Cats.

Lately I've noticed a lot of anti-cat "studies" and videos and such.  I can't believe that people would look at the bad part of cats only and not look at the good stuff.

Cats have pride.  If you kick a dog they will put their tails between their legs and beg your forgiveness.  Cats, on the other hand, will say (meow) "Screw you, I'm packing up my Little Friskies and you can kiss my fuzzy butt goodbye".  Point to cats.

Cats have a lot of respect for Gandhi.  No one ever puts two cats in a ring and fights them.  You know why?  They'll just meow and lay there, can you say non confrontational?  Or they will bitch about the service at this new day spa.  Point to cats.

Hybrids.  If you breed a male lion and a tigress you can end up with a liger.  That picture is Hercules, all 992 pounds of him.  If you crossbreed dogs you get labradoodles.  Point to cats.

Sane.  Dogs are dependent on us and we are enablers.  Cats don't need us and will remind us whenever they can.  Point to cats.

I guess the bottom line is:  Would you want to be reborn as a liger or as a labradoodle?

A hero of mine.

Driving home today I noticed that all of the grass on the side of the road and in the neighboring lawns was brown and dormant.  When I arrived home I looked at our grass and was pleased that it was greener than our neighbors.  That's a Texas thing, you might not understand.  Then I checked out our backyard.  That was pretty much the same except for one spot maybe a square foot in size.

That spot was GREEN and still growing.  Why has it not bowed down to the inevitable?  Why has it said "Screw you Mr. Winter, I'm mean and I'm green"?  No freaking clue because grass doesn't think in any way that we can measure or imagine.

I'm proud of that little spot of grass though.  When (and in the words of my wife "if") I grow up I want to be like that spot of grass.

Young people have it easy. Part 2.

I wrote a post awhile ago, read it here, about how easy young people have it.  That was based on something I wrote while working at Applebee's while on hold with some system repair person; that was a fun night.  This is the original piece that I wrote and I found it recently.

You young people in your teens and twenties couldn't handle getting older.  Sure, you can party all night and get up the next day after a nap and go to work without a problem, big deal.  I work all day, pick up my kids, cook dinner, clean the house, bathe the kids, read them a story and maybe then they can go to sleep.  I on the other hand am looking at what needs to be done before I can go to bed.  If I can go to bed, sometimes one of my children is sick or teething and I'll stay up with them; nothing against Team Edward but that is the only time an adult should be lurking in a child's bedroom watching them sleep.

Why am I posting this tonight?  I have a sick two year old and I've already checked on the kid twice in the past 90 minutes.

A simple view on promotions.

I have things to do so I'm going to copy and paste (and tweak) a letter I sent to a former GM in hopes that he could use 

these ideas to help the company.

While I was working at Applebee's we did numerous promotions to get the customers in.   Unfortunately, the company 

thought that the best way to get a new customer was to reduce the prices.  In some ways that can be a viable idea, I 

think they went to far with the concept by having numerous promotions on and basically being permanent.

This is the letter:

Please tell me what you think and don't worry about being harsh.  If you want to use 
any of this for your own purposes feel free, give me verbal credit at least.  Thank you.

In Sam Walton's book about turning a little five and dime into a major powerhouse 
he used loss leaders to get customers into his company.  However, he stopped using that 
sales trick once his customers were in the habit of going to his business.

 At Applebee's we are still paying our customers to come in.  I believe that if we 
stop doing that we will increase our check average and average per customer, reduce our 
costs, and, most importantly, increase profits.  

 How do we do this?  We go back to the basics.  We need to cater to the customer we 
want not the customer we have.  If we remove the $1 draft some customers won't like it 
and won't come back.  Some will order a soft drink or a different beer.  The customers 
that order a different product are spending more money and need not be discussed anymore. 
 The customers that leave because we don't have a $1 draft are no loss at all.  The 
majority of our problems are with the customers that just want a cheap drink.  With less 
of these customers we might not need an armed security guard on weekends that we pay over 
$20 an hour for.  Admittedly there will be less half price appetizers sold but that might 
not be much of a loss either considering that there will be less force thawing which 
means less water usage and less chance of a foodborne illness originating at our store.  
This will also free up seats for higher spenders and reducing wait times during peak 
times.  

