This is a strange-ish schedule for me this week. Sunday = Work. Monday = Off. Tuesday = Work. Wednesday = Off. Thursday = Work. Friday = Off (with a Managers Meeting at 2 PM). Saturday = Work. Sunday = Work. Monday = Unknown at this point but probably Off.

Working every other day (or having every other day off…your choice) is a bit…strange. It’s nice to have this much freedom but at the same time really fucks with the flow of life. I’d much perfer to have a couple days on and a couple days off…in a row please.

With this new “me” of sorts I’ve found myself with a hell of a lot of energy and desire to…well…do stuff. So I’ve been going rather crazy with doing stuff. Hell, I spent nearly the whole morning/early afternoon on Wednesday power washing the front driveway. Why? Because I thought it would look cool. It does look nicer…but that was a rather crazy thing to do.

We got paid yesterday so this morning I deposited my check and headed off to Fry’s for a little present for myself. I had a couple things in mind…a subwoofer for the home theatre setup, maybe a new computer game (or video card), perhaps some other cool electronic gadget that I could play with. I’ve got the money to toss around a bit…so let’s see what I can find…

I found lots of cool things…but bought nothing. Everything I found that looked cool and neat just didn’t do it for me. I held whatever it was…checked out the specs…and found myself eventually wondering why the hell am I going to buy this for? I haven’t turned on my “big” PC for…oh, 2 weeks or so now. I have the stereo playing in the living room all the time but it sounds fine to me…no real need for better/fancier equipment. I’ve got the PS2 hooked up all clever and fancy now…and the games I have are fine, why get another? There was nothing I really “needed”…and as it turned out…nothing I really “wanted” either.

I suppose this comes back to the huge amount of mental projects I’ve got going on (Lego Star Destroyer that is sitting in the box in my room, the Subaru GL-10 that is sitting in the barn up at the farm, the giant box of computer bits and pieces sitting in the garage as my PC gets dustier, etc etc). Why buy some cool new toy when I’ve got all these other things I could play with?

What it all comes down to is that I don’t want to spend money on anything new/cool right now. I’ve got all kinds of cool stuff around here to fiddle with. Sure a new TV, speakers, video card, shoes, dress pants, whatever would be nice…I don’t need any of those things (maybe some clothes…but I’m waiting to see if my sizes change at all due to my experiment). I don’t need anything…and for (perhaps) the first time in my life…I went to one of the greatest toy stores of all…and bought nothing.

But WOW am I hungry now. So I’ll go eat.

PS: I saw that last night (and this morning) I got a couple people diving deep into my site. They read pages, downloaded videos, and generally spent a ton of time looking around. How cool…I wonder who they were? Actually, I know who one of them was. Isn’t technology cool? I thought about playing a little joke on them…posting some funny made up story to see how they’d react…but I changed my mind. I’d rather make ‘em sweat a little by posting this (if they read it). In summary…I know who is reading my site…and I think it’s hilarious…woot!

First of all…I’m not a perfect man. Obviously. I’ve had a couple drags from people (more than a couple) and I had some Rockstar today. But overall I’ve been doing a damn good job.

First…the smoking issue. The craving is pretty damn wicked. But…it’s not totally overpowering. Yes I have lapsed a little but it wasn’t because I was totally freaking out or in pain. It was simple weakness. The opportunity was there and I took it. And it “felt” damn good. But within minutes my allergies went NUTS, my mouth tasted awful and personally (emotionally and spiritually) I felt like shit. The urge is still there…and I won’t say it is getting weaker. It’s still just as strong…but I think as long as I stay focused and strong I won’t have a problem.

