Singing for St Paul

I've lived in the Twin Cities area my whole life, but never right in St Paul or Minneapolis. I find it very funny though that people are very tied to one city or the other. For city natives, it isn't really just a joke that they do not cross the city border. I once managed a program where my team had to do home visits. Not realizing this border crossing phenomenon before hand, I had one of our field reps in panic mode when I assigned her a neighborhood that literally was just over the Marshall Ave bridge from the neighborhood she already covered in St Paul. With Adele being in concert next week at a St Paul venue, some creative person did a parody to get folks jazzed up about St Paul, and beer. I can think of a dozen other things to feature as St Paul sites beyond beer, but it is mildly amusing. So, if you are not familiar with  my part of the world, take a peek. The more than slight poke at Minneapolis's Uptown crowd gave me a laugh.

Jelly Beans-Not Just for Easter Anymore

I have a sweet tooth for certain artificially flavored fruity candies.  Mike and Ike's, Nerds, Sweet Tarts, and Smarties (the American kind not the British kind) are  few of my favorites.  Oddly though, Starbursts and Skittles leave a really bad taste in my mouth.  My two absolute favorites though are gum drops and jelly beans.  This is a marvelous time to be a jelly bean fan.  Clearance bags in every store and now, a full week plus past Easter, and the remaining bags in their pastel bagged finery, can be picked up for 90% less than two weeks ago.  I have to be good, as those little buggers would so easily be popped into my mouth like popcorn.  Neither my bum nor my teeth need them.  But, a few aren't going to ruin anything and they are a simple little pleasure to take me through the rest of spring.

Having been in the work world for years and years, many meetings are kicked off with ice breakers.  I can think of no less than  five times that jelly beans were part of that ice breaker.  The bowl is passed around and everyone grabs a candy.  The facilitator reads out some supposed work trait or personality trait associated with that color.  Usually white and black were either identical, or polar opposites.  If the facilitator was really in an organizing mood, they would use those jelly beans to put the meeting goers into small groups.  Here is a sample i found on line of just such an icebreaker.  jelly bean Icebreaker  Reading the game narrative makes me cringe-no offense intended to anyone who relies on these games to get a little cohesiveness to their meetings.  

My favorite "use" of the jelly bean was for  the training I and a colleague attended about 10 years ago.  We walked in and when we saw the bowl on the first table, knew what was in store for us. MC calmly declared, "Cool, jelly beans," and popped a handful in his mouth.  Within a few minutes the bowl was empty with others helping themselves.  When the trainer walked in, the look on her face was priceless.  She looked around, shook her head, and then laughed.  Sure enough, she popped a second bag of candy out of her bag and refilled the dish.  Then, instead of proceeding with what we thought was going to be the game, she had everyone go around and introduce themselves, name, company, and how many jelly beans they ate.  When it was MC's turn, he introduced himself as the instigator, and started a round of applause for the clever woman. Don't ask me what the topic was, but it was a good training.

Clueless or Being Funny

We had extra time between basketball games this past weekend so did a little book browsing in a small town Big Box store that will remain nameless.  I can't decide if someone was clueless or funny in arranging titles.  I posted these on my personal Facebook.  My  witty friend from high school wondered if the juice boxes and wine are sold in the same place as well for easy shopping.  Now that might be a good idea! 

These two titles side by side just seemed so wrong.  But I suppose, two interpretations of religious guidance.  So, someone being funny, or really just clueless placement?