Once we discontinue the value draft we will have taps available to tempt our better 
customers.  We could put in a cider, heavier stout, premium import or domestic, or even 
try some local craft brew such as Rahr.  True some of these kegs are more expensive but 
we would sell them for more money of course.  In fact, a keg we buy for $120 and sell for 
$4 a draft would be a better profit maker than a $1 draft keg we bought at $60.

The dollar draft promotion was great to get customers into the stores, but now that 
the customers are here we need to make a profit on them and not pay them to come in.

Batteries.

Christmas is over yet the gifts aren't.  Some of my kids got things that took batteries.  Most of the batteries we already had, some we did not.

Went to the store today and bought I don't know how many dozens of batteries.  Do the toy companies purposely make their things take six AA batteries instead of one or two D?  Does it make a difference in efficiency?  If it did then I would have know problem with a toy taking one 9 volt and two AA (my kids have one like that) or are they just doing it because they have some back room deal worked out with the toy makers?

If it's for the sake of efficiency then tell us.  If it's a plot to make more money by screwing us then remember that we can take those batteries and a sock to make one hell of reason to not screw us over.

Feeding the Bitch.

The title is a reference to "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain.  In his book one of his cooks calls in sick and asks the chef to "feed the bitch".  It's a reference to bread starter.  My wife loves sourdough bread so I've been making it.  I'm bored with it and I want to experiment so I started researching different recipes.

I'm a pretty smart guy, I can hold my own with chemistry and engineering even quantum physics is understandable (as much as a sane person can understand it).  Then I started looking at some of these sourdough bread recipes.  I feel like a moron now.  They were written in English but that's all I could really be sure of.

Some of these recipes used metric and they went insane with the precision that could had with that system.  One recipe called for 282 mg of water.  Personally I've always used ml with liquid but maybe mg's are easier to measure.  Fine, but another called for four different types of flour.  Maybe you could tell a difference but I don't think I could.  Some called for making a different type of starter.  That gave me ideas.

For the most part, these recipes assumed that you could rock in a kitchen and just wanted to add sourdough to your repertoire.  I'm not at that level.  My scientific side wanted hard facts and precise measurements (standard not metric) for variations on the basic sourdough recipe.  Nope, not going to find that.

Fine, just fine.  My artistic side is thinking that the starter is basically flour, water, and yeast.  It won't be expensive or difficult to experiment with that.  I've already started with one and am going to start a few more in a few days.

In a few days my wife will come home to a group of glasses in the kitchen filled with starter with a 3x5 card describing what's in it.

Christmas Day.

I made sourdough pancakes from scratch today.  My wife apparently loves them.  I am that awesome of a husband.  It was a pretty good Christmas for us.

Not everyone has a good Christmas, if you can do something to help someone else, can you?  More importantly, will you?

Christmas Eve.

Kids are finally in bed.  Evidence of Santa's visit is set.  Toys are assembled.  Lots of work and lots of headaches.  I'll gladly do it again next year just for the look on my kids faces.

Appearances.

I was looking for inspiration on Facebook today and I saw this ad with a biker, it was actually a beer commercial but I still like it.

Working in the bars I've dealt with a lot of bikers.  And because of a lady I used to date I have a lot of respect for bikers.  Of course, anytime you have a large group of people some are going to be assholes but for the most part bikers are just people that want to ride a motorcycle.  I've had numerous waitresses get worried when a couple of local bikers come into the clubs because the only thing they know about bikers is what they've "learned" from movies.

Au contraire.  As I would tell these ladies a biker is someone that must have a decent job because he rides his bike for fun but when he takes his family out he gets into his car.  How many people do you know that have two personal vehicles?  Most bikers know that mainstream society looks down on them so they will not be the cause of any problems in a bar.  Very rarely will you see a biker get drunk because they know that when they drive home they don't have a cage (car) around them for the extra security.  Someone that comes in and doesn't cause problems and won't over drink?  Can I get more of those customers?

Whenever a biker would come in I would go out and look at their bikes then go and introduce myself to them.  I never had a problem with any bikers, once some other table was causing problems and when the main instigator decided to get belligerent all of a sudden he got quiet and his whole table left without a problem.  Then I turned around and saw the two tables of bikers that had stood up and moved behind me.

