Tony

Around Home

2009-11-08T20:47:16Z

Assorted stuff around the property.

This last one is a rock and wild grape vine thought by our neighbors to look something like a crouching dragon:

Quick post

2009-11-04T17:36:46Z

Recap of the previous week:

The scramble to get everything done week before last seemed not so bad at the time, but it demanded a lot of recovery. In some ways it was harder afterwards. The stress actually hurt me in multiple identifiable ways that I didn't fully recognize until well after it was over. Facing the kitchen presents formidable emotional obstacles that are getting in the way of the product. Certain, seemingly arbitrary activities feel "bad" for no discernible reason and having to force my way through them has proven traumatic. I wonder constantly about how to fix this problem but have no answers right now.

Pizza production: It is strangely disheartening to be successful at this. I struggle to get two pizza batches in per month, and they sell out within days. The shop owner is constantly pestering me for more, but the work does not pay enough to be really motivating. Every indication points towards raising the price, but I am having a hard time making myself do this. I attempted to make a batch of ravioli at the same time as the pizza, but whereas two production batches in one day is not too much "work" per se, it upsets the finesse required to make the ravioli, and the result was a batch that was entirely unsellable. Bill helped with the baking, and dropped one pizza on the ground - I realized that this one "oops" erased the profit from a full hour of work.

Billy gathering: A welcome and necessary respite, which I took as an opportunity for introspection and deep relaxation. Not that it started so easily. It took FOREVER to get out on Friday morning. Pizza packaging, packing for the trip, getting things together for various errands - I thought it would never get done, but I did get there in time for lunch. The Billies (a gay men's new-agey sex-friendly club vaguely like the Faeries) had a retreat at Saratoga Springs for halloween, and I figured I would give it a serious try. That is, participate without cynicism in all the hippy-dippy touchy-feely activities and see how it went. The answer was "very well".

Friday night was "The Journey", a simple, heartfelt multi-media event with cardboard cutouts, a spooky and dramatic narrative, various musical instruments, spoken word, and vocal parts scattered throughout the audience. All sat on mats in a circle on the floor, about 80 of us in all. I have come to truly appreciate things that are created with more sincerity than technical skill; for so much of my life, it's sincerity that has been the elusive part. I would say that through the magic of tribal bonding, this was among the most engaging and emotionally affecting performances I've ever seen.

Boy, did I sleep a lot, about ten hours that night. Sleeping in a bunkroom with lots of other men is an incredibly soothing thing for me. It feels very secure.

Saturday, I did the heart circle thing for the first time in, like, fifteen years and found it not at all tedious. Very interesting, actually, once I stopped paying attention to my own thoughts and made a point of listening attentively.

The costume dance that night was an incredible eye-popping wonder. Never seen costumes like that before, and nearly everybody was wearing something interesting, many of them having raided the stash of high-camp glitteralia the Billies keep for such occasions. I took the opportunity to wear my fully pin-encrusted RMC overlay, not a "costume" per se, but something I have decided it's OK to be proud of. ;-) People found it fascinating.

Met a couple of guys that seemed real familiar, and in both cases it turns out they had been visitors here, during QBT. Guess I should have made more of an effort to get to know them then! One in particular had been really silent at the time, but on chatting with him he proved quite interesting and articulate. I'd been so wrapped up in getting things done during his earlier visit that I'm not sure I even greeted him properly. Sigh.

Sunday morning I left the gathering to head to SF, where I spent time at the Eagle and the Hole with Rich (who I have been seeing lately), ran into a few friends, and later treated him to dinner at Chow, which was delicious but pricey. It seems necessary to eat out at least once a month, somewhere really good, to calibrate my own culinary sense. I feel like my work drifts if I don't have some high standard to compare it to.

Monday morning was for picking up supplies, including lots more duck for confit, and a big bag of dried shiitake. I found, at last, a reasonably good Chinese market in SF, in an area where it's easy to park. My aversion to parking is out of proportion to the actual difficulty - given what it costs to go into SF at all, I might as well get more out of the visit by just paying for a freaking parking-garage spot.

