5-Step Moisturizing Regimen

My moisturizing journey and skin care habits have been wrought with mistakes and youthful ignorance. I visited a tanning bed or two in my early 20s. "I just want a slight glow," I told myself, as I fried my largest organ in radiation chambers that came with a warning.

I cringe at the thought that in 2009 my sister, uncle, and I went to Guatemala and baked our bodies under the almost-equatorial sun to the point that we had rotate ourselves in a moving line under a spigot that dripped cold water for two full days. "But think about how tan we'll be when this all peels off," I remember one of us saying. "Totally." the other two responded.

Fortunately before I moved to Palau in 2012 I had started to think more about my future. "I don't want to come back to the U.S. looking like dried leather," I told a woman at the grocery store who had noticed I was shopping for sunscreen, just like she was. She said she was going to the Caribbean for a week. "Same," she said. "Why would I want to be hot for a few months if the price is prunes for a lifetime?"

I didn't moisturize in Palau. The air did that for me. But I did obsessively protect my skin from UV rays to the point that I did not receive a single sunburn in the time I lived there.

A year or two after I moved back I started dating a guy who was probably too young for me. "What are you thinking?" I asked him when he told me he was going to a tanning salon after work. I heard myself turning into an old man, so I just went for it. We were standing on the side of South Temple in downtown Salt Lake City, getting ready to cross the street. "Learn these lessons in your youth!" I shouted, impersonating some unnamed elderly person while shaking my fist.

An Announcement

First, an announcement. I'M PREGNANT.

How many more times can I keep making that joke? The problem with humor blogging is that I make all kinds of jokes and I never have any idea whether you think a particular joke is funny because I can't tell if you're laughing. So I say "twice up the barrel, once down the side" eleventy times in every post and I imagine you bent over laughing. But for all I know forty of you stop reading every time I write that phrase because you're so annoyed that I'm using it and because you don't think it means anything. Even though I've already told you that it means "twice up the barrel, once down the side."

Anyway, if for no other reason, I should stop making the pregnancy joke because what if one day I actually do become pregnant and then I'm really excited to tell you and none of you believe me? Then who would throw me a baby shower and slap my child at the grocery store?

State of the Union

This is sort of a state of the union post. Because I’ve now been in the United States of God Bless America for over two weeks and some of you are getting extremely angry with me that I basically haven’t told you anything about my life in those two weeks except that I now live with someone who sets up furniture in the elevator and apparently hasn’t bought into the whole “cat scratching” thing yet.

These two weeks have been a ridiculous roller coaster of all things. Every time I try to gather my thoughts and update you on what are some of the biggest life changes I’ve ever had, I feel an immediate information overload and find myself unable to concisely get it all down in words. So instead I end up writing about cats. Add to the overwhelming nature of the life changes, I have been so incredibly busy getting my affairs back in order and starting a new and demanding job that I haven’t had the time that I hoped to have to sit down and write.

So this is my sad attempt at giving you some updates. Because it’s been hard for you guys to stalk me lately since I’ve been so off the map. And when you guys can’t properly stalk me, NONE of us are happy.

Back in the U.S. of A.

I need to be quick today because I have spent 987 of the last 72 hours on planes and I am CRANKY. Ok, not really that cranky. Because I stopped sweating for the first time in 6 months. And how can you be cranky when you've stopped sweating for the first time in 6 months?

The trip from Palau to Salt Lake City went without too much drama, although it did require 4 flights, 3 long layovers, 2 days, and a partridge in a pear tree.

When I got to the airport in Salt Lake, I immediately started shivering and I have not stopped since.

About 38 seconds after landing, I messaged my sister Krishelle and demanded that she escort me to the nearest mall where we wandered for 3 hours just staring at all the stuff that there is to buy in this wonderful world.

Stuff is incredible. Guys. Don't take stuff for granted.

Friend Divorce

A few items of business today. First as I mentioned a week or two ago, I will be coming to the U.S. soon. I would like to formally warn all of the malls and everyone who sells burritos to be prepared for me. Because I'm not going to go easy on them. It's about to get real, malls and Mexican restaurants of America. I will visit all of you. And then I'm going to use the hell out of my parents' dishwasher.

Second, I have decided to go with Steph's suggestion (and a few others) of naming my visit the "Twice Up the Barrel Tour" and I think we'll refer to the portion in which I'm going to DC the "Eli Goes to Washington" segment of the Twice Up the Barrel Tour. Thank you Jennifer for the Washington suggestion. And thank you everyone for helping out with this very important decision.

