I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Warm weather has finally arrived in Columbus. The high temperatures have been in the 60s or 70s since Saturday, so we're now being blinded by all the pasty Ohio legs that have peeked their way out of shorts. We spent the weekend doing some yard work, and had a nice fire in our fire pit to burn all the sticks.

When the weather is warm, I really love the area we live in. There are two nice parks within walking distance, along with a video store, Tim Horton's, liquor store and gas station/ice cream shop. For those of you not in Ohio, United Dairy Farmers is an odd combination. They started in 1940 as a dairy store, and have evolved into full-fledged convenience store. But they still make their own ice cream and scoop it in all their stores. So, we made the walk down there last night and Lauren had her first, very own, ice cream cone. Here's the result:


The level of mess was a little more than I anticipated. We prepared ourselves before leaving and were ready for a pretty big mess, but I actually think she was messier than eating her first birthday cake.


In hindsight, chocolate probably wasn't the best option. I was in no way allowed to touch that ice cream cone. Any attempt resulted in, "No, no, no!" By the way, you have to hear the way this kid says "no." You can tell there's some Minnesotan heritage in there. Anyways, there was a lovely sticky film of chocolate completely covering her belly, after the shirt was removed. Needless to say she went straight into the bathtub.

That's about all that's going in our neck of the woods. Chris was able to golf for the first time this season, and Lauren's thrilled to be outside. The forsythia has finally bloomed, so hopefully that last snowfall happens and we get on with spring and summer!

RIP, Skybus

The days of $20 roundtrip airfares are officially over. Skybus announced their closure on Friday evening, effective on Saturday. (See this post for more info on Skybus)

Skybus has chalked up the failure to rising fuel prices and the general state of the economy. Some experts think the business model was flawed from the beginning. The lack of customer service department and lots of cancelled flights in the winter may have played a part as well. Still, I think the industry can probably learn some lessons from Skybus:
1. People want cheaper airfare.
2. Columbus is not a good hub.
3. Do something different and you'll get attention for it.

Despite their failure, I applaud Skybus for at least attempting to meet consumer desires and buck the traditional air travel conventions. Now if they just could have done it without stranding their customers...

Note that the reading level of my blog continues to decline. Give it a couple months and we'll all be reading like Lauren, pointing at pictures and making animal sounds.

I don't want to be environmentally conscious if it means my desk smells like ass.

A couple weeks ago Nationwide announced they were switching janitorial services. I know, earth-shattering news. Part of the deal is that they'll be emptying trash less frequently, thus sending fewer plastic liners to landfills and reducing our carbon footprint. No seriously, that's what the release said. And it's saving us over $1 million a year.

My work group has discovered what this actually means: trash cans at our desks get emptied twice a week now instead of every night. Did I mention that we all eat lunch, and some of us breakfast, at our desks? Guess where the takeout containers go? Guess what my desk smells like!!!!!!

If we're really trying to do something good for the environment, why did the cafeteria switch to all styrofoam containers? Saving money is a good thing, but not when it breeds bacteria and invites insects and rodents. Gross.

Bug

This was Lauren's source of entertainment for about an hour yesterday. Yes, a Japanese Ladybug. She watched it and watched it and watched it, which really wasn't very interesting since it was just coming out of hibernation or something. She kept saying, "Bug!" over and over and over again. But she most definitely did not want it touching her in any way. That brought on a bunch of wriggling and "No! No! No!" which was pretty funny for us so we kept doing it. That's not child abuse, right?

You know what else she hates? When you put Mr. Potato Head pieces on the actual Mr. Potato Head. The Easter Bunny brought this bunny verion of the classic spud toy:


Lauren loves playing with the ears and hands, but don't you dare actually put them on the potato.

Ah, the quirks of an 18-month old.

One of these things is not like the other.

Last night I had the good fortune of seeing Professor Barry Nalebuff of the Yale School of Management speak at a private gathering of the Yale Club of Central Ohio. The lecture was held at the beautiful and historic Columbus Club, a by-invitation-only men's club that's been around Columbus since the 1800s (men's club as in stogies and cognac, not as in stripper poles).

So how did I end up there? In my work at Nationwide I've done some work with Young Isaac. The re-founder and chief strategist of Young Isaac is Artie Isaac. Artie Isaac is also an officer of the Yale Club of Central Ohio. Barry Nalebuff is a professor at Yale and is also on Nationwide's Board of Directors. So Artie asked Professor Nalebuff to speak to the Yale Club and then invited me and my boss. I think I just invented a new game: "six degrees of Barry Nalebuff."

Anyways, Professor Nalebuff lectured on his book Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small. In true collegiate form, I spent yesterday afternoon cramming to finish reading the book, which I checked out from the Nationwide library 3 weeks ago. Some things never change. This, of course, made me look like a smarty pants when he covered all the case studies and I knew all the tricky little answers.

The room full of Yale alumni was very engaging and intellectual, and I did feel a little out of my league. Apparently some people spent their college years in the classroom learning about important things instead of spending them in bed recovering from a hangover 5 mornings a week. I also felt very young and female. Approximately 45 people attended the lecture, and I counted about 7 women, including myself. I would also estimate that 85% of the people present were at least twice my age. Despite all this, I did have some lovely conversations with some fairly influential people in Columbus. Overall the evening was entirely intellectually stimulating, although he did lose me at the "maternity MBA" program.

Check this out for more info on Why Not?.

Happy St. Easter Spring!

Wow, I didn't realize how much had happened since the last time I posted. St. Patrick's Day, the first day of spring and Easter, all in a two week period of time. I suppose a recap is in order.

St. Patrick's Day
I vaguely remember St. Patrick's Day gatherings pre-Lauren. I think there was Guinness, maybe some corned beef, some goofy hats, and that's about all I can recollect. Probably too much Guinness. This year, we went a little more low key. I made corned beef and cabbage, which left a lovely smell in the house for nearly a week. The whole Thornburg clan came over, and we had a nice, relaxing dinner. There was still some Guinness involved, but nowhere near the quantities consumed in the past. Next year I'm going to try out a recipe for Guinness cupcakes I found. Yum!

First day of spring
It snowed. I shouldn't be surprised. Our weather guy always says it snows at least once after the forsythia blooms. It still hasn't bloomed yet, and it's March 27. I have a feeling I'll be posting snow pictures into May at the rate we're going. Grow, forsythia, grow!

Easter
Let's do a comparison, shall we?
Easter 2007

Note the lack of neck, scarcity of hair on her very round head, and the propped-up pose. She wasn't crawling yet, and she was at the heigh of her rotund-ness.

Easter 2008

Now she's eating ham and being a ham. This is her "so pretty" pose that Grandma Darke taught her, complete with hair all in her face. The girl hates hair clips. Or maybe it's that she likes them so much she wants to eat them. I haven't figured it out yet, but regardless, we end up pushing the mop of hair out of her face on a regular basis.


She also discovered the fun of putting olives on your fingers. Let's just say she ate a few too many olives and leave it at that.

We had a nice Easter dinner with Grandma, and that was about it. The Easter Bunny came and brought a few toys, but nothing over the top.

So that's about it. We're chugging right along, waiting for some nice weather...

UPDATE: Chris has mastered the ponytail!