This week I've got 200 little appetizer plates for a mushroom festival event, and appetizers fora private party of 30 the next day. This is the LAST time I want to serve back-to-back events like this. There has to always be a non-event day in between, or it's just too stressful.

Math problem for chefs

2009-10-23T23:50:09Z

A chef has received a shipment of button mushrooms that is unusually variable in size. Assume the mean size of each mushroom is 30g, with a standard deviation of 10g. In order to use these mushrooms, the chef wishes to either leave them whole, cut them in halves, or cut them in quarters, depending on their size. Devise a cutting strategy that minimizes the standard deviation of the size of the resulting pieces.

Halfway through "Hell Week"

2009-10-22T23:12:51Z

It's sort of the eye of the hurricane.

Dinner for ten on Tuesday - a donation on my part, the guests paid $2K for this dinner at a charity auction. Flawless. Good to find out who has money and taste in this town.

Today, lunch for 14 at a winery. I thought it was a bit of a fiasco, but the guests loved it. My new chafing dishes are a pain in the ass, I need to figure out how to set them up with much less fiddling.

Saturday and Sunday, paired events at the same winery, appetizers for 50, identical menu for both of them. So I have tomorrow-and-a-little-bit to get my act together for that. Hardly any turn-around time between them, the first is 5-8 and the second is 1-4.

Now, a few hours of rest before I get things going again... yeah, it makes money but boy is it a slog sometimes!

There's definitely going to be a lot of business coming. My main worry now is that I have to make this sustainable and not kill myself for pennies. I think I'm getting close to a $20/hr margin at this point but I really need to get it to $30 to make it work in a conventional ROI sense. 20% better efficiency and a 10% price hike might get it there.

Super ultra hot

2009-10-22T00:01:30Z

Via churchbear. Falling anvils are involved, but he's more bear than coyote:

Next time I hear him say "fire in the hole", I want it to mean "more lube please!"

Pics from trips

2009-10-19T23:44:25Z

Some recent photography; landscapes and animals

Iron bridge near highway 97, over a dramatic rift valley:

Castle Crags state park:

Amusing sign, and future LJ icon of uncertain meaning:

You know the joke about where the guy joins the foreign legion, and asks about getting laid, camels are involved, and the punch line is "Well, you don't want to get an ugly one, do you?" In case you were wondering, this is the ugly one:

Her friend the Drama Llama:

Interesting hooves:

Duck:

Homonid:

Snuggle bunny love sponge:

A spot where I stopped for breakfast - outstanding food:

Crash test video - cannot find

2009-10-19T21:45:39Z

Recently, somebody posted an interesting video of a crash test between a modern car and a larger, older one, in which the older car fares rather badly. I can't for the life of me find it again. If it was you, would you mind reposting it in a comment? THANKS!

Update: Thanks Furr and Polecat for the prompt answer! I'm trying to explain to Bill that cars aren't safer just because they're big...

The Lesbian Tea Problem

2009-10-19T04:29:06Z

Been getting very much into organization and cleaning these past few days. Having been here about 18 months, I finally feel calm and secure enough to make actual decisions. Which is what has been holding things up all along.

It's amazing how emotional baggage can hold you back. I don't know what it is that creates so much self-sabotage in managing everyday affairs, but it's a bitch. One problem I've identified is something I like to call the "Lesbian Tea Problem". While it is not unique to either lesbians or tea, I'd wager that there are a whole lot of lesbians out there with cupboards full of tea. Anyway, it goes like this:

Tea seems like a good idea. And it is! Shops are full of intriguing teas from all over the world, and so many of them are delicious. Unfortunately, some are not. Over the years, you buy a lot of different teas, and drink most of them. But not all of them.

