Teresa Shen Swingler

Prettiest sunset tonight. We went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for their summer Saturday evening. It was nice to spend time as a family after a busy work week. We saw bighorn sheep, mountain lions, and cactus blossoms.

A book I contributed to, A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum, has been released. It was written in collaboration with a team of colleagues at IBM. It is available on Amazon and all proceeds go to charity.

Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for agile software development. This book provides useful information on how to implement it in globally-distributed teams consisting of members in different time zones, countries and cultures.

I am deathly afraid of monkeys. Especially monkeys who wear bow ties and baby blue suits.

Last night, we went to see Toy Story 3. I will be having nightmares of this wind-up cymbal-playing monkey for years!

Received “The Hour of the Star” by Clarice Lispector yesterday on my doorstep. Excited to read it with the PEN American Center online book club starting July 6th.

story of my life

This is a photo from my weekend trip to Flagstaff. It is the Bonito Lava Flow at Sunset Crater National Monument. It reminded me of the Big Island.

My writer gal pals and I had quite a few adventures this weekend. It was nice to escape the heat, write, talk, and laugh together.

A comprehensive city guide to all that is fun and cool about Tucson is on Design*Sponge. Some of my favorite places are listed and I still have several more to discover. I’m late to the d*s party — my sister, Oneida, was the third one to comment.

A few more “uniquely Tucson” places I would add: 

• Eegee’s I need an Iced Teagee (iced tea + lemon Eegee) regularly.
• Beyond Bread The Annie’s Addiction (hummus sandwich) is addicting.
• Yoshimatsu Quirky place, healthy Japanese food. The decor alone is worth it.
• Bookman’s Used Books I buy more books here than anywhere else. 
• Mildred & Dildred I love this “rather excellent toy store.” I buy dolls, creamy crayons, wooden fake food, birthday gifts, and intricate erasers here. They also have darling free plays.
• Frost Gelato Yummy gelato, especially in the hot, hot summer.

We recently saw this “celebrity” at Sam’s Club. My daughter was so excited she wanted to get her picture taken with him.

To me, the Michelin man resembles the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Marshmallow Man. He seems puffy, familiar, and approachable. My primary question as I looked at him was - Since tires are black, why is the Michelin Man white?

I looked him up on Wikipedia, the Michelin Web site, and CNN Money and learned several things in addition to the answer to my question:

• His Real Name: His official name is Bibendum. His nicknames are Bib the Michelin Man, Bibelobis, or simply the Micheline Man.
• He Affects Language: In Spanish, Michelin has acquired the meaning of the “spare tire”, or folds of fatty skin around the waist.
• He Was Inspired By Real Life: The inspiration for this icon was a stack of tires (“why, give him arms and legs and he’d be a man!) and a rejected sketch for a Munich brewery of a king hoisting a stein and uttering a Latin toast.
• The Advertising Message: The original 1898 poster reads Nunc est bibendum!! which translates to “Cheers!” or “Now is the time to drink!”. It also reads C’est à dire: À votre santé. Le pneu Michelin boit l’obstacle which translates to “That is to say, to your health. The Michelin tire drinks up obstacles”
• Why the Michelin Man is White: From CNN Money - “Bibendum was white because, at the turn of the century, most tires were the color of natural rubber, a sort of creamy white. Decades later, tire manufacturers added carbon black to the rubber to make it tougher and to provide better traction, but Bibendum retained his original light hue.”

Yay for the elephant couch @ Antigone Books.

Good looking new Nabakov covers designed by Pentagram.

Hilarious.

I love how they feature DFW’s Consider the Lobster.

Charming blog posts on how to experience the Parisienne lifestyle in American cities. I’ve been dying to visit since I was in 7th grade, but it will be a while before I can get there. In the meantime, I’m thinking of doing this same type of research here in my town.

Love these photos of people reading from Andre Kertesz.

These photos from The Sartorialist make me want to buy a trench coat. Yeah, I’m impressionable like that. Oops, just bought one (not Burberry, though).