutes transportation department is also inspecting our bridges per the Governor's request'. First, this is too little too late. You can't fix the briges tomorrow. Second, the fundamental problem was and is not, if and how we do inspections. In fact, we do a fine job at it. The problem is the fricking money. The money is not going where it should be. More money needs to go to maintenance and less needs to go to new construction projects. And of course, unless people start dying, pork barreling is business as usual. In this case, it's bringing home the concrete instead of the bacon, that's of high interest to the local politicians.

Even better yet, that CNN article says our politicians are going to pass a bill up to $250m just to fix this one bridge in Minnesota. If we already know hundreds of bridges, roads in the country may be in need of fixing due to years of neglect, why spend so much on one single bridge? Why not explore options such as building bridge at a different location, a tunnel or even a rail line on the bridge instead of car lanes? Minnesotans, are you ready to stuff your faces?