As I told my employees, don't judge the person on how they look.

Crowdsourcing.

Someone I know wants to open a niche restaurant/pub place and I said that he could ask me questions.  When he found out that I was a stay at home dad he offered me the manager job.  Nope.  He offered again later on.  Nope.  He tried to sweeten the deal with various incentives but, no.  I'm out of that industry.

I did offer to help him with ideas and such though.  He created a Facebook private group for people to bounce ideas off of their peers, give him information and for him to disseminate information to the people that will be starting it (except me).  You're giving me a forum to pontificate about something I know quite a bit about?  Sweet.

I was putting stuff on this puppy once a day like clockwork in addition to posting to this blog.  I was getting tired.  It's easy to bang on a keyboard but the whole creating on demand is a completely different animal.  It got to the point that I was the only person posting anything.  I thought that the group was for open dialogues not just for me to teach you about the F&B industry.  Then I wondered.

I wondered what would happen if I just posted something silly, like a stream of consciousness word vomit thing.  I did it.  That post started off with a normal bit about something (math) and had some actual ideas and concerns then it went sideways.  Fluffy bunnies dancing in the moonlight singing sha na na na was mentioned.

One person (the owner) noticed and commented but no one else.  I did another 30 something posts after that and then since the well was getting dry I asked for requests, none came so I stopped.

One person wanted to crowdsource a business plan but only one person was trying.  Think about that the next time you ask someone for help.

Having fun at work.

My wife went out with the kids so I could stay at home and do errands and wrap presents.  It was awesome.  She hates to wrap presents so I told her that if she put my presents in boxes I would wrap my own.  She did, and she signed the tape to make sure I didn't peek at them.

I wrapped all of these presents and I started getting a little delirious and a little tired of putting just a name on the gifts.  I decided to change it up with my presents.  One is labeled "To my awesome husband".  I would put something risque on them but some of my kids can read now.

I should have done this years ago.

The definition of death.

There is a controversy about when life "starts".  Some say it starts at conception and others believe it begins at birth.  If I remember correctly I already mentioned my beliefs about that but this post is about the other controversy... death.

One of my brothers is having problems with either dementia or Alzheimer's and it's getting pretty bad.  In the medical world the body can be fine but if there is no brain activity then they say the person is "brain dead".  What if there is brain activity yet that activity is diminished compared to the past?  If my brother's body survives past his mind and he doesn't recognize any of us then is "he" still alive?  I know he's "alive" but if his personality is gone and everyday is being rewritten I don't know what to do.

Yes, I do.  I love him and deal with it.

Studying.

I'm studying and I think I'm forgetting more than I'm remembering.  I haven't studied zoology in decades yet I can still rattle off odd little bits about animals.  Why was the zebra never domesticated?  I know.  I'm forgetting more and more of this though.

This will be a quickie because I need to hit the books again.  The picture is from "Clueless" which was inspired by "Emma".  In both the main character knew a lot but didn't know what really mattered.

'Tis the Season.

In my family we would give a present to our teachers for Christmas.  Since we were pretty much always broke we would give them some jewelry that my father never sold.  My father used to sell Indian jewelry and artifacts as an auctioneer so we had a lot of it around the house.

Keep in mind that this was in the '70's so turquoise, silver, and coral were pretty cheap.  Looking at the prices now will almost make me cry.  We would give teachers presents because this person was responsible for the safety of my parent's greatest accomplishment...my siblings and I.

I've kept up the tradition.  I'm not giving out jewelry.  I'm making bread with chocolate and Kahlua and walnuts and appreciation for taking care of my greatest achievements.

Other side, about odd ideas.

Check it out here.

Complaining.

Both of my parents worked but it was my mothers "job" to cook all the meals.  No matter what my mother made my father would complain about it.  Even his compliments were complaints and that's why she stopped caring about the cooking.

She would get home from work and cook/burn/whatever was on sale at the store.  That taught me two things:  food quality was much better when my father was out of town and hunger makes things taste better.  I told my children that I don't like them saying they don't like something before they try it (and once even before I decided what I was going to make).  If they kept it up I would stop trying and just make the stuff I like and if it was burned... then tough, you'll eat when you get hungry enough.

