Restaurants come and go over the course of time. Some last months, some last years and others have been in business for 50 years or more. The Judge Cafe, which officially closed up in February 2017, is one that was a local staple for many years in a 110 year old building in downtown Salt Lake City.

I’ve been in Utah for more than 30 years now, and have been frequenting downtown Salt Lake City for a good 20 years of that. I first started working downtown in February 2000 and that was my first visit to the Judge Cafe. They are known for their chicken enchiladas, which for a cafe whose specialty is not of the Mexican variety. But my first taste of those enchiladas set the bar pretty high for me.

Over the next 18 months that I worked downtown, I ate many a meal at Judge. Sandwiches, meatloaf, desserts of all kinds. I tried a lot of menu items, both static and specials of the day. Price wise, meals were under $10. Eventually, there were $14 and $17 meals, which I steered clear of, mostly so I didn’t end up spending $20 for lunches.

Fast forward to February of 2015 when I landed another job working downtown [which is my current job]. My office was literally a 7 minute walk to Judge. And while I’m sure chefs and cooks came and went over that almost 14 years I didn’t work downtown, the meals were always of high quality taste and portion size. So when I heard they were closing, I added more visits their last 20 days. The last day was busy. Lots of people stopping by to pay their respects to their favorite dining establishment, myself included.

It’s been well over a year since they shut their doors, and I walk past the building hoping to see a possible return, only to be disappointed. Regardless, I will always have great memories of eating at The Judge Cafe.

This popped up on my Twitter feed from Evernote, which is the main application I use to store notes. I do use multiple note taking apps, but eventually, all notes end up in Evernote. A consolidation effort.

This flowchart of how a sand castle gets built is very similar to how many of our ideas we get are played out. Granted, the distraction periods are absent from this display of 8 stages, but for me and I’m sure for most people, it’s very much a challenge we deal with on a regular basis. Perhaps the Lost Work panel could easily be the part of turning the idea into a reality as a distraction.

But I digress. I liked this image enough to save it off and view it a few times in the last week as a kind of fun motivator.

This is a question and test that my two cats ask of me on a regular basis.

When you think about all of the different flavored versions of Oreos that have made their appearance at grocery and big box stores, it was evident that a parody product like this would be created.

Of course, they are not real. And any reasonable and sane person would never expect to find these in their stores – either in the cookie isle or the shelves where they display laundry detergent varieties.

But aside from the clever person who knows design well enough to create this fake product, there might be a few that get excited to make a mad dash to their local Target store to snap up a package of these latest Oreos.

Enjoy the parody, just not internally.

Normally I post this kind of thing over on Banal Leakage, but I’m distracted with the ongoing project of posting my European Vacation daily updates from July. Playing catch up over there still.

So as part of that distraction, I found this on a few of my Facebook friend’s pages. Enjoy.

1. Do you make your bed every day? My wife does most days.
2. What’s your favorite number? 29. It’s a roulette thing.
3. What is your dream job? Filmmaker
4. If you could, would you go back to high school? Never
5. Can you parallel park? Kind of.
6. A job you had which people would be surprised to know you had? Sold meat door to door
7. Do you think aliens are real? Pretty much.
8. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes.
9. Guilty TV pleasure? The Simpsons
10. Any Tattoos? Two, of Chilly Willy the penguin (this blog’s namesake)
12. ONE thing people do that drives you crazy? Judge and criticize others they don’t know
13. Do you have any birthmarks? I don’t remember. Seriously, don’t remember.
14. Favorite childhood game? Trouble
15. Do you talk to yourself? A lot
16. Do you like doing puzzles? I do, but it’s one of those “been years” things
17. Music genre? Everything but country.
18. Tea or coffee? Coffee, with green or chai tea every so often.
19. The first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up? A writer

I know a lot of people that hate Apple products

Breaking my 19 month silence here on this blog to share my feelings about technology, specifically the Apple vs. Android Celebrity Death Match

I know a lot of people that hate anything Apple. If I had to guess, at least half of them have never used an Apple product. To hate something you’ve never used is a special kind of wacky.

Further venturing down the guess list, a good 90% of those that hate Apple are Android users. Their product is superior on every level. It never crashes, it never fails them, it runs every update flawless and it’s the best product they’ve ever used.

Until it fails every so often.

Then it’s bitch about it on social media. “My phone rebooted randomly for 2 days until I rooted it and restored all of the data and apps. It was useless for 3 days.” Then they love it like it never failed ever. But they will forever cling to that Never Apple mantra, cause it’s horrible. The existence of Apple products caused their grandma to die. It caused the end of their 10 year marriage to their high school sweetheart. Their coveted job interview was missed due to a calendar entry not updating properly…. not on an Apple device.. nope. But simply because Apple exists, it was Apple’s fault their Android phone didn’t update properly from Google Calendar on their Windows 8.1 laptop running Google Chrome. The possibility of having to pick up an Apple device without gloves or tongs conjures up all sorts of “my fingers will burn” reactions, like trying to save a lost treasure from a cauldron of melted steel. I admit to exaggeration to some degree.

I’ve been an Apple user since 1985. To say I like Apple products would be a true statement. Have they been perfect and without flaws? Oh heavens no. There have been some tough times. And lots of swear words. But I still use their products.

The main difference between the several bad experiences I’ve had over the years with Apple devices and how Android users mock and hate Apple is that I’ve never once opined my hate against Android.

I carried an Android phone for a good 2 years. It wasn’t my main phone, but it went with me daily. It had it’s issues here and there, mostly battery life being not all that. But I didn’t rant on social media each time I had an issue with it and called for its abolishment from society. Over the years, Android had OS updates that made the interface and usability better and more stable. Just like Apple has done with its OS. And like Windows did with its OS. And Linux and it’s 40 or so distributions and variances.

Hey, maybe it’s not the specific OS that sucks, but technology in general. We’ve pushed our devices to do hundreds of tasks and expect them to never crash or have data loss or lack functionality. It’s a given that at some point, technology will fail us. It’s not a question of if, but when.

So Apple Haters. You are a revered group of technology lovers who love your Android devices until you don’t.

And I will be over here using my collection of Apple devices, with its ties to technology that can fail every so often.

A new model for Back To The Future Part II

Happy New Year 2016

Back almost 3 years ago, I posted pics of my Back To The Future Hot Wheels models. This last year, there was a new model released of the DeLorean from the iconic movie series. This time, it’s the hover converted time machine from Part II.

Another shot of the Hover Mode DeLorean in it’s package

I tried to find it for the longest time, even considering paying $15 on Amazon for one. Until late last year, while shopping at Target, I decided to once again, look through all of the Hot Wheels in their toy section. And I found one. For 99 cents. I looked for a second one, but alas, just the one was found. Which means this stays sealed in it’s original packaging. If I do happen to find another one, it will be opened for this fan to display next to my other model from 2013.

the back of the Hot Wheels pacakge

I hope to keep collecting these over the years, even if I don’t have each and every model released.