My IUD strings kind of tuck around the cervix, so that they're nicely wrapped. I've not had anyone say they ever felt it, so that's one woman's experience.

grumble grumble it's not like i have sex hardly ever, so take that how you will. grumble. garrrrrr. grumpy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 12:40 PM on August 8, 2008

Go Ask Alice is a pretty excellent site from Columbia University. I didn't find anything specifically about petroleum jelly, but this tidbit of info about olive oil seems to apply:

Just because olive oil is ineffective for use with latex does not mean you have to avoid using it in all cases. Although using a condom is always a good idea, monogamous partners who have tested negative for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) could decide to forgo a condom and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 8:00 PM on August 5, 2008

I dreamed in Spanish when I lived in Spain. When I came back to the US, the dreams continued to be in Spanish for a while. It's been quite some time since then, and though I speak Spanish often still, I now dream in English.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 4:36 AM on July 27, 2008

It's going to be tough. You don't seem to qualify (assuming you're in the US) for the Family and Medical Leave Act of up to 12 weeks leave.

Employees are eligible to take FMLA leave if they have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, and have worked for at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months, and work at a location where at least 50 employees are employed by the employer within 75 miles.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:02 PM on July 25, 2008

My point was more about the law than the company policy. The FMLA makes it illegal for a company to fire you. When I used the FMLA a number of years ago, I was terrified that I'd be fired. It was a relief to learn about FMLA. I suppose I was projecting my own past fears here.

OP, I am very very glad you're doing what you need to do for you. Whatever happens with your job because of your this, your health in the long term is way more important. Having the STD coverage is... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:21 PM on July 25, 2008

I made some cucumber kimchee the other day. It's a quick, non-fermented variety.

Ingredients: Cucumber, green onion, garlic, ginger, hot peppers, salt, vinegar. Cut up the cukes in 1" chunks. Put in a non-reactive bowl and salt generously. Leave them for at least an hour. Drain and rinse if too salty. Mince up some garlic. Mince up an equal amount of ginger. Slit open 4-ish really hot peppers. Layer brined cukes, hot peppers, garlic, and ginger into a one quart... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 2:30 PM on July 25, 2008

Also, if you just want to *have* good kimchee rather than make it, try a korean market. Around here the good ones will have very tasty homemade kimchee in various sized jugs in the refrigerated section. YUM. Sometimes it's the "summer" kimchee like I made, but more often it's just the regular cabbage or daikon radish.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:12 PM on July 25, 2008

My friends always want me to bring them Clinique skin products.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:09 PM on July 24, 2008

I had one while fully awake today, while sitting at my kitchen table, surfing. I'd seen this question earlier and so had to tell you about it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:25 PM on July 23, 2008

(Oh, and I have epilepsy, in theory. And am not in the least concerned about the event this evening.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:26 PM on July 23, 2008

Cashmere. It's lightweight and *very* warm. It's spendy, but you can get good deals pre-christmas at places like Kohl's, JC Penny's and some department stores. Also, when you go to your malls, check out the deeply discounted racks in the major departments stores. They'll occasionally have crazy deals on one lone cashmere sweater ($20!) that somehow turned up in the off season. Thrift stores also have a surprising number of cashmere sweaters; I buy them to sleep in!

I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 3:57 AM on July 22, 2008

Amway. It doesn't delineate the continents or anything.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 3:58 AM on July 21, 2008

Here's one I like: The Invisible Pencil.

Tell your participants they have an invisible pencil. First have them write their name in the air with the pencil. Then have them do it again, with their other hand. Then tell them to imagine the invisible pencil is in their mouth and do it again. Finally, have them put it in their belly button. By the end it's really silly.

There's another one I like even better, but I can't remember it right this... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 3:42 PM on July 17, 2008

When I was thinking museum I was thinking more along the lines of information gathering, so photos weren't on my radar. I'd have to see if they allow non-flash photography. Easy enough to check out.

KathyK, I'm going to have to organize a bunch of friends to do that Urban Challenge thing. It looks hilariously fun. I didn't look too closely at it, because there are puzzles involved, and I wouldn't want to ruin it!

I LOVE the specific suggestions... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 1:55 PM on July 7, 2008

Is everyone staying at the same location (hotel or some place)?

Nope. It will be in the town we work in.

I've read about the puzzle piece type of scavenger hunt, but since I'd like to participate as well as create the hunt, I'm looking to avoid situations where I'd know the answer ahead of time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 2:31 PM on July 7, 2008

phunniemae, thank you so much for the insight. I've been kind of humming and hawing to myself about the museum component, out of fear of invoking the wrath of staff. YAY!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:23 PM on July 15, 2008

6 of one, half dozen of the other.

