What to do with your laptop when you need to go to the bathroom at a coffee shop

A lot of people, writers especially, like to work at a coffee shop instead of a home office or den. I’m not sure what the exact appeal is.  Maybe writers think they are emulating Hemingway or they enjoy the convenience of being able to order food and drink without having to stop working.  Maybe it’s the same reason people go to a bar instead of drinking at home. You want the potential of company without the obligation of company.

Whatever the reason, the results are the same. You score a seat, perhaps on the comfiest chair, the one nearest the power outlet. You get your laptop set up and are ready to write. Suddenly your bladder decides to chime in. What do you do with your laptop and other stuff when you have to answer Nature’s Call?

Photo Credit: Citrixonline

We carefully and thoroughly deliberated this subject in the Super Secret ChicagoNow Bloggers Only Facebook Group and came up with a variety of options.

• You can take your laptop with you to the bathroom.
• You can leave it and hope for the best.
• You can ask someone to keep an eye on it for you.
• Or you can hold your bladder as long as possible.

Each solution has its ups and downs.

Nina of Youknowneen opts for the Leaving It There and Hoping for the Best strategy.  This is playing the odds, which are probably in your favor until they aren’t.  Most people at the coffee shop are off in their own world and if they did notice you getting up to go to the washroom, their thought process would be: oh that seat is available.  oh wait, she left her stuff.  back to Facebook.

Marie Larsen of There’s a Bug in My Coffee does not like this solution.  Her husband is a cop and 20+ years his tales from the beat has influenced her outlook to not trust leaving it there.  However, taking your laptop to the bathroom means exposing it to all the bathroom cooties as some of our more Germophopic bloggers pointed out.

Asking someone to keep an eye on it for you may or may not be effective.  Brett Baker of Dry It In The Water has a strategy that is right out of the Poison scene from Princess Bride.  “ I thought about asking the people at the next table to keep an eye on it, but then I thought, What if they’re the thieves? Then I thought about asking two different sets of people to watch it, just so they could stop each other. And if they conspired they’d have to fight about how to divide up the spoils. Obviously, I’ve put way too much thought into this.”

You could just wait it out and see how long you can hold it.  Unless you were planning to spend all day in the coffee shop (who can do that?) eventually you were gonna finish up and go home.  Pack up, hit the bathroom on the way out and all is good.  Unless you have an accident.  Hopefully there’s a clothing store or laundromat near by.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this post.  Next time another group of ChicagoNow bloggers will Overthink parking lots: should you park closer or farther from the door.

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I need a Social Media Reset, maybe you do too

If anyone had told me what Social Media would be like when I signed up for the various platforms over the years, I probably would have used them differently.   I’m using the catch all phrase Social Media to include LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram et al but everyone knows I’m really referring to the 900 lb gorilla in the room known as Facebook.

For many people, Facebook is their only main portal to the world.  It’s how they they communicate with friends and family, and it’s how they get their news.  An ever-moving reality show, featuring You, starring Your Friends,  and reflecting Your Infallible Opinions.  I have to admit I’m caught up in it too (and as a blogger rely on the page views that social media helps generate.)  I actually envy my friends who only check Facebook once a week like people once checked their AOL email.

I’ve gone through various phases of how I use Facebook.  In the beginning I followed Zuckerberg’s Philosophy to the letter.  It was fun to let friends know what I was up to and see what they were doing (but I never poked anyone!).  Over time additional functionality allowed you to check in, share links and photos, and like shit.  And it didn’t take long for people to figure out ways to monetize their Facebook pages, either directly or indirectly.  I played along but didn’t really care how people used it.  Then I noticed some friends only posted, never interacting with me anyone.  Or only posted annoying chain letters or pet causes.  And please like my page but don’t ask me to like yours.

Somewhere along the way, Facebook went from being a fun distraction to be virtual reality that showed the best and worst of people.  Suddenly you realized that you really weren’t as good of friends as you thought with that person from book club when they unfriended you.

And then there were the 2008, 2012 and 2016 elections each being more ugly than the previous.  The disagreements between friends and family use to be hidden in the background, but Facebook  shined a light on that indifference, bringing it kicking and screaming into center stage.

Maybe we should go back to the early days, where your status had to be in the form of Person’s Name is ____________.