Third, during the Twice Up the Barrel Tour, I will be performing at (on?) The Porch. The Porch was kind enough to invite me back for their April 18 show in Provo Utah. Last year I had a great time telling stories at two of The Porch's shows and those people have been so kind and inviting to our Stranger community. I hope some of you can make it to the April 18 show. I would love to meet or reconnect with you all. I haven't decided which story I'll tell yet but I have some ideas. And I promise, none of them involve my cat hoarding problem. I will keep you all posted on the specifics and will let you know when tickets are available on The Porch's site.

And now,

A Very Enlightening Conversation with Daniel this Weekend

Texts With A 12 Year Old

I'm in the middle of a humor competition for attorneys and I'm supposed to send a short video of me attempting to be funny so a bunch of people can sit in a back room somewhere and judge me (it's high school social circles all over again). The top six from this round will compete in finals in New York at a comedy club in May. We'll be shooting the video this Thursday on The Porch at Muse Music in Provo. I didn't expect to be on The Porch again but I'm so excited to be back and would love to see some of you there (I would even love to see all of you there, but some of you are probably serial killers so maybe it's best to just have the "safe-for-societies" out). I've sent invites to Larry, The Queen of Colors, and The First Eye, but I'm not expecting much as none of them have ever really been there for me when I've needed it the most. Lohan will be there, of course. But that's just because he depends on living inside me to stay alive (bless his heart). Doors open at 7:30. Please come and laugh super hard, even if it's forced (I have no problem with fake laughter).

In other news, my good friend Matt sent me screen clippings of a recent text conversation he had with a seventh grade girl who texted him thinking he was a seventh grade boy she apparently has a seventh grade crush on. Below is the conversation. We love you Matt. And we all hope you don't end up on "To Catch a Predator" one day.

Ukrainian Appendectomy Podcast

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was going to be telling a story on The Porch. The event happened and was incredibly fun. The Porch is a show that takes place in Utah where story tellers come together and share a wide range of experiences--some funny, some inspirational, some sad, etc. As you probably guessed, I was invited to come share an inspirational story about overcoming adversity a humorous experience. So I had the occasion, before a very generous audience, to tell one of my favorite stories from my life: having a surprise emergency appendectomy in a forest in western Ukraine in 2004 (I'm really not kidding). It was great to meet some stranger readers there who came and supported. For those who missed it but desperately wanted to hear the story, I have good news! It was recorded and the surprisingly good quality podcast is found HERE. For those of you who missed it and didn't want to hear the story, I don't have any good news. Below are a few pictures from the night:

The End of the World

In case you hadn't heard yet, the world is ending on May 21st (this coming Saturday). See http://www.wecanknow.com/. These people mean business. When I tried to order a bumper sticker from them this afternoon, I was told that it's too late because "with our Lord's Return such a short time away, we are no longer offering free printed materials since there is not enough time remaining for us to effectively produce and distribute them." (And by the way, I would like to take this time to formally award wecanknow.com the "Tellin-it-like-it-is" award. Congratulations. May you join the short list of mind-speakers proudly).

When I saw this, I thought, maybe I should stop studying for the bar. I mean, I don't have that much to lose because they've given me a date that's close enough that I don't forfeit much if I alter my week plans in vein. Had they listed May 21st of next year as the date, it would be a trickier decision. On the one hand, if I stopped everything boring that I was doing and the world did in fact end when predicted, then I would have made out pretty well in that situation. Of course if I wasted the year and nothing happened after all, I would be pretty upset with someone.

But Saturday? I could blow some pretty miserable things off this week, because there's no sense in memorizing a bunch of stuff about criminal punishments if God is going to swoop down and take care of it all with his own form of due process just four days from now. If he doesn't show up, I can make up four days pretty quickly.

Other things you may want to consider blowing off this week:

1. Brushing your teeth
2. Exercise
3. Eating sushi just so your friends think you're cultured (it doesn't really have that effect anymore anyway).
4. Planning your summer family reunion (especially if you're ordering t-shirts (see wecanknow.com message above)).
5. Yard work (it may all get burned up on Saturday anyway)
6. Anything at your job that has a deadline post-May 21st (you're probably pretty safe to hold off for now)
7. Don't start Crime & Punishment. In my experience it will take more than six years to finish it (I did read 3 pages recently, in case you wanted an update on my progress. But it's going back on hold until after May 21st).
8. Calling any customer service line to get a problem resolved (especially if it's Dell or T-Mobile, in which case you may be on the phone until the judgment day no matter when it comes anyway).
9. Buying anything from Costco. You won't get through it in time and it will take you an hour to find what you're looking for.
10. Dieting. I mean, you probably don't want gluttony to be listed among your final acts, but there's really no point in starving yourself for the next four days if there will be no need to have a beach body this summer.

