MAN: Hello?
WOMAN: Honey, it’s me. Are you at the club?
MAN: Yep, sure am…..
WOMAN: I’m at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It’s only $1,000. Is it OK if I buy it?
MAN: Sure, ..go ahead if you like it that much…
WOMAN: I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2010 models. I saw one I really liked.
MAN: How much?
WOMAN: $85,000
MAN: OK, but for that price I want it with all the options…
WOMAN: Great! Oh, and one more thing . The house we wanted last year is back on the market. They’re asking $950,000…down from $1.500,000
MAN: Well, then go ahead and give them an offer, but just offer $900,000.
WOMAN: OK. I’ll see you later! I love you!
MAN: Bye, I love you, too. The man hangs up.

The other men in the locker room are looking at him in astonishment.

Then he smiles and asks: Anyone know who this phone belongs to?”

We decided to have a light dinner at the DuPont Lodge to enjoy the gorgeous view of the river on a picture-perfect spring evening.

The food was good – nothing amazing, but that’s not why you go to the Falls. You go for the views. The dinner buffet is a very reasonable price, and well-worth partaking-in to enjoy the trees budding-out.

What impressed me most about the restaurant was the completely unobtrusive service our waitress provided: she removed empty plates and refilled drinks with us barely noticing she had come by. Our glasses were never empty more than a minute, and plates sat on the table for what seemed like only seconds before they vanished.

If you have the chance to go, you absolutely should: not for the food, but for the view – and the service.

Oompa Loompas:
Oompa Loompa doopadee do
I’ve got another puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doopadee dee
If you are wise you’ll listen to me
Gum chewing’s fine when it’s once in a while
It stops you from smoking and brightens your smile
But it’s repulsive, revolting, and wrong
chewing and chewing all day long
The way that a cow does
Oompa Loompa doopadee dah
Given good manners, you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa Loompa doopadee doo

Oompa Loompas:
Oompa loompa doopadee do
I’ve got another puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doopadah dee
If you are wise you’ll listen to me
What do you get from a glut of TV?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of 3
Why don’t you try simply reading a book?
Or could you just not bear to look?
You’ll get no
You’ll get no
You’ll get no
You’ll get no
You’ll get no commercials
Oompa loompa doopadee dah
If you’re not greedy you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the
Oompa
Oompa loompa doopadee do

I just got a site setup for my fiancee and I to keep our friends and family up-to-date on what’s going on: http://warrenmyers.com/wedding/.

And yes – she picked the blog theme

They open at 1700, and close at 0100 Tuesday through Sunday.

I’ve now been there several times, trying different pho options, the spring rolls, and some other specialties that jump off the menu at me.

But what’s kept me going back is not merely the low prices on food (you can get full for ~S$6), but how polite and friendly the staff is. I have trouble pronouncing their names, and so far have only gotten one down: Thanh.

The staff is from all over Vietnam, and has been interested in talking to me – partially because I’m an American, but also because I go in by myself, and am willing to chat with them. And I don’t treat them like they’re servants or slaves the way a lot of waitstaff are treated here in Singapore.

Another benefit of the restaurant is they do not have a built-in service charge – so I can leave a tip for what I think the meal and service is worth rather than being forced to leave 10-15%.

This has definitely become my favorite restaurant in Singapore to go to.

Don’t know what I’ll use it for yet – but I want a VersaLaser.

Due to some unavoidable delays earlier, we got a later start to our trip to Oshkosh for the EAA AirVenture week. As the sun is getting lower in the sky, we realize that we haven’t eaten in several hours, and this looks like a good area to take a stretch break anyway.

We’ve been looking for a place to stop for about 20 minutes when on the blue sign for the upcoming exit we see “Moonwinks”. That sounds different. I make the executive decision from the backseat that this is where we’re going to try for dinner. If it looks sketchy of uppity when we get there, there’s something random fast food joint a couple miles further we can go to instead.

As we head the mile or so north on Route 305, we see this rather normal-looking building at the crux of a Y intersection, with a large sign reading “Moonwinks” in the roof. This must be the place.

The parking “lot” (ie, the packed dirt and gravel around the building) is packed. This is a Good Sign™. It means either a) they’re really good, or b) there’s no place else to go. I’m choosing option ‘a’, because it’s more optimistic.

We park and look for a door. There’s some kind of party going on in the front of the place, so we go in the side. Turns out this is actually the front door. We’re seated almost immediately.

