Scott Desgrosseilliers

My Love/Hate Relationship With Cold Stone Creamery

I feel a sense of guilt as I cast a wistful glance at the sign.  A glance turns into an abrupt turn, and I find myself speeding up to the counter.  "Love it Godiva Chocolate with double Reese's peanut butter cup and whip cream please" I blurt out like an expert.  2 minutes later I am up on my couch with my eyes closed, savoring every delectable bite.  I finish and furrow my brow to try and prevent the guilt from rushing in.  It's not guilt over the calories, although that sucks also.  I hate Cold Stone Creamery because of a few incidents between us.

Incident #1

Summer 2006, the day of the annual Luge Party.  I pull into my condo building with a pre-carved luge in the trunk.  It dawns on me that the luge has already begun the melting process, and its 7 hours until the first shot will be delivered off its icy post-carved surface.  Cold Stone Creamery is located on the ground floor on my building, mere steps from the main entrance.  I walk in and see one of the co-owners of the store, who also lives in the building.  I exchange a quick pleasantry and then explain my plight-

Me - "Hi, I've seen you a few times in the elevator.  I live in Millennium Centre also, how's it going?"Cold Stone Creamery female owner - "Pretty good.  How can I help you?"Me - "I have an interesting scenario.  I'm throwing a party tonight on the pool deck.  I bought an ice luge for the party, but it is already starting to melt.  Can I store the luge in your cooler?"Her - "What's a luge?"

I explain what a luge is.  She replies "I'm sorry, its a health hazard to have a block of ice in our cooler."  What!  A cooler that is filled with ICE and ICE cream, and it will be unhealthy to have more ice in it?  I storm out furious and rush to the grocery store to buy ice to keep my ice luge iced.  I vow never again to go to Cold Stone.

Months pass and I smirk in defiant willpower as I pass Cold Stone Creamery each day.  No way in hell will I go in there.  Soon a year has passed, I have spent a fun day partying on the pool deck, someone mentions ice cream and I decide I have punished the place enough. 

Incident #2

We enter into Cold Stone Creamery.  I see the other co-owner, the husband of the "ice luge health hazard" excuse lady.  I place my order.  Damn it looks good on the cold stone while they are smashing in my mix-ins.  I see that while my coffee with heath bar mix-in looks good, why not splurge another 50 cents and get another heath bar tossed in.

Me - "Man, that heath looks good. Can you toss another one in there?"Cold Stone Creamery Male Owner - "Sure thing!  Put on as many as you want, its more money in my pocket!"

What an ass.  I am not implying I should get a free mix-in.  But this guy was in absolute glee over the thought of taking my additional 50 cents for a mix-in.  I walk out of there irritated that I would break my willpower and go back to that place.  Although my coffee with double heath bar mix-in almost caused me to black out from taste bud sensory overload.  I make a new vow.  Never again go to Cold Stone!

My Resolve Weakens

Of course, as time passes, things get tricky.  I keep passing Cold Stone 3-6 times a day.  My anger softens.  I tell why I refuse to go to Cold Stone, but my heart isn't in it.  Ironically, the day a true competitor appears 1/2 block away starts the crack in my resolve.

We go into Berry Chill Couture, a "hip" new ice cream or yogurt place of some kind.  I say this because when you walk in, all of the mix-ins are displayed as icons floating on a plasma above the cash register.  This is disorientating to say the least.  The place looks and feels a little claustrophobic.  Plus the ultra-picky fiancee is grumbling she doesn't like something about the place.  So we hastily leave.  However, I am now craving ice cream.  The options are discussed and we buy ice cream, hot fudge, whip cream, and mix-ins and make our sundae.  It tastes good, but it was a lot of work and time, and city people want satisfaction immediately and without effort.

The Inevitable Cave-In

A few days go by and I need ice cream.  I don't really even want it, but I envision the flavors in my mouth and that's it, I'm a goner, gotta have it.  The thought of waiting in line at Jewel to get ice cream sounds awful.  So now its down to what matters more, my vow of anti-Cold Stone vs. my laziness to fetch and make my own sundae.

