freddy. my #1 fixit guy. everything is running so good right now because freddy fixed everything up like new. how does a restaurant make it without freddy?

at work we’ve entered our slow season. the locals are not quite out as often now that school is in session. the college kids are still trying to find their way around campus. folks are glued to the theatre of politics on the tube. it’s an election year. it’s an olympics year. lots to see on teevee i guess.

i am cleaning up some final remains from the fire. finally getting the last of the work junk organized and fixing a couple problems that happened in the remodel. the communications took 6 weeks to get sorted out. the router, atm’s, wifi thing… it’s weird how i still feel a bit haunted from the fire. i should be completely over it but…. i don’t know…

i was pretty convinced to give up on the tedx thing, then met with the organizers and found out the theme might be changing to something easier for me to talk about…. so instead of saying no i said i’ll think a bit longer. i actually have been too busy with other things to figure that out yet.

family is great. kids are happy in school. i’ve got a pile of personal projects on deck. a pile of work projects on deck too. it’s exciting because i have about the same sized pile on both decks. never a dull moment. so much to get done and a gator game coming up so soon…. i get to follow gator football each week which i enjoy, whether they win or not i like it.

i’ve been working on new collages/paintings. if i decide to leak any images it won’t be until late november when the show is imminent. this year i’ve got 2 folks from the indiegogo campaign for the employees who gave a thousand dollars for one of my paintings. wow. a thousand dollars. wish i could sell them all for that kind of money. maybe one day.

a few of us have been tasting a LOT of wines lately to give our wine list a makeover. i wish we had more time to sell wines to customers because dinner is just more fun with a good bottle of wine. our new house selection is going to be a huge improvement. we’ve got some great affordable wines. and a prosecco.

that’s it. things are just rolling along right now. nothing worth reading here…. on to the next blog….

as we began summer in 2005, i was looking at a lightnin’ salvage that looked like this….

THIS summer i have hurt my knee, which could be related to the incredible charlie horse i got also on my left leg, during the fire remodel, when i was trying to push the shed over… my knee has been injured for going on 3 months now and wow. funny how the physical body can put a guy in his place so quick, how the fire can throw a guy into a complete hurricane full of emotion and fatigue and depression and mental exhaustion…

my personal writing has slowed quite a bit. my time for art diminished but i feel a change coming in that regard. my new kitchen is really a thing to behold. my trauma is waning. my apprehension is lessening.

i’d like to get over my fear of public speaking. i was considering working up to a story at the conch as a way of addressing that fear. i’ve been approached about a tedx story and feel honored but also unsure if i am ready for that stage…but maybe it’s something i could challenge myself toward.

i think that, for now at least, this is my favorite part of the new kitchen. i won’t lie that the 4 ovens in the corner are about as cool as a pizzeria can get, but this area we designed, where we set the clean dough trays to dry, is a daily sculpture. each day we fill all the empty trays and each night we have a new stack of clean trays waiting for Shon and mike.
i planned it down to the inch. the two stacks of cross stacked trays is 52″ wide…. and we planned 53″ for this to happen. i don’t think i ever realized how revolutionary it would be for us.

i’m truly happy. i feel like i have a pretty incredible hold on the concept of happiness. this thing, this machine, this “satchsquatch” … it is a performance piece. it has it’s many flaws. it is imperfect. it is so much bigger than me….

i have a renewed appreciation for my community.
i have a new respect for my customers.
i have an ongoing debt to my employees.
i have an unpaid debt to my contractor.

my family didn’t miss a beat which speaks volumes. my sanity seems almost intact. my resolve is even stronger to continue to improve and invent something new something changing something alive and thriving in a potentially bleak world outside (think media onslaught)

so danny at LSE, he is full of good ideas. he designed our retro Op shirt from the last couple years, with the silhouette of the oak trees and the cool yellow and orange stripe with the words, satchel’s pizza, written small and in cursive. he drew the awesome design of the pizza cutter in tattoo style with the satchel’s pizza wrapping the pizza cutter handle in a banner… my 7 year old wears this one in red with 3 color ink and it is just as classic as can be. it was danny’s idea to just put flames on the existing van shirt and call it the fire shirt. my brain was fried and i had given up any hope of a fire shirt and danny saved the day. anyway, he’s got a bunch of ideas in the works that i can’t even divulge here (like the ninja design and the van idea….) and i can’t forget to mention the “drop in for a slice shirt” where the kid is dropping in the bowl that is a slice of pizza and his wheels are holding on the crust…. he found and commissioned the art on that, and the employees only hoodie from a few years ago…. but what i was trying to say was….

his latest t-shirt related idea is satchsquatch. he has found the artist, josh, and is getting the image together. while i can’t leak the entire design at this point, i have been authorized to release it in part….

are you kidding me? what kind of a crazy world are we living in? i seem to have founded a company where the employees are helping to grow and shape the company in amazing ways. am i lucky? the luckiest. am i happy? you betcha. am i special? not really. well, i AM special in that i get to enjoy this life. i guess i MIGHT BE special in that i really love the people i encounter every day. I’m totally NOT special in the sense that i didn’t graduate from college and i never studied any business models…

geez. tedx. i’ll admit i have been watching ted videos since i was asked and am very conflicted on how to find an idea worth spreading, and turn it into a 15 minute talk that could inspire and resonate with someone. and then also match this with the theme presented and then stand in front of so many people and not shake and stutter in fear…. anyway, it feels like an honor to be asked. it feels like an opportunity waiting. it feels like a challenge to be met. i guess my favorite part would be getting slides together to share. i love images.

my friend peet: