A Not Very Clean, Close Shave

As teenagers, facial hair was fascinating.  That was probably because we could not grow it.  A good square goatee seemed to be the right amount of cool.  That represented something.  Beatnik heritage maybe.  I even remember my friend and I penciling goatees in one day to see how we liked it.  His was a black square which was funny because his hair was brown.  Mine was a brown triangle and my hair was much closer to black.  But alas, we had some good reactions.  Most people seemed to roll their eyes.  

+ You seem like a decent guy. Why are you going to all this trouble to be outcast?
- Because it is fun.  We are in high school.  And I am 10 years out before I will have facial hair so give me a break.

Not much longer after that, sideburns started to be possible.  And that seemed like a pretty good alternative to the goatee.  The establishment did not really go for goatees back then.  Getting a job in the service industry since I had no education required staying pretty conservative.  Short hair, no facial hair.  Maybe a well-trimmed mustache.  

Hmmm.  Mustaches.  I am a little torn on mustaches.  My Dad always had a great mustache.  And for years, it was just a mustache.  But outside of my Father, I could never grasp the mustache working for anyone.  Besides that, I could never grow one.  To this day, mine is still so weak that it takes me a month for someone to finally say: "Are you trying to grow a mustache?"

But yeah.  The establishment was not real big on long hair and facial hair and chest hair.  They did not want "dirtbags" going into rich people's homes and buffing their floors or setting their tile or fixing their stoves.  I understand that.  I am guessing that is still the case.  I will have to ask my rich friends.  Oh wait!  I don't have any, because my friends all have facial hair.  Is that the correlation?

So sideburns were really looking like the winner for me.  Good long mutton chops.  Okay, I could never really get those, but I could get a decent sideburn going.  Not thick, but enough to make it look continuous from above.  I was pretty happy with this road.  I figured I could live a good healthy, long life with some sideburns.  I could wear white t-shirts with rolled up jeans, go for that greaser, 50's style look.  Just listen to Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, drive an Edsel around...

Then, tragedy struck.  Sideburns no longer work when your head is BALD!!!!

What made sideburns work is the idea of the continuous look.  The hair on top making its way down to some sweet Star Trek points.  But I have to shave my head now.  What?  Am I going to have sideburns starting at mid-ear, going down 3 inches and then to what?  I got these two islands of hair on my face that look like I just tattooed some trapezoids on my cheeks.  It looks ridiculous.

I could try to not shave the sides and back of my head to make way for the sideburns.  But then I am seventies bald.  Sure, the continuous thing works on the sides, but no continuousness on the top.  I like to think of myself as artistic, but that look requires someone with some real panache.  That person has to think of himself as extremely hip and forward thinking.  And he cannot care what anyone thinks... including himself.

While that is my goal to eventually be that hip and forward-thinking guy, I am resolved for now, while I try to function in actual society, to going back to... 

the goatee.  

The goatee works now because I can actually grow one, it is centered, and it makes me feel like a teenager desperately trying to look older...
  

Lip Service Moving Co.

My favourite thing to do when helping people move is making comments on their stuff.  I figure I am there breaking my back to move their furniture and boxes, going up and down stairs, sweating like crazy, I think it is only fair to be able to ask: 

"Hey!  Why do you have this book on Satan's War?"

Most people have pretty normal stuff and that is why I think it is okay to make comments on the out of the ordinary.  The general assumption is that they are normal people, but as is the case with most, there are going to be items which are a bit strange.  Why not joke about them to lighten the mood?  

A classic one is antiques.  An antique sewing machine which is never going to be used but is an heirloom from a great great aunt.  Heavier than a whale and so awkward.  Yeah, the best place to lift it is at the base because everywhere else is not so secure.  I am lifting this behemoth up from the basement to the moving truck only to lift it down to another basement where it will sit for years and years.

But I am not supposed to judge.  I am just there to help.  Phooey!  They are my muscles, my sweat, my back pain, so therefore they get my comments!  And I am not being mean.  I am not making fun of their serious looking ancestors from the 1900s in the photos in the gigantic frames.  (Unless they give the go-ahead of course.)  Lady in the rabbit costume.  What's that about?

Personally, I have so much junk.  I would expect someone to be relentless if they were helping me move.  Like we need all these DVDs, all this cardboard, all these Christmas totes. (Sorry, honey.  Couldn't resist)

Don't get me wrong.  I am not rifling through people's stuff.  I do have rules.  It has to be anything I can see.  If the tote is see-through, it's fair game.  

- What do you guys eat with that giant wooden fork and spoon?
- Why do you have three vacuum cleaners?
- When are you are going to repair that table saw?
- Why is this home gym so dusty?
- Did you save the box for these stupid A glasses for a reason?
- You could probably throw this tote out.  It's totally hammered.
- Was this hole in this painting here before?
- Why did you use your biggest box for hard-back books?
- Why do you have hard-back books? 
- Did this sofa grow since you put it down here or did you build the house around it?
- Why are those people sitting there not helping?
- So all these items not boxed up, did you want me to do that?
- What is in this treasure chest like thing?  Nothing?  Wow.
- Please tell me this fold-out couch is going to Good Will.