The dining area we’re ushered-to has seating for about 60 people. The wedding reception out front is in another dining area which could hold as many as 150, I think.

The menu is pretty simple – classic American choices: some pasta dishes, seafood, steak, chicken… they all look good. I opt for the lemon whitefish with capers. Mom got an industrial-sized salad with a grilled chicken breast on top to share with my sister. I don’t remember what dad ordered – I’m too fixated on the huge fish fillet that came out.

I barely got myself around the dinner I ordered. I would have been better-off leaving a little.. but it was addicting! Mom and Josie’s salad lasted past one meal, too. Dad didn’t make it all the way through his plate of food – but bringing that with us wasn’t a good idea – wouldn’t keep well, or reheat at all.

The only thing I have against Moonwinks is that it’s too far from where my parents live to go just for dinner. Anything up to maybe 2.5-3 hours may be worth the ride, but clear 4 hours, and it’s just a long ways to go for a meal

However, if I were going through anyways, or had a reason to be in the Finger Lakes region (airshows, vacation, whatever) – it’s definitely worth going to.

4.5 stars of 5.

Navigating their site is non-obvious when you’re trying to find operating hours. Turns out the link as at the bottom of the page down near the administrative stuff like “press room” and “sitemap”.

As those who saw me will attest, the week was great – other than getting more sunburned than planned. Normally I like to get a light burn so it will tan. I got a light burn the first day. Then again the second. Then I had the brilliant idea of finishing the light burn process Wednesday.

Bad plan. Well, good plan – poorly executed.

The problem was that it was far and away too nice out. So instead of spending half-ish of the day indoors in the hnagars or forum tents.. I was outside all day. And didn’t put sunscreen on at lunch time like I should’ve – nono, I waited until mid-afternoon. Bad decision. I didn’t get all blistered like I did one other time, but that doesn’t mean the upper arms and shoulders weren’t complaining the next morning.

Moving on from the unpleasantness of sunburn – the convention was a blast. We got to see the A380 make its North American debut – didn’t do the tour because of the insanely-long lines, but still saw it fly.

WhiteKnightTwo flew – the mothership for SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic. That is a dorky looking plane, but it flies so gracefully, you’d think it was a performance sailplane.

My dad and I listened to Burt Rutan talk about the history of the Ansari X prize which Scaled Composites won with SpaceShipOne a couple years ago. He’s a captivating speaker, but does have a tendency to meander in his speaking like Garison Keilor in the News from Lake Woebegone. But you can’t really tell him he’s gone over on his alotted time because, well – it’s Burt Rutan, and it’s just so interesting!

Possibly the coolest part of the week was Friday morning when my dad was able to take a ride in the EAA 1929 Ford Trimotor airliner. For you movie buffs, it’s the same one used in Public Enemies with Johnny Depp. He loved the 10 minute jaunt out over Lake Winnebago, and was none too thrilled about having to get off when it was over

This year, as opposed to the last two times we went (1989 and 1998), we stayed at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Previously we had camped at Circle R. The University’s accommodations were nothing amazing – two beds in a dorm room with shower/bathroom facilities on each floor (separated by gender, of course). But the price was unbeatable: $50 per night per room. The four of us were able to stay comfortably for a week for $700. The cheapest hotel I had found was 25 minutes away and $175 a night. That could be because of the closeness to which I looked for a room (~6 months out), but all in all, the University was a great place to be – close to the grounds, easy access to other points of interest, etc.

And I must give recognition to the organizers, the city of Oshkosh, and [almost] everyone I saw there: it was amazingly clean, smooth to move around, and pleasant to be in/around. For there being ~250,000 people on the grounds on the peak days, you wouldn’t have known more than a couple hundred were there for the trash NOT lying around.

It continues to amaze me every time I go to an airshow how clean the grounds are at the end of the day. Everyone cleans up after themselves, and they’ll cleanup after others if something blew out of a trash can, or off a table, or out of someone’s bag. Almost like the folks who go actually care about humanity

‘Software version numbers are pure marketing concoction. The upgrade from System 7 to System 7.5, for example, was a baby step compared to the leap from 7.5 to 8.0. If anything, it’s the tiny increases that really count, because that’s when a program goes from “4.0″ buggy to “4.0.1″ usable.

Of course, then there’s the numbering leap from Word 6 to Word 98. That one seems about right.’