Why I love Costco Part 3: Trail Mix

When I think of trail mix, I usually think of some puny plastic bag of it hanging on a rack at 7-11 or a mini-mart (I really need to start shopping at better places).

But not when I'm at Costco.

Like everything else there, their house brand Kirkland trail mix is super-sized. For extra snackin'.

I'm not saying everyone needs a bag of trail mix bigger than their head, but Costco does make it hard to resist. It's a salty snack the way God intended.

Sure it has the things you'd expect in a trail mix - nuts, more nuts, that other kind of nuts, those nuts. But it also has soft, chewy raisins. And m&m's. Lots of them.

And even though I'm allergic to chocolate ( you can see how it stops me..), I always try to mine that section of mix that has the most m&m's in it. Maybe I don't breathe for a day or two. Well worth it.

The bag itself isn't bottomless, even though it feels like it when you're sitting on the couch grazing while a few hours of mindless television go drifting by.

Or so I hear.

You know one reason shopping carts at Costco are so huge?

So they can hold all my trail mix, that's why.

Pen and tell her

This post lent itself to yet another in a series of interactive blog post titles that are fun when said fast (remember this one?).

Fun wasn't it? On to the post.

In the same way listening to an audio book isn't really reading it, a written letter isn't the same as email.

I read today that for the typical American household, two months will go by before a personal, handwritten letter arrives. And the time between them is getting even longer. It's been coming for a while. It's not a shock.

But it is sad.

I know we're all about efficiency and fast, but with the slow disappearance of the written word, the handwritten word, there are two other casualties of the electronic age.

Grace. And impact.

No matter how hard it wants to be when it grows up, an email will never be as personal as a letter. It will always be cold and detached.

It will also never be permanent. It isn't something you'll pick up and read every few years, or keep in a trunk as a memory that can instantly take you back to a time, a place and a feeling (forgive me for going all Don Draper on you).

With the touch of a key - by you or someone else - the email is altered, or deleted. Gone.

Also, and this is a lesson I seem to keep learning over and over, with a letter you actually have time to consider whether you should send it. With some emails I've sent, before my finger is off the send button I wish I hadn't.

The impact of the idea that someone takes the time, makes the effort and gives considered thought to exactly the words they want to say to you, then puts them down on paper, can't be overestimated. Or duplicated.

As a result of email, I believe we've cheapened the currency of the written word. We now have the ability to yammer on about any trivial thing back and forth, all day long. There's no picking your fights. Choosing your battles.

With hands on the keyboard, you think it here, it comes out there.

The art, skill and thought required to compose a letter is being lost, as so many things are when an easier way is found. (Can you name three kids who can drive a stick shift? Didn't think so.)

Even though the postal service is faltering, mail won't disappear entirely. The bills, supermarket flyers, Land's End catalogs and election year propaganda will always find a way to the mail box.

But I seriously doubt you'll be looking forward to any of it.

Goodbye Steve

Is it possible for a circuit board to have good intentions? It is if it lives in an Apple product.

Every one I own sets out to do the same thing: make my life better in some way. Unlike any other brand I own, Apple consistently makes good on the promise.

Ironically, the way I found out Steve Jobs had died today was while I was searching for information about Apple's newest release: the iPhone 4S. I went to the Apple site, and on the home page was the above image.

I know how silly it sounds, but it knocked the wind out of me. I've lost family members before. It feels the same.

It's not just the man, but the idea of the man that's so powerful. A visionary, often compared to people like Henry Ford and Ben Franklin. The kind of person that only comes along once in a lifetime. Regardless of what people who have accomplished much less with their lives and their companies will tell you, it's a valid comparison.

Tonight there'll be plenty of coverage of his passing, with smarter people than me paying tribute. I'm sure I'll be watching it all.

So, as I sit here writing this on my MacBook Pro, listening to iTunes, with my daughter watching Toy Story 3 in the other room and waiting for a call on my iPhone, I just wanted to say goodbye Steve.

Thank you for thinking different.

Terri Hatcher has big ones

How can you not see them? She's practically shoving them at you. And they're staring you right in the face. Besides, she's an actress. She knows you're looking at them. Plus when skinny girls like her have a pair that big, you really can't help but notice.

I'm talking about her ears.

I caught a bit of Desperate Housewives last night (okay, first, my macho self-esteem is not threatened. And second, I'd already seen the east coast feed of Dexter), and there was a shot with her hair pulled back in a pony tail and oh my God look at the size of those ears!

It's probably not the first feature she wants viewers focusing on. But being an actress, you'd think she'd know her good angles from her bad. And this was bad.

I think one of the reasons those ears are so prominent is all the plastic surgery she's had. Her cheeks (and lips, and forehead) are pulled so tight, her ears slant forward at an angle not usually found in nature.

I don't mean to pick on her. I've always liked her. She was great in a small film called The Big Picture, starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Christopher Guest. I also liked her a lot in Lois & Clark.

It's a tough business to get older in, especially for women, and I don't begrudge her doing what she needs to do to stay competitive in it.

All I'm saying is if you have as much money as she does, and you're going to get as much plastic surgery as she's had, the question you probably want people asking at the end of it all is "How does she still look so great?"

Instead of "How many channels you get on those things?"

The most important meal

That part about no guarantees in life? So not true. Especially when it comes to an awesome breakfast.

This morning I had a long overdue breakfast with my pal Mardel at The Coffee Cup Cafe. I've been going there fairly regularly for a couple years now.

Not bad for a place that was an accidental discovery.

The family and I were looking for a place to eat that we hadn't been, and the wife went on UrbanSpoon. The Coffee Cup came up, and we've never looked back.