The complaints have slowed down, they are learning.

Other side, about "The masses".

Check it out here.

Fitness Goals.

I was talking to my wife today about her calorie count for the day, she's dropping it soon.  I want to be fit but if I can't eat the good stuff then what's the point?

I see these fitness people trying to drop those last few inches so they restrict their diet to broiled chicken and rice cakes.  I don't understand that.  What's the point of looking like an Adonis or Aphrodite if you only eat boring and tasteless stuff?

Am I ever going to look like some Greek god?  I'm not betting on it.  I'm getting into the working out part but if I can't eat a cheeseburger or cheesecake periodically then have I really gained anything?

Business Image on the other side.

 About Image, check it out here.

"Perfection"

I am intrigued with the Japanese culture.  It is so rich in their language and history.  Even their artwork is intriguing.  There is an art called kintsugi or kintsukoroi, the picture is one example, where broken pottery is repaired with gold or silver lacquer.  The piece was pretty before but the imperfection, and the very noticeable repair, made it prettier.

Couldn't you say the same about parenting?  My parents weren't the best yet they managed to raise five pretty good kids.  I know I'm not a perfect parent but I try my best; you could even say that my minions bring out the best in me.

The "imperfections" in us and our children are what make us so unique.  We don't have a neat little Japanese name to describe it but I just call us human.

Confession time.

You know why I'm overweight?  A lot of reasons actually but one I remember vividly is due to my employees from one of the topless bars I managed.

I was a pretty "cool" manager.  If someone was running a few minutes late I wasn't that worried about it.  They would call and tell me so I could prepare, no sweat.  Then a bartender called me and said she would be a little late (five minutes, I asked) because she didn't eat breakfast and she was going to hit up McDonald's before she came in.  Then she asked me if I wanted anything, her treat.  I was raised poor so if someone offered me something for free I accepted and said "Thank you".

That was the beginning of the end.  One $1 cheeseburger from McDonald's that day became two then three then I don't know how many my ladies were giving me.  I never noticed how much junk food these ladies ate until I saw how much they were giving me.  I also brought my lunch with me.  I had to eat that as well because you just can't waste food, my mother would smack me up the back of the head if she knew.

Anywhere from zero to six (I think six was the most) cheeseburgers and fries plus the lunch I brought to work and I wonder why my pants are tight.  I don't eat like that anymore (I sure as hell try not to) but now I'm paying the price in sweat.  I know that I put on that weight one cheeseburger and one bite at a time and I know that I'm taking it off one rep and one minute at a time.

I don't know the lady in the picture but I have to keep thinking about that quote.

Trying.

I have big legs, partly genetic and partly when I was in my formative teen years I did a lot with my legs.  Walking four or five miles a day and martial arts can really tone those calves and thighs.  When I go to the gym I look forward to leg day, unlike most guys.  When I do legs I start with a basic leg press and do over 700 pounds, when I can do over a 1000 I'll stop working on bulk.  Upper body is a different story however.

If you see me you don't think I have any muscle, I'm your typical overweight, pale, hairy white guy.  My arms are so weak that putting the weights on the bar for leg presses doubles as an arm workout.  But I'm trying.

Today I did chest and my max is under a hundred pounds.  But I'm trying.  That's why when you see me in a puddle of sweat and straining it's because I'm trying and not because I'm pushing a lot of weight.

Why the picture?  I like it and it's a metaphor for life in many ways.  What I (and she) considers easy with legs is what most people struggle to do.  What I consider a struggle some other people consider a warm-up.  Much like life, I sit at this keyboard and struggle sometimes for a way to say something and then you have some people that sit and bang away without a concern.  I can make a hell of martini or Bloody Mary but please don't ask me to make a loaf of bread without using my bread machine.

Everyone has some things they excel at and some things they struggle with, all we can do is keep trying.

One perk.

I'm getting dinner ready and I realized something.  For the first time in years (closer to decades actually) I don't have to work on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Mother's Day, or Super Bowl Sunday.

