Pancakes for Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. It means 40 days till Easter but the Easter candy has filled the shelves of the stores since February 15 - sometimes even earlier!

For Lent this year, I'm giving up beer and pop. I've actually cut back on those two things anyway with the diet so it's not a huge stretch this year. Plus the Mexico wedding is AFTER Easter so I'm safe.

Today is my last official day in New York. I leave tomorrow morning for Toronto (about a 5 hour drive) and there are slight chances of snow tomorrow. I'm not going near the 100+ inches of snow regions though. Everyone says Toronto is a nightmare to drive in with many many traffic problems. I'll have to see for myself!

I'm staying in a Hampton Inn here in the Endicott area.... decent hotel but when the elevator doors close, there's a picture of two donkeys on one door and I forget what it says on the other door. I'm just amazed that there's a picture of two donkeys. They're just in the middle of a road and acting as I would assume donkeys act - but still something I wasn't expecting. And they are stickers, not magnets. Otherwise I may have had to see about taking it as a souvenir for certain unnamed friends in California!

Nice Mediterranean Food last night for dinner with my team. Very good, very garlicky, and very filling. Still not hungry this morning after eating that much food last night. Endicott is the birthplace of IBM and they have a very nice historical museum set up here that we walked through yesterday. They still have the original building where Watson first started the business - plus his original desk is still there somewhere. Unfortunately this area was hit pretty hard with the changes of the 1990s going from some 22,000 employees to about 1500 today. Yeah, that's a sizable difference!

Interesting note: It's National Engineers Week (which is advertised at work and lots of engineers go to the schools for activities) but don't forget that it's also National Pancake Week! Coincidence? Plus next week begins National Eating Disorders Awareness week.... so eat those Pancakes while you still can!!

Haiku of the Day

Pancakes - so fluffy
Covered with Maple Syrup
Sausage on the Side


Entertainment of the Day - They have some good radio stations here in the Endicott area - including a Hard Rock station which gives 93X (out of the cities) a run for its money. STP, Ozzy, Tool so far have been played. Kahn is going to invest in a radio station in Rochester to play this music! Thanks Kahn!!

Weblink of the Day - An interesting forward that I received yesterday. The music doesn't really match the topic in my opinion which really bothered me... but this is a quick movie that tries to put into perspective the population and technology growth of the past few years. Goes along with a lot of the themes in The World is Flat. A "quick" 6 minutes of reading.