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| Paolo! |
Left Sydney House at 9:00 am, two hours behind schedule but made it to Watford by 2:30 pm; Madcap tp Evans, home to help with party set-up, Cora Lee Feta potatoes
Was tired around 11:00 am so went to find Cora Lee. Found her upstairs already, on bed, fully clothed. Brushed and flossed and then woke her to suggest she change into her pajamas. Bit of a struggle. When she was changed and back in bed, lights out, she told me that hse had fallen down the stairs! Apparently she caught her foot on something at the top of the landing, lost her balance and thinks she did a backwards summersault down the stairs. (She isn't completely sure whether she did go heels over head or not but thinks, as best she can remember, she did.) Managed to arrest her descent about two thirds of the way down by grabbing onto one of the balusters.
Didn't sleep particularly well after that as I was worried about concussion, (She had a huge goose-egg on the back top of her head and her tailbone/coccyx was extremely sore. She had obviously landed on both at some point in her aerial journey, coming down to a hard landing!), and a whole host of other injuries that might surface. Heard her get up at around 3:30am and rummage around for some painkillers so I knew she hadn't broken anything.
Madcap picked up my Montague so I am about to pack in readiness for tomorrow's travel.
Thanks to all of you for your kind words & thoughts. For those
of you who have not yet heard, my Mom passed away last week. It has been
extremely difficult & stressful being in Winnipeg, but Ted & I
will be back in Van tomorrow.
Just wanted to share our newest bundle of joy. Love to you all Elaine
soooooo .......... can we expect you to take over duties at chez Ricardo
/ Rae / Judy / Joey / Chandler establishment for about 10 days in late
November around the time of American Thanksgiving then? If your still
busy world hopping at that time no problem.
Thought I would ask though. You guys seemed to enjoy yourselves last
time. All the best Rick
(because of the transient nature of the internet, please reply that this email was received)
Thanks to all of you for your kind words & thoughts. For those
of you who have not yet heard, my Mom passed away last week. It has been
extremely difficult & stressful being in Winnipeg, but Ted & I
will be back in Van tomorrow.
Hi Chrissy. Margaret Fukuyama, UBC Librarian Emerita, passed away earlier this month. Refer to the obituaries in the Vancouver Sun (8/30 D10 & 8/31 D16). The UBC Association of Professors Emeriti Newletter prints an 'In Memoriam' section for the UBC Emeriti. The format is as follows:
Margaret Fukuyama 1918-2013 Librarian Emerita.
UBC Service xxxx-1985.
Would you please supply her start date to Don Blake (email address above), the current editor of the UBC Assn. of Profs. Emeriti Newsletter? I got her retirement date from the UBC Calendar.
Thank you for your assistance, Nadine Baldwin
There are more than 20,000 Starbucks around the world, and almost all of them have a familiar menu -- tall, grande, and venti drinks of various flavors and varieties, scones and other stuff like that, and the occasional artisanal cheese plate in a plastic container. While the chain is extremely popular in the sixty-plus nations which have at least one store, there are certainly some who prefer a local, more personal touch. For them, Starbucks is hardly the best option. Of course, the mega-coffee company can certainly afford to lose these types as customers -- at $13 billion in revenue, what's a few coffee sales here and there?
In
fact, in the summer of 2009, a Starbucks in Seattle -- the birthplace of
the brand -- shut down. In a strange reversal of fortune, in its place
popped up a new, mom-and-pop type of coffee
joint, one serving not just coffee, but also wine and beer, and with a
selection of baked goods from a local bakery. In an interview with PSFK,
the new place's designer
said
that the "aim was to become a true reflection of the neighborhood."
Even the name echoed the strive to be specific to the area: the former
Starbucks, located at 328 15th Avenue East, was simply called "15th
Avenue E Coffee and Tea." And underneath the sign
read three more words: "Inspired by Starbucks."
And owned and operated by Starbucks, for that matter. The new store hadn't ousted the coffee behemoth. It
was the behemoth.
To its credit, Starbucks wasn't trying to hide this fact -- it simply wasn't trumpeting it. Doing the latter would take away from the test. Starbucks wanted to see if locally-themed (and, therefore, different) unbranded Starbucks could be a viable business. Originally, the plan was to create three of these in the Seattle area, with the long-term intention of creating "Inspired by Starbucks" coffeehouses in cities throughout the country if not the world. One Starbucks exec called these stealth stores "learning environments for us to be creative and push the envelope" outside the barriers of the well-established Starbucks brand. (The company was serious here: one couldn't even use their Starbucks card at 15th Avenue E.)
Some critics didn't appreciate the
stores, though, believing that Starbucks was trying to hide its
involvement. Starbucks, of course, denied this; Howard Schultz, the
company's CEO,
reportedly claimed that the non-branding (not even the mermaid
cups!) was because of the experimental aspect of the store, specifically
pointing out that the 15th Avenue E sold wine and beer.