I feel a slight sense of anxiety as I walk in, as though the ice cream clerk will shout "Look everybody, he's back at Cold Stone!"  But no one says a thing as I order the Godiva chocolate with Reese's peanut butter cup and whip cream.  As if repeating the past, I blurt out "add another Reese's".  The owners are nowhere in site, and the clerk rings up my order without incident.  And the ice cream is unbelievably good, I am literally exclaiming "Oh God" multiple times while I eat it.  I being to understand why females crave chocolate, and I feel my X (female) chromosome give silent thanks.  My ancient grudge against Cold Stone has been put to rest just in time for summer.

Feelings-Based Decisions vs. Logic-Based Decisions

Human beings love to think of themselves as logical, rational, aware beings.  The ability to obey traffic laws, vote in elections for leaders, and many other social constructs support the logical, rational behavior of our race.  So how come logic doesn't play a big part in important decisions in our lives?

When I'm making a big decision, I felt I was as logical as the next person.  I discuss the matter with peers to generate outside opinions.  I research data on the internet.  And last but not least, I make the beloved t-chart.

The t-chart is a pro and con list.  You make a small case t on a piece of paper.  On the top left of the t, you write "Pros".  On the top right of the t, you write "Cons".  Then you list the pros and cons of your particular big decision.  I have merrily made many t charts in my past for all sorts of important personal and financial decisions.

What I've discovered is the t-chart didn't mean a damn thing.  No matter how the pro and con list stacked up, on any major decision I could feel what I wanted to do regardless of what my analysis told me.  If the t-chart matched my feelings, I felt emboldened to immediately and assertively make the decision.  If the t-chart did not match my feelings, I hemmed and hawed and still ended up going with my gut.

A few examples-

• I was in Orlando Florida trading nasdaq securities making great money in my mid 20s.  After a little over a year, I found out my firm had a few shady business practices.  I made a number of t-charts that all seemed to favor staying at the job.  But I couldn't shake the nagging feeling in my gut over working for shadiness, so I quit.
• Relocating to Chicago I got taken on numerous real estate tours in 2003.  I was shown tons of spreadsheets of how I could get an interest-only loan, by a huge pad, and then refinance with no worries due to the 20% appreciation of the market.  Reading this now it is easy to say that of course its not a good deal, but back then everyone was buying and all logic said to buy.  But my feelings were that the market could not possibly keep up so I stayed renting.
• I would always loudly and vociferously argue that you had to live with a girl for at least a year to know if it was right to marry her.  I got engaged 7 months after meeting my fiancee, and 4 months before she moved in.

I've tried to listen more and more to my feelings rather than just the surface facts.  It's my internal communication that I try to build up through daily meditation.  I feel the best decisions are when your instincts and gut are telling you loudly and clearly what you should do.

What It Is Like To Be Color Blind

I was truly baffled with my lady.  She was explaining to the cake baker that she needed crimson red icing on one of the wedding cake levels.  I saw that the cake book already had burgundy, red, and maroon, isn't that close enough?  She growled in disdain at my nonchalance when it hit me - I had no idea what crimson red was because I am color blind.

People hear "color blind" and assume that means I only see black and white.  That could not be further from the truth.  I can see all colors (I think), but my ability to identify the colors is very situation-dependent.  It would be more accurate for people with color blindness to be called color-challenged or that they have a color memory condition.  Because while I have no problems being called color blind, I can see the colors, I just the following scenarios where I can't identify them correctly:

• Inadequate lighting.  I once identified the tool creating the baseball foul lines as yellow when it was actually tan because the tool was in the shade.  My baseball team was in disbelief and began playing "what color is that?" about everything in the dugout.
• Distance.  From far away brown and green are really hard to tell apart.  When I get closer, I can always tell that the brown and green objects are different.
• Certain shade combinations.  Put leaves, grass, moss, dirt, and bark in the same pile, and I can see they are all different shades of some kind of green and brown, but figuring out which is which is not easy.  Light brown dirt looks like green usually.
• Weird unexplained mis-identifications.  I consistently think lime green and yellow are the same.  I often think dark blue and purple are the same.  When I was 12 I got in a huge battle with my mother over a pair of Nikes.  She kept insisting I not purchase them, but I was beyond obsessed about having my new dark blue Nike Cortez leather sneakers.  I somehow won the battle of wills.  The next day my best friend wondered why I was wearing purple Nikes to school!  I asked my mom how she could let me do this, she reminded me she kept telling me not to buy them.