Second…Rockstar. This wasn’t as much a moment of weakness as it was an experiment within an experiment. I used to drink a LOT of Coke…and hadn’t had any in a couple days. Yesterday I bought an iced tea (all natural of course), drank it, and was literally bouncing off the walls. That caffine rush was something I hadn’t experienced in quite a while…since I would drink so much soda caffine didn’t have much of an effect anymore. So today I wondered what a Rockstar, a super energy drink, would do to me. Well…it tasted like crap. Well…sorta. It actually tasted “good”…good flavor, sweet and delicious. But it also tasted so…processed. It tasted so extremely fake. In essence…it was gross…but good. I’m sure you understand what I mean here. I had a couple mouthfuls and dumped the rest out. With regards to the energy nature…again, I’m full of energy…with a slight headache. I feel good but un-naturally good. I wouldn’t quite compare it with drugs because it lacks the europhoric sensation…but it is very similar.

I feel “bad” about the smoking lapse. But I don’t feel discouraged. I am fully aware of how hard it is to give up a serious chemical addiction. I know it isn’t something to be taken too lightly. I know it’ll be a struggle…a challenge…a mental/emotional/physical workout. And…I CAN do it. I am doing it.

I’m not a perfect man…but who the hell is? At least I’m doing something.

Final thoughts: I can’t believe how well I sleep these days! I wake up early with tons of energy. I feel like I’m more “aware” of the world these days…like my senses are functioning better…more receptive. My mind is much clearer too. I do tend to crash out a bit more early in the evenings…but I’m sure that is a result from the lack of serious caffine intake. My allergies are easier to manage. My body just feels…better. I like this, a lot.

So far…so good. I don’t particularily feel any different than I normally do. I woke up this morning and had a “breakfast shake” I concocted of various things I picked up at the local “good food” supermarket.

I didn’t smoke, and didn’t get a Rockstar (my energy drink/soda weapon of choice).

The day was fine…I drank a tremendous amount of water and fought off a bit of a headache. There were several times where I wanted to smoke but attempted to keep myself busy. I admit I got pretty ansy towards the end of the day and bailed out of work early…and by the time I got home I was tired and a bit out of it…so I took a nap.

I woke up when my dad came home, ran some errands for him and am getting ready to cook some dinner. I’m going with “house” made pasta (known normal ingredients), seared sea scallops (wild caught)…an “organic” sauce (butter, flour, milk, parm cheese and sprinkling of chives and lemon juice)…and a simple baby green salad. Thank god for Andronico’s…they are making this much easier.
I feel good…pretty much. I’ve got this building up conversation going on inside my body currently. Here is a small transcript…

Body: “Boy, I’d sure like a cig right now”

Brain: “Sorry but no…we aren’t doing that for a while”

Body: “That’s cool. Hey, let’s grab a soda”

Brain: “Well…that’s off the list too…”

Body: “No worries. How about a cig instead?”

Brain: “Uh, can’t do”

Body: “Hey…I can deal with that. I’d love some McDonald fries…something along those lines”

Brain: “Sorry but no”

Body: “It’s cool it’s cool. But I’d love a soda”

Brain: “Sigh…no can do…”

And on and on. It’s not like I’m freaking out, or that Body is rebelling…throwing a temper tantrum…threatening or crying…it’s just sort of…politely insisting at this point. It’s managable but mildly aggrevating. I’m worried about that aggrevation growing.

But for now…hey, it’s cool.

Lately…I’ve been feeling crappy. Physically crappy that is. I’m not sure if it has been some increased stress from work (things are a bit complex there…but not really bad per say), this annoying Spring (I do love warm weather…but the heavy rains before created nasty allergies), some personal stuff (stupid women…75% over that crap) or whatever…or a combo…etc.

And I’ve been reading this book (I mentioned that before). And today I watched “Super Size Me”. Considering my career choice it’s probably something I should have watched/read a long time ago.

So this is my 30 day experiment.