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What happens when you go on a Sugar Detox

A friend posted a link to a Sugar Detox  a couple weeks ago, just in time for the New Year.   I’m wary of New Year’s resolutions and goals that set one up to fail but I figure even I can pull off something like this  since it is only 3 days.   I decided to start last Tuesday (January 3rd) because it would be over before the weekend.

A couple of things here.  Detox isn’t really the right word according to the medical community.   Detoxification is a normal function of our bodies to get rid of unwanted substances, i.e. toxins.   Cleanse would be a better word choice.  Also, your body doesn’t know the difference between 71 and 72 hours, and the three days is because humans need some sort of measurable to know exactly when they can go back to eating donuts again.  [If there’s any science behind it, I suspect 3 days is the minimum amount of time it takes the average person to rid themselves of the majority of the toxic element they are attempting to eject.]

Here is a list of what I can’t have: carbs, most fruit, sugar, baked goods, wheat bread  or alcohol.

Here is a list of what I can have: Mostly sawdust and the tears of vegans.

Kidding, there are lots of things that I can eat that don’t contain sugar and don’t forget we also get a 15 g “sugar allowance” per day.    The hardest part was not having an alcoholic beverage before bedtime.

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Day One wasn’t hard at all.  I didn’t do any type of exercise to go along with it because I had just gone back to work from the holiday break and had some catching up to do.

Day Two  I was a little hungry in the afternoon and had to resist the urge to get an unauthorized snack. I did swim a few laps at the gym during lunch.

In the evening I really wanted a treat or a drink (though that could have been because of the current Stressors going on in our lives).  I noticed that I was at about the half way point so I told myself that I just need to get through the next 32-36 hours and its over. My wife Nightingale, who also unofficially participated, noticed she was more drained and we realized that we were running out of the energy that sugar normally provided us.

Day Three was essentially a cake walk because I was so close to the finish line, that it didn’t make any sense to cheat.  I ran a few miles on the treadmill at lunch time.

So cutting out sugar for three days with a small amount of exercise may have helped me lose a pound or two but other than a little tired, I didn’t feel any different than usual.  That’s probably because sugar isn’t a big part of my life as it is for some people.  I definitely consume more than 15 grams a day, but not significantly more and I avoid sugar and substitutes whenever I can substitute a healthier choice and the few miles I do run a week help burn some of it off.

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2-Year-Old Toddler Saves Twin From Fallen Dresser, afterwards ArmChair Parents chime in

Update 01/05/2017:  There are some who believe this video was faked.  I’m not sure why anyone would do such a thing, the benefit would have to outweigh the Parent Shaming they endured, or they completely miscalculated the rewards and/or response. 

 

Has everyone seen the video of the 2 year old who lifted a dresser off his twin brother?  I was first alerted to it by former ChicagoNow blogger Jenny Milkowski who posted the video on her FB Page.

Even before I watched the video, I knew what to expect:

Judgemental Comments from Know-It-All members of the That-Could-Never-Happen-to-Me clan.

• “Where were the parents?”
• “How could they not hear anything?”
• “I would never leave my kids unsupervised”

It doesn’t help that many of the news outlets covering the story don’t relay all the available facts.  Not that anyone would read them before spouting off an opinion.  Most people just watch the video and fire off their two cents without reading any of the pesky facts.

The story is that the kids (Bowdy and Brock Shoff) woke up and were playing in their room while their parents were sleeping.  This is very common with twins or kids who share a room at this age.  They have each other and can do more without the watchful eyes of parents.

Apparently when the parents woke up and checked on their kids, they found them playing in the room but the dresser was tipped over.  They reviewed their nanny cam and discovered what had happened.

The Shoffs were “initially hesitant to share the video but decided the issue of bolting furniture was too important to ignore.”  They also imply a higher power was involved with helping Browdy move the dresser off his brother Brock.

I’m not saying the Shoffs are candidates for Parents of the Year.  They know they fucked up and that is one reason they shared the video:  To hopefully convince other parents who don’t think that dresser or TV Stand is any danger, to think again.

It’s practically impossible to watch your kids 24/7 and attempting to do can be more harmful then not doing so.  If you have small children (or even just one) you are likely always in a sleep deficit.

Here’s something that is much more helpful than McJudgey comments that do not add anything to the discussion…a Childproofing Checklist from the International Association for Child Safety

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