I don't have to deal with the customers that say it's terrible how the company makes us work on those days, they don't tell us before or after...they tell us that day, think about it.  I don't have to figure out where to eat (when I worked in the clubs it was tough finding a place open at 4 am on Thanksgiving or Christmas) after work.  I don't have to get home after shift then take a shower and change before going to my parents for Christmas morning and then taking a nap before going to work.

The most pressing concern I have is to not go to the grocery store on Super Bowl Sunday (I don't watch football).  Another perk to being a stay at home dad.

Special kind of crazy.

I've often mentioned that someone or something is crazy or a special kind of crazy.  Let me try to describe crazy to you in my mind.

With a tip of the hat to Edwin Abbott Abbott picture a point in nothingness.  That point is you.  Now imagine a line extending out from your outstretched arms.  Along that line is more people.  Now imagine a line extending vertically through your body with, you guessed it, more people.  That's only two dimensions, let's add a third, so now we have a line of people in front of you and a line of people behind you.  Truthfully, I think that this model would work best if we could think in more dimensions than three (or four if you include time), but we will stick with three.  The farther away from you the more crazy they seem to you.  Pretty simple isn't it?  Take it to the next step, you're not the center.  There is no "center" because the lines of people (aka behavior and belief) are infinite.

If there is no center then there can't be a "standard" for sanity.  You could say that there is a "societal" standard for sanity however since it is all based on behavior and beliefs then that could change in a generation or even as a fad.

What does all of this mean to me?  Everyone is a little crazy.  Cops here gunfire and run towards it.  Makes sense to me.  Firefighters run into burning buildings.  They are crazy.  Both of those are examples of "special" kind of crazy.  We need those people that do things that someone else considers "crazy", without them we wouldn't have so much.  All of the first responders are a little crazy.  One could argue that entrepreneurs are a little crazy as well as artists.

Good, we need more "special" kind of crazy in the world.  I try to add my part.

Explorers.

I think explorers are crazy and cool.  All of  the explorers from the past were just that.  Maybe I don't like what some of them did in life but for the most part they all thought:  "What's over there?  I hope I'm the first to find out."  That kind of attitude is awesome.

Do I have some of the explorers traits?  Hell yes.  If NASA were to call me up and say they need me to go into outer space for some reason I will be packing as I'm on the phone.  However, unless we meet some alien race of topless dancers I don't think they'll need my help.  Of course, NASA does all sorts of tests before they light that candle so the danger is quite a bit less than you think.  I would bet money that it's safer to go into outer space then it was to sail across the Atlantic in a Viking longboat.  Makes you wonder about those Vikings.

The explorers that I really wonder about are the spelunkers.  I look up at the stars and wonder what is out there.  Some people look at the ocean and wonder what's under the waves.  These people see a hole in the ground and do their best to squeeze into it.  Read up on caving and cavers and you start to think that they are the repository of the exploring gene.

I think that they are a special kind of crazy and maybe we need some more special kind of crazy in our world.

A quickie about fetishes.

A friend posted on Facebook how a customer said she wasn't hot because she didn't have tattoos or "mods".  She thought it odd that people with tats say they don't "need approval" but they think she does.  One of her friends posted how he did think you were hot just not his fetish.

Interesting way to look at "body mods", I know a fair bit about fetishes and I guess that not wanting to date a woman because she didn't have the "right" look could qualify as a fetish.  Like most people, I have my own desires and of course like most people I think they are perfectly normal.

That's the key, the person with that fetish doesn't think of them as a fetish.  They don't understand why you don't have the same desires.  The last I heard the most common fetish (in heterosexual men) in the US was stockings on women.  Obviously the definition of "fetish" isn't that extreme.

One person might like tattoos and piercings on people and some people might like for their significant other to wear a particular color.  And again, if the two or more people are all consenting adults then whatever I or anyone else thinks about their particular fetish don't really matter.

Literary tastes.

I read a wide variety of books, magazines, articles, and about anything I can see.  What I go out of my way to read is quite often based on my mood.

When my parents were in the hospital I read a lot of Richard Stark.  Remember the Mel Gibson movie "Payback"?  That was based on one of his books and they had to make him nicer for the film.  That should tell you what the main character is like.