Salting The Wounds of Loyalty

The American way.  So many small businesses want to grow and become larger than life.  Normally, I applaud this sort of thing.  I want people to achieve their goals and dreams.  I want people to be rich.  I want them to be successful.  If they have a great product, by all means, go for it.  

The problem though is when they start going corporate, change things and it affects me in a bad way. 

I do not expect much from restaurants.  Fast food burger joints especially.  Like, I get that they have an OCD person who is in charge of salting the fries.  He walks past, salts them, looks at his watch, salts them, adjusts his hair net, salts them.  As I am driving away, I think "I could have salted them myself.  Can't we just have that option?  This is disgusting."  But I'll eat every one of them...

Also, after years of fast food joints not getting orders right, we always check our food before we drive off to make sure it is all there.  That's what I expect.  For cheap, fast food, that's the service we are paying for.  Someone who is that fast is going to be inaccurate.  And if the person was really accurate, they would screw it all up and promote them to management.

So, there is this relatively new kind of restaurant I call the Stand-In-Line model.  The way it works is that you wait forever in a line as if you are waiting to get on a roller-coaster.  Only instead of getting thrills from sharp turns and corkscrews, you get a major taste explosion from some amazing quality food.

That's the argument.  When they were first pitching the idea to investors, I am sure the question came up: 

      Why would I stand and wait in line that long for food?  

And the answer must have come back as:

      It is because you have never had a food experience this good before.

While I must admit that the food is good at these types of places, I have to wonder if I am being fooled a bit.  The one common theme I have seen is what I call 

"The Illusion of Health".  

These Stand-In-Line places will have 2500 to 3000 calorie meals, but yet they make it seem like everything is so fresh and healthy.  A hamburger will have South American Romaine and Lechuvia Pickles on a Gorgonzola bun.  The fact that I just ate a pound of red meat hardly matters when I am getting the health benefits of Lavender Onions and goat cheese.

So I pay a little more for this Illusion of Health, wait a little longer for my food and feel like I am on the cusp of my generation's hip and happening consumption system.

So how can this Stand-In-Line thing possibly go wrong?  

1. As I stand there, I can see them preparing everything.  It is all right in front of our faces, so they should not be able to screw it up as long as they stay on task.

I do not want to see their people standing around doing nothing, because at that moment I am standing around doing nothing.  As one who tries to take a lot of information in, I am watching them.  I got nothing better to do.  I could look at my phone for the 406th time today or I can watch the strange foraging habits of the native Stand-In-Line restaurant technician.  And the guy I am seeing is doing everything he can to keep from working.  He is yelling across to other workers and making snide comments to them.  In all the time I have been in line, this guy has done no work.  They are messing with my trust.

2. It takes a lot to do take-out.  I am putting my arm around the shoulders of this company and welcoming them into my home.  I introduce the food to my daughters and they better be respectful.  When I take my food home and get uncooked rice, they have stabbed me in the back.  Uncooked rice.  No one I know has ever done uncooked rice.  That has to be the greatest restaurant sin ever.  That is right up there with under-cooked hamburger.

All those other people in line with me got uncooked rice too.  How does this happen?  Maybe that guy standing around yelling gibberish to the other employees needs to be checking food quality.  Sit him down with the current menu items and make sure it's all up to sauce.  That guy may gain weight, but at least he is doing something now.  And the restaurant didn't just piss off 50 people.

3. They must think they are too big to fail.  I guess all the hordes of people who continue to be there night after night are telling them it doesn't matter if the culture is good or not, if the quality is good or not.  However, I am thinking that these customers are on the tail end of the hysteria.  Many of my acquaintances have given up, so what is left is the remaining people who still had good memories of a quality product.

I am still part of that group, because I do remember them being great.  But these companies are in such a hurry to lose me and others.  Why?  What did I do?  I just want to enjoy your product as it was for so many years.

It is as if they have turned some corner and can no longer provide good experiences.  They are too busy catering large events and not putting their focus where it needs to be, in the restaurant, making the culture and food good.

If it comes down to this Stand-In-Line experience being no different than the fast food experience, what choice is there?  If you take away the Illusion of Health, I am left with a long line which is more akin to the DMV.

Old Faithful Geezer

We just got back from Orangestone National Park.  It was really awesome.  Half a day is hardly enough time to be there.  We saw Old Faithful erupt a couple times.  I felt good that people clapped after it finished.  It makes more sense to clap there than it does in movie theaters...

We walked around this Prismatic geyser one too where the colours were out of this world, but the experience was not just in the colouring.  There would be these waves of steam that would overtake us.  And it was late enough in the day to be a little chilly too.  So there would be a chill wind.  Then, hot steam.  Chill wind.  Hot steam.  Then, it started raining on us.  Lightning in the distance.  And soon after that was hail.  What an experience!

I sort of wonder what the special effects crews just have to do to make these national parks so fun.  To build up that much steam, there must be quite a large generator buried under the mountain.  The previous day while floating in a raft, we saw a moose crossing the river with its baby.  As we were passing it and looking back I was picturing some guy behind the scenes holding the moose and its baby in a pen and releasing them at just the right time.  

And the moose looked so real.  How do they do that?