I was wrong about LCD. Last night my friends asked me where I wanted to go
for food. I said that all I really cared about is finding a place where I
could get a beer, the food was completely secondary. They thought that was
funny, but I reasoned that any place that had beer wouldn't dare be too
bright. We walked into the "Mag Mile" and passed a Lawry's Steakhouse.
Suddenly I knew what LCD meant when he talked about "named after that
seasoning you put on meat." He said they were kinda costly, so I din't push
for it. We walked another block and I saw a Friday's. Perfect. Beer and a
variety of food. This is the edge of the envelope for this group.
Speaking of the envelope's edge, which you may or may not reach by thinking
out of the box (or maybe you have to proactively pursue the paradigm), I
enjoyed Jan Haugland's piece (Secular Blasphemy - I can't embed links from
pure text, I'll put it at the end) about "bidnessspeak." To the list of ugly
jargon he cites, I must add when I've heard more and more lately: metrics.
As in "we need to get the support metrics from Memphis." Now they mean
measurements or statistics, but that sounds too old school. The other one,
which might be contained to GBD technical support, is the verb "concess,"
pronounced like the first part of concession. There must be a parallel
logic, reverse engineering the word in the same way "confess" the verb
becomes "confession" the noun. Somebody might have gotten a bonus or "perks"
for that and I'm certain that the metrics of their personal resources (their
job security, not their money) were significantly enhanced.
My metrics for the week so far have been 112 ethernet cards swapped out.
That's 336 screws removed and replaced as well as 336 bar codes scanned.
This is menial work, but it has not been all that bad. As I said earlier,
these guys are great to work with and we quickly began to function as a
team, purely non-verbally. Almost like magic.
Back to Friday's. LCD is a smoker but that doesn't bother me because I
smoked for years and just up and quit about 4 years ago. I enjoy second hand
smoke. They asked at Friday's if we wanted smoking or non-smoking - good
grief, I didn't know there were still places where you had a choice. There
was a wait for smoking, so we ended up in "non" with a nice window view. I
immediately ordered an Octoberfest beer when the waitress said it was their
special - and special it was, 23 ounces of amber heaven. LCD ordered his
Coor's Light and Julio got an Aussie beer that wasn't Foster's (I forget
what it was, but earlier he'd spoken to me about Mexican beers - the usual,
Corona, Dos Equis, and another one, his favorite that I couldn't understand.
LCD is leaving this morning and I'll get the omitted details of Julio's beer
tastes and put them in another post. His English is fluent, but the accent
is difficult for me at times. When I asked him about quesadillas, whether
they were really Mexican or just some New Age Tex-Mex Southwest concoction,
he said they were and broke out the word "quesa" for me, making it obvious
that they had to have cheese. Well, not so obvious, he says, it Mexico City
they have quesadillas with pumpkin flour, yes they are orange, and no
cheese - in other words, the whole quesadilla concept is as screwed up in
Mexico as it is in the States).
LCD is driving to Huntsville, Alabama on Friday for a family reunion. He
mentioned that he was driving the whole way because his he couldn't sleep
while his wife drove. I mentioned the NASA facility there and he told us
tales of having the ground shake 20 miles from the testing grounds when they
were testing the Atlas boosters back in the 50s and 60s. He ordered fajitas
and I was amused because Julio ordered the steak with Heinz 57. I got
Buffalo wings and told the story of karaoke night with Japanese engineers in
Tokyo. They wanted to know about American food and I told them about Buffalo
wings and they had to have a little conference before asking me what the
hell that was. I told them, they laughed, and then ordered buffalo tongue
for us, thin little cured circles of, well, buffalo tongue that we cooked to
a sizzle on a hibachi. LCD said he believed he would starve in Japan. I
reassured him with examples like tonkatsu and kobe beef.
We all ordered a second beer. Julio asked LCD for a spare tortilla and
rolled up some 57-variety steak and some peppers LCD had on the side. It was
not Chicago cuisine but it was good camaraderie after an intense evening of
work and we had the most fun I've had since arriving. Places like Friday's
that serve a little bit of everything are perfect for a diverse group. You
don't have to find the least objectionable place, you can find the most
mutually agreeable.
My hot dog quest will continue today after we drop off LCD ar O'Hare A
consensus of people at the the client site and online research has directed
me to Portillo's, which is only 3/4 of a mile from the hotel. I wish I had
time to try more places, but at least I'll get to one of the better known.
Here is the link to Jan's article:
http://blogs.salon.com/0001561/2003/10/22.html#a3733
5:51:24 PM 
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