-No food of questionable origins. This is rather tough to nail down specifically…what is “questionable origins” anyway? With my food educational background I am defining it as “any food that I am completely clueless about what the ingredients are”. For 30 days I want to know exactly what it is I am putting into my body. This means absolutely nothing that I cannot (and have not) see the ingredients list for. This will make eating out a bit dificult. Going to a burrito place and asking (what, exactly, are all the ingredients in your quacamole? your sauce? where does your cheese come from and may I see the food label?). This is going to force me to A) cook at home much more and B) eat at places where the ingredients are easy to figure out. Thank god I work at a restaurant! But this means goodby McDonalds…that’s for sure…and Rockstar…sigh!
-No ingredients that I cannot define myself. Sure…I can pick up a can of Sierra Mist and read the label…but hell if I know what calcium disodium EDTA is. Of course I could look it up fairly easily but I want this experiment to be based soley off current knowledge. Again this will cause some dificulty I’m sure as there are lots of things which I don’t know…but I think I can handle it. This INCLUDES high fructose corn syrup…which will be EXTREMELY dificult to avoid. Trust me on this…I’ve been looking at labels.
-No smoking. Ah…now this is the kicker. Smoking is something I am definitively addicted to. With this current awful allergy season it is absolutely killing me…congested + smoke = hard time breathing, very stuffed up, feeling very crappy. I “feel” I am “ready” to quit smoking but I don’t know if I can do it right now. So I am going to give it 30 days…test out the waters so to speak. I’m not promising to “quit”…I’m just promising to “take a break”. Ow…

-Have at least 30 minutes of exercise daily. Again…a bit more dificult to define. But since this is my experiment I can make all the rules. So I am defining 30 minutes of exercise as “30 consecutive minutes of elevated heart rate due to physical activity”. This could mean taking a walk for half an hour, 30 minutes of yard work (not watering the lawn mind you…but seriously moving about getting that heart rate up), or (of course) 30 minutes of “working out” (traditional stuff…sit-ups, push-ups, weights, yada).

I could be all ultra scientific about this…take pictures, measure and quantitate, use scales and graphs and all that jazz…but I’m going to keep it very simple. I’m going to go use the old scale sitting in the garage and…well…look at myself in the mirror. Gimmie a minute…

I weigh in at 176 lbs on our (probably innacurate) scale. Physically I look skinny up top, hairy as fuck, and my stomach is getting fat. Physically I feel mildly tired, my mouth and noes are itchy (stupid allergies).

When I wake up tomorrow I’ll start this new plan. I’m rather curious how it’ll turn out. Wish me luck!

I’ll try to update my observations daily…but I make no promises.

Here are some searches that have found my site recently….

-women fucking donkeys

-donkeys fucking women

-sexy donkeys

-stories of women and donkeys

-normal sized donkeys eat

-when tractor racing began

-creepy phrases

And then there has been a whole bunch about the Dakota stereo install and the ss8c automatic timer.

Funky!

I’m not sure if this is the case for all restaurants…but for us, Mother’s Day is the MOST busy day of the year. Easter is a somewhat close second…but still is not quite as busy.

How busy is the “busiest”? As we all know Mother’s Day is on a Sunday. On Sunday we normally serve brunch from 11 am to 3 pm. On average we’ll do somewhere between 90-170 for brunch.

On Mother’s Day we served 500 people. Oh yeah…for dinner we served another 250.

That is a HELL of a lot of people.

Brunch was $35 per person for a 3 course meal (maybe I’ll post the menu). So with 500 people that’s 1,500 plates coming out of our kitchen…all in a span of 5 hours (we serve from 10 am to 3 pm on Mother’s Day). That works out to 5 dishes every minute. Insanity huh?

Our kitchen is open to the restaurant (with a smaller area behind). It’s a long counter with the “cold side” (desserts, salads, etc) on one end and the “hot side” (self explanatory) on the other. With (again, on average) a plate coming out every 12 seconds there is an extreme need for someone to organize all this stuff coming out and make sure that each tables orders are complete and correct. It gets a bit…confusing.

And that was my job on Sunday. I was the Expo. My entire job was to A) organize the dishes as they come out of the line and B) make sure they got to the proper tables in a timely manner. I had 4 “food runners” assigned to me…their job was simply to bring the dishes from the line to the tables.