Over time, you deplete the teas you like, but each time you buy a new kind of tea there's always a chance it's one of the ones you don't like, and they accumulate with amazing speed. The result is a cupboard that isn't just full of tea, but full of tea that tastes awful. It doesn't get better with age, either. In time, you realize you've wasted quite a chunk of change on undesirable teas, so throwing them away seems horribly wasteful. But your tea-cupboard has become essentially dysfunctional, because you never clear it out.

The first step in overcoming this is understanding that cupboard space is lavishly expensive - hundreds of dollars per square foot. Storing that tea is costing lots of money. So imagine that every time you throw away a 3" x 3" box of tea, someone is handing you a ten dollar bill.

The other mindset is the ancient, favored principle of "shit or get off the pot". I recently looked at a beautiful little bamboo cylinder full of tea John brought back from Korea in... oh, 1993 or thereabouts. Heh. I knew what was going to happen. I put it on the counter and decided to either drink it or throw it away. It turned out, rather soon, that throwing it away was the more desirable option. By setting this decision in opposition to it's only reasonable alternative, I gained another tenth of a square foot. Yay! One simply has to do this every time one has tea, and before long, the cupboard is - blissfully - bare.

This, alas, is one of the easier probems. I also have the Book Problem. The books are not something I'm going to discard - not more than a quarter of them, anyway. But they remain in boxes, because they await a set of bookshelves that is not built, and it is difficult to accept that they are not going to get built on a reasonable schedule. So it's time to look for alternatives, like prefab bookshelves that are not completely obnoxious. This is a case where the task is being held back by an unreasonable ambition - the perfect is the enemy of the good. If I want to have books, I must accept housing them in less-than-perfect shelving, because even bad shelving is better than boxes.

There are so many more issues to tackle. I have a book about them, which is ironically buried in the stack of boxes behind my desk. I'm sure reading the book is easier than figuring out all this on my own...

One thing for sure, though: organization is not a task, it is a way of life. As a task, it is depressing and never-ending. As a way of life, it is really not that big of a burden. Minutes a day, hardly more difficult than brushing your teeth. Once you acquire the habit, that is - considering it's something so simple, getting there is amazingly difficult.

Because Nobody Actually Pays For Windows, Right?

2009-10-18T19:58:09Z

OK, Windows 7 is out and I would like to ditch Vista entirely - particularly the version that came with my TouchSmart - but I no longer have the connections that relieved me from, you know, actually paying for it. I also don't want an "upgrade" that requires me to find disks that are never available when you need them. I'm after the full, standalone version, not tied to specific hardware and not flaky pirated crap.

Suggestions? Or has Microsoft finally won this game?

Update: Admittedly, the $150 price for the Win 7 "family pack" is not so bad, but this is apparently an "upgrade" rather than a standalone license (though nothing on Amazon's page tells you that), and I'm confused on a few things... like, do you need to find the original install disks for whatever you're upgrading from? What if your hard disk dies and you have no choice but to do a clean install? I wouldn't mind just paying the upgrade price for my 3 computers, but I would hate to get stuck with less than 3 installations in practice, particularly since I don't have the original install disks for the notebook and whether I can find them for my desktop is kind of questionable. Thoughts?

Well, that was exciting.

2009-10-14T06:38:24Z

Of course, with the first big rainstorm, not only did I have a catering event, there was a power failure. Normally we have gravity-feed water available, but it's too muddy to use right now. So we had water for about half the day, and once the pressure tank was exhausted it was down to a trickle.

This is where all this wilderness work helps - no water or electricity? No problem. Hardly batted an eyelash. We had lots of propane and ice. But I'm sure glad I made the tortellini last night...

Actually, it was worse than a power failure - we had a brownout. The voltage went down to 80V for several hours. Interesting to see what worked and what didn't. Halogens were very dim, incandescent lights almost useless. Fluorescents were fine. The fridge made a kind of subdued hum that didn't sound like it was doing anything useful. We figured it was best to disconnect anything digital or motorized. The laser printer seems out of sorts now, it wasn't on battery backup, and it might be fried. Actually I kinda hope so.

