Author: lief

So, the return flight has started, my girls are sleeping (or trying to), let’s blog. *
All the books claim that most kids answer the question

What was your favorite part of Disneyland?

with the answer

The swimming pool at the hotel.

Long story short, our experience was no different.

It might have been meeting Ariel, or riding the Big Thunder Railroad, the Grizzly Bear Whitewater Rafting Run, talking extensively with Alice and The Mad Hatter, riding Space Mountain three times (and inexplicably spying trees therein), hugging Minnie Mouse, or driving any of the many automobiles around their respective parks, or even the longest and most expensive ride of them all, the 737.

Those would be the favorites of a certain Mommy and Daddy. While an independent observer may have taken careful note of the starstruck looks and the enviable screams of joy followed by the common refrain

Is that the real…
…Cinderella?
…Ariel?
…Mickey The Mouse?
…hot lava?
…fire?
…[insert another punchline, character, or effect]?

they may have come to a similar conclusion as The Mommy and The Daddy.
But that same casual and independent observer would have likely heard the same answer to the common question;

The swimming pool.

That may sound like a bad thing but it was not. The aforementioned joy was no less real and no less incredulous by this repeated answer. The metaphysics of reality aside, it certainly was a real good time and now we know that we can go to Wild Waves or, for that matter, any local Super 8 Motel for the vacation dreams are made of.

Stay tuned for part 2 and some special stories that individually made the trip worth it.

(Note: I wrote this on the plane ride home but posted it tonight, a couple days later.)

I had this small idea for a brief little post this AM to share with you my touristy side about how I got my first coffee at the worlds first Starbucks on my way to work but right after I took my first sip my idea changed.

Right before I left my previous job in Auburn I was turned onto the idea of ordering “good” (organic, fair trade, shade grown, [insert cause here] ) coffee from a place called Grounds for Change. Angela and I gave it a run and found it to be just fine and morally better than some other alternatives, so we stuck with it.

The original conversation that led to the first order included relatively disparaging remarks about the quality and taste of Starbucks coffee. It is over-roasted, burnt and (paraphrasing) generally tastes crappy. I agreed conversationally but inside gave the thought a modest and relatively uninterested ‘psh, coffee is coffee’.

It has been about a year now, after my move downtown, and I have been taste testing various coffee houses, trying to develop a sense for which location I prefer, which has the best ‘flavor’ etc. Granted I tend to sweeten my coffee to the point where I am comparing the flavor of sugars as much as the flavor of coffee but there is still adequate comparisons (as long as I put a lot of sugar in all of them). hehe

During that time I have mostly consumed Starbucks Sumatra blend, which they supply at the office, and it is generally adequate. Also recently I watched a documentary on PBS called Black Gold and that turned me onto a particular coffee that they happen to sell at Grounds For Change, it is Ethiopia “Yirgacheffe”.

I tried it for the first time last night and I am not disappointed. It is very good and morally rewarding as well. Somehow, buying this coffee makes me feel like I am helping out the underdog in Ethiopia rather than the Big Dog in [insert suburb here]. I know that almost all underdogs want to become Big Dogs and we tend to have a soft spot for underdogs in The United States of Big Dog…but that is a different thread.

All this to come to the point that as I performed my duty this morning, finally stopping at the first Starbucks to use my giftcard, and swallowing my first sip of…ACK!! over-roasted, burnt, and a basically crappy tasting cup of coffee. The Ethiopians and opinionated Existentialists have ruined me, and now (if I end up really taking to coffee) I won’t be able to walk into any city in the world, walk three blocks, and enjoy the resulting caffeinated beverage. It just doesn’t taste good anymore.