It went pretty well. It didn’t go perfectly though (hell, what does?). We had some issues with certain dishes coming out way before others, large amounts of dishes hitting the counter at once, and some communication problems between what the guest wanted-what the server thought that meant-what the kitchen prepared. This is common. In fact, nothing really out of the ordinary happened. It all flowed pretty well and there were no real big guest complaints.

I worked through the brunch bit…but foolishly we had guests coming in past 3. That was very dificult because we needed to re-set the restaurant (tables and kitchen) for dinner service that night…and that too was going to be busy. Towards the end of Brunch there was definite hostility and frustration in the air. We powered through it, did an insanely fast re-set of the whole place, and leaped straight into dinner.

Thankfully I didn’t have to stay too long into dinner. We had used our larger banquet room for general seating and it was a complete mess. Since we weren’t going to use it for dinner service that night we decided to ignore it as we re-set…focus on where guests will be and leave that for now.

Once dinner started everyone had re-adjusted to their new roles and responsibilities…and since I am the Lunch Guy I was bit out of the water for dinner. I didn’t know the menu well enough to Expo again…and the food runners didn’t really need it. So I jumped into that banquet room and got it all set up again. I was, in essence, a busser.

And that is the real role of a manager in a restaurant like this. Well…I’d say we serve 3 primary roles. One is to do the “behind the scene” organization. Things like ordering supplies, dealing with cash, payroll, accounting, working with the corporate body, etc…administrative type work. The second role is “decision maker/guest liason”…this comes into play when a server is unsure about something or has an unhappy guest. A manager is there to have the final word on something and to talk to a guest to smooth something out. The final role is “everyone’s job”. If there is a guest at the door that needs to be seated, and a host is not available…we seat them. If someone needs a cocktail and the bartender isn’t available…we make the drink. If a table needs to be cleaned and a busser isn’t around…we bus it.

It’s a crazy complicated job…peaks and valleys of things going on…and I’m happy to have the day off!

I’ve been a member of the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club for a long time now. It all started back in March of 2000 when I was looking at buying a 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS. It was a damn cool little car that I was in love with. What happened to it is another story…

At the time I was looking for more information about the car, and came across an online forum www.nasioc.com. I joined and found a great online community of auto (Subaru specific) enthusiasts. This was all before the WRX (turbo version of the Impreza) was introduced in the US. So once the WRX came out…the membership of the site grew and grew.

I am member number 1165 (joined mid ‘00)…now there are over 120,000 members and it grows daily.

Of course the vast majority of the site is dedicated to the Subaru line-up and the various things that can be done with it…but there is another, more sepecial section of the site…

Off Topic

Technically “OT” is reserved for “Non-technical related discussions”…but it has become a holding pen, a discussion forum, an area for the most amazing conversations I have seen anywhere. It is, for all practical purposes, a life in it’s own…a living, breathing, creative and somewhat terrifying creation of the minds of some very complicated people.

For example…here are some of the things you can find there…

Doctors puzzled over bizarre infection surfacing in South Texas

Track Mania - Best Free Game I’ve Ever Played

Photography!!! post your pics

Countdown to bigger boobies…

MS Paint something stupid you have done…

I highly suggest checking it out. I warn you though…although the material found inside will 90% of the time be safe for viewing at work…you may run into assholes, elitests, idiots and general insanity. You have been warned.

A friend of mine suggested I post here when I add new pages to my site. That is a great idea…and I’m going to do it.

Lately I’ve been on a bit of a video making kick. I’ve got a decent setup on the truck for filming crap as I drive. Who knows…maybe I’ll capture some truly exciting event while crusing around this plant. Odds are I’ll just end up filling my server space with random videos of my driving. But hey, what’s the internet for if not random boring shit?

Oh yeah…it’s for porn. Silly me.

So here is my new Video Page. Enjoy.

I may end up posting quite a lot about this book (Omnivore’s Dilemma) but as I said before it is having a profound impact during a rather introspective point in my life.