Dinner was OK, not my best. I went out on a limb and made pommes Anna for the first time at the client's house. The Cooks Illustrated method is pretty foolproof and it came out looking rather good. Perhaps a little oily though.

So the event was basically fine but I feel a bit frazzled for a lot of reasons. As much as I like the first rain and what it brings, it always ends up creating a bit of a panic unto itself.

Recent tidbits

2009-10-12T19:34:33Z

Had a short trip into SF. The number of commitments I could have in the city is so large I feel very self conscious about going in at all. Hard to keep up with people that are eminently worthy of keeping up with.

On impulse, I had bought a pair of sexy saddle-patched 501s from Paul Johnson (Offramp Leathers) at the Folsom St. Fair. The tag said 32-30 and they seemed right at the time, but on getting home they were more like 32-27 and looked ridiculous when I sat down. I mean, maybe I could have worn them to the beach or something. He said he'd exchange them, so I bought a pair of new Carhartts and he's doing them up in brown leather. They're going to be super-extra-sexy. It's going to be interesting wearing them riding with the local HOG group. I figure if some redneck doesn't like them I can just tell him he can stop staring at my ass any time he wants. But more likely, I think there's a real chance these pants will get me laid. They say "fuck me" from about a quarter of a mile away. That's what I love about motorcycles: they offer plausible deniability for so many things.

Definitely: no more black leather, it's all brown from here. So I'm glad I got to change the pants as well as the size.

Spent some time at the Eagle and chatted up a really hot guy I've had my eye on for years. Just never got the chance to talk much before.

Dim Sum with a friend at Yet Wah on Diamond Heights was an alarming experience. The dim sum itself was OK - the restaurant was quiet and they made it to order, so at least it was served hot - but man, was the place ever filthy. I cannot believe anyone would manage a restaurant like that. I mean, not only did the white tablecloths have prominent stains and crumbs, so did the white fucking paper placemats they laid on top of them. Hello, you can afford to dispose of these things, they are disposable. And remember kids, it's much easier to clean a bathroom than it is to clean a kitchen! Judge accordingly.

First rain of the season here, so there's been a bit of scrambling around. We got the woodshed put together and filled with dry wood on a timely basis, so no worries there. Big rains tomorrow, so I have disconnected the collection barrel at the spring, since there's going to be a lot of mud coming through. Glad the water crunch will soon be over. I love the instant-green effect of the moss - the leaves may be brown, but everything else is lush and vibrant. Also got a good look at the pileated woodpecker that lives here, he's big and colorful, but kind of shy, so I had only seen him at a distance. Very interesting bird.

One dinner party tomorrow night then the rest of the week is off. Next week is hell week, with events on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. It's the ONE weekend I would REALLY like to have off, but I couldn't say no to the weekend bookings. Such is life, I've actually been pleased at how many events end up happening mid-week.

Waste of a good hard drive

2009-10-09T01:11:39Z

It appears that the hard disk shipped with my HP TouchStupid (which has been nothing but trouble) has some serious problems of its own. Bad firmware, apparently, and the update they provided is in itself bricking disks pretty reliably. According to that site, "only drives which have not already locked up can be updated with the new firmware." Oh well. What a freaking waste. Perfectly good drive gone to hell. If anyone thinks they can restore it to function, it's yours.

Went out and paid $99 for an overpriced 500 GB Western Digital drive from the local Staples - the curse of living in a small town. Though it still stuns me that they are affordable at all. Hope it works.

Update: Yeah, it works. Never been so happy to see a computer actually boot again, I had figured it was going to be a total loss.

Mind the Gap

2009-10-01T18:53:07Z

OMG. Wow:

http://www.gapminder.org/

The chart tool is very much the kind of software I used to produce for genomics research. Stuff that lets non-programmers and non-statisticians dive into datasets and see stuff for themselves. Seeing this brought to the world (literally) is wonderful.