That said, I'd lean more towards bringing the air into the room from the outside. When I've pointed the fan outwards, there's not a pronounced air current. Sucking air inside from the out of doors, though, does increase the breeze inside, which is another way to cool down bodies.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 12:47 PM on July 15, 2008

Dude. You're right by the summer habitat of the ever disappearing Kirtland's Warbler. HIRE A GUIDE!!!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:49 PM on July 14, 2008

Also, this time of the year in the Northern Lower Peninsula is fantastic. The fall migration is starting already, but not quite. Your neck of the woods is FILLED with good passerines. A few years ago I saw the most birds I'd ever seen before, about an hour north of Muskegon, on Lake MI, in a very slightly inland (.25 miles?) nature preserve (private, sorry to say, but I'll be up there the first week of Aug if you wanna come on down!).

By memory, what I saw included:... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:01 PM on July 14, 2008

I just asked a really similar question the other day! Cool. It's like double the answers.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:03 AM on July 13, 2008

I've made the jelly. Found it wasn't all that great. The taste is sweet but insipid or perhaps just too subtle for my tastes. And it didn't set. But that was probably my bad in some way.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:04 AM on July 12, 2008

You could make your own polenta

I was coming in here to say that, or grits, until I saw that it's self-rising corn meal. Don't do it. Polenta that tastes of bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid would be nastorama.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 11:34 AM on July 11, 2008

I actually have a couple of versions of a similarly themed activity with premade characters--already planned and aimed at such a goal. But they're in my office. Where I might not be until Thursday. Is that going to be soon enough? I'll also see if I can find them online. Especially important is a short conversation after the fact about what worked, etc. This is a very fun, tried and true type of exercise!!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 4:00 PM on July 8, 2008

Warning: LONG!!

Here's a website that gives an overview of this type of exercise, and has a bunch of scenarios at the right hand side of the page.

Here's another one, cut and pasted, since it's kind of hard to find on the page. It has a different focus than the one you're creating, but I always say it's good to look at what's already out there.

stranded - the team building survival game (Scroll down)... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 4:07 PM on July 8, 2008 marked best answer

If one or two people dominate, a competent facilitator will address that in the debriefing/discussion. Usually I ask a very open-ended question to start out like "Ok, so what was that like?" and then go from there.

With a team building exercise like this, you'll need to pull out of them the benefits of someone stepping up to lead as well as the importance of the leader not leading blindly. What I've seen happen in this type of exercise is that there will be... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 8:25 PM on July 8, 2008

Maybe try framing your answer in a "look how alike we are" way.

"Thank you so much! It's so hard to find a faith community when you move somewhere new, and I really appreciate your offer to help. I'm strong in my Buddhist faith, and we don't have churches, so I'm good. I'll make sure to come to you if I have a Christian (Methodist/Baptist/Church of Christ/etc.) friend looking for a community, though!"

And if they rebuff you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 4:46 PM on July 8, 2008 marked best answer

You did answer your own question. Don't walk on eggshells.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 4:33 PM on July 8, 2008

Michigan
Sub (general)
Hoagie (school lunch only. god I hated hoagie day)
Grinder (only at one specific place that we'd get a big ol' six-foot-long sandwich from for tailgating at U of M football games)
North Carolina
Sub
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 12:42 PM on July 8, 2008

Zinc Oxide ointment. You'll have white lips, but they'll be blocked from all sun.

Like a lifeguard. Or Jeff Spicoli. Or my sister in 1983.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:28 PM on July 7, 2008

I'm cooler than a rock star.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:28 PM on July 7, 2008

A blue SEO speedwagon crockstar.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:33 PM on July 7, 2008

What do you value in a hotel? Are you looking for someone who's stayed in each of the hotels, or are you looking for more general advice such as comparison of location?

If you're cool with getting some info on the latter (and mind you I lived in Barcelona 10 years ago--ouch that's a long time), I'd say that the Prestige is in a slightly ritzier location. The Regina is closer to the Plaza Catalunya, but really, both are very well located.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 8:02 PM on July 5, 2008 marked best answer

I was going to say Doctors Without Borders as well, but it looks like family isn't allowed along.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:37 PM on July 5, 2008

El Corte Ingles in Barcelona at Plaza Catalunya didn't seem to have doors at all, and they'd heat or cool the outdoors depending on what season it was. (At night they had one of those pull-down metal garage-door looking thingies)

I've not ever seen any US gas station cooling the outdoors, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 7:32 PM on July 3, 2008

Aioli, yes.

