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Thanks to Anna P., each member of The Lodge has his own customized stein. I think the image speaks for itself:

And yes, please click on the image so you can see it in full detail because this little thumbnail doesn’t really do it justice.

I found this via Mauricio’s Facebook profile:

Hooked on a Feeling

I recall being about four or five years old and for some reason, I loved playing with sets of keys. On one day, my mother brought me a box from my paternal grandfather and explained that he had sent a present to me.

It was an enormous key ring, with what I recall being the most unique keys I had ever seen at one time. I was thrilled.

A few years down the road, Pop Pop (a family name given to him by his eldest grandchild) would come to visit us from back east, and bring my brother and I gifts from his travels in Asia and Europe and the Middle East. We’d hear stories about how he once fell asleep while swimming in the Dead Sea (the man could sleep just about anywhere) or how his Chinese hosts jokingly called him “Buddha Feet” because apparently he and the enlightened one shared abnormally large feet.

As the years passed, I gained an appreciation for his work at Princeton and his love for travel. His stories and experiences and attitude about life, along with the world map posted above his desk and dotted with red push pins, made me yearn to explore the world beyond the limits of my normal routine. In short, Pop Pop served as an inspiration.
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He passed away early on the morning of September 10th, 2006. I miss you already, Pop Pop.

After a long day of classes, I headed over to the shopping center adjacent to SFSU to wait for Mike and Mauricio to pick me up. With time to burn, I decided to waste a little money on the San Francisco Chronicle and found an extremely depressing story about an 8-year-old cancer patient whose dog was stolen.

To make matters more depressing, the dog was named Chemo.

I was going to write about how there are horrible, evil people in the world, the kind of people that would take a small dog from a kid with cancer, but then the search feature at the Chronicle website turned up this piece of good news: ‘Chemo’ the dog has been returned.

Suddenly the world isn’t such a sad place after all.