I put it to immediate use in assessing the political slogan "feed at 'em now, shoot at 'em later", something which has long irritated me. Feeding people is not like feeding wildlife; it is an empirical fact that high fertility is associated with poverty and food insecurity. And, not surprisingly, the data paint a more complicated picture - it is true, for instance, that foreign aid received as a percent of a country's GDP is correlated with fertility, too. Foreign aid per person, however, is not. The argument that foreign aid does not increase the number of births is one I happen to believe is true, but it is not a simple matter to explain why. One can cherrypick the data to suggest individually compelling but contradictory conclusions. This, perhaps, is the most useful lesson to be drawn.

Back home

2009-09-26T00:26:25Z

Wow, that was a long time on the road. Got home last night and am swamped with stuff to do.

It's very hard to come down after something like this. Downright traumatic. I had all sorts of things I wanted to write about on LJ but my best efforts are coming out an incoherent mess. The experience was so wonderful and amazing, while the words are so clumsy and dull.

Got five event bookings while I was away that all have to be whipped into shape. Eeek!

Career Changers

2009-09-26T00:22:30Z

Very interesting article in the Chronicle about people who switch to a culinary career late in life.

The comments are particularly interesting. I have to endorse just about everything the most severe naysayers say about this; the celebrity chef phenomenon has greatly distorted the perception of the trade. Long hours and low pay indeed. I had to laugh over comments about 14 hour days at a third the pay - sometimes I work 16 hours at one tenth the pay. LOL. There are paths to this that work - chefxh is a good example - but you have to be very committed.

Nothing in the article or the comments was anything I didn't know going into this. It's a real tough line of work no matter how you do it.

Blue Lagoon

2009-09-17T18:50:59Z

Now into my second full day at my dad's place on the lake. This is not where I'm staying...

This is where I'm staying.

The architecture isn't quite so sexy as the former cabin, but the interior is a place of astonishing luxury. Granite and marble all over the place, a show-stopper kitchen, a stunning garden, and a lakeside guest cabin where I'd LOVE to bring a few horny bikers for the weekend if only I could get them out here.

Can't complain, my dad's a very lucky guy to have been able to build this house and live here. This is truly one of the most extraordinary lakes in the world - deep, clear, warm, and so pure you can drink the water without treatment. He's obviously got a lot of money, but not a LOT, he just spent it wisely. Property values have gone through the roof here in the past few years and today homes like this are stratospherically expensive. It hurts to see the kind of place we could have bought ourselves here ten years ago - coulda woulda shoulda.

It's orgasmically good to have nothing to do. No obligations, no deadlines, a wild and uninhibited stepmother, and a father that keeps my pot stash safe and plies me with alcohol. Oh darn. They enjoy a certain kind of Bacchanalian excess in retirement - wine flows like water, and dinner tends to consist of things like ten pounds of king crab legs and a salad.

We went out and did "the gawk" yesterday, cruising past all the mansions in a boat, snapping photos like a papparazzo. Curiously, but not surprisingly, the lake is home to several lottery winners. The cabin pictured above was my favorite, and can actually be rented for $200/night - not a bad deal if I weren't staying here. Lots of new construction going on, not exactly "McMansion" homes but frankly most of it is out of character for the environment. The old cabins, built by people of modest means, are considerably more charming.

This is my dad:

Yeah, I know... If only. ;-)

His aforementioned wife:

Myself, in lake-cruising mode:

Last night, we had an electrical storm, and with the first big rain of the season we woke to a newly dampened world. Very pretty.

Off to Vancouver tomorrow to see my mum and a few friends - I never have enough time when I'm there, unfortunately. Then it looks like I'm going to have a series of smokin' hot dates in Victoria and Washington State on the way back. Woof!

Klamath Falls

2009-09-14T05:10:55Z

In Klamath Falls tonight, en route to BC. Yeah, I've hardly been at home lately.

This town really rolls up the sidewalks. The motel parking lot is full of motorcycles but they all appear to be sleeping or something. It seems, demographically speaking, that there ought to be a rowdy bar on the outskirts of town full of ranchers and loggers, but I have no idea where it is. A few long-shot stabs at Silverdaddies have also drawn a blank. Guess I'll just sleep, it's a long way to chefxh's place tomorrow and I'd like to have enough daylight hours to check some things out en route.

