Jutta Kommt An

JWise Photo of the Day

Caroline Wise and her mother Jutta Engelhardt as her mom lands in Arizona from Frankfurt, Germany

And here she is, Jutta Engelhardt, my mother-in-law on her 5th visit to America. Jutta flew from Frankfurt, Germany to Chicago, Illinois, earlier in the day, only to be overwhelmed by our draconian immigration processes to such an extent that she missed her connecting flight to Arizona. So, after 15 hours in transit, this 71-year-old potential threat to the security of the United States was fingerprinted, photographed, had her bags taken apart on the lookout for god-knows-what, to be finally sent on her way 5 hours later. She arrived in Phoenix by evening instead of the early afternoon – at least America is safe tonight.

Wooden Injun

JWise Moments

A wooden representation of a Native American outside a local Arizona business signifying this shop as selling old west souvenirs

Around Arizona, you will find corners where these old carved wooden Indians still exist. This stereotypical version of what the average Native American looks like is used to entice Americans of foreign heritage to stop in for a peek at some old-west souvenirs. I think these mockeries should be destroyed. We as a society wouldn’t allow some wooden depiction of a black man with a large afro, thick lips, and a broad nose to be featured outside of a BBQ restaurant, or how about a big-nosed man wearing a Borsalino Black Hat with side curls carved out of wood standing vigil outside a synagogue. My personal favorite would be the wooden Nascar Redneck, buck teeth, beer in hand, Ford cap, mullet, and a cigarette dangling from his lips – this one would work outside bowling alleys, cheap bars, and many a sports arena.

#Sarcasm

Improvements

JWise Photo of the Day

Sonal Patel, owner of Indo-Euro Foods in Phoenix, Arizona

The barcodes, hardware, software, scanner, and training have finally come together and the new cash register and inventory system are working. Sonal Patel, above, is the owner of Indo-Euro Foods at 16th Street and Bell Road in Phoenix, Arizona. She and I have been working the past months to modernize her store with the addition of some automation to help her with inventory, customer support, and allow her to add an employee so she might enjoy some days off. This has been a tough process as none of her suppliers would supply electronic barcode information and so we have been forced to do all of the data entry ourselves. Little did we know when we started that there would be more than 1,700 items in her store. One more training session to learn how reports work and the process should be finished – phew.

Here Comes the Mother-in-Law

JWise Photo of the Day

Screen capture of some of the details that will make up the travels and activities for my mother-in-law's visit from Germany to America this winter.

My mother-in-law is already coming back. A week from today as a matter of fact. That’s right, she was just here last year. But that was almost 18 months ago and she has never spent a winter here in sunny Arizona and we thought it would be nice for her to get away from Germany’s long gloomy winter. I have been planning for weeks her travels and activities that we will share with her during her visit. Above is a sample of what my monitor looks like at any given moment while I work on her itinerary. Not much is left for improvizing as events sell out and good rooms can be hard to come by without some planning.

This visit will take us to Santa Barbara for Christmas, New Mexico on New Years’ for a massive flyout of migrating birds, a trip to San Francisco to see a performance of the Prairie Home Companion, and a visit to Alcatraz. We will stay at the El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, visit the remote western rim of the Canyon, drive parts of old Route 66 through ghost-towns, visit Death Valley, hang out in Los Angeles for a long weekend, go to the Renaissance Festival, take in the Kodo Drummers, and visit a fair share of museums and gardens prior to my mother-in-law’s departure in mid-May….err, I mean February.

Holographic I.D.

JWise Photo of the Day

Resident Alien Card - the backside

Caroline has finally received her new Resident Alien card – a modern new-fangled one! The backside of this I.D. card is amazing. A large metallic strip containing God-knows-what data runs the width of the card. Below that are DVD controls or what looks like controls anyway. Maybe a tunneling electron microscope could identify the myriad symbols down there. Near the top of the card are portraits of all of our United States Presidents, look real close, they are animated, if I could find the right control symbol below, I am certain I could make them talk. Caroline’s photograph from the front has been holographically embedded back here along with her signature. But what I really want to know, is what’s inside all that blank-looking reflective metal surface.