Karis Way

Random thoughts from Eagan, Minn.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Norway Is the Best Place in the World to Live

Do I have to speak Norwegian in order to move to Norway?

Aftenposten Norway, Norwegian news in English

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Piece of Glass in Kemps Ice Cream

While eating some Kemp's maple nut ice cream, I heard a crunch in my mouth and felt something strange, which I carefully removed from my mouth. It was glass -- two pieces of glass that probably had broken in half as I crunched on it. I called Kemps' Consumer Relations 800 number, left my name and phone number and received a return call from a woman to whom I relayed the incident.

She said, "There can't be glass in our ice cream because it is against our policy to have foreign matter in our ice cream." She wanted to know if we had broken glass in our house in recent weeks. I told her no and said that just because their policy is not to have foreign matter in their ice cream doesn't mean that there would not be foreign matter in their ice cream. She said that did not matter because their Quality Control would say just what she said: "It is against our policy to have foreign matter in our ice cream."

I said it doesn't matter what their "policy" is, it was now becoming a legal matter. That apparently perked up her ears because she seemed somewhat concerned and wanted to know why it might be of legal concern. I told her that I could have swallowed the glass and cut my throat or had internal bleeding that required a trip to the Emergency Room of a hospital. Further, I said that finding the glass in my mouth caused me "emotional distress."

I could hear that she was typing out my responses. She said they would send me "a coupon or two" to replace the ice cream and asked if I had saved the glass and would be willing to send it to them. I agreed to do so. She said that along with the coupons she would send me a plastic envelope and a return envelope to send them the glass. On second thought, maybe I should keep the glass and take it to a lawyer.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Giant Storm Petrel

This is the predator seen in "The March of the Penguins."

Giant_S_Petrel_and_Emperor.jpg 692x755 pixels

Friday, August 12, 2005

"The Feel-Good Society"

The author of this book, Jim Hutton, was a colleague in the Journalism Department at the University of St. Thomas.

The Feel-Good Society and Pentagram Publishing