In all of the scenarios above, I can see that there are differently colored and shaded objects.  I just can't figure out which of 2 similar colors to describe the object.  My brain somehow can't store or remember how light brown, brown, and dark brown are different.  So it is a more accurate description to say I am "color-challenged" since I see the color but am challenged to identify its name correctly sometimes.

My Grandmother's Stuffing Tastes Better Than Yours

I’m here to break the news to you that my grandmother’s (Nanny) stuffing is better than yours.  This may come as a shock to you, but I guarantee that no matter how good you think your family’s stuffing recipe is, it can’t top Nanny’s stuffing served each Thanksgiving.

How do I know this?  Is there a way to irrefutably settle a debate concerning taste?  That is where the thanksgiving day stuffing debate gets interesting.  Every year when Thanksgiving rolls around, I tell people it is my favorite holiday.  In the midst of my explanation for why it is the best, I mention my grandmother’s stuffing.  Virtually EVERY time, the person I am talking with interrupts me to say “My <insert family member> makes THE. BEST. STUFFING.”  In years past I would interrogate the person for a list of ingredients in their families stuffing.  Some of the stuffing recipes I heard were downright awful.  Stuffing is not meant to be sweet!  Stuffing does not need to be overloaded with meat, you already have a 20 pound turkey staring at you on the table!

As I rattled off reasons their families stuffing was obviously inferior, my mind would simultaneously register the fact that I had no solid reasons why ours is the best.  What was the secret ingredient?  Is there even a secret ingredient?  Here is the famous Nanny’s Thanksgiving stuffing recipe:

1 loaf Sara Lee bread, left out for 3 days
1 large onion, minced
2 stalks celery, chopped small
4 t margarine
4 t bacon fat
2 ½ c hot water
3 ½ tsp Bell’s seasoning
1/8 tsp pepper
2 tsp salt

I can look at the recipe and notice a couple of distinct ingredients. Bread left out for 3 days is not a common start to stuffing.  Bacon fat wouldn’t normally be found on a kitchen shelf.  And Bell’s seasoning stands out, it is a New England seasoning mix of rosemary, oregano, sage, marjoram, ginger, thyme, and pepper.  Apparently Martha Stewart uses Bell’s as her secret stuffing ingredient also, I wonder if Nanny is getting royalties?

But beyond the ingredients, my informal annual sampling of other people’s opinions of their families stuffings reveals something about taste.  Taste is not an objective measurement.  People’s perceptions of the taste of something is a complex mix of mood, emotion, feelings, and the experience.  Thanksgiving is a happy (for most) celebration of family, and the good feelings and emotions of that time help to color the memory of how good the meal, and your grandmother’s stuffing, tastes.  That is the only rational explanation you could think your family’s stuffing is better than Nanny’s.

Do you live in the city or the burbs?

Perhaps I am just a nice innocent boy from Maine.  When I think of living in a city, I believe it means that there are tall buildings, lots of great bars and restaurants, you can walk to anywhere of significance,getting transportation on the off chance you don’t walk involves simply raising your hand and a cab appears, and people are too busy living out in the city to stay inside and obsess over the latest episode of “CSI: Wherever”.  However, Chicago seems to have this massive city boundary blurriness.  The city is so great, that people who obviously reside nowhere near the city still claim to be in Chicago. 

If you live south of the White Sox or north of the Cubs, you aren’t really in the true city area, you live in the burbs.  I understand University of Chicago is down in Hyde Park, but that is kind of like how most football teams claim to be from the major city of the area, but are actually 30 miles outside of the town they claim to be from.  Hyde Park is the burbs.  You are “Chicago” by name only.  If you live west of United Center, sorry, you are in the burbs.

I met a girl for a drink a month ago.  She explained she lived in Chicago.  I asked where, she told me north of irving park.  I could not hide my horrified look.  Think of the face that someone makes when they bite into a piece of fish and suddenly find out it is under-cooked and/or has a nice bone that just pricked the back of their throat.  That was my grimace of disdain.  I felt guilty but why bullsh*t my feelings on the subject?  And I am not saying it is not really pleasant up there, great deal on your condo, 2 good restaurants and an occasional cab, yadayada yawning reason #35 why people justify living in the burbs, whatever.  It is simply geographically undesirable for a city person to have any ties to the burbs.  Rather than debate geographical dimensions until I am blue in the face, it’s easier to break down suburban vs. city living as a mindset and way of life…there is no dispute, arguments dissipate, the facts are black and white when you look at the debate this way.