I only wish I had heard about this before my long run last Saturday where I actually attempted to drink out of a river because (surprise, surprise) I somehow forgot, again, that my body needs fluid when I exercise in the blazing sun for two hours at a time. Fortunately I stopped myself from river-drinking after noticing a dead animal half-way in the water just four feet up-stream (it was a May miracle).

Anything else anyone would like to hold off on until we're sure that there will be a next week?

On the bright side, if the world does end, at least that means that "Glee" won't return for a third season.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Why I'm Not A:

Doctor:

When I was in Mr. Landeen's seventh grade science class, we started talking about diseases (because that's what you do in seventh grade science class). I sat on the front row next to my friend Aaron Ludwig who had broken his leg and got to use crutches, so naturally I spent the whole of 1997 jumping from the top of stairs unnecessarily to try to fracture any bone that could also allow me to use crutches and garner at least as much attention as he had been receiving. Fortunately, I was never quite brave enough to fully commit to said venture and so never ended up with so much as a bruise. Some things never change. Anyway, during Mr. Landeen's lecture on the common cold, I found myself suddenly extremely light-headed. After a minute or two, Aaron Ludwig raised his hand and said, "I think Eli is about to hurl." I did not hurl, but rather passed out cold onto the tile floor. So there's that. Ever since I've avoided any detailed conversation concerning any physical ailment, whatsoever. Also I'm generally terrified of the human body. And catheters.

Police Officer:

When I was eight my dad took me fishing. I saw the small buoys bouncing up and down on the water and asked him what they were. Having learned a few parenting tricks from my mother over the years, he found the most disturbing explanation he could imagine, conveyed that explanation to me with a straight face, and then turned it into a lesson: "obviously, that's where the police put children when they are misbehaving, and the more misbehaving children there are, the more crowded those become." (In Bob and Cathie's defense, I was apparently the spawn of Satan until at least age 12. And apparently their somewhat morbid practices worked to some degree as I'm now a relatively well-behaved adult, although one with many irrational fears). Rather than become concerned that I might be stuffed in there with the undoubtedly hundreds of suffocating children (and yes, these buoys were about the size of a basketball; I believed in many impossible things at age eight, including one creature my older sisters invented called "The First Eye" which was a giant eyeball with 1,000 toes all the way around the perimeter. It lived in every cave on Earth and terrified children. I still get the chills when I drive through southern Utah and see dark holes in the red rock), I thought to myself how horrible it must be for the police officers to have to swim out to the middle of the lake to stuff children into the bouncing buoys. This was a terrifying thought mostly because I was sure that lake was full of giant vengeful fish with razor sharp teeth (who were apparently smart enough not to fall for our bait as I'm sure we caught nothing that day). I think somewhere in the back of my mind I firmly resolved that I would never have a job that required me to do anything like that. And by the time I was 23 and realized that that story was probably not true, I was already unpersuaded-ly comfortable that I would make a terrible police officer.

Veterinarian:

I hate animals.

Hairdresser:

At age six I cut Micalyne's hair. She was four. I did an amazing job. I took out half of her bangs and cut out a couple of chunks from the back that I didn't think needed to be there. I thought it made her look "real" and approachable. Cathie, on the other hand, did not feel the same way at all. Fortunately for six-year-old Eli, the whole thing got blamed on Libby from down the street, which Micalyne verified was the true perpetrator of the massacred hair, because evidently Bob and Cathie hadn't yet figured out that child-Micalyne just answered "yes" to every question asked of her, and they just happened to ask first whether Libby had cut her hair. It is also possible that child-Micalyne just had a terrible memory (this came in handy once again two years later when I scratched her misspelled name into the bumper of Bob's car, to which she admitted guilt (I intentionally misspelled it to make it look more authentic. She was only six years old after all)). In any event, I have now gone two full decades without fessing up to the hair-cutting incident. So there it is mom and dad: it was me. I hope my punishment didn't accrue interest.