It's been a rough day, I don't have employees to take it out on and I didn't have time to hit the gym today so I'm bottling it up.  I want to take a break from reading the necessary stuff and have a little fun.

The question of the day is what to read?  Something frivolous and silly?  Nope.  Some weighty piece of philosophical drama?  Hell no.  Serial killer fiction.

That's the ticket, nothing to take your mind off of problems like reading about a person that doesn't want to be a serial killer.  Check out the series by Dan Wells, I'm starting the third in the series in a few minutes and I hope it lives up to the first two.

Quickie Again.

I have a big test tomorrow so I'm going to give you a joke I don't understand.  Why don't I understand it?  I don't know, it's a drummer joke and the drummers I've told it to always laugh and then they say you need to be a drummer to understand it.  Here it goes:

How can you tell who's the drummer in a band?  He's the one that drools out of both sides of his mouth evenly.

As I said, I don't get it.  Ask a drummer, if they can explain it please tell me.

Background Music.

I'm riding my bike today and I took some different trails than normal.  Some of them were a piece of cake, some a rice cake sprinkled with LSD.  I don't know what that means but it sounds disturbing, much like some of those trails.  For the record, when I say disturbing I mean too muddy to attempt.  I'm not a mountain bike rider, those people are crazy.

As I'm looking at one stretch of dirt I had a thought:  If this was a movie what would be the background music?  Would it be some uplifting piece that means that I can do it, a dark and foreboding piece to show the danger or would it simply be Taps?  It was the uplifting piece.

That made me realize how much easier life would be if it had theme music and we could hear it.  You go on a date and the background music is '70's porn, you know you're getting laid.  Is the background music "Close to You" by the Carpenters, could be a relationship based on more than sex.  When your boss wants to talk to you think about what the background music could tell you.  You're walking into his (or her) office and you hear Vader's theme song, might be really bad.  If the '70's porn music comes on then you might have to work for that raise again.

I'm not a big fan of music but I think I could handle some background music in my life.

Learning.

I love learning.  I've learned so much just by listening to other people.  Is all of it correct?  Probably not, but that's why I keep an open mind and keep on learning.

One of the clubs I worked at had male dancers and female customers, most of these guys were body builders/personal trainers/martial artists/military/dancers/entertainers.  We had a small gym in one of the dressing rooms (big club with three dressing rooms) where most of the employees and I would work out.  I learned a lot about nutrition from them (one was a personal trainer with a degree in nutrition and kinesiology), a lot about fitness and one very down to earth nugget of wisdom that has helped me so much in my battle with weight.

Because of my fascination with learning I've even studied learning to a degree.  People learn in different ways and sometimes even the people that learn the same way need a different approach to it.  As an example, tonight I was helping my eldest with some extra homework I had given them.  It was 30 questions of varying degrees of difficulty (all multiplication, ranging from 1x3 to 5x12, kid is in the 2nd grade) and the kid was having some issues with it.  I tried various methods of looking at the numbers (4x7 is really the same as 2x7+2x7) and various "tricks" (5 times anything is either going to end in 0 or 5).  It all started clicking after awhile and all of the problems were figured out correctly without my help.

I'm a firm believer in the day I stop learning is the day I die.  Now I'm learning about mortgages, still learning about writing and I'm even learning about police work just by asking my wife about her day.  Who knows what I will learn tomorrow.

The little nugget of wisdom about weight control?  How long did it take you to put on the weight?  Decades.  Then what makes you think you can lose it in a few months?

A realization.

I've been thinking about something and I'm even thinking about making a song about it.  The differences between customers, clients and guests.

Clients are the bread and butter of any company.  They come in, they spend money, and they don't cause problems.  Piece of cake.  Unfortunately, people come in a spectrum of attitudes.  Some are okay, some are awesome, and just to keep the bell curve going the rest are scum sucking bastards.

Customers are those that you wonder if their money is worth the hassle.  Clients are the normal people and guests are the ones that you feel bad about taking their money.  You do because you know they want you to have it and they would be offended if you refused it.

The song I'm thinking should be from the point of view of a waiter.  The genre should be punk or death metal.  Possibly J-Pop.