i have a “logo” but it’s not that good. let me do another one. i’ll just wait and show them to you later. and actually it would more likely be jeremy foley who would call me not meyer.

the latest shirts have arrived and i think they may just be the best shirts we’ve ever had, at least i like them a lot. danny helped get this project off the ground and these shirts come in all sizes. half are orange with blue and white ink, half are blue with orange and white ink. half of those half have lightnin’ salvage on the front and satchel’s on the back, and the other half of those half have satchel’s on the front and lightnin’ salvage on the back. i have lost everyone now.

think about it this way… when you see this broken glass satchel’s logo, make that sound in your head like glass is breaking, you know the sound, breaking glass sound…

although it was never actually meant to be broken glass but just some shapes, but the glass idea, and making the sound in your head, that makes it really cool.

if i was allowed to use the gator logo i would. actually i think i will try to come up with my own gators logo. i remember when they abandoned albert for that new logo with the oval around the gators head. it’s pretty cool. i liked albert better because it had a little more humility… but then they went all streamline… anyway, i think i’ll draw a gator logo and pretend that urban meyer just called me up and said, “satch, i want a new gator logo. can you draw me up one? ” i’ll have to do my new gator logo on the front and maybe the breaking glass satchel’s on the back, like i’m shattering the possibilities with my logo, like my logo could take over the gator nation kind of logo shattering unbelievability…

actually, i’m not that good. but i will get back to you with something. gators #1.

the more i work, the more i like work. tonight was fun and chaotic for me. i’ve told my manager before, don’t send a soul home until 8:30. bet he forgot, and it was real slow… until salad man got sent home and i walked in and put everyone in new positions they had not done before. if it’s slow, train. train train train.
but i got to wash some dishes which i love, and watch everyone sweat some. it’s actually more fun when it’s slow. and this is the week our business drops. the families are back in school and bedtimes and dinner at home. the college kids are getting books and trying to figure out where the grocery store is and waiting for financial aid checks. the seniors? they are out in normal numbers, and they are a dependable customer set…

i am generalizing of course, but we are living the slow time for us… if i could just use this time to train all the new people…
ah-ha. maybe i’m on to something!

brent seems to have fixed the blog problems so i may start to get back into it. here’s a photo of brent at his recent 40th birthday party. we had jacksonville’s best bar-b-q and beer. oh, and the cake was amazing too.

now that school is open again i am busier than ever, getting up early with the kids and working long hours at the restaurant. i have lots of fall plans, like getting the new walk-o-junk happening and decorating the privacy fence in the back and secret stuff i can’t even tell you about yet. the orange and blue shirts should be out in the next day or two. there’s new orange and blue stickers available, so as you can see we are fully engaged in gator fever. everyone with half a brain knows the gators will be undefeated this year and win the championship again.

having trouble with the blog. brent has been working around the clock to fix it. this is a test to see if the post remains.

so, brent found the missing posts and allows the blog to continue… i have a lot to talk about but it’s too late. i had a good and long day at work. i had pizza for breakfast and pizza for dinner and hogan’s in between. what could be better?

i will try to give you better info soon. i have a backlog of work and the blog is just waay down on the priority list.
i tell you what, i’ll give you a photo to tease you along. i am not buying a boat, but if i was, this one looks nice…

LSE now sells new satchel’s/ lse bandanas in blue, black, red or orange… $7. limited edition. get them and double your money on ebay in a few years…

thanks for the girl who called and got directions from sorority row tonight… hope you made it in. thanks for the fellas with the all meat special who came from alabama because they read about us in sports illustrated SEC edition. thanks to lenny and helene. thanks to lavell for entertaining the folks, captivating his audience, and being an all around great guy…

satchel’s pizza loves gainesville florida.

i know i’ve talked about it too much, but i did stop and take a few more pictures.
we are struggling at work with new folks, but we have really great people , they just need a few weeks of practice now. we have orange and blue shirts coming out soon and we have new satchel’s/ lse bandanas arriving at LSE on tuesday of this week. $7. orange, blue, black or red.
come see us. even with the new people the pizza is still the best.

well, somehow it seems my posts are now coming up missing… at least the last few i’ve posted. hmmm.

i can think of at least 2 maybe there’s 3, missing before the eastside gateway post. well, it’s not the first time a computer has erased my memory.