Today I went to Costco to get new tires for the truck.  Holy crap did it need them too.  A couple Sunday’s ago, when it was still raining heavily, I was driving from Santa Cruz to Blackhawk for work.  That was not an easy drive.  My front tires were so extremely bald that changing lanes was no longer an option…the suspension in that thing is so light, the tires so bald and the rear end so lively that a simple lane-change resulted in annoying understeer -> ubrupt oversteer -> terrifying understeer -> settle settle please settle…and relax.

I’m all for having a little fun while driving but that was more terror than I like to put myself through.

Yeah…that was a bit ago and it’s not until today that I got new tires…call me lazy…fuck off.

Anyway…why is Costco so damn crowded on Friday?  I got there around 12:30 and the place was PACKED.  The parking lot…the lines inside…everything was so full of people.

I couldn’t stay long inside.  It was…bothering me.  The massive piles of crap…super sized crap…it was almost painful to see.

I am a consumer.  I like buying things…fun things, useful things, consumable things, tasty things…buying in general.  I’ve been to Costco many times and bought many giant piles of things I really didn’t need a giant pile of.

This time really struck a chord though.  I didn’t like it.

I was stuck there for 2.5 hours for the tire replacement (damn I wish I could do that myself).  I went inside the store for a bit but quickly left.  I sat out in the sun, made some calls, sneezed 324 times and realized I was hungry.  I bought this sandwich thing…chunked chicken breast with cheese and bacon bits inside a soft cheese covered baked roll.  It was “tasty” but made me sad.  It made me sad because I could FEEL how bad it was for me…and at the same time definitely enjoyed the flavor.  Sitting outside on a curb eating it…the melted cheese dripping onto my shoe…watching some extremely and disgustingly overweight people pushing overloaded carts full of high fructose corn syrup and heavily processed 400 year shelf life super sized insto-meals didn’t help either.  It felt…wrong.  I felt as if I had stepped far away from the lifestyle that leads to happiness.  I didn’t see one smile.

I don’t want to sound too self-righteous here…but this shit has GOT to stop.  No…I’m not going to fire-bomb Costco…nor write my congressman (congresswoman…sorry ma’am).  I am going to focus on a far more healthy and sustainable lifestyle here…for me.
Costco may have gotten me some great cheap tires…but that place is, in a word, gross.

I heard about this book listening to NPR the other day. It is a story about food divided into three sections…the first is about “industrial” food production, the second “organic” and the third “hunter/gatherer”.

I must say it is quite insightful, and pretty damn shitty. I’m not going to go into the heavy details of what I’ve been learning for two main reasons. One, it would be extremely complex and dificult to summarize this whole giant book into my simple typing. I just don’t want to…plus you really ought to read it yourself. Two, although I am sure it is very factual and accurate…it also (in my educated opinion) a bit “extreme”. The author is definitely giving an accurate portrayal of the food industry but at the same time his word choice leans more on the far end of the spectrum.

This book is poiniant for a very simple reason…I am in bad shape. What I mean to say is…I am not as healthy as I ought to be. I smoke way too much, do not get enough exercise and generally feel pretty crappy about my well-being. Granted this is hard-core allergy season (and I’m suffering due to it)…I still feel (and believe I look) worse than I ought to.

The hardest thing here is to quit smoking. Just thinking about it (and I do a lot these days because I can honestly say that it’s weighing heavily on my mind) makes me cringe a touch. I haven’t stopped…but each one I light up is really bothering me.

Plus…something pretty crappy happened this past Friday. It didn’t happen to me…it happened to someone I know and care dearly for. They didn’t die, or get hurt…but through a foolish and childish act they got themselves into a world of trouble. I respect this person a HELL of a lot but at the same time I see the road they’ve gone down and I do NOT want to end up on the same path. It is very important to me that I don’t.

This weekend is going to be a gnarly one. It’s Mother’s Day and that means the busiest day of the year for the restaurant. I’m stressing over it a bit, but not to the point where I’m freaked out. But I am going to let it serve as a turning point for me…the last day of…rather…a new day of a new era.

Yes that above sounds a bit fatalistic and all that…but it’s time I do more for myself.

And what better day than May 15th? It is…after all…Monday. Whatever that means.