[Update: Fishing on teh internets did not draw a blank... stay tuned!]

Had a great hike at Castle Crags earlier today. Thought I'd keep it short but it ended up being about two hours, most of it straight up! It took me to a lovely mountain spring at the base of the crags with delicious water.

Highway 97 is way interesting. Very few people, but a good road for long distance travel. So far, anyway. Never been this way before.

This trip will see 3 days at my dad's place at the lake, then 3 days visiting my mother in Vancouver, followed by a detour to the Kitsap Penninsula to see a man about a horse. Heh. Then probably a visit with twobraids and back home. For a while, I hope!

Well isn't THAT interesting

2009-09-13T03:49:35Z

Kitsune has been very interested in some local scent lately, and has had her nose in the air all day. In the meanwhile, a neighbor's game camera just snapped a picture of a black bear - coincidence? I had no idea they lived in this area! I sure hope it leaves our trash alone...

Badger 48

2009-09-09T23:00:06Z

Badger #48 seemed pretty laid back. Simpler rig, fewer people, nice weather, and almost no drama. The Satyrs are pretty hard on volunteers so I was particularly pleased to see a lot of equipment left back in the garage - schlepping that stuff is really hard.

This being my tenth time there, it OUGHT to be smooth, and it was... it's a strange thing, when I'm up there it seems as if the campsite is the entirety of the world, someplace outside of space and time. When you add it all up, I've spent a couple of months up there, and in my memory it is like a single journey, all lumped together without interruption in a universe of its own. The forest there is so gentle and beautiful, it breaks my heart to leave it.

The new Satyrs member, Bert, is a great guy. He's got a super attitude, and lots of useful resources. Labor Day is a terrible time to rent a truck - you ALWAYS get fucked over somehow - but he got a great deal on the big truck, and got us use of his company's reefer van for free. Unfortunately, while packing up, we managed to kill the battery, and since the truck is a 24V system you can't just jump it with a car. Worse, we lost the use of the lift gate for a while, so lots of big heavy crap had to be lifted by hand! Getting the engine going again took quite a bit of ingenuity, but fortunately there were several professional truckers on hand who knew how to deal with it (Ted being one of them), and by jury-rigging a 12V generator along with another vehicle we were able to get it started.

The equipment set is ridiculous, and the packing process both dangerous and unforgiving - as a catering venture, it would be a freaking disaster. But as a training exercise, there's actually quite a lot going for it. When I was younger, I was continually frustrated by my inability to cooperate meaningfully with others. For some reason, the inability to engage in cooperative physical work is considered a suitable target for scorn in a way that merely intellectual deficits are not. And that's all wrapped up with homophobia in complicated ways. LOTS of issues there. So now, I'm not just eager, but actually quite fascinated by the opportunity to do something very hard and physical with a bunch of gay men. Organizational dysfunction - of which there is plenty - makes for interesting observation. To learn new things, one needs not just good examples of effective work, but good counterexamples. Now, it's not all that bad, everything always works out in the end, but the process of getting there is so interesting that to lose the inefficiencies would strip it of half its interest.

I didn't just work, though, there was plenty of time for fooling around, which I used to great advantage. ;-)

Back from Badger, back to "work"

2009-09-09T00:31:05Z

We're back. Of course, the minute I'm in cell phone range I find I have a client that wants lunch for 16, tomorrow. So a more extensive update will have to wait.

Inter-Event Relaxation

2009-09-01T22:42:47Z

Ted, Bill, Hermann and I are currently hanging with Greg in Oakhurst, en route to Badger.