here’s a few photos of the median landscape i was talking about in a previous post. this big one is taken from my car window at a red light. i cropped the car window frame out. i pulled over and walked around taking pictures, but my camera battery gave out about halfway through the photo shoot so i’ll have to stop again and get some different angles.

to save space i’ll put these in as thumbnails but click on them to see a bigger image. it’s worth slowing down for a second to look at. it’s not every day you see tax dollars work like this, in a creative and visually appealing way.

i know it seems like a silly thing to get excited about, but i think it’s so important the visuals we look at every day. the pictures we hang on our walls, the colors we choose to paint walls, the messiness or cleanliness factor we are each able to tolerate in our daily lives…when my yard was a mess i felt like my life was a mess too, but some weed pulling and landscaping and i am inspired to clean out my closet too… anyway, i think projects like this help lift the spirits of people that see it daily. i am probably overly optimistic though, considering there was a lot of litter left throughout this feature, as i walked around taking pictures. i could should have filled a couple grocery bags of litter.

this is the raymondale family band who played thursday night. what a good bunch of people. music was nice too. it’s great to see so many different types of music and acts come to LSE.

a busy friday night. we have lots of new people now. if you have been following then you know that we lost a lot of people and are still losing some. that means we are training new folks nightly and daily. it’s a bit of a struggle. we are seeing some mistakes. but the food quality is fine and the new folks are awesome. in a month or two we’ll be back to solid.

i still plan to get you pictures of the gateway. i hope to get out there tomorrow to photograph on my way to work. stay tuned good people, stay tuned.

tonight i met the guy who designed the eastside gateway feature. that won’t mean much to most or all of you but it means a heck of a lot to me. the eastside gateway feature is a new landscape that i drive by numerous times per day at the splitting of east university and hawthorne road. it is gorgeous. just a stop and stare stunning piece of roadway landscape. by some long turn of events i had emailed the gcra (gainesville community redevelopment agency) to compliment them on the newly finished gateway feature. the man i met tonight was the guy who got that email and this guy is part of the team who makes things like that happen. it was exciting for me. like if i could meet the person who made the waldo road greenway happen… but that’s another story. the story tonight was about being able to meet the man who envisioned the gateway. i love it. for me it is government money being used wisely. thanks to anthony lyons.
i tell you what i will do to prove this point. i will photo this feature tomorrow, as the website only shows an artist rendering. i will photo and report back here to show you the kind of things that really excite me.

well, i am on vacation. not literally but in some ways.
i am working but not as much as in the past 6 years. i am enjoying my kids more and family life and success. i am a happy guy. so happy i sometimes seem distant because in a way i am distant. i am enjoying my life more than ever and getting some perspective on my business.

distant from the blog because i am eager to be distant from the computer and phone and all that…

anyway, there are basically 8 old timers leaving satchel’s this summer. weird for a place where turnover is so rare. 2 have opened a restaurant and bar downtown, boca fiesta. 1 is going to open a restaurant in the old second street place, civilization, i think it might be called. 3 are in the same band that is going to tour europe and russia for 6 weeks. 1 is going to open a pool hall with the possible name of bizmark. and the final one is going to CIA in california, which is fancy cooking school for those of you who don’t know. i think it may cost him $75k over the next 2 years to get a job making $30k a year.

8 employees! can you believe what a blow that is? these are all 2 plus year people, a couple over 4 or 5 years with us. 5 of them are kitchen. so we are going into training mode here. august should be a real challenge for me. i needed all the vacation to prepare myself for this… not that i have been on some extended vacation but i have been working less, let’s put it that way.

notice anything interesting in this photo my wife took recently?

i am happy for the employees who are moving on. one old timer tonight said i should be the proud papa. look at how their lives are shaping up. look at the incredible things they are doing. i am happy for them although i don’t think i had anything to do with their choices. i think instead i just have some great employees who strive and succeed. maschino will be the 5th to open his own place from satchel’s… tommy’s brick oven, the jones, boca fiesta, and soon civilization and bizmark. pretty cool. the first 3 are still going and the last 2 are coming soon.
(could the jones not have a website? i am surprised at that. )
got a lot of work to do this weekend. i plan to work though my weekend and start some new projects at work.