Iceboating - Lake Michigan

A couple of Saturdays ago we headed for a mini roadtrip north to the Upper Peninsula - just north of Green Bay, where Wisconsin merges with the top left of Michigan - next stop Canada.

The reason - the DN Class North American Iceboating Champs...the chance to see a couple of hundred crazy iceboaters doing what they love, including a couple of Harken guys.

Driving out onto a frozen Lake Michigan was a little scary - especially later when you start hearing the black ice making crazy noises underneath you! - but it was better than parking 1/2 mile away and walking out to the staging area - not that I spent much time out of the car (there's a weather reason why the ice is frozen - it's @£$%^& COLD!).

This giant boat Deuce, pictured on the right, was originally built in 1930 and at almost 55 feet long is the world’s largest ice boat. It's based in Lake Geneva - a little south of us. We heard later that after we left a gust caught the boat and lifted it airborne resulting in some particularly nasty damage to another boat that just happened to be nearby. This sport isn't for sissies!


I found some video on You Tube that will give you much more a feel for the sport than my pictures - take a moment to have a look.

Snow in Milwaukee

I've just worked out the whole YouTube-video-uplink-and-link-to-blog scenario so now I can bore you with the odd video!

We've just escaped the "biggest blizzard in Milwaukee's history" this past weekend..we only ended up with about a foot of snow when it was expected to be a lot, lot worse. Perfect Oscar viewing conditions!

This is from our front window...snow in Milwaukee, for those of you basking in New Zealand sunshine!

Note how there are no cars on the other side of the road. That's because in a snow emergency when there's more than 3" of snow, one side of busy thoroughfares is keep clear of cars so snow plows have room to dump snow. They said on the news last night that more than 1000 cars are in the city tow yards (costing about $115 each to reclaim)....guess that one way to pay for the overtime for the city workers plowing the roads!

Footpath clearing on the way to brunch Saturday morning.

Couldn't resist...

Spotted this little key chain at our local bookstore today - a mere $9.95. http://www.nationalnightmare.com/

There's another website where you can even add the applet to your desktop if you really want!

Happy Valentines Day - cookies anyone!?

(Denise, I know I need a hair cut - it's booked for next week!)

It's official - it's time for me to get a job.

With too much time on my hands, I thought it would be a fun idea to make boxes of Valentines Day cookies for the guys at Robbie's work to buy for their Valentines...not so much as a fundraising exercise for me (although it wouldn't hurt!) but to distract me from my job hunting activities.

On offer:
- Lovely Ginger Snaps
- Double Chocolate Peppermint Hearts
- Heart Brownies

Up until midnight the night before last, and spent most of the day yesterday icing cookies for delivery yesterday afternoon so that the guys would have them yesterday to leave on the pillow this morning...(you don't want to calculate the hourly rate...)

Sold over 35 boxes...and I don't want to see a Ginger Snap for a year...



In the process I did discover a great new brownie recipe - and it's super easy. Here it is:

BROWNIE HEARTS
8oz butter
2 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
6 oz unsweetened chocolate morsels
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter a 9x13in pan. Line with baking paper.
Place butter, brown sugar and chocolate in a large microwave proof bowl. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir. Continue heating at 10-sec intervals until chocolate almost melted. With a wooden spoon beat in eggs and vanilla, then flour and salt. Pour into pan and smooth the top.
Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out almost clean. Let cool.
Lift out brownie and cut into squares or shapes. The remaining centre mix (don't use the crusty bits) can be rolled into truffle balls (roll in cocoa).

Our introduction to airbags...aka Our love of ABS braking

We had our first introduction to airbags yesterday.

The Discovery is in for a service so I was accompanying Robbie to work in a rental car we'd been given as a loaner as I was going to be using the car later in the day.

Rush hour traffic, plenty of cars, about -18C, beautiful sunny morning, but despite the sun still plenty of treacherous ice either side of the three main lanes.

We're in the fast lane, cars start slowing down ahead, Robbie starts slowing down, wheel catches ice, cut to slow motion effects as he pulls to left to avoid car ahead (good move considering the insurance ramifications!) and we nose dive into the barrier.....pwoooosh....air bags out. The good part - I was holding a coffee and didn't lose a drop! (shows that we weren't actually traveling that fast, thank goodness).

Upshot was we were able to still drive the car so we drove gingerly to work. I managed to borrow a company car for the day - although I had to go sit in a cafe for an hour to both calm the nerves and to let the traffic dissipate. There were more than 100 crashes on the freeway in Milwaukee in the morning, and we saw two others much worse than ours in the 3 miles between our incident and Robbie's work. I don't know how anyone can drive in the frozen tundra without ABS - they must be crazy. The rental car company was all out of cars yesterday because of the numbers of customers with cars in for service/panel work...just one of the side stories of living up here!

Our wonderful Discovery, with it's ABS brakes and big tough outer, is home tonight. Can't wait.

P.S Poor guy - I wasn't the best passenger seat driver...now, I won't be any fun....

Ok - It's Cold

"Brrrrr....."

I was asked by our good friend Ingrid when we first moved to the States whether I'd started using that word yet...I guess, because it was November, and we hadn't yet had snow, we hadn't. I have now.

She joked that when she used this often-quoted (by Americans) term during cold spells when she lived in New Zealand Kiwis looked at her funny. Lately Robbie and I have been using it with too much frequency for my liking!