Further, Starbucks claimed (via this New York Times article on the non-branded store), coffee is more local than one would otherwise think: "Coffee drinkers in the Sun Belt, it turns out, prefer cold drinks, while those in the Northeast generally like drip coffee and those in the Pacific Northwest drink more espresso. Yet the executives in charge of regions of the country were divided along time zones and out of touch with what different customers wanted." By returning to a local-first approach, the company hoped to remedy this flaw.
Did the experiment work? That's hard to say. In the "no" column:
15th Avenue E reverted to a "normal" Starbucks in February of 2011,
roughly 18 months after its initial transformation. In the "yes" column:
first, the reborn Starbucks at the location still sold wine and beer.
And second, in 2012, another unbranded "stealth
Starbucks" emerged in the works, this one
in the flagship Macy's in New York City.
Bonus fact: The core Starbucks sizes are tall, grande, and venti, as noted above. That's a strange trio, given that a "tall" is therefore a "small," a "grande" (which is Italian, in this case, for "large") is the medium size, and the "venti," which is "twenty" in Italian, the large.
What gives? About.com explains the history. Originally, there were two sizes, "short" (small) and "tall" (large). "Grande" joined after, becoming the new "large" and moving "tall" to "medium," which was still descriptively true. But over time, the "short" fell off the menu -- you can still order it, it's just not listed -- and then, "venti" joined, giving us two arguably incorrect labels. As for the "venti," it's 20 fluid ounces -- except for iced venti drinks, which are 24 ounces, but we'll give that one a pass. (And now there's the "trenta," which at 916 ml or about 31 ounces, is larger than the average human stomach.)
Thanks to all of you for your kind words & thoughts. For those
of you who have not yet heard, my Mom passed away last week. It has been
extremely difficult & stressful being in Winnipeg, but Ted & I
will be back in Van tomorrow.
We will be leaving right away to go to NY to visit our newest
grandchild, Oliver Michael Vaughan, who was born on the same day as my
Mom's funeral.
Just wanted to share our newest bundle of joy. Love to you all Elaine
Hi Chrissy. Margaret Fukuyama, UBC Librarian Emerita, passed away earlier this month. Refer to the obituaries in the Vancouver Sun (8/30 D10 & 8/31 D16). The UBC Association of Professors Emeriti Newletter prints an 'In Memoriam' section for the UBC Emeriti. The format is as follows:
UBC Service xxxx-1985.
Would you please supply her start date to Don Blake (email address above), the current editor of the UBC Assn. of Profs. Emeriti Newsletter? I got her retirement date from the UBC Calendar.
Thank you for your assistance, Nadine Baldwin
There are more than 20,000 Starbucks around the world, and almost all of them have a familiar menu -- tall, grande, and venti drinks of various flavors and varieties, scones and other stuff like that, and the occasional artisanal cheese plate in a plastic container. While the chain is extremely popular in the sixty-plus nations which have at least one store, there are certainly some who prefer a local, more personal touch. For them, Starbucks is hardly the best option. Of course, the mega-coffee company can certainly afford to lose these types as customers -- at $13 billion in revenue, what's a few coffee sales here and there?
To its credit, Starbucks wasn't trying to hide this fact -- it simply wasn't trumpeting it. Doing the latter would take away from the test. Starbucks wanted to see if locally-themed (and, therefore, different) unbranded Starbucks could be a viable business. Originally, the plan was to create three of these in the Seattle area, with the long-term intention of creating "Inspired by Starbucks" coffeehouses in cities throughout the country if not the world. One Starbucks exec called these stealth stores "learning environments for us to be creative and push the envelope" outside the barriers of the well-established Starbucks brand. (The company was serious here: one couldn't even use their Starbucks card at 15th Avenue E.)
Further, Starbucks claimed (via this New York Times article on the non-branded store), coffee is more local than one would otherwise think: "Coffee drinkers in the Sun Belt, it turns out, prefer cold drinks, while those in the Northeast generally like drip coffee and those in the Pacific Northwest drink more espresso. Yet the executives in charge of regions of the country were divided along time zones and out of touch with what different customers wanted." By returning to a local-first approach, the company hoped to remedy this flaw.
Bonus fact: The core Starbucks sizes are tall, grande, and venti, as noted above. That's a strange trio, given that a "tall" is therefore a "small," a "grande" (which is Italian, in this case, for "large") is the medium size, and the "venti," which is "twenty" in Italian, the large.
What gives? About.com explains the history. Originally, there were two sizes, "short" (small) and "tall" (large). "Grande" joined after, becoming the new "large" and moving "tall" to "medium," which was still descriptively true. But over time, the "short" fell off the menu -- you can still order it, it's just not listed -- and then, "venti" joined, giving us two arguably incorrect labels. As for the "venti," it's 20 fluid ounces -- except for iced venti drinks, which are 24 ounces, but we'll give that one a pass. (And now there's the "trenta," which at 916 ml or about 31 ounces, is larger than the average human stomach.)
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