~It Just Gets Stranger

30 Ways You Know You've Spent Too Much Time in Eastern Europe

1. You start to say things like, “Well now that mullet doesn’t look too bad.”
2. You start referring to your grandmas as “bobs.”
3. You hug/shake hands with/practically spoon several smelly drunk strangers on the street multiple times a week without thinking anything of it.
4. You stop asking why 5,000 police officers are perfectly lined up a down the street looking mad but doing nothing because you know very well that there is no answer.
5. You know what vodka tastes like even though you’ve never had any.
6. You find yourself climbing to the front of the crowed at stores without thinking twice about whether there is supposed to be a line.
7. You get bored when a non-techno song is being played.
8. You don’t feel like your personal space has been violated when a stranger practically sits on your lap on public transport even though there are many entire rows available.
9. You have to pick a new candy store after you’ve depleted the first one of your favorite stuff over a period of a few weeks.
10. You start to speak constantly in the same voice you would use to tell a bed-time story, dramatic iambic pentameter and all.
11. You think it's perfectly reasonable to write everything down in gigantic squiggly handwriting on one-sided graph-paper.
12. You feel more secure when a sign or paper has a giant ink stamp on the bottom.
13. You stop asking if it’s a holiday every time you hear fireworks.
14. You throw away all of your shorts and start wearing tight black jeans to play sports no matter how hot and uncomfortable it gets.
15. You go shopping at the rinok for Speedos so you can hang out at the beach.
16. You start wishing endless dramatic lists of very specific blessings on everyone you encounter when a simple “goodbye” would suffice.
17. You check a thousand times a day whether you still have your passport.
18. You implicitly start to believe that sitting on the ground will make you go sterile.
19. You start eating questionable food from street vendors without using hand sanitizer first.
20. You don’t think anything tastes good unless it’s been soaked in cold oil for a few hours first.
21. You sort of start to think it’s funny when people dressed like cartoon characters on TV hit each other on the head for hours on end on every TV show on every channel.
22. You stop caring about whether or not you’ve contracted tuberculosis.
23. You think it’s perfectly reasonable to drive on the sidewalk during a traffic jam, fully expecting to cut right back into traffic half a mile down the road.
24. You don’t think twice when you see nicely dressed homeless beggars yacking away on their super fancy cell-phones.
25. You wonder at least once whether all the second hand smoke is going to kill your brain or lungs first.
26. You start to think that a fish net is perfectly acceptable clothing for any age or gender.
27. You stare at people in public who are smiling and try to figure out where they are from.
28. You stare at people in public who aren’t smiling and don’t feel awkward about it.
29. You wake up each morning fully expecting to go grocery shopping three times by the end of the day.
30. You completely forget what it feels like to get something done quickly.

~It Just Gets Stranger

Oh, and One More Thing

Was anyone else functioning under the impression that our brainiac highly paid NASA rocket scientists were prepared to give us some kind of a warning that an asteroid is almost close enough to feel it? I know outer-space is kind of big but come on! You have one job! I was just going to give some kind of comparison to my job as a banker but I can't think of a proper analogy to warning the world that a 200 foot rock has traveled millions of miles to cause as much destruction as a nuclear bomb.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,503164,00.html

~It Just Gets Stranger

Thanks For Not Being Forward

It's time we talk about email forwards. My relationship with any of you who may have sent me any of the following forwards will likely be awkward for a little while. Nothing we can't overcome I'm sure.

Over the past 40 years or so of my life (give or take about 15), I have received email forwards of many kinds which have intrigued, manipulated, and irritated me to no end. Here I present the various types and what to look out for:


MANIPULATIVE RELIGIOUS FORWARDS

These, I think, start somewhere in the south. They are usually created by the same people that walked across the Bible belt throughout 2008 chanting some cute slogan using words that rhyme with "Huckabee." They come in two main types. The first (and possibly the most annoying) are an almost endless string of sayings in size 200 font separated by the cheesiest computer graphics you've seen since computers began. So that you'll recognize these emails quickly, one of the first quotes is usually either "every time a leaf falls, an angel is hugging the Earth" or "a sunset is just God's way of sayin' 'so long'!" Because of the length of these emails, it takes several minutes for them to load all the way.

The second type of MRFs have a looooooooooooooong story about some child who watered a plant every day because the Bible said we should respect all living creatures; then at the end the plant inevitably saves his life and as one friend tells the boy how lucky he was, the boy says back "yeah . . . luck" as he swears he sees a cloud in the heavens wink at him.

The reason MRF's are manipulative has to do with the way they end; they usually say something like "funny how most of you will forward funny emails but you'll think twice before sending one about God!" The really blunt ones might actually tell you the heavens weep when you delete their emails (as if heaven doesn't have better computer graphics than presented in the MRF's). To the untrained mind, these statements may be enough to get you to send the emails on, fully believing that this is the ultimate test of faith, and pressing that delete button will be counted against you at the judgment day. I on the other hand am ashamed to forward these on; but it has nothing to do with my belief in God.

MANIPULATIVE PATRIOTIC FORWARDS

MPF's are similar to MRF's. Every once in a while these are somewhat pleasant. Often they seem completely fabricated. And their hidden purpose is usually to show why one political party hates soldiers. Either way, I steer clear of people who make their political choices and major life decisions off of what they've read in these emails.

The manipulation section is similar to the one found in the MRF's except it will say something like, "the soldiers have the courage to fight for you every day and some of you won't even have the courage to send this to your friends." And so some of us will forward it even though much of it seems packed with lies and one-sided rhetoric in some vein hope that this will somehow be the equivalent to serving in the military for a couple of years.

