Restaurant

In high school, I didn't like Mondays. It seemed to always be starting over with my friends and classmates as I didn't really see anyone on the weekend. I worked part-time at a restaurant and the weekends were the two days when I tried to work as much as I could. Even through college, I worked a lot of weekends. Working at a restaurant is something every one should do, at some point. You learn customer care skills and you learn that there are many types of people in the world.

Customer care skills are trial by fire. You are working in a dining room with a hostess who seats the customer. You then have to approach the customer and establish a 1:1 relationship. It's your job to make the customer feel appreciated. That means that if you were up late studying the night before, you have to suck it up and be pleasant. I used to waiter. I did okay, I think, from the perspective that I didn't have any complaints about me. Was I perfect? Of course not. I made mistakes. I'd write down eggs over hard and they'd come out over easy, the customer would complain and I'd return to the cook. I also had a customer who wanted a burnt English muffin, crisp bacon and eggs over hard. There were customers who would pay with exact change and there were customers who would give you a $20 bill and ask you to get their change for them - hopefully b/c they wanted to leave a big tip.

There are also very many different types of people in the world. Some treated eating out as a privilege. They were appreciative when you would bring them a refill of Pepsi without being asked. Others wanted to be treated like their feces had no order. I was their waiter and I was there to serve their whims. Finding a way to balance good customer service and your own personal life was essential. Sometimes it was difficult. A party of 9 comes in, accrue a large bill, and leave without a tip. A single guy would come in, order ice tea and sit for hours. My favorite was the group of ex-jocks who would come in and demand to sit in a specific section, regardless of whether that area was full or not.

I worked at that restaurant all through 3 years of high school and four years of college. I watched a lot of co-workers come and go. I watched a lot of drama and I watched the ever-changing pecking order. I watched people be trained and do well - I watched people be trained and freeze up when they were on their own. I think that is the main benefit of working at a restaurant - the relationships you build with your co-workers. The restaurant I was employed at was a family restaurant. It's still in business but it's been several years since I visited. I often think about the lessons it taught me.

Favorite Youtubes

This is...

Va Drum playing a Metallica melody.


Va Drum playing along to the Super Mario Brothers theme



Ringtones never sounded so cool...

Not really worth 4.5 hours in the car... right?

As a continuation of the lack of quality events (concerts, pro wrestling) in my area, I noticed that http://www.tnawrestling.com/content/view/596/40/ announces TNA is coming to Spencer, Iowa! Hey, at least it's in the state - I guess that's some sort of progress - and since I live in North Liberty, IA, I plugged my address and the address of the venue into mapquest.com and... dang geography. It's 4.5 hours away, my favorite TNA wrestler (Sting) isn't even mentioned as being on the card and, well, if the show starts @ 7:30, I'd have to leave work no later than 2:30 and have excellent driving weather. Then, after ~3 hours (at least), it'd be 10:30 (see, us English majors can do math) and then I'd have another 4.5 hour drive, getting me home @ 3 AM! Hypothetically, I could stop-over in Cedar Falls - possibly - to stay @ my brother-in-law's house overnight and then finish the drive in the AM. Tickets for that show start out @ $18 and the 'best available' per Ticketmaster.com were not great - not even with the ring straight ahead of me. I don't understand TNA - they could have booked the US Cellular Center - I know there's probably no concert scheduled there! - and had a good crowd. Instead, they book Spencer, IA. What the heck is in Spencer? The venu only has the TNA show and a Frank Sinatra tribute booked. Doesn't make sense.

In other news, way back in 2006, I went to the Waterstock concert in Des Moines, IA. Poison, Cinderella, Quiet Riot, Dokken, and a slew of other bands played - you can read the review - and it was a really great time. I got in for free through Poison's publicist, made some friends for a day and had a blast. According to this site, there isn't any indication that the event will happen this year.

So since that show doesn't seem feasible, I looked at the Picador to see what they have coming up. They have an excellent - on paper - all ages show on Friday, April 18. I have a CD from Destrophy, but I haven't heard any of the other bands on the bill which include

Freaklabel - from Cedar Rapids
Marcato - from Cedar Falls
Far From Falling - from Twin Cities - WOW! I like this!
doors at 5pm

That's silly. I don't get out of work until 5 and it's a 1/2 drive to my house, plus ... well, the earliest I could be @ the venue would be 6. Maybe that'd be when Far From Falling would kick off - if they are indeed first and Destrophy is headlining.

WM XXIV

I didn't want my post re: the Sueppels to be my only post, so I'm adding this one.

Wrestlemania XXIV is tomorrow. My friend BSS asked if I wanted to come over and watch it. I'm considering it - my knee seems better. I think it will be an interesting PPV, but I refuse to go match by match. I will say that I don't think Cena will win. I think it has to either be Orton or HHH. Cena is no longer the crowd favorite - in my ears - so it doesn't make sense to put the title back on him.

