coffee shops

I listened to a fascinating podcast on the bus on the way in today: Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences. Each family is dealing with the situation in totally opposite ways. Each is working with a professional, each of which has a totally different philosophy about the issue.

The mother and father of the boy being treated by Dr. Ehrensaf now use “she” to refer to their son Jonah, and mom had this to say about that fateful day when they finally allowed Jonah to buy a dress:

It’s a 22-minute podcast, which you can listen to (or read the transcript) here.

Remembering that the coffee in the NCSU library coffee shop was $1.35, as opposed to the $1.60 and $1.70 in the coffee shops on Hillsborough Street, I walked that way this morning after getting off the bus. In order to get to the library entrance where that coffee shop is, you have to pass the student food court area just off the Brickyard. I said to myself, “I wonder if the coffee is the same price in here. If it is, it’s a little bit closer, and will save me some time.”

Ducking in, and helping myself to what I would call a medium size cup of coffee, as opposed to the small I usually get at the other places, imagine the smile on my face when the cashier said, “That’ll be $.85, please.”

Not being a coffee connoisseur, and being the financially savvy guy that I am (sounds so much better than cheap, or even frugal), you know I’m going to be all over a “50% off” deal on coffee whenever I want some.

I spoke with my manager this morning about taking off Monday, October 13th, to attend my uncle’s memorial service in Rhode Island. She assured me that we could work something out—first with potentially taking work to do remotely with me, but later remembering that I could use sick leave for this purpose.

I used my U.S. Airways frequent flyer points to get a $400 ticket for $35 instead. It was supposed to be $50 more due to booking inside of 14 days, but the website hung up while I was making the reservations, and by the time it was all said and done with a representative on the phone, that $50 charge was either missed or waived. Either way, I’m not complaining.

I had lunch at Mitch’s Tavern with a co-worker, Garrison from “the admin team,” my boss, and my boss’s boss. We talked about the potential use of social networking applications, specifically Twitter, in our work.

I had their Super Garden Melt, which consisted of sautéed eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini squash, onions, melted provolone, and served in a large roll. It was most delicious, and came with a side order of potato salad, which was also quite good.

My afternoon was consumed with two “customer” meetings, in which we talked about information architecture with the liaisons of two groups who are going to move their Web content into a new content management system into which our overall organization is migrating.

Late in the day, I got into a services brochure that I’m working on for a booth at the upcoming OIT Expo ’08.

I caught the 7:15 bus home.

At home, I made a run for a number of greeting cards, including three sympathy cards, one birthday card, and one anniversary card.

I also stopped at the Hardee’s nearby to use a “buy an order of our bacon cheese fries, and get a soft drink free” coupon, for which I was promptly told, “We don’t even sell bacon cheese fries any more.”

Back at home, I wrote an article about my upcoming China trip for the October newsletter edition of the NCSU student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.