INAPPROPRIATE HUMOROUS FORWARDS

These always come from the friends that would never tell me an inappropriate joke in person; so I end up reading far into the email sometimes before I realize that it is, in fact, an IHF. I usually just delete these and then spend the rest of the day wondering if that friend sent me the forward on accident.

OUTRAGEOUS PETITION FORWARDS

These are often touted as my favorites. They usually have some completely fabricated story about a time when justice wasn't served followed by a plea to email-sign a petition. I say "email-sign" because instead of actually signing something, you are asked to type your name at the end of a long list and then send it out to every Cindy Lou and Mary Beth you know so they may do the same. I've often wondered how they would go about collecting these in the end. In brief, it may look like this:

Mur Derousthief was caught in 1992 murdering an entire town of 3,000 in Iowa after plotting the entire thing for over a decade in his basement. He killed everyone in the whole town so now, after only a few short years in prison, the judge decided to set him free because there is noone left from the town to prosecute him and the judge ordered [a city near you] to give him a $300k home and a large stipend each month unless 10,000 people sign this email petition. Before you delete this email, you should know that one person managed to get some of the killings on tape . . . and he was laughing the whole time! And now he's in charge of Disneyland!!!

Then you have to scroll down the page for about 12 minutes to get to the bottom to find out if the friend who sent it to you actually email-signed the thing before sending it on. I'm always amused when the friend hasn't signed; it's as though they see that the entire thing is completely implausible, but they want to send it out to others just in case.

The other OPF's can be grouped with the MRF's because they're all about churches' freedom of religion. These will usually have some story about how a certain senator is moments from getting some piece of legislation passed that will forbid anyone from believing in God unless we can get x number of signatures on this petition. And this seems perfectly reasonable because we've seen thousands of bills that we've never heard of, but undoubtedly would completely turn the country upside down, stopped in their tracks when some techie in Washington rushed into congress with a thousand pages he printed off from the petition email he just received. Right? Wrong:(

TACKY GRUSOME FORWARDS

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase stop sending me these! If you love sending me forwards that's fine but I can't do the TGF's anymore! I never know they are TGF's until it's too late because the subject usually just says something like "interesting pictures" or "must see" and for all I know I'm about to stumble across some neat shots of deep sea creatures having a picnic together. Instead I'm unexpectedly bombarded with the most horrific pictures of some bear attack in Wyoming that tore an entire family reunion apart, cheesy matching t-shirts and all. I usually spend the rest of the day curled up in the corner crying (as if I needed anything else to be terrified of) after exposure to the TGF's.

I'm hoping we all have a better idea of what to look out for. The Internet is a scary world; and one day those that started the forwards will have to answer for their actions. They'll probably do it in an email.

It Just Gets Stranger~

McDonald's' Coffee: The Other Side of the Story

Have you ever sat around with your friends and talked about that sue happy maniac that got over 2 million dollars from McDonalds for spilling coffee on herself? Have you ever actually read the facts of that case? Did you know that this was an 81 year old woman who had never sued anyone before and didn't want to sue McDonald's but felt she had to when they refused to help her cover $800 in medical costs that she couldn't afford when she had to get multiple skin grafts from the severe 3rd degree burns from the coffee that McDonald's had been warned many many times before was dangerously hot and could eventually kill someone? Would you have felt any differently if this was your grandma who wanted to peacefully settle for a more than reasonable amount but was jerked around constantly by this giant company through emotionally draining litigation for years? I have only scraped the surface of how egregious this is; Below I have pasted an article that details the case. You may find it interesting . . .

McDonald's, known for its fastidious control over franchisees, requires that its coffee be prepared at very high temperatures, based on recommendations of coffee consultants and industry groups that say hot temperatures are necessary to fully extract the flavor during brewing. Before trial, McDonald's gave the opposing lawyer its operations and training manual, which says its coffee must be brewed at 195 to 205 degrees and held at 180 to 190 degrees for optimal taste. Since the verdict, McDonald's has declined to offer any comment, as have their attorneys. It is unclear if the company, whose coffee cups warn drinkers that the contents are hot, plans to change its preparation procedures.

Coffee temperature is suddenly a hot topic in the industry. The Specialty Coffee Association of America has put coffee safety on the agenda of its quarterly board meeting this month. And a spokesman for Dunkin' Donuts Inc., which sells about 500 million cups of coffee a year, says the company is looking at the verdict to see if it needs to make any changes to the way it makes coffee.


