If you are a fan of PUMA shoes like me, then you will have to check out their interactive tool that allows you to design your own custom shoe design!  It is called the Mongolian Shoe BBQ.  It is a very clever theme.  The interactive Adobe Flash experience simulates a visit to a Mongolian style grill restaurant.  A Mongolian BBQ restaurant is different than your traditional restaurant.  In a Mongolian BBQ, you get to choose all your fresh ingredients for your meal, then the chef will prepare your dinner to your specific custom order.  Puma takes this concept into the online shopping realm, and presents a menu of shoes for you the patron. 

Some patrons just want one of the “house specialties”, for those people, just browse through the selection.  This is the traditional way of ordering your meal.  I wanted to design a custom puma shoe from the ground up.  This is the Mongolian BBQ way of getting a personalized meal of my preference.  It was really fun.  You can change everything from the Side of the shoe, Top of the shoe, Back of the shoe, the Tongue, down to the color of the Puma logos.  AWESOME!

While you choose your styles/colors, the picture of your “meal” updates in real time.  What was impressive is that these are NOT boring flat style graphics that update with cheesy colors.  The pictures of your custom shoe are real photographs of the shoe material.  This gives you the ability to really see what the end result is going to look like.

I had a ball designing my shoe.  Screenshots of my Puma masterpiece can be seen below at various angles.  Hahaha don’t laugh, everyone has different taste, and this shopping tool is the perfect example of how to cater to a broad range of customers.

And if you are wondering if you can actually buy the custom designed Puma shoes that your create, the answer is YES!  There is a Buy Now button.  The total cost was $100.00 US.  Not bad for a unique pair of shoes.

So if you love PUMA shoes, be sure to visit the Mongolian Shoe BBQ site and go wild!  Just be careful, it is very easy to make an ugly pair of shoes.  But with a little trial and error, you can come up with a design to suit your taste.

So winter is upon us, and that tends to bring in more sick people to work.  I notice that my co-worker in the neighboring desk has two cans of orange juice already finished before 9:00am.  As the morning went on, the surrounding sniffles, snorts, coughs, and sneezes around us seemed to increase.  That's it, I'm jumping on this sticky Vitamin-C train to protection.

The wall separating the desks is about three orange juice cans high.  I quickly slam two cans of orange juice to "catch up".  It immediately turns into a competition.  OJ Race 2010 is born!

Here was the goal: The person who gets above the wall first, claims victory. 

The OJ cans start to pile up.  I'm getting nervous, because my competition is one can in the lead!  I just ate a gallon of Corn Chowder soup, so my stomach is very full.  BUT, I must catch up!  Time to get another can of orange juice to even the score.  The third can of juice is difficult to put on top of a full stomach.  I feel defeated by these tiny cans of orange goodness.  I feel ashamed that I'm this full.  Last sip... there... all squared up.  This is going to go into overtime.  It is going to come down to the game winning field goal, much like the end of the NFC Championship game between the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings.  Here is a shot at the end of the 4th quarter:

Both competitors now have gurgling stomachs.  The acidity of the OJ feels like flames burning an ulcer in our bellies.  We make eye contact.  Then we both look at our last mini can of Welch's Orange Juice.  Grab them.  Open them.  Chug them.  It's on!!!!!!!!

The Final Result: 

I lost by a half of a second.  It was a close, citrus-filled race.  Congrats to my competitor and his quick tower of Orange Power.  He has earned the title of "Orange Juice Chugger of the Month".

So Marty McFly sported an awesome nylon vest in one of my favorite movies "Back to the Future".  I used to have a nylon tri-colored vest/jacket with snaps similar to his.  It had zippered pockets and zippered sleeves.  You could zip off the sleeves and keep the pits aired out.  I never had the sleeves on because I grew up in Florida, but it was a great way to keep partially warm during that walk to the school bus on those cool mornings.  Cool mornings in Florida were about 50 degrees Farenheit.  The bottom snap did not work.  It was broke the first day I had it.  I hated that snap.  Many attempts to fix that snap failed.  I even tried to put candlewax on it to make it snap.  Not sure where I heard that stupid remedy, but was willing to try.

Here is a great example of a Puffy Orange Nylon Vest with Snaps:

Man, that one is in perfect condition.  I think I may have to find one on eBay soon for nostalgic purposes.

Random side note: The Back to the Future picture above has FLAMES in it!  I love it.