This week has been the coldest weather we've had to date...and it's only expected to get worse. The news tonight is filled with warnings about "dangerously" cold weather coming this weekend and next...It's expected to get to -22C on Monday with a high of -16C! Check out the weather forecast.

So what do we do differently now that we live in the frozen tundra!?

So far we've bought:

- a snow shovel - for shoveling the sidewalk outside out house (our community duty), and the pathway to the car. If you don't shovel, as the snow starts to melt (which is isn't right now!) it turns to ice overnight and then you have your own personal iceskating park...mmm nice!
- snow brush/scraper for the car - one for Robbie, one for me ("to help" he says!)
- two pairs of all-weather boots...you need fur lining, rubber soles (you can't wear leather shoes as you just go ice-skating and the salt everywhere - more on that later - destroys them), and synthetic outers (ditto).

- ear muffs. I now have two pairs thanks to the yummy mink ones Ann gave me at Christmas. You HAVE to at least cover your ears, if not your head, in these conditions. The hat ruins the hair so muffs are a good option - but you have to choose wisely...there are plenty of bad ones out there!

- long johns...now worn any time you go outside. I prefer the Paula Ryan Winter 2006 style merino leggings...and need to get another pair!

- blue windscreen cleaner for the car - there are gallons of it for sale at every gas station, hardware store, and grocery...it's the Land Rover's new friend! It doesn't freeze and ensures you can always clean your windscreen...you can't use water - it turns to ice!

- salt. For applying on the footpaths and steps - it helps to melt the ice and prevents the snow turning to ice. Also great for destroying your shoes, and the car...(car washes are compulsory at least once a week).

- a REAL electric blanket. In New Zealand we have electric blankets that are really electric mattress pads...in the US they have both - pads and blankets. When we bought our new bed we splashed out on a Tempurpedic memory foam mattress which makes for an incredible sleep (I'm hooked). One problem. The foam-type product gets cold if the environment is cold (even though it quickly heats up when you get in). That just wasn't quick enough for us this week and so yesterday we bought an electric blanket - a double layer blanket that has fine electrical cabling that runs through it. (You can't cover the mattress with things like electric pads as it interrupts the memory foam process). The result - pure unadulterated bliss!

So hopefully with our Frozen Tundra Survival Kit we'll make it to Spring. I'm just more worried about getting through the weekend...tomorrow we're off to Chicago to the Boat Show, and for me to do some research for a possible Simply You Living story. That entails me wondering around shops, restaurants, and tourist spots - and we're doing a walking architectural tour Saturday of the city's historic skyscrapers. Expected wind chill factor: -35C. Frozen kiwi anyone!?

OPAL are online....

Ollie and Ann now have their own blog..check it out! (There's also a link on the LINKS).

An Interesting PR/Marketing News Morning..

A quick post regarding a few spots in the US news this morning that will be fueling the marketing/PR blogs for the next little while...

Boston shuts down
Boston came to a grinding halt yesterday after a guerrilla marketing prank went wrong.

In a classic case of a publicists' nightmare, officials found electronic blinking signs throughout the city prompting the closing of a highway and the deployment of bomb squads.

The 38 1-foot high signs looked like a circuit board with protruding wires and batteries and featured a cartoon character giving passersby the finger. They were part of a promotion for the Cartoon Network TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a surreal series about a talking milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball.

The devices had been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities. The marketing company that placed the signs, Interference Inc., was ordered to remove them immediately. From the ABC story: "...Messages seeking additional comment from the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network were left with several publicists. "

Guess that stunt just made itself to the pages of marketing textbooks of the future...I know what Jill Beasley would have to say!

Update: 5:30pm Some of the signs are already on ebay - going for $US450+!

When being clean isn't a good thing
Democratic candidate Senator Joe Biden spent the day in the news yesterday. In the morning he launched his Presidential campaign. In a later interview he described fellow nominee Barack Obama as an African-American who is "clean and articulate".

Since then it's been all over the media with the commentators calling it a "racially insensitive" slur. Jay Leno joked last night on the Tonight Show that Biden has the record for the shortest Presidential campaign ever - 7 hours. Apparently it was all over.

What do you think? Hyped over-reaction?

One of the key tickets Obama is running on is that of ethics. Legislation that he introduced recently for debate is the Clean Up Act - aiming to increase the transparency in government and decreasing the influnce of lobbyists in the legislative process.

Trouble is Biden can't overly defend himself even if he was trying to imply that perhaps Obama was a cleaner politician than most...he'd be doing more to promote Obama's image than he already was!

Wanna be Biden's media advisor, or Obama's?!

UGM
Have you heard about user generated marketing - the new buzz in marketing (of course, it already has it's own acronym!). The most expensive real estate in TV adland is the Superbowl, and this Sunday the odds are that the hottest new commercials (there's always a buzz to see how good the creative executions are that the Madison Ave ad shops put forward at a airtime cost of close to US$2.5million for a 30-second spot) will have been created for very little cost by members of the public.

It's all part of the You Tube phenomenon - people becoming their own creative video producers, and viewers getting more and more accustomed to watching less than perfect production quality video. It's all about the creative - not the production.

Doritos, GM, and even the NFL itself, have all run campaigns encouraging consumers to send in submissions for potential commercials to be run during the event. Customers should know better than anyone how they want to see their brand represented, right?...Check out the links for some examples of how the promotions worked and the results.

For $2.5m they'd better work!