Others call it a tempest in a coffeepot. A spokesman for the National Coffee Association says McDonald's coffee conforms to industry temperature standards. And a spokesman for Mr. Coffee Inc., the coffee-machine maker, says that if customer complaints are any indication, industry settings may be too low -- some customers like it hotter. A spokeswoman for Starbucks Coffee Co. adds, "Coffee is traditionally a hot beverage and is served hot and I would hope that this is an isolated incident."

Coffee connoisseur William McAlpin, an importer and wholesaler in Bar Harbor, Maine, who owns a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, says 175 degrees is "probably the optimum temperature, because that's when aromatics are being released. Once the aromas get in your palate, that is a large part of what makes the coffee a pleasure to drink."

Public opinion is squarely on the side of McDonald's. Polls have shown a large majority of Americans -- including many who typically support the little guy -- to be outraged at the verdict. And radio talk-show hosts around the country have lambasted the plaintiff, her attorneys and the jurors on air. Declining to be interviewed for this story, one juror explained that he already had received angry calls from citizens around the country.


It's a reaction that many of the jurors could have understood -- before they heard the evidence. At the beginning of the trial, jury foreman Jerry Goens says he "wasn't convinced as to why I needed to be there to settle a coffee spill."

At that point, Mr. Goens and the other jurors knew only the basic facts: that two years earlier, Stella Liebeck had bought a 49-cent cup of coffee at the drive-in window of an Albuquerque McDonald's, and while removing the lid to add cream and sugar had spilled it, causing third-degree burns of the groin, inner thighs and buttocks. Her suit, filed in state court in Albuquerque, claimed the coffee was "defective" because it was so hot.

What the jury didn't realize initially was the severity of her burns. Told during the trial of Mrs. Liebeck's seven days in the hospital and of her skin grafts, and shown gruesome photographs, jurors began taking the matter more seriously. "It made me come home and tell my wife and daughters don't drink coffee in the car, at least not hot," says juror Jack Elliott.

Even more eye-opening was the revelation that McDonald's had seen such injuries many times before. Company documents showed that in the past decade McDonald's had received at least 700 reports of coffee burns ranging from mild to third degree, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.

Some observers wonder why McDonald's, after years of settling coffee-burn cases, chose to take this one to trial. After all, the plaintiff was a sympathetic figure -- an articulate, 81-year-old former department store clerk who said under oath that she had never filed suit before. In fact, she said, she never would have filed this one if McDonald's hadn't dismissed her request for compensation for pain and medical bills with an offer of $800.

Then there was the matter of Mrs. Liebeck's attorney. While recuperating from her injuries in the Santa Fe home of her daughter, Mrs. Liebeck happened to meet a pair of Texas transplants familiar with a Houston attorney who had handled a 1986 hot-coffee lawsuit against McDonald's. His name was Reed Morgan, and ever since he had deeply believed that McDonald's coffee is too hot.


For that case, involving a Houston woman with third-degree burns, Mr. Morgan had the temperature of coffee taken at 18 restaurants such as Dairy Queen, Wendy's and Dunkin' Donuts, and at 20 McDonald's restaurants. McDonald's, his investigator found, accounted for nine of the 12 hottest readings. Also for that case, Mr. Morgan deposed Christopher Appleton, a McDonald's quality assurance manager, who said "he was aware of this risk . . . and had no plans to turn down the heat," according to Mr. Morgan. McDonald's settled that case for $27,500.

Now, plotting Mrs. Liebeck's case, Mr. Morgan planned to introduce photographs of his previous client's injuries and those of a California woman who suffered second- and third-degree burns after a McDonald's employee spilled hot coffee into her vehicle in 1990, a case that was settled out of court for $230,000.


Tracy McGee of Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, the lawyers for McDonald's, strenuously objected. "First-person accounts by sundry women whose nether regions have been scorched by McDonald's coffee might well be worthy of Oprah," she wrote in a motion to state court Judge Robert Scott. "But they have no place in a court of law." Judge Scott did not allow the photographs nor the women's testimony into evidence, but said Mr. Morgan could mention the cases.

As the trial date approached, McDonald's declined to settle. At one point, Mr. Morgan says he offered to drop the case for $300,000, and was willing to accept half that amount. But McDonald's didn't bite.


Only days before the trial, Judge Scott ordered both sides to attend a mediation session. The mediator, a retired judge, recommended that McDonald's settle for $225,000, saying a jury would be likely to award that amount. The company didn't follow his recommendation.

Instead, McDonald's continued denying any liability for Mrs. Liebeck's burns. The company suggested that she may have contributed to her injuries by holding the cup between her legs and not removing her clothing immediately. And it also argued that "Mrs. Liebeck's age may have caused her injuries to have been worse than they might have been in a younger individual," since older skin is thinner and more vulnerable to injury.