If you have to call for a cab, you live in the burbs.  A city person thrives on not planning much of anything, and simply deciding “Hey let’s go to new restaurant xyz” and then walking outside and raising their hand to get a ride if the restaurant is not a 3 block walk away.

If you get excited about going to Outback, and are even willing to wait for the “Denny’s of steakhouses”…you live in the burbs!  Chicago, the actual city of Chicago, and anyone living in it, would not be caught dead at an Outback when you have so many delectable choices to eat your slaughtered cow.  Although I will give respect yo the burb that had the intelligence to open a Wildfire, that is a truly great burb steakhouse, but it is a statistical anomaly.

If your cell phone plan doesn’t have 1000 texts per month, you live in the burbs.  Or you are a trust fund baby and you can afford to pay 25 cents a text.  City people live on text, burbs people are too busy sitting in their cars in traffic talking on their Bluetooth headsets, so they don’t need to text.  Plus there is not much going on to text about.

If you have finished eating dinner by 730pm, you live in the burbs.  I haven’t even contemplated what I feel like eating for dinner until 730pm, which I then text around to a few folks to coordinate a dinner gameplan for 830-9pm.  Which reminds me, if you have no place to grab a bite to eat after 10pm except the local Mobil mini-mart, you live in the burbs, I hope you at least realized it by now.

If you haven’t spontaneously done a vodka shot on a Tuesday night, you undoubtedly live in the burbs.  I feel sorry, and yet my heart goes out to you, that if you do live in the burbs, and took a shot at your local Applebees on a Tuesday night, you have the spirit of a city-dwellar and I salute you.  But you were at an Applebees, so you live in the burbs.  Move already.

If you spent a Sunday raking leaves instead of having 1pm brunch with some friends rehashing the weekend, you live in the burbs.  But it’s not like much went on in the burbs to rehash, so you might as well tend to the leaves.

I hope this clears up the confusion.  And I am sorry to break it to those poor souls in “Chicago” that are stuck outside of the 3800 north X 2000 west X 3600 south X the lake…you are in the burbs.

All Reviews Are Relative

“What do you recommend?” one of my normally intelligent friends will ask the waiter.  This will cause me to smile and groan at the same time.  Groan because how in hell can the waiter’s tastes be validated to be anywhere close to similar to the friend who asked them.  Smile because in my advanced age I can deal with it by laughing rather than frowning.  Some random stranger who just happens to be telling you that day’s specials is going to be able to say the salmon is great, and then you are going to order it?  That is ridiculous.

I like to ask the waiter “What is your least favorite thing on the menu?”  If the answer is “Oh, everything is really good here” I know that they cannot be trusted and I will have a really hard time giving them a huge tip.  But when the waiter answers “the veal is kinda gross” I would at least possibly give a shred of credence to their answer.  Then again, I don’t eat anything with feathers, because chicken is the devil and its cousins are poison.  So if you asked me what was tasty at a restaurant, and their specialty was a “to die for” chicken cordon bleu, you would still never know.  I would’ve only order the beef, fish, or vegetarian dish.  And you would’ve lost out.

All reviews are relative.  You can’t determine whether my review is going to help you or not until there is a frame of reference around the topic you are requesting my review.  I know a number of my friends in Maine who didn’t like Pulp Fiction and did like The Legend of Bagger Vance.  These people will never be asked for a movie review for the rest of their lives from me.  “I like Meet Joe Black” someone will say (the movie should’ve been called “Meet Joe Boring”).  I walked out on that movie!  “I don’t get the Family Guy”.  We probably won’t like much in the way of entertainment then.  “Mmmm, chicken is my death row meal.”  Let’s not go to dinner and say we did.

So to whom it may concern, here are my bests and worsts in a few common review categories:

Best Movies - Braveheart, 40 Year Old Virgin, Wall Street, the Matrix, Goodfellas, Anchorman
Worst Movies - Meet Joe Black, Marie Antoinette, Dark Water

Best Food - Thai, Indian, sushi, Burgers, Filet
Worst Food - Chicken, Duck, Quail, Lamb, Cornish Hen, any mixing of something sweet with anything else...you aren't supposed to mix sweets with anything, no jellied meats, no sugared meats.

