Processing the virtual sticky notes in my BugMe app on my iPhone that I accumulated with what I learned, here they are…

• So what is that pictured above? It is a large toilet? Or a statue of Jay Leno’s chin? No, it is the start of one of the 4 new sculptures as part of the 1,004 Portraits installation at Chicago’s Millennium Park. The artist who created the Crown Fountain is behind this, as this sculpture and 3 others in a more inconspicuous location are extensions of the original 1,000 portraits that are illuminated on the glass block towers that is the hottest attraction on summer’s hottest days. This giant head will be looking at me for the next year and a half.
• Speaking of the Crown Fountain, they finally aligned the video with the spitting water, so the water looks like it is coming out of the people’s mouths, rather than their lip or moustache as it has been for the last couple of years.
• Like many of you, I have been wondering what Goldie Hawn has been up to the last few years. It turns out she has a foundation, appropriately called The Hawn Foundation, which aims to create programs to help kids learn and grow emotionally stable, all without pharmaceuticals. I haven’t looked into this fully, but I have been following them on Twitter as their goal sounds noble.
• Thank you Chicago Blackhawks for another hard-fought exciting season of hockey. Watching you lose in overtime in the final leading to the Stanley Cup was heartbreaking, but you made it interesting leading up to it.
• The Caribou Coffee shop at 20 Michigan Avenue in Chicago is closing on June 15. Right next door to it is a Starbucks, and next to that a Panera Bread and around the corner from it is another Starbucks. Going the other way is a Caffe Baci where you can get coffee, a Walgreen’s where you can get anything to drink, then next to it a 24 hour Dunkin Donuts, and next to it Toni Patisserie where you can get coffee too. Oh, and around the corner is the Pittsfield Café, which serves a great inexpensive breakfast and, you guessed it, coffee.
• Though I will still be drinking coffee, my warm weather drink has become the margarita – on the rocks with no salt.
• I received an email that the Box Tops Marketplace, where you could earn virtual Box Tops for Education for your favorite school by simply clicking on a store link, is closing as of July 31. With the simplicity of earning points which are essentially affiliate referrals, I am surprised it has been around this long.
• Good luck Jen on your new adventure! We will miss you, and I am sure you will miss us when you’re cashing in all of those frequent flyer miles and sitting in first class.
• When I took my daughter on a play date with her friend to a Chicago White Sox game, her first large sporting event, I was a little sad when I found out the tickets were virtual, a QR code to be scanned from the TicketMaster app. But low and behold, upon scanning them the ticket agent printed an “MLB Fan Pass” which is essence a ticket stub. So now she has something for her scrap book.
• This past week baseball journeyman Don Zimmer died too young at 83 after serving three score and 6 years in the game he loved. I will always remember him as manager of the Boston Red Sox when I was growing up, and with all of the other teams he played or coached for, many people will have their own memories of him. One thing I learned about him was he was the catalyst for baseball introducing batting helmets.
• Is it just me or am I the only person trying to do enterprise mobile app adoption, marketing and promotion?
• Something happened this week when trying to rearrange my work schedule and I said out loud, “great googly moogly” and thought of the infamous Snickers commercial. I have embedded it below or click the above link to watch it on YouTube, and tell me in the comments ot this post if we should try to bring back that phrase!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Announcements • Business • Diversions • QR Codes • Technology • What I Learned • (3) Comments • Permalink