Idaho Grandpa

I learned something today. Several things, as a matter of fact.
   First I learned that public libraries are thriving and vital and relevant even in today's insane economic times. Good to know since I spent my college work study in the library. Or libary, if you wanted to drive my boss nuts.
   Second, I learned that the information age, with all its time wasting and Facebook and Twitter and self-important bloggers like me, actually produced some things of value. For instance, you can search past census records online. And that's actually pretty cool.
   Third, I learned that my grandfather - my father's father - was born in Idaho. This was, evidently, not news to my mother but I had always assumed he was born in Kansas. I also learned that his stepmother was born in Russia, and yet her native language was German. More than likely she lied to the census man about where she was born, since we were looking at the 1920 census, two years after the end of the Great War. Germans weren't real popular in America at that time.
   While I'm glad to know more about my family history, this only leads to more questions. Like what about my grandfather's biological mother, who evidently died or was out of the picture in 1920, when he was five. Where was she from? Who were her people?
   As cool as finding out more about my family history is, I am much more impressed with the fact that the census records are online. That's a lot - a LOT - of manual data entry. And there's no real value to it, at least from an MBA point of view. If you had taken the proposition to Wharton that someone start a business that involved data entry from reading 70+ year-old census entries, you'd probably be laughed out of the school.
   But there's much more than monetary value to this. In the space of five minutes I went from 'knowing' wrong information about my grandfather's childhood to having irrefutable proof of where he was born and where he was living in 1920. Can I take that knowledge and make any profit from it? Of course not. Would any self-respecting business person have funded census data entry as a private enterprise? Of course not. But does knowing the truth enrich my existence? I can tell you it does, almost immeasurably.
   Think about the library itself. They're non-profit government entities. No money to be made there at all. But even on a Saturday morning, I saw all sorts of people coming in to use the facility. I was tremendously impressed with the number and kind of community services that library makes available, and I know it's not unique. More than ever I see libaries becoming social centers for the community, despite the fact that there's not a single dime to be made from doing so.
   So screw you, MBA holders, for all your 'immediate monetization.' There are things in life that matter way more than filthy lucre. Like family and social connectedness. And libraries. Especially libaries.
   I have hope again. And all it took was twenty minutes in my local library. That's a great investment, don't you think?

Saturday Circus

What is it about Saturday morning that makes people dress like circus clowns? Do they miss cartoons so much that they feel the need to make believe they're superheroes in spandex tights?
   I went to the farmer's market this morning to get me some fresh vegetables and to throw it in the face of all the people in the country still digging out from several feet of snowfall. It's January in SoCal, losers, absolutely no snow and there's even a harvest. So suck it, New York!
   Anyway... I want to make it clear that I'm no fashion plate. No shower, no shave, and as a matter of fact I didn't even brush my teeth (sorry about that one). I rolled out of bed, put on a t-shirt, jeans, and shoes and drove to the farmer's market. But you would have thought I was Georgio Armani in comparison to some of the people I saw.
   I give new parents a pass. If I see someone pushing a stroller with an infant, they can wear whatever the hell they want, they've probably had very little sleep. But if you're a man in your fifties, plaid shorts, sandals, a parka and a bandana just make you look like you're practicing to be homeless.
   Or the lady with curlers in her hair (really, out in public) wearing the pink track suit with pink slippers. She probably thought no one would look at her feet. She didn't get caught out on her sidewalk while she was getting the morning paper, nope, she was in the mix shopping for broccoli with everybody else.
   And then there was the couple. You know, THEM. The couple who dress alike, not because the wife insists - which does happen - but because they share a wardrobe. Why two people would still own those awful, awful multi-colored weightlifting pants is beyond me, and why they would wear them in public is a mystery I don't think anyone will be able to solve. Add the ratty not-clever t-shirts and Crocs and it looked to me like they literally rolled out of bed and got in the car with no steps in between. Maybe they slept in the car, I don't know.
   Whatever happened to trying to at least look presentable when you go somewhere? All the vendors at the farmer's market made the effort to look decent, why can't the rest of you people?