Best TV - The Family Guy, Entourage, The Shield, America's Next Top Model
Worst TV - Any lame lawyer or doctor show, any cop show not The Shield or The Wire

Best Chicago Restaurants - Wildfire, Ruth Chris, India House, Star of Siam, Blue Water Grill
Worst Chicago Restaurants - Morton's, Graze, Su Casa

Best Chicago Drinking Spots - Kerryman, Dublin's, Quartino's, O'Malley's, Castaways, Rock Bottom roof deck
Worst Chicago Drinking Spots - Any place that mandates bottle service or $20 cover

Trapped in an Elevator

This saturday 4/14 I had the  experience of being trapped in an elevator.  There are way too many lame movies and tv show episodes that show people trapped, panicking, making confessions, thinking their life is over, yadayadayada boringboringboring.  What is it really like?

It's a pain in the ass.  I was helping someone move along with a few other friends.  We jam packed the service elevator at her new place, cram ourselves in, and then hit the door close buttons.  The doors close, the elevator jerks, and then it stops.  So we had only went a few feet if that.  The buttons on the elevator had become completely unresponsive.  Take a look at how packed in we were:

At least we had a shiatsu massager if we got stuck for a long time.  While in the elevator, there was no sense of panic or desperation like you see in a movie.  It was just kind of hot, stuffy, and having to stand straight without any room to move it really unpleasant.  We tried different button combinations.  Called the doorman.  He was sending someone to somehow manually move the elevator, if possible.  Who is the guy that is going to be able to manually turn a wheel that moves an elevator, Popeye?  The other option was going to involve calling the elevator help line and having the company come out to the building.  My saturday was rapidly going to hell.  Moving is already brutal, now we are all stuck in an over-packed elevator with 3 cm of movement, indefinitely.

As our options dwindled for rescue, there was still no panic that I could discern, just major inconvenience.  We were only 20 minutes from being done the move when this happened!  Our friend on the phone, who was relaying conversation with the doorman, was insistent that something was hitting the buttons.  It wasn't.  We began examining the connections between where the crap jammed into the elevator touched, and the elevators walls...hmmm, Scott sees something to save the day...a damn cushion was wedged into the elevator door somehow!  The cushion ripped out of the door jam, elevator is functional again, 20-30 minutes of our lives wasted.

Basically, the elevator has a mechanism that will not allow it to move up if any part of its door does not fully shut.  This is handy so that you do not lose a limb, or get strangled if some part of a shirt or hood gets caught in the door.  However, you would think the door would just re-open, not shut and then power-off all of the elevator button options. 

There was no lesson learned from this.  When packing, moving, storing, I am still going to cram in too much stuff in an effort to get it over with as fast as possible.

No Worries Mate

How many times has anyone in the states told you not to worry?  And furthermore, did you even hear them, or were you off worrying in your head and not paying attention?  I tend not to worry about too much since I came to the realization that I create my life through my thoughts (a ton of blog posts forthcoming on this).  But sometimes the influences of the media or other people’s stories of misfortune can start the worrying up again.  Not so in Australia, where I could not go an hour without hearing “No worries mate” from almost every person I encountered.

For example,
Scott says – “Hi can I get 2 pints of Victoria Bitter and some quick f*ck shots?”
Bartender answers – “Sure, no worries mate.”

2 quick f*ck shots with 2 VB chasers...mmmm

Scott says – “Excuse me, I forgot to order the calamari”
Waiter answers – “No worries mate.”

Scott says – “Can you tell me where the bar/restaurant/train/store is I’m trying to find?”
Random pedestrian answers – “Sure, no worries mate.”

There is a lot to be conveyed in that simple phrase.  I am stating something I need.  The Aussie on the other end of the exchange is making sure I don’t feel uncomfortable or worried about asking for something, by saying “No worries”.  And the person is adding in “mate” which is Aussie for friend, just to further put me at ease about whatever situation I am in.  How great is that?

The phrase “No worries mate” goes further than that.  It is a national mind-set.  Everyone was happy and calm…always smiling and cheery.  I could not get over it.  Here is the US I rarely go a day without someone saying “I’m worried that (blahblahblah fill in a worry)”  In Australia no one worried about anything and instead wanted to continually remind you not to worry either.  Americans could learn a few things from Australia.  I’m know I’m going to worry less than I already do.