The Guards run went very smoothly. It is increasingly clear that the most difficult task in the kitchen is thinking; by getting nearly all the thinking done in advance, and having my apparently mandatory nervous breakdown before even leaving home, the work was really quite easy. Making finding useful work for volunteers the first priority worked out very well as a result, since whenever someone showed up I could tell them exactly what to do and have them do it. Some people have weird attitudes, though. I'm not sure what they're expecting, but when I put a pile of carrots in front of someone and hand them a peeler they sometimes look disappointed. I try to keep it social and fun but that's not always possible.

One volunteer was a sullen queen who clearly only took on the dishwashing station in order to get comped for the run, and worked as slowly and inefectually as possible. I hated having him there. Another was a sweetheart, but a little on the slow side - not sure if it was enough to count as "mentally disabled", but one of the things I really like about these events is that they are highly accomodating of people with disabilities of various sorts, so I was happy to help him participate even if he wasn't very capable. And the third dishwasher was fantastic, a tech-industry cub with tremendous organizational skill who attacked every problem with gusto, no matter how awful the job. I also got one especially strong and brave fellow who donned all the safety gear I provided, and spent more than an hour and a half patiently searing 70 pounds of prime rib in smoking-hot bacon fat, five batches in all. Truly a hellish job, but OMG you would not believe how good the result is. I had several people say it was the best prime rib they'd ever had, which pleases me to no end.

Bill is a great assistant, dealing with such things as packing and schlepping, dealing with leaky plumbing, and making sure the place doesn't burn down. When it comes to work, we get along much better on the road than we do at home. He saves my butt every day and it would be very hard to get this done without him.

The resort manager is really serious about her kitchen and only allows chefs with food safety certification to run the place during events. She made a big deal about cleaning and pointed out that the place was "spotless". Well, the visible counter surfaces were OK but I found plenty of places that were disgracefully filthy, including pretty much all under-counter surfaces, and the poorly bolted-together service station which had lots of crevices full of crud. Anywhere an object "lived" on a counter, it was sure to be nasty underneath. Safe to say I left the place with much less grime than when I started. Par for the course, it seems most kitchens are like this, but I couldn't believe she could combine such pride in cleanliness with such low standards in practice. Maybe she needs glasses.

Anyway, it was all very mellow and zero-drama, and the only reason I felt tired had more to do with excessive drugs, booze, sex, and late night partying than anything to do with cooking. We put out more than 500 plates of food in total, and yeah, I could do that every week! So it's been pretty much the ideal culinary junket. It's sure fun to spend the weekend partying and get paid for it. I've long felt like a bit of a fraud calling myself a "chef" but this weekend left me feeling like I really do have what it takes - particularly the ability to mobilize others, treat them well, and get good results.

We re-staged for the pre-Badger cooking in Sonora, which was a pain in the ass. Doing these runs back to back means they both get dragged down. There's enough room in the van, but the presence of stuff for one run encumbers the other and congests the whole process. Do Not Want. Nevertheless, it's still working out just fine, this is just an annoyance.

Departure

2009-08-27T01:24:16Z

Tomorrow sees us off on a twelve-day catering junket in the Sierra. Things are almost together. I hate to say "almost" because that generally means "not nearly as well as you think". Nevertheless, all the food is accounted for and out in sight, the equipment list is put together, and the tie-down rails are getting bolted into the van right now. All I have to do is throw everything in the van.

The reason I have a nervous breakdown over organization is that when you really put the list together, it's very large. Combining the number of ingredients in all preparations, the tasks to perform, and the equipment to bring, the whole list is well over a thousand items. And that's for the Guards run alone, Badger will take another list, and we'll be re-stocking en route. On the plus side, when you have a really good checklist, and you know how long it will take, the work is utterly relaxing - just march down the list. That's the easy part. I think we're listed-up enough for a low-anxiety week now, or at least I hope so. I want to spend a LOT of time partying.

A major focus this year is "making good use of volunteers". I tend to get caught up in things and get all anxious about taking the 2-3 minutes of thought it takes to get a volunteer going. This is plain stupidity. I have a native reluctance to tell people what to do, but being an actual chef means ordering people around. I think I have an idea of how to do this now.

