Ben’s Weblog

So, It’s been quite a few years that this site has been sitting around stagnant, quietly accruing Google Ad clicks and such. I’m thinking that I might actually have enough interesting stuff I’ve been doing both on a personal level (learning woodworking, beer making, and having 2 kids), and at work (lean, data visualization, etc) [...]

The folks over at ESPN think it would be un-American for the Cubs to win the World Series. I’m with them on that – “World Champion Chicago Cubs” just doesn’t sound right to me.

It took a while, but it sounds like a deal has finally been inked to have Kraft pack and distribute Starbucks coffee for the Tassimo system. Congrats to my former colleagues for making it work!

In-N-Out, originally uploaded by bdjohnson79. Here’s one good reason. Can’t find this within 1500 miles of Chicago.

…an iPhone today. I am getting a Blackjack from work though, so now I can be one of those self-important folks who sit in airports and bang away at the tiny little keyboards, responding to those earth-shatteringly important messages. It will be nice to end a travel day without having unread mail piling up. I [...]

So, the new job sent me out to the Central Valley region of California all last week. Coincidentally, this was to the same plant that Marcie’s been going to for the past month and a half. We decide to take full advantage of this and stretched the trip out over the weekend so that we [...]

Found on Flickr… The Reading Lamp – Self Portrait, originally uploaded by sumrow. The sacrifices some people make for art: “One Vivitar 283 ball-bungied to my head w/ a coffee filter diffuser….The ball bungie took a few hairs with it.”

Ok, I’ve got some pictures from our Utah trip up in the gallery now. Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them…

So, John McCain and a bunch of Presidential hopefuls have set up MySpace pages in order to connect with the oh-so-cool younger voters. It seems that one of McCain’s staffers decided to use a nice-looking template for his page. Said staffer made a little whoopsie though – they linked back to the template designer’s images. [...]

I went outside this morning to take the trash and recycling out. Since it was early, I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings. I stood up and stabbed myself in the top of the head with an icicle. Ouch.

Wow…2006 went by in a hurry…so fast, in fact, that it’s already 2007 and I’m just now writing something. If you were on our Christmas letter list, some of this probably isn’t news to you. If not, read on… I’ve spent the last 18 months working on the Tassimo coffee system. Specifically, I’ve been working [...]

We’ve been on a roll the past week or two on the house.  Got all of the tiling and grounting done.  (It figures, I ran out of grout about 3 pounds before I was done and had to buy another bag and mix another batch).  Toilet has been installed, and once I get a diamond-crusted bit [...]

Seriously?  2 months since my last blog post?  I keep slacking off at this whole personal webpage thing. First, the excuses part.  Now, we’re renovating our bathroom.  We’ve been pretty productive as of late.  We completely tore out the old bathroom except for a small part of the wall.  Included in the effort are a [...]

Once again, there’s an article in the Trib about speeding up the boarding process on airlines. Their suggestion – ban carryons. I wrote about airline carry-on rules a little while back here. The same arguments I made there hold true. Unless the airlines are willing to take full financial responsibility for lost/damaged luggage without delays [...]

Every so often, I tell myself that I’ll do a better job keeping this page updated. Then, I visit the site and see my last posting came a month and a half ago. Such a slacker… So, here comes the obligatory part where I make excuses about how busy I’ve been, which is at least [...]

It’s been raining most of the weekend here in the lovely Chicago ‘burbs. Payback for the perfect weather we had here last weekend, I suppose. Yesterday was a Board of Directors meeting for Y&G, so between the meeting and driving down and back from Champaign, I pretty much shot the entire day. Today’s just an [...]

By popular request (well, by request of the family), I’ve put up some pictures of our new kitchen in the photo gallery. Before, the only counter space in the entire kitchen is in that first picture. Now, we have at least triple the available counter space, and I’d guess at minimum double the amount of [...]

Finally got off my butt and uploaded my Hawaii pictures. Check them out over at my photo gallery section. Here’s a couple of my favorites: Kauai’s North Shore Palm Trees at Poipu Beach Windblown Palms and Clouds Sunset on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island Sunset and Cute Blonde Let me know what you [...]

Came across an interesting article about airline carryon limits. To me, the fundamental problem is that you can’t trust the airlines to safely handle checked baggage, and they won’t guarantee the safety of your items in checked baggage (at least, without ridiculous charges). Airline baggage handlers seem to have sticky fingers, which is absolutely intolerable. [...]