Great breakfast. Great vibe. Great location right in the arts district in Long Beach (I know, it's all an arts district, but still...).

As you might imagine, the line to get in on Sunday mornings is just the nature of the beast, but worth the wait. The good news is because you are where you are, you can watch all the Prius owners driving silently around the block looking for parking. It's like a little eco-friendly Hot Wheels convention happening right in front of you.

And for environmentally friendly fun, you can always do what I do - make fun of them. They're asking for it, and it makes the wait go faster. (By the way, just so you know, some of my very best friends drive a Prius, bless their gas-sippin', statement-makin', environment-savin', Earth Day-celebratin', diamond lane-takin' little hearts.).

Like the Apple Pan, the Coffee Cup Cafe is so good you wonder why they don't open more of them. But of course if they did, it wouldn't be nearly as good. Or local. Or fun.

Besides the Coffee Cup Cafe, I've only posted once before about an awesome restaurant I've been to. When I find 'em, I'll let you know in case you're in the area.

And in case you have something funny to say about a Prius.

Ron Paul got it wrong on this one

Despite what some of my friends think, it's been a very long time since I've been a liberal Democrat. In recent years, I've been much more of a centrist.

I've always liked Ron Paul. And I find myself agreeing with many of his libertarian points of view. Often times, especially with the debates he's been involved in, he's the only one making any sense (although it's not hard to look that way standing next to Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann).

Every time I've ever listened to Ron Paul, whether it's been in this election or the last one, he seems to come from two places other politicians fear to tread.

The truth. And common sense.

But with this week's killing of Anwar Awlaki, I'm afraid Ron Paul got it wrong. Here's what he said about it:

I can't decide whether to take his statement line by line or overall, so I'll do a bit of both.

He starts by saying he doesn't think it's a good way to deal with our problems. I agree with that. For things like urban blight, water shortages, disaster relief, unemployment, the recession, poverty and most of the other problems the country faces, a Predator missile probably isn't the go-to solution.

But the killing of Awlaki wasn't symbolic of how we handle everything. The action was only designed to handle one problem. Which it did exactly as intended.

Paul goes on to naively say Awlaki was never tried or charged, and no one knows if he killed anybody. This is disappointing because it seems so self-serving. He could've said the same about Bin Laden. The truth is there actually are people who know that Awlaki killed and orchestrated the killing of innocent Americans. And since Paul sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he knows it.

The part about how sad he thinks it is if Americans blindly and casually accept a practice of the president assassinating people he thinks are bad guys is pure manipulation. I don't think Americans blindly or casually accept the killing of anyone.

But Awlaki wasn't just anyone. He was and has been an immediate threat to the country for years. These weren't the first missiles we fired at him.

Ron Paul is a brilliant man. He knows Obama takes the fight against terrorism extremely seriously (just look at the scorecard). If by "bad guys" he means international terrorists intent and dedicated to destroying American interests and killing as many innocent Americans as possible anywhere in the world, then I have some bad news for Congressman Paul.

I have no problem accepting that. According to the polls, neither do most Americans.

There also seems to be a lot of outcry about the fact Awlaki was American-born, and we shouldn't be assassinating American citizens. Truthfully, I haven't noticed a sudden rash of American citizen assassinations being ordered by Obama. One of his good qualities is that he's pretty selective about who to pull the trigger on.

As far as I can tell, so far it's been pirates and terrorists.

But, you know, every job comes with occupational hazards no matter where you're from. When you list international terrorist at the top of your resume, the risk of Predator missiles just comes with the territory.

Especially if the territory is Yemen or Pakistan.

So, I'm glad we got Awlaki. I'm disappointed in Ron Paul, although I still believe much of what he says is dead on.

By the way, while I do think there are easier ways to get it, it's worth noting that Obama received support from both sides of the aisle on this decision.

Ron Paul is certainly entitled to his opinions. But the idea of the presidency is to represent the majority of Americans.

And on this particular action, I don't think Ron Paul does.

Stumped again

To paraphrase Joyce Kilmer:

I think that I shall never see

A poem as lovely as my neighbors trash cans

In front of my tree.

Yes, (sigh), those neighbors. There's no reason they can't put their trash cans in front of their house, or for that matter any other house but mine. But then they wouldn't get to annoy the living piss out of me once a week. And what fun would that be.

However as of today, they'll have to find another landmark to situate their cans by.

That beautiful tree in front of my house - the picture doesn't do it justice - has been dying for a long, long time. You can't see the top of it here, but half of it had no leaves, and there was this very unpleasant fungus growing around the bottom.

And I think we all know how painful that can be.

Since it's on our parkway, we called the city to come out and have a look at it. Before the city arborist even closed the door getting out of his car, he said, "Oh yeah, that one's dead. It's gotta come out."

So as of a couple days ago, the tree leaves at the top that we've peered out at for over 13 years through the transom windows in our bedroom are gone.

All that's left is the stump, which the city will come back and grind down in a couple weeks.

Our homeowner's association, which I've dealt with several times (don't get me started), has a rule: if a tree comes out, the homeowner replaces it.

So that's what we'll do. In fact, we've already chosen the variety of tree we want.

It's called a ginkgo. Our neighbor across the street has one in front of his house. Every fall when the kids were younger, we'd take our Christmas card picture with them playing in the yellow leaves that dropped from it around November.

It's a gorgeous tree.

Of course, it'll be a few years before it's filled in and mature enough to start dropping leaves. But once it is, it'll be magnificent.

With or without trash cans in front of it.