Tales From My Past - Married?

It was a Friday and I was in college. It was also April 1st.
   The phone rang. It was about 8 AM. Which, for a college student, is the equivalent of 3 AM in normal people time. Since I had the bottom bunk I rolled out of bed and fumbled for the receiver.
   "Hi Donnie," a cautious voice said on the other side. My sister. "Guess what? Tony and I are getting married tomorrow."
   "That's not funny," I grumbled and I hung up.
   I crawled back into bed. My roommate asked what was going on, and I told him my sister was playing a very bad April Fool's joke.
   Ten minutes later the phone started ringing.
   I crawled out of bed again, ready to yell at my sister for not letting me sleep in. This time it was my mother.
   "They really are getting married tomorrow," she said. She sounded angry, sad, and giddy all at the same time.
   "Huh. Guess I better come back home for the weekend, then," I said.
   This is the way I found out my sister was getting married. An early-morning call on April Fool's Day. So I finished class that Friday then got in my car and drove home. They were married the following day.
   Over two decades and three children later they're still married. I don't know which one of them is bigger saint for putting up with the other, but they've made it work.
   Still, I wish my sister had picked a better day to let me know.

A Little Magic

I was trudging up the stairs this morning - because the elevator STILL isn't fixed - and I got to thinking how it would be really great if I had a faithful manservant who would just carry me. Then I realized that any man big enough to actually pick me up probably wouldn't fit through a normal-sized door, so I abandoned that thought. Lifting one foot after the other, though, I hit on another great idea.
   I need to master the mystic arts. Then I could just magic myself up the stairs, no walking needed.
   As a matter of fact, if I were an adept enough student then I could just magic myself up a whole host of things that seem to be problems for me at the moment. I wouldn't need a job because I'd just conjure stacks of cash. I wouldn't need to go to the grocery store because I'd just wave my hand and make food appear. I'd wave the other hand to clean the dishes - no more dishwasher for me. I wouldn't have to pay rent, and I'd probably move out of my place to find my Sanctum Sanctorum at the top of some mountain or in a bubble at the bottom of the sea. Probably the mountain, the sea smells like a fish toilet to me.
   The one hitch to my plans is that these sorts of things usually happen with some great personal tragedy. Batman's parents were killed, Superman is the last survivor of an entire planet, a brilliant but arrogant surgeon loses the use of his hands in an auto accident, that kind of thing. I'm not really down with the whole idea of personal tragedy. I don't want to lose any parts or pieces that I've become fond of over the years.
   I'm an American, dammit, I want everything good without any risk or sacrifice! And I want it now!
   So rather than real magic, maybe I'll just settle for some douchebaggy trickery, camera tricks and bad illusions. Let me get some leather and ugly tattoos, some skanky ex-stripper chicks for eye candy and I'll be in business. Chris Angel, I'm coming for you...

Wafflicious

Have you ever heard the expression 'I got a hammer, and now everything looks like a nail?'
   Well, for Christmas I got a waffle iron and now everything looks like it should be round and dotted with square holes.
   I know that I'm difficult to buy gifts for. But I was still taken by surprise when I unwrapped a waffle iron on Christmas Day. I didn't quite know what to think, which means it was a good gift indeed. I got it home, plugged it in, and whipped up a batch of batter as outlined in the owner's manual. I wasn't sure how it was all going to work out, if the batter was going to be too thick or too thin, if the waffle iron's non-stick coating really was, or if the waffles would actually be tasty. The first one came out a little lopsided, but it was crisp and brown and oh-so-delicious.
   I gotta say, I likes me some waffles.
   After the success of the first batch, I went out and sprung for some authentic maple syrup (it's pricey) and got ready to try out all of the waffle recipes. Cornbread waffles tonight.
   Now I'm thinking of ways to combine waffles with other things. Maybe waffles instead of hog dog buns, waffles on a stick, waffles instead of tortillas, waffles as the shell for beef wellington, waffles layered inside a lasagna. Okay, maybe not that last one, but I am thinking about waffles a lot.
   I really, really need a job.