As I mentioned, my knee is better. I worked a 1/2 day yesterday and came home and took a nap. I was going to watch "Live Free or Die Hard" again but gave up, pulled a blanket up, and snoozed for a couple of hours.

Got 3 CDs last night for me to review @ DV - 16 Second Stare, Whitesnake's new release, and Everclear's comp of the covers they've recorded over the years. 16SS and Everclear were the two I wanted to hear first, and now I'm spinning the 'snake. The first track "Best Years" has a good groove. Coverdale has Reb Breach and Doug Aldrich playing guitar and drummer Chris Frazier in the lineup. I've always liked Breach's riffs, so it will be interesting to hear how this release progresses in my mind.

I signed up for a meet and greet with one of my favorite bands but since I don't want YOU to win, I'm not revealing how or where to sign up - I WANT TO WIN! I'm not even saying when the concert is or even in what state it is in. NO CLUES!!! Sorry for the selfishness, but I deserve it, no?

Editor's Note: these are the results of WM XXIV: WrestleMania XXIV  

Morning

The Iowa City community is enduring the tragedy of the Sueppel murders on Monday. Today is the funeral @ St. Mary's. I didn't know the family, but my thoughts and prayers are with them as they go through this difficult time.

And then I wrote....

I survived. I've been home, recooperating since about noon on Tuesday, from my knee surgery. I have watched some DVDs I have wanted to see for a while - Rocky Balboa, The Waterboy, Live Free or Die Hard, and Spider-Man 3 - so that was nice. Plus, on TNT, they have two back-to-back episodes of ER.

In other news http://prowrestling.about.com/od/watchingwrestling/a/liveeventsched.htm indicates the upcoming pro wrestling schedule. Traditionally, WWE comes to Cedar Rapids about once a year. Well, this year, they are skipping CR in favor of Des Moines, and, probably, the new Wells Fargo Arena, although the page doesn't explicitly state that is where the Smackdown/ECW tapings are occurring. On the WWE's trek across the midwest, it is not stopping in Cedar Rapids, where it has stopped umpteen times before.

This indicates the subject of the Cedar Rapids' Gazette has struck again - Cedar Rapids cannot draw events to the area because of its outdated facility called the US Cellular Center. Which brings me to something I wanted to write about - the sad state of concerts in Cedar Rapids. The US Cellular Center, according to the article, is an aging building that cannot compete with the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines and the iWireless Center in Moline, IL. The article described the possibility of building a new outdoor amphitheater to draw larger concerts. The thought is that a band going through some outdoor arena shows would stop in Cedar Rapids if this new amphitheater existed. The article also mentioned that Coralville is considering building a new arena that, hypothetically, could be used for live bands. So... here's where I see a problem.

The problem is that, despite the hundreds (thousands?) of people that commute from CR to Iowa City or from Iowa City to CR, these two communities act as different worlds. If Iowa City would look up the street, they'd see Carver Hawkeye Arena - which has hosted several big name concerts over the years, including U2, Metallica, and Bob Dylan. If they make a left towards the hospital, they will come face to face with Kinnick Stadium which, amazingly, is going to host its first outdoor concert - ever - in April when Kelly Clarkson plays.

Why does CR need their own venue? It's obvious why they need it. They have a large crowd base that, at one time, drew large concerts to the area. CR is a large enough metropolis that they sell out whatever concerts come to the area - take Green Day a couple of years ago. So there's a big draw there. The problem is, though, the concerts that come through the "technology corridor" have to choose between CR or Iowa City.

What should happen, instead, is a joint project between IC and CR should be to build a state of the art facility. This facility would be close enough to IC to draw Iowa City fans to a concert and Cedar Rapids fans to a concert. The place to build this state of the art facility?

North Liberty. It really makes the most sense. A smart person with a lot of money would look at the land near the I-380 interchange and invest in a huge building. They would build a large parking lot so there would be no parking issues, as there are with Kinnick. The facility would draw businesses to the thriving community and, most importantly, establish the city of North Liberty as the true Technology Corridor haven for bands that are driving across Iowa. If the band plays in Omaha on Monday and don't play in Chicago until Friday, playing this hypothetical new place in North Liberty on Wednesday becomes a no-brainer. It also would act as yet another step towards the eventual union of these two cities. My belief is that Cedar Rapids and Iowa City will someday be like Chicago or the Twin Cities where yes, there are different cities, but the area is a regional area. A new arena in Cedar Rapids or a new arena in Coralville is short-sighted.