And pimiento cheese. Make sure whatever recipe you choose has a bit of lemon juice, a squinch of cumin, and enough red pepper (of the spicy style) to give it a bite. But basically other than that, it's just grated sharp cheddar, mayo, pimientos.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 7:17 PM on July 3, 2008

Dilly Beans! (make 'em hot and garlicky)

Pickled Okra is also a favorite of mine. I don't have recipes, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 7:00 PM on July 3, 2008

Here's a discussion about Dilly Beans, and here's a recipe for pickled okra. And, OH MY, you need to make some Kim Chee. I've heard good things about radish relish, too. Add some pickling lime for extra crunch. Oh, and you can do sauerkraut, also. Yum to fermentation.

Here's a whole slew of good sounding pickling info!

I think you might especially like this garlic pickled chili pepper recipe.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 7:10 PM on July 3, 2008 marked best answer

I've trellised Cucurbitas before--last summer I grew cantaloupe that way. My cukes grow vertically as well. The larger stuff, like the 'loupe and your butternut, may/will need support as they get close to ripe, so that their weight doesn't pull them off before they're ready.

I've heard that old pantyhose serve the veggie-bra purpose well.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 12:50 PM on July 3, 2008

Yeah, it's all about the manual picking off the buggers.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 12:44 PM on July 3, 2008

I haven't even read this yet, because if the world were in my hands, every single human would take a year-long DBT program with refreshers every other year at minimum. DBT is by far the best therapy/life tool that's ever, ever made its way into my life. No BPD for me, either. "Just" depression. OK, now I'll go read. But my recommendation won't change. Do it. DBT, baby.

For real.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 1:25 PM on July 2, 2008

OK, so reading up on what's going on with you makes me even more certain that you will benefit from this. You say you need to get control over your emotions. Excellent. One of the four DBT areas is Emotion Regulation. Another is Distress Tolerance, for when you have the emotions and you have to deal with them. Add in the Interpersonal Effectiveness, which is basically "Learn how to ask for something or say no in such a way as you'll a) be most likely to get what you want, while maintaining... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 1:40 PM on July 2, 2008 marked best answer

For one thing, pigeons and other doves are flat surface eaters who really prefer the ground. Birds knock a lot of seeds onto the ground from any kind of platform feeder, which encourages the big fat pig-o pigeons to stay around. Switching to some variety of, say, tube feeder is a good idea. Actually, switch to anything BUT a platform feeder (which is what a bird table looks like to me. There are also hanging platform feeders. Avoid.).

If you can, sweep or clean under... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 5:09 PM on June 29, 2008

When I moved into my rented house, the air conditioner (central) wouldn't cool the house down below 80ºF. I called the property management company and explained that it didn't work. Someone came out and fixed it. Therefore the house was cool when I wanted it to be. I live in the SE USA, and while it's not quite Dallas, it's certainly hot. This weekend we hovered around 100ºF.

Your air conditioning doesn't work. You're paying a lot of money because of that (or despite... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 4:54 PM on June 29, 2008

The campus is really pretty, there are no problems with parking, and the town is eensy. Off of the highway at the Elon exit there's a strip mall with a number of basic stores--Target, Old Navy, Starbucks, etc.

There's a big service-learning program at Elon.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 2:44 PM on June 29, 2008

Sangria!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 8:40 AM on June 26, 2008

Also: Calimocho!

(No, really. It's good, and you're embarrassed that it's good, but the shame goes away the more you drink)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 9:18 AM on June 26, 2008

I've been overwhelmed whenever I've gone to High Point as well. It's hell.

You'll definitely want to do some research on what styles they want, so that you don't find yourself in 2 million s.f. wanting to do nothing more than just LIE DOWN on the damn couches already because you're so sick of it.

Plan ahead. Have your family come with measurements already taken. If they need to figure out a layout, the Hickory Furniture Mart website has a room... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 11:05 AM on June 23, 2008

BTW, I can't get the Cornell recordings to work for me. The song I linked to above, though, and the one you linked to are different examples of the Carolina Wren's typical song. Do you hear them as the same? Disregard what I'm hearing as a pitch difference.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 6:34 PM on June 22, 2008

:-) we complement one another well, rtha.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 7:06 PM on June 22, 2008

I was just about to suggest the Shakespeare festival in Stratford. (Good minds, drycleanonly!) I have very fond memories of visiting there every summer as an adolescent.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Stewriffic at 7:00 PM on June 22, 2008