The Chef Bubble

First we had the dot-com bubble of late 1999 and into 2000. To work our way out of that mess, our government engineered a housing bubble, which burst in late 2007, and which is still bursting even as we speak. So how are we going to work our way out of this housing bubble/ credit crisis/ totally fubar economic situation? By engineering a chef bubble, evidently.
   When I go work out, I usually walk past the cooking school a few blocks up. Been doing it for years, but it's only been in the past six months or so that I've noticed a dramatic increase in the number of cars parked along all the side streets. Used to be that all the cooking school people parked in the parking garage right behind the main building. Not no more. The students are crusing up and down every street for blocks around, emerging with their little white hats, hounds-tooth-checked pants, and gargantuan recipe books. There are a lot more cooking school students now than there were even a year ago. A LOT more.
   This is understandable, when times are tough trade school enrollment goes up. People want to know they have a skill they can actually make a living with, as opposed to, say, being an expert in putting together Power Point presentations. But there's a problem here, one I don't think the cooking school faculty is letting their students know about.
   There are far fewer chef jobs than there were before. Americans are eating out less, restaurant profits are down overall, and restaurants are closing their doors across the country. So when all these new cooking school students graduate, where are they going to go? Sure, right now they're greasing the gears of the economy with their tuition money, the school employs more instructors, they build more classrooms which employs more contractors, they buy more food which keeps the delivery companies and ConAgra in business. But then what? The economy can only absorb so many classically trained and accredited chefs, and right now there are definitely more on the supply side than the demand side of this economic curve.
   Before you know it, we'll have rank after rank of cooking school graduates with nowhere to work, making crepes on the exit ramps for spare change.
   So how do we work our way out of the chef bubble? Maybe we start a carpet cleaner bubble. Or a board game bubble. Wait, I got it. A stripper bubble. Yeah... a glut of strippers would put a definite spark back in the economy. At least in the glitter, baby powder, and 6-inch transparent shoe sectors.

Dream A Little Dream

You ever have a dream where you're speaking another language? Except you don't really speak another language, you just read several ancient ones really well? And so when you're having the dream and everybody is speaking another language, including you, when you try to make sense of what people are saying, within the dream you realize that none of the words are from any language you've ever heard or studied? So you know you're dreaming, and you know that everybody in the dream is speaking a non-existent language, except that there does seem to be some internal consistency and grammar to the nonsense, and people use the same word to refer to the same thing, so it's not like everybody's doing their own thing? And even while you know you're dreaming you try to make sense of the fake language that really only exists inside your own head while at the same time in the dream you continue to speak that same made-up language? And while you're speaking it in the dream, in your own head you're really wondering if this is some kind of real language you've tapped into, or if all the internally-consistent linguistics that seem to be around this made-up language come entirely from your own imagination? And if it is all from your own imagination, then you're either seriously f**ked up or a certifiable genius? Or both?
   You have? Really? What a weirdo.