Building a new facility in North Liberty is what should happen. Forget the new facility in Cedar Rapids and the US Cellular Center - though I have seen umpteen excellent concerts there - and a new facility in Coralville. Carver Hawkeye Arena has had the opportunity as has Kinnick to draw big concerts to the area for as long as they've existed and, consistently, they have either not won the bid or not actively attempted to draw these concerts to the area. Therefore, in my opinion, it is only reasonable to me to build a new regional facility in North Liberty, near the I-380 interchange, to draw big concerts to the area.

Monday Monday...

I had a good Easter weekend in Balltown which concluded my Holy Week. I went to Mass on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and then Easter Sunday.

Surgery tomorrow. Optimistically, I'll be back on Thursday.

Nothing in Life worth having is worth Nothing

The WritersUA conference concluded on Wednesday with a panel of experts making predictions about the future. One of the predictions that Chuck Martin reports was mentioned on the conference blog site is that the Internet will someday not be free and that a paid subscription will be required to bypass ads. That's something I hope doesn't happen. It seems to me that it will, though, because people are always looking for a new way to make money. Why shouldn't there be a price paid for the Internet? Your connection to the Internet isn't free - generally - because you are paying for a service. What service does the Internet provide or, the better question, what service doesn't the Internet provide? Not sure where I'm going with this so bear with me. The services that the Internet doesn't provide are all services we, as humans, do not trust someone else to do - the Internet doesn't pick a car for us if we're in the market but it makes finding the car you want easier. It doesn't fill up the car with gas but it makes finding the cheapest local price in your area. It doesn't pick out a band that you will like but it makes finding the best band you had never heard relatively easier to find because you can sample a band's material online. So the Internet is doing all these things for us and we aren't paying for it. If you find software that someone has written, you can contribute to a PayPal fund and help that developer out but there's nothing that makes you do it.

Maybe the prediction that the Internet will no longer be free is a good thing. The Internet is not my friend this AM. I use Logmein.com to access my virtual PC on my Vista PC b/c my scroll wheel doesn't work when I go in through VM player but it does when I use logmein.com. This AM, though, logmein.com doesn't like me and has not allowed me to access my PC. I'm paying for that because I use my scroll wheel nearly every minute I use a PC. Put your fingers away from the scroll wheel and see how easy it is to do stuff. It's not!

Today is Good Friday but it's a challenging one as well.

Update: Our excellent Sys Admin fixed my PC issue so I'm productive...

When I'm 64 - 13 . . .

Thinking about when I’m 51 is mind boggling – my daughter will be 24, my son will be 22. Both will be old enough to go to concerts with me I had wanted to take my son to see Rush in May b/c I thought ‘that would be a great ‘first’ great concert’ but I’m going to wait until he’s older. I don’t think he’d like their complex music – he only likes “Closer to the Heart” and “Freewill” but their 70s stuff (2112) would get lost on him. I can’t bear the thought of him not liking the concert b/c they played a bunch of songs he thought were boring b/c he didn’t understand how brilliant the musicianship really is.

Awareness Test

I don't want to make this blog a list of links to other places but... http://www.dothetest.co.uk/ is worth checking out.

DV

As a side not, I am writing reviews for http://www.Dailyvault.com. It's been over a decade - I think that's quite remarkable - of writing for them.

On the table...

I'm heading to a table - no, not today - to have surgery on my left knee. It's been hurting. I bent down a couple of weeks ago and heard a pop. Talked to the surgeon today and it's scheduled for Tuesday, 3/25. We have to be there @ 6 AM for a 7:45 surgery. I am going under anesthesia (I think Cliff Burton's bass solo called Anesthesia should be piped in as I go under) and then should be home by mid-afternoon. Crutches for a day or so.

I'll be gone from work on Tuesday & Wed, but hopefully back on Thursday.

Late to bed, Early to Rise

I was up until ~midnight and fell asleep almost immediately. What would I be doing up so late? I watched WWE - had to see how "Randy Orton & John Cena v. the 'entire Raw roster' would fail me. It did. It wasn't the entire Raw roster - it was hand-picked weaklings. Ric Flair, Kane, Shawn Michaels, even the Big Show - not involved. That's irritating. Instead of any of those four, you get Hacksaw Jim Duggan. At least Umaga got a double clothesline in that dropped my jaw.

After Raw, hopped on the PC. Lots of Hotmail emails, including a reminder to write reviews from myself. Yeah. Uh-huh.

I also started going through a stack of poems/songs I whittled down from a lot larger stack and organized them into stacks. 100. Going to integrate them into my daily journal. Most are from ~1992 and the heyday of my song / poetry writing. Some are impressive (to me) - others suck.

Came in to work @ 5:30 and have been cleaning up projects that are on the next update.

Also, I meet with the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow AM @ 8:15. Have to reschedule my dentist appointment @ 8.

More later.

Editor's Note: It was 113 days (3 months, 3 weeks) between my previous post and this one. I hope to not repeat that.