One item was forgotten: garlic. Classic error: I was in the produce section, picked up some garlic, crossed it off, and realized: no, I must get peeled garlic. So I put the garlic back and put a circle next to the crossed-off item. This was then overlooked. Only one thing out of a thousand, but can you imagine being without it? It would be like the sun forgetting to rise in the morning. It turns out that a lot of things are like this.

Do not yield a single drop in the ocean of merit; even a mountain of good karma can be augmented by a single particle of dust.

Recent events

2009-08-24T21:25:23Z

Had a rather good weekend with several Bay Area stops. Ted and I rendezvoused in San Jose, where we attended my old neighborhood's block party for a few hours. I feel a bit wistful, still, about leaving that place, although beyond that one block, the rest of San Jose can go hang itself.

Then, we continued to Boulder Creek where we went to an excellent South Bay Bears sleepover party. The house was a GREAT party pad - the grounds were well forested with redwoods, there was a fire ring, several decks, a hot tub, and lots of bedrooms. Heh. It got good and frisky, too, and I never get tired of being with hairy guys out in the woods.

Ted and I had lunch at Alice's, then I stopped at the "Skyline Office", a circle of redwood trees where I often go for some serious calming-down. The interior is almost completely enclosed by wood and entirely private:

Afterwards, I met up at the Eagle with Rich, a fellow I've been spending some time with lately:

Love that bushy bristly look.

This coming weekend is the Golden Gate Guards run, and after that is Badger. Probably won't have time to write for a while, the Guards run is going to be really intense in the kitchen. Frankly I wonder if I've bit off more than I can chew with this one. We'll see how the baking prep goes over the next few days. Right now I'm feeling positively awful about it, the pressure of these things is proving very hard to take and it's sucking. It's a money-earning thing but I feel terribly fatigued and would really, really like to rest for a while. Like maybe a whole month.

There will be a hiatus between this run and Badger, and Bill and I will be staying at Ted's for that period. That should be quite relaxing.

Oddball question: gas cans

2009-08-21T19:40:55Z

Does anyone reading this have an opinion on California-legal gas cans, which since 2001 have been required by law to have (possibly inconvenient) mechanisms that prevent vapors from escaping? Are some better than others?

Barriers to work

2009-08-18T15:27:38Z

I cannot believe it is already the 18th. Planning for the Guards and Badger runs is like staring down an oncoming freight train.

God knows I'm not lazy, but my work remains backed up in irrational and unnecessary ways. I have no problem with external commitments; it's no trouble giving my clients exactly what I promise, perfectly, every time. It's just that lack of planning makes it much harder than necessary to do so.

The trouble lies with a long list of business-development goals that are all jockeying for priority. Right now that's where I should be spending a lot of time. But I have a very specific problem that impedes progress: my sense of the relative priority of these goals is constantly shifting. There are too many of them, and it's really hard to figure out which ones are worthwhile and which are a waste of time. Their priority is determined not only by the value of the result, but by how much of a pain in the ass it is to achieve it. Most tasks end up being more of a pain in the ass than one might think, thus lowering the priority of tasks while they are already in progress - exactly the worst time. It's a bad cycle of negative reinforcement that makes getting things done much more difficult.

The other thing is that the deadlines for events are so unforgiving that when they aren't there, the sheer luxury of their absence makes everything else seem unimportant. Leisure time has never been so pleasurable.

The database is a sticking point. I can save quite a bit of stress and money by centralizing all the information I use in my work - consolidating prices, recipes, et cetra so as to generate automated shopping lists and even picking the cheapest place to get things. It is eminently doable, I know exactly how to approach it, and for certain events I've done it, but when I open it up on the screen, I get a sick feeling in my stomach and reflexively turn away from it. I caught myself doing this and thought, whoa, there is something wrong here.

I'm no sucker for instant gratification, but these negative responses to necessary, useful, and seemingly easy things are kind of a problem. I wonder if I'm much more burned out on computers than I had realized.

Sigh. I have a week to get this together, wish me luck!