Tales From My Past - Crazy Lake Michigan

Before I relate this story, I swear it is completely, 100% true. I'll swear to God, Buddha, SpongeBob, whoever you want. I have a witness who was there for the whole thing.
   A few years back my friend Sean and I were in Milwuakee, WI on a road trip. We'd flown into Chicago and accidentally happened upon Uno, the real one, where you order your pizza when you put your name on the waiting list. Say what you will about a New York pie, authentic Chicago pizza is awesome. After stuffing ourselves on three-inch-thick slices, we drove to Milwaukee, and on the way had to stop at the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha. It's a cool place, but it smells like fondue. And the building is constructed with cinderblock, not cheese, so it's kind of false advertising. If they say 'cheese castle' I expect the whole thing to be made of cheddar.
   Anyway, we finished our business in Milwuakee and we had over half a day to kill before we had to be back at O'Hare in Chicago, so we went to Lake Michigan and rented bicycles. There's a bike path that winds around there, and even in August the wind off the lake was freezing cold. We got tired so we stopped at one of the park benches positioned every fifty yards or so.
   We saw an old couple walking together - it's not just a bike path - and they stopped at the bench next to us and spoke to the people there. Those people looked kind of confused and amused, but I thought nothing of it. The couple then ambled over to me and Sean.
   The man stood back, saying nothing, but the lady came over to us. She wore a pink and green pastel shirt, beige shorts, and she held her hands held up to her shoulders, palms down. She smiled. We smiled back. And then she said these exact words as she patted her hands on her shoulders.
   "Goody goody, goody goody, goody goody goo."
    Then she and her husband (I'm assuming) walked off. No explanation, they just went to the people sitting on the next bench over, and from the expression on those people's faces, the lady did exactly the same thing to them.
   .....
   Yeah. Freaky. And I swear it actually happened, Sean was right there for it, and to this day we are both completely at a loss to explain what the hell that was. Was she just bonkers and the guy was humoring her? Was she doing it on a dare? At her age? Was she marking us for death by ninjas at some time later in life? Who knows?
   That whole trip was full of odd things. Like the homeless guy Sean wouldn't let me have a conversation with, or the Miller Beer mad scientist's lair, or the Brewers game, or the dangerous convenience store in the bad part of town. All stories for another time.

Bacon Is Magic

It's a culinary axiom: Bacon is magic.
   And I'm not talking the metaphorical kind of magic, either, not the kind of 'magic' behind a home run or a the 'magic' of children's laughter or the 'magic' of a Van Halen reunion with David Lee Roth. No, bacon is real magic, like a Van Halen reunion with Sammy Hagar.
   Here's the proof - there is nothing savory that can't be made better by adding bacon.
   I'm not talking sweet. Bacon and ice cream? Probably not the best. Bacon and cheesecake? Pass
   But - bacon and pizza? Mmmmm... Bacon and fillet mignon? Mmmmm... Bacon-wrapped shrimp? Well, I hate shrimp, but people tell me it's good. Bacon and macaroni and cheese, or mashed potatoes or cous cous or spaghetti... I tell you, the list is endless.
   I will go out on a limb here and say that no one can find a savory food that isn't made better by the addition of bacon. Prove me wrong.

The PuercoDrome

I have a friend who owns some land in Mexico, a rancho down in the Yucatan, where there is jungle; monkeys live in the jungle (monkeys, not apes: monkeys have tails, and no designs to take over for humanity after a nuclear holocaust). Among other business propositions, my friend raises pigs. So one day I got to thinking, which is always fun for me but sometimes not for others.
   My reasoning goes like this:
1. Until you sell them for slaughter, pigs aren't much fun. Sure, they eat a lot and they crap a lot and they sleep a lot, but those things aren't fun unless I'm the one doing them.
2. I remember seeing pig races at the Texas State Fair. That was fun. Those little piglets sure loved Oreos. But then again, who doesn't?
3. Why not have the pigs on my friend's rancho - pigs who are otherwise doing a whole lot of nothing until it's time to become pork chops - work for their room and board?
4. Since there are a lot of monkeys in the Mexican jungle we need to get them in on the action too. Any animal with thumbs is an animal that can work.
   So an idea formed in my brain: why not have pig races, like I saw at the Texas State Fair, but this time, since we had easy access to monkeys, we could have pig races with monkey jockeys.
   Think about it, an oval track, like a miniature Circus Maximus, where the pigs are racing for Oreos, and the monkeys are racing for honor. We could even dress the monkeys up in little cowboy costumes, or little jockey outfits, or even in Ben Hur period dress and re-enact the movie.
   When I tried to convince my friend that this was not only a fun idea it would be a money-making proposition, he didn't want any part of it. Wouldn't even entertain the idea, let alone make up blueprints, plan the stadium, or approach the bank about a small business loan. Trying to get sponsors to buy skyboxes was right out, too.
    Another of my beautiful ideas dies on the vine.
   But I haven't heard from my friend in a while, there's every possibility he's running pig races from a PuercoDrome in the middle of the Yucatan at this very minute.