The trial lasted seven sometimes mind-numbing days. Experts dueled over the temperature at which coffee causes burns. A scientist testifying for McDonald's argued that any coffee hotter than 130 degrees could produce third-degree burns, so it didn't matter whether McDonald's coffee was hotter. But a doctor testifying on behalf of Mrs. Liebeck argued that lowering the serving temperature to about 160 degrees could make a big difference, because it takes less than three seconds to produce a third-degree burn at 190 degrees, about 12 to 15 seconds at 180 degrees and about 20 seconds at 160 degrees.

The testimony of Mr. Appleton, the McDonald's executive, didn't help the company, jurors said later. He testified that McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious burns, but hadn't consulted burn experts about it. He also testified that McDonald's had decided not to warn customers about the possibility of severe burns, even though most people wouldn't think it possible. Finally, he testified that McDonald's didn't intend to change any of its coffee policies or procedures, saying, "There are more serious dangers in restaurants."


Mr. Elliott, the juror, says he began to realize that the case was about "callous disregard for the safety of the people."

Next for the defense came P. Robert Knaff, a human-factors engineer who earned $15,000 in fees from the case and who, several jurors said later, didn't help McDonald's either. Dr. Knaff told the jury that hot-coffee burns were statistically insignificant when compared to the billion cups of coffee McDonald's sells annually.

To jurors, Dr. Knaff seemed to be saying that the graphic photos they had seen of Mrs. Liebeck's burns didn't matter because they were rare. "There was a person behind every number and I don't think the corporation was attaching enough importance to that," says juror Betty Farnham.

When the panel reached the jury room, it swiftly arrived at the conclusion that McDonald's was liable. "The facts were so overwhelmingly against the company," says Ms. Farnham. "They were not taking care of their consumers."


Then the six men and six women decided on compensatory damages of $200,000, which they reduced to $160,000 after determining that 20% of the fault belonged with Mrs. Liebeck for spilling the coffee.

The jury then found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious or wanton conduct, the basis for punitive damages. Mr. Morgan had suggested penalizing McDonald's the equivalent of one to two days of companywide coffee sales, which he estimated at $1.35 million a day. During the four-hour deliberation, a few jurors unsuccessfully argued for as much as $9.6 million in punitive damages. But in the end, the jury settled on $2.7 million. McDonald's has since asked the judge for a new trial. Judge Scott has asked both sides to meet with a mediator to discuss settling the case before he rules on McDonald's request. The judge also has the authority to disregard the jury's finding or decrease the amount of damages.

One day after the verdict, a local reporter tested the coffee at the McDonald's that had served Mrs. Liebeck and found it to be a comparatively cool 158 degrees. But industry officials say they doubt that this signals any companywide change. After all, in a series of focus groups last year, customers who buy McDonald's coffee at least weekly say that "morning coffee has minimal taste requirements, but must be hot," to the point of steaming.

Credit: Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

11 Moscovian Facts

I absolutely should be studying right now but instead I'll take a moment to pleasure you with some interesting facts about Moscow (thanks Wikipedia!) as I, quite understandably, can't seem to think of much else today:)

1. Moscow is the largest city in all of Europe.

2. The warmest temperature ever recorded in Moscow was 98 degrees; this was in 1936.

3. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Moscow was 44 degrees below 0. This was in 1940. Thank heavens I wasn't around that year.

4. The average high temperature in Moscow in May (when I'll arrive) is only 65 degrees.

5. Moscow has been rated the most expensive city to live in for a foreigner for 2 years in a row now :(

6. Izmaylovskiy Park in Moscow is 6 times larger than Central Park in New York City.

7. The Moscow metro has the longest escalators in Europe (I can't wait to see that as the escalators in the metro in Kyiv already seemed impossibly long).

8. On December 20th the sun doesn't rise in Moscow until 9:00 AM and sets at 3:58 giving Moscow less than 7 hours of daylight on its shortest days.

9. On June 20th the sun rises at 4:44 AM in Moscow and doesn't set until 10:18PM giving Moscow over 17 and 1/2 hours of direct sunlight on it's longest days.

10. Nobody has a very good guess as to the population of Moscow. Census records show that there are 12 million legal residents but most assume the real number is much much higher.

11. The famous Orthodox church with the onion domes which I posted a picture of in my previous post was built in the 16th century.

Yay! Who wants to come with me? (Don't worry, I'm NOT going in December).

