whether i have time or energy to keep up this blog or not is yet to be seen, but one thing is certain, i do have opinions i want to make public once in a while and this seems to be the best place for that, even if i don’t keep a running commentary of my trials and tribulations.
i haven’t watched tv in over 20 years… i have seen a show here and there but barely. i have not seen the daily show, the sopranos, seinfeld, lots of shows like that… i’ve seen the simpsons a few times… but anyway, i recently got a tv and i seem to be drawn to mainly one thing on it, politics. isn’t that sick and crazy? politics. i mean, of all the hopeless, worthless things to watch, i like the road to the white house channel, whichever one that is. i’m actually stoked to watch the youtube republican debates tomorrow night. i’m following these candidates now because i can see them on tv and listen to what bits and pieces they say. i gotta tell you straight up, i like joe biden. to me he is the obvious choice. the guy is so right on about so many things. (tonight i saw biden in a iowa town hall meeting. the other night i watched gulliani. i saw a bit of bill richardson…) practically everything biden says i agree with. anyway, it’s too bad he’s not the guy the press is pushing. all they want to talk about is hillary and obama. i watched the last democratic debates and i came away going, man, joe biden won that debate hands down, duh. and the commentators went straight to talking about the hillary obama slugfest… wait a minute, did you guys see what i saw? joe biden, duh.

whatever. i don’t know why i tell you this. you aren’t addicted to politics. you probably barely have a notion between clinton and obama. most people are probably trying to decide which one of them to vote for… and then there’s the republicans. i gotta admit i haven’t seem enough aout them yet, but only because i just recently got the tv. i like some of gulliani. i like some of romney and huckabee. i’ll know more about them after tomorrow night. i’m an open minded guy. i’m also a democrat but i like to see what the republicans are talking about. if nader was running, i’d probably vote for him, but so far, i think joe biden is my man.

work? it’s going ok. i’m making a satchel’s pizza movie so that is about the most exciting part of my work life now. i hope it might be done in 08.

i got 2 shows coming up. eight new paintings at satchel’s in december and then a show of the past 20 years of work at hector’s in january. the picture here is a portion of an old painting/ collage from the 90′s.
tonight. well, it wasn’t easy. there were some clogs in the sewer lines yesterday and a plumber came out and fixed that. but today again, we had back up. called the plumber back. he spent a good amount of time trying to locate the problem but it seems it might be bigger then just a clog. maybe a tree root or something. anyway, he has to come back in the daylight and dig and so tonight our bathrooms were out of order although we had the plumber on site trying to fix it. one lady was really irate about it, said we shouldn’t be open and stuff. i didn’t talk to her personally but the manager told her we were doing our best to fix the problem. it’s not like you get a clogged toilet and you close the restaurant.
then, to add insult to injury, there was a long string baked into one of our gluten free crusts. we get the crusts from a bakery out of deland. they are millet and flax seed and are becoming quite popular with those who avoid wheat. but how did this string get baked into it? i wish i knew. i like that it wasn’t our fault but i don’t like that i am serving this product. seems i should go to deland and check out this bakery…
the gator game had us really slow. there was a band back in LSE getting paid a hundred bucks but no one back there to enjoy it. then, after the game, around 9:30 we did get a rush. the place finally filled up just about closing time. and the bathrooms were still down and well, it was all out of my control at that point.
but the gators won. and the pies were looking good. and i’m glad that we now have 2 days to fix the plumbing problems.
see ya’ll tuesday. we’ll let sami’s bakery know to leave the strings out of the gluten free pies.

this is a busy week for us. tuesday and wednesday are like fridays. we were slammed all day and i went in both nights and created a new position where i just manned the ovens. usually we have 3 pizza makers, 1 of which also cooks. tonight there were 4 of us which makes for an awfully crowded kitchen. 7 all told and that’s crowded. the kitchen is tiny.
anyway, it went pretty well. i was getting mad at the guys for a few things. they forgot mushrooms on one pie, meatballs on a slice. a deep dish came out almost 30 minutes early, and that’s no good. then another pie came out 15 minutes early and that’s no good either. they need to come out when they are supposed to, give or take 5 minutes. some of the calzones were leaking, that drives me absolutely through the roof. i am embarrassed when i start sending out leaking soggy calzones. we are pros here, we should know better. everybody is working hard though, doing our best.
we have 15 coming for thanksgiving dinner to our house tomorrow. i’m making turkey and dressing pizza. just kidding. no, i will skip pizza tomorrow and get back to it friday. have a good holiday everybody.

another week. problems such as employees missing cleaning days, timers which don’t know about daylight savings time, mysterious leaks, mysterious ice machines, a sudden cold spell, requests for restricting party sizes, and general and specific management.
my desk is piled high with papers and i pretend to ignore it.
the pies looked perfect all night. i cooked some good ones no doubt about it. you might have waited 45 minutes but your pie was bustin a move.
my mom even came in for dinner, sat in the garden with friends and i never even saw her one time. i was too busy to stop for 60 seconds, she was probably having fun…

pizza tastes better in the winter.

velveeta u. played LSE tonight, to a huge crowd of me and danny. what good music they were playing. but the gators stole the show tonight.
i do love making pizzas.

we have more problems with our phones than any business in gainesville, i’m sure. i have made myself sick this morning trying to work it out. i have called at&t at least 10 times and spoken with at least a dozen people and i think i might have stressed myself into a sickness over it. at&t came out last week and were supposed to make a change so that we’d have 3 lines incoming. instead they took away our line 2. so now, all week, if you called and we were on line 1, the phone just rings and rings and never gets picked up. well, that’s not because we’re avoiding you, but because we don’t hear the phone ringing. i could go into a thousand other gory details about it all and make you feel sick to your stomach too, but i won’t. if you ever call satchel’s and are not getting through for some reason, look up my email address on the contact page of our website, let me know, and you’ll get a free pizza.
anyway, very sorry if you called in and no one answered. blame it on at&t. i wish i could bill them for the lost business this week, we’ve probably lost over a thousand dollars from this ongoing issue. i have to wait for a business day to fix it, and then only if i get really lucky and get the right person on the phone. every time i call i am told something different about what they can or can’t do.

well… friday was the busiest day we ever had at satchel’s, ever. pretty impressive, especially since i missed it. as difficult as it was for me to miss, i has another engagement to attend and was feeling pretty upset about missing what i knew would be a really busy weekend. i did not think we would break any records. but the crew pulled it off.
i’m feeling renewed from my few days away. i ate some pizza, deck oven cooked, crispy and not over cheesed, but it just was missing all the flavor. no flavor in the crust, sauce or toppings. they put it all through the latest equipment that every restaurant gets, the flavor extractor. my family ate a bacon egg and cheese bagel one time at panera, it had definitely gone through the flavor extractor. tasted like something they’d give us on a train from a sealed bag. yikes.