All for a Good Cause
Aug 29th
My husband and I like to attend charity auctions. We enjoy supporting a good cause while having the opportunity to purchase goods and services (especially travel packages and getaways) we can put to good use. I’m not talking about auctions for large foundations that bring in millions of dollars – there aren’t too many of those in our neck of the woods – generally, our churches, local schools and community foundations are the beneficiaries of the three or four auctions we attend each year.
Not only do we bid on items for these auctions; we also like to contribute something to be bid upon as well. Our go-to item is an evening of wine and food for eight to twelve in the winning bidder’s home. Over the course of our married life together, Harry and I have hosted countless parties in our home for family and friends, so we’ve developed a pretty well-honed routine and built up our repertoire of recipes. Our 500-bottle wine storage unit is always bursting at the seams, with new acquisitions never quite keeping up with our consumption. So it’s become a natural for us to replicate the format of our favorite evening with friends for someone else’s group of buddies to benefit our favorite charities.
This morning we are recovering from the labors of providing such an evening. Last spring the Rogue River High School’s FFA group held their annual Beef Feed and Auction, and a local couple bid on our wine tasting party. Last week they called, asking if, on such short notice, we might be able to pull together the event for this Saturday evening, when they would have friends in town. Well, Harry rallied and graciously said, “Yes, of course,” while I was thinking, “What? When?!!”
Harry provides the brains and talent behind these things, planning the selection of wines and doing most of the cooking. I do prep work, shopping, clean up and, most important, questioning some of Harry’s choices: “Don’t you think we should have some fruit? What about veggies? Isn’t that a lot of wine? Are you really going to cut the zucchini that way? (You can tell we’ve been married a long time.) He manages to maintain his cool, we refine the menu and, in the end, everyone has a great time.
The hosts and their guests last night tell us they indeed had a marvelous time. They enjoyed two white wines, four reds and two dessert splits. We served up a variety of cheeses and crackers followed by a host of hot and cold “heavy” hors d’oeuvres and concluded with a decadent dessert. We enjoyed ourselves, too, sharing our love of good wine and food with some lovely folks and seeing them enjoy each other’s company. But I gotta say, I am happy to be able to put my feet up today!
– Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor
Working Relationships
Aug 28th
As I believe I’ve written previously, all of us on Global Traveler‘s editorial staff (editor in chief Lisa Matte, senior editor Janice Hecht, art director Tracey Cullen and I) work from home offices. What’s more, we live in four different states — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Oregon — and two different time zones. Through the wonders of modern technology, though, we’ve developed a very efficient process for producing a beautiful and informative magazine every month (as well as a number of supplements each year).
We’ve only all come together once, on the occasion of GT‘s fifth anniversary celebration, so you might think that ours are strictly business-like relationships. However, over the years we’ve interspersed work-talk with more personal matters, and shared aspects of our lives and interests apart from the magazine.
Working alone at home can be a somewhat isolating experience, so it’s nice to be able to develop a warm and friendly partnership with those linked to you by computer and phone. We swap stories involving families, trips and gardens and commiserate with each other over weather (too cold, hot, wet or deep!) and car and home repairs.
I especially enjoy the sharing of just-this-moment bits of interest. Earlier this summer Jan reported she was under a tornado warning (in Connecticut?!), and we waited to hear that she was in the all-clear afterward. This week, Tracey sent a great photo she’d just taken in her backyard. She reported having heard a lot of commotion out there in the preceding days, with the birds being literally all a-twitter over something. That morning she discovered the cause of all the ruckus: a hawk had been hunting, and she snapped him in a tree feasting upon an unlucky mole. (Tracey actually had little sympathy for the mole, as her husband had been trying to eradicate them from the yard for weeks.) Jan then replied with a possible identification of the bird (complete with a description of its cry) and stories of her own encounters with the raptors. I shared my own humbler version of backyard battles: I’d been distracted that day by aerial dogfights, that would have made the Red Baron proud, between two hummingbirds battling over the choicest flowers.
These little tidbits from our daily lives are hardly earth-shattering, but they comprise the building blocks of a positive working relationship between far-flung individuals. I have no doubt that this same kind of sharing occurs between business people on every continent all over the world – the exchange of children’s pictures at dinner, the swapping of battle stories across the aisle on a jetliner, a tip for a great place to visit as a meeting adjourns – bringing each of us a little closer to another.
– Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor
Working with Wikipedia
Aug 27th
What’s the deal with Wikipedia? We all use it. We all know what it is. But does anyone really know how confusing it is?!?!
Over the last two weeks, I have been working to make Global Traveler a Wikipedia article. When I started, I figured I would just need to do some research about the company, add in the things I knew and then put in the finishing touches. I was mistaken.
First of all, Wikipedia has a ton of rules. Rules that you never thought would matter but that Wikipedia thinks is super important. There are rules about making lists and including people’s names. One large rule is the “Point of View” rule. You have to be unbiased and present your article from a completely neutral point of view. That tends to be incredibly difficult when you are making a page about a company that you work for. One of my favorite obstacles is that you cannot have a user name that is a company name. Despite reading hundreds of pages about Wikipedia and articles, I never came across this rule. I learned this the hard way when trying to find out something on a help chat. The person in the chat was so serious about this rule that he would not help me until I filed a “name change request.” Wikipedia is not for those people just playing around.
Wikipedia has its own language. Everyday tasks done on the word processor become difficult and bothersome. Pressing ctrl and “B” no longer makes something bold. The Wikipedia user has to use apostrophes (‘’’) to initiate the bold and then another set of three apostrophes to end it. Similar programming techniques are used to get italics, bullets, lists and headings. I would tell you how to underline, but I don’t even know if that is possible in Wikipedia world.
So after you master the rules and the language, there is one more problem. People and robots continually check the site to make sure that people are posting things fairly and legally. I tried to upload the GT logo and immediately two people were leaving messages on my “MyTalk.” If only they knew I had no idea what was going on and didn’t even know how to find their messages! Right now I have my page up for feedback. We shall see how that works out.
Working with Wikipedia has given me a new-found respect for the articles that people put up. Every link is the result of hard work, and every picture is the result of an intense copyright law. It has been fascinating learning the ins and outs of the Wikipedia world, and by the end of the process I hope to be so knowledgeable that I can call others out on their mistakes. My interaction and work with Wikipedia has confirmed my opinion that teachers and professors should count it as a reliable source. If they only knew how hard it was to get information published on it!
– Mary Carpenter, intern
Dinner in the City
Aug 25th
This past weekend I wanted to switch things up, and I drove into Philadelphia. I am only a 25-minute drive into Center City, but I never seem to get down there as much as I’d like to. I decided to try a new BYOB Italian restaurant called Bistro La Baia. I do recommend this restaurant and was very pleased with my overall experience.
The best part about this restaurant is that the food quality stays high and the prices stay low. Usually when you are eating in a city, entrées can easily cost anywhere between $20–$40. La Baia has entrée prices starting from $12, and the specials are around $20.
Inside, the seating was a bit cramped, but the servers moved gracefully around the tables. I couldn’t believe they didn’t bump into anything. The owner of the restaurant was there, and he greeted everyone with a thick Italian accent.
Our food came out steaming hot, and it was delicious. The portion size was very generous; I ended up taking most of my meal home and eating it for lunch the next day.
I’m going to try to start eating at new places in Philadelphia once or twice a month. I hope each time I have just as good an experience as I did at La Baia.
– Amanda Smith, advertising and editorial coordinator