Investor Vs. Depositor

I've been meaning to compose this post for a few months now in attempts to answer a some questions which I have been frequently asked this year by friends, family and many people I am in contact with through my job. For the past three years I have worked for a large national bank--one that I really like. You could say it's sort of a family thing; my oldest sister has worked for the same bank for a decade and my brother-in-law has also been affiliated with the company for several years. It's been a great experience for us all . . . until lately:) I say "until lately" because it has been due to recent turns in the economy, many of which are the result of terrible decisions made by the very companies (banks) that are now suffering, that have made work sort of a different experience this year. Because of all the hype and constant rumors, some perpetuated by the media which we've all sort of given more credence to than our own individual investigations and common sense, there has been an overboard panic and paranoia which is not entirely rational or justified. I am in no way a banking expert but I do know a thing or two and I hope to answer some of the most frequently asked questions today that I have been answering day-in day-out for months now.

Many of you are probably not fully aware of the paranoia I'm talking about. Those of us who are inside banks every day get front row seats to some of the madness as dozens of people (mainly the elderly for very justified and understandable reasons) storm the teller lines to quickly withdraw all of their funds "because I've seen the stock market today and you're going to fail any minute!!!" Please let me explain why this is COMPLETELY irrational:

1. Does a dip in the stock of a bank indicate risk for its customers?

Well, about as much risk as getting hit by lightening by going outside. Everything we do in life has some associated risk; depositing money in an FDIC insured banking institution brings no extra risk to anyone's financial security regardless of stock prices. Some of you just screamed "well why did the banks fail when the stock market dropped in the Great Depression?!" Well the government has imposed strict insurance regulations since that event in order to prevent a similar situation. As long as your money is FDIC insured, it does not matter how far a stock drops; you are just as safe with your money there as you are anywhere else. YOU ARE NOT AN INVESTOR; YOU ARE A DEPOSITOR. SO STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE STOCK. This is a simple principle that needs understanding. When someone pulls their money out of a bank because of a drop in stock price, the only thing it does is make the stock more shaky; it does not secure their money any more than if they had just left it in posession of the bank.

2. How much of my money can be FDIC insured and how do I know if mine is?

FDIC insurance has many rules that can seem a bit complicated but very simply put, typically each individual may have up to $100,000 FDIC insured at each banking institution with which they have a relationship. So if Suzy Q and Luke Skywalker have one joint money market account at Gringott's, they could have up to $200,000 in that account and still be completely insured. If they added their three children to the account who don't have any further relationship with Gringott's, their money would be insured up to $500,000 (100k per individual). You can find out if your money is FDIC insured by simply asking your bank. FDIC stickers are also placed all over branches.

3. But I don't want my money to be in a bank that fails regardless of insurance. I don't know how long it takes for the government to give me my money.

The United States government has no interest in doing anything that is going to create any more panic than already occurs when a bank falls. When the California based Indy Mac bank fell a month or two ago, the fed seized the bank on a Friday evening, worked furiously over the weekend, and opened the doors of the branches on Monday morning running business as usual. This was done with the intention of the FDIC running the operations of the bank until its assets were dealt with and the deposits were adopted by other banking institutions. The transition is smooth and relatively risk-free. I say "relatively" because of our next question:

4. Well, either way, wouldn't I be safer to just keep my money in cash under my mattress?

No. And slap yourself on the side of the head for asking that without thinking through it. The only reason you would want to keep all of your money in cash is because you don't believe the government is stable enough to insure your money when a bank fails. Well, if you don't think the government will last, I hope you don't think your dollar will be worth anything whether it's in the bank or in your pocket. I've also had some people recently decide to move their money despite the FDIC insurance because they didn't believe the government was going to make it, so they were putting funds into another bank whose stock seemed more stable. Well I don't know what bank you think will out-survive the government AND still make your dollar worth something but I think you're over-thinking it. I do think it's a great idea to keep some cash at home for emergency situations--especially local emergencies when banks may become temporarily inaccessible, but there is no sense in keeping your entire life savings under your mattress.

5. Should I just invest in gold? Gold will always be stable.

My personal opinion on this is that if you really want to "invest" then find something that will actually make you money; like a mutual fund. If you're buying gold just to keep your money secure, well the principle of the worth of gold is the same as the worth of the dollar: there is no intrinsic value in gold. The only think that will always have consistent value to mankind is food and shelter. Seems senseless to me to buy gold to secure or grow your money; but there are much worse things you could do.

In conclusion, I don't really believe we are going to see massive failings of national banks but rather, at worst we'll probably see a few more mergers and lay-offs but nothing that will affect a depositor's money as long as they have taken the necessary precautions. I'm a bit of an optimist but I think I'm also a realist. I'm a banker who is leaving his money alone and taking advantage of some of the great promotional interest rates in savings, money markets, and CD accounts that banks are advertising to try to retain some of the deposits that help the banks continue to function. If you have any other questions feel free to ask in the comments and I'll try to either answer or find the answer. Again, I'm no expert but I hope some of this info has been useful!