Our federal, state, and maybe local governments need to take some action. Clearly people who eat here regularly, and follow this type of guidance, will become unhealthy. I noticed a very high number of overweight people compared to similar restaurants that aren’t “buffet style”. I’m sure there is some left-over stimulus money or federal grants available to do a study of the obvious here. It’s quite possible overeating leads to obesity and  we know obesity leads to many other illnesses. With cities banning all types of unhealthy fats, schools mandating what foods kids bring in their lunch sacks, and new regulations to force that local “Ma and Pa” deli’s to cough up nutritional menus I think this is a good fit for the a little “Nanny State” action!

Maybe I’m jumping the gun and we just need to raise awareness. I’m sure the media would love to do some serious investigative journalism here. Potentially we can get Morgan Spurlock, director and actor in “Super Size Me”, to consider a new film where he eats daily at a buffet until they stop taking his plate away? Well that might be too dangerous to Mr. Spurlock, he barely survived filming his last “documentary”.

Since the government provides or subsidizes healthcare for many Americans, and you pay for that with your taxes, it’s in our national interest to take action. I’ve got some decent ideas of how regulation of these dangerous buffets could improve the quality of American lives:

• One Trip Only. It’s fine to give people buffet options, but when they can keep going back … they might, and that could lead to long-term health problems. No more plate-refills.
• Photographic Warnings. With cigarettes the government required manufacturers to show pictures of the effects of a life of smoking. Taking a page from that playbook, maybe the end of the line should have life sized pictures of naked overweight people? It’s for the good of society.
• Outlaw Buffets. Unfortunately, people will always think a buffet line means “eat all you want”. Weddings and parties both contain the same dangers. I mean think how hard it is for pastors to stay healthy doing all those wedding receptions with unlimited food!
• Enforce Food Pyramid. Require all buffet’s to have foods representative of the Federal food pyramid (now a plate with no dessert). The buffet lines should be separated  by type and size in the pyramid.
• Taxes. Taxes are a great way to reduce things WE don’t like and push things WE do. All restaurants with proper nutritional information and government-portion-compliant will get a 50% reduction in taxes they need to collect. All non-compliant restaurants will have to collect a 25% tax.

Clearly it’s the government’s role to take care of all of us and they need to take action today! I’m going to call my senators and congressman right away. On second thought, it’s possible they might take all this seriously and further erode the ability for citizens to make their own decisions – good or bad. If you like any of these stupid ideas then please keep voting for politicians who feel like their role is to “fix society” instead of protecting our freedoms.

Somebody should create a site about these nanny-state-isms …coming soon….

Wow, even let me record from webcam… Dangerous.

Now here is a video from searching/inserting:

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Could your company survive without email? When I look at my email I see a lot of the following items:

• Corporate news notifications
• Nags to do things I haven’t done yet (from various systems)
• FYI emails

What if we took all of our “notifications” and “nags” and plugged them into an employee Facebook-style “homepage” (along with some embedded experiences to handle the notification without leaving the homepage)? What if your travel approvals displayed on the homepage and when you hovered you saw the full request – and better yet you had the accept/reject links right there (handle without leaving the page). Might that be more efficient and make email more meaningful?

I think having a company sponsored no-email day to raise awareness of what email is useful for – and to experience how much more we might be able to get done would be very interesting! Wouldn’t you love starting the week with a no-email Monday?

Background : Espresso is a small thick dose of coffee made by passing near boiling water through finely ground coffee under pressure. The flavors you find in the cup (or shot) are very concentrated. Some people like it; some people ruin it by creating Pumpkin Spice Lattes (just kidding). In case you are interested, a double shot of espresso in your latte typically has less caffeine than the average cup of coffee (2 ounce shot in 12 oz Latte ~ 100mg , 12 ounce coffee ~ 200mg <varies>).

So how do you know if the Espresso you make is “great” if you are diluting it with milk? You don’t – you drink it straight or diluted in several ounces of hot water (called an Americano). My first shots were light colored and bitter (not good bitter, spit-it-out-fast bitter). After practice, I got something that was decent and made espresso drinks for friends and family that were pretty good.

Several months later, I went to the National Coffee Association show in Chicago to see the latest coffee happenings and take some training. In the vendor hall checking out equipment a guy pours me an espresso with a new kind of  portafilter (the thing the coffee goes in) that has NO spout on the bottom (called a bottomless portafilter). See the difference?

I was mesmerized with the soft-serve ice-cream like flow of the coffee from this new device. The barista called it “naked extraction” because you can see the whole process. The spout hides important details about how even the tamp was and the thickness of the liquid.

Can you say Christmas gift?  Christmas morning I start with my new filter – waiting to see my new amazing espresso pour out. What do I get? I get coffee shooting out in different directions making a MESS. Maybe my espresso isn’t as great as I thought?

Remember, I’m not a detail guy so at this point I’m thinking, “too much work, put it in the trash”. Instead, I went back to my technique of grind, tamping, etc. and carefully taking notes on the results. I tried quite a few times (more than pride will allow me to mention) before I got it down. You can see the difference below, and boy could you taste it.

Now I was quite perplexed. Behind this little spout was hidden all information I needed to make “perfect” espresso. So for years I’d brushed off measurement and analysis and now through a very simple example I saw the beauty of improving through measured observations. I’ve since applied this new appreciation to my roasting of espresso beans – a longtime frustration, and achieved great results.

So I learned in some small things (but important to me) the value of measuring, tracking, and getting feedback. I’m still learning on how to apply that to my work. Unfortunately, I’m the type that has to see the value in something before I have any motivation to even entertain doing it. Going forward I’m going to tackle new things by simplifying them and trying them in a way more relevant to me.

I see a lot of crazy metrics to measure things in the workplace, I’m not always sure they are meaningful – as a matter of fact most of them make me cringe. I’ll try not to let that deter me in the future from finding that valuable raw data to improve.

If you’ve been considering the same all I can say is, “TRY IT!”.

What happens when Americano meets soda? Americola of course. I invented the name, I don’t think anyone else is dumb enough to try this – or at least admit they did.

My idea was that if iced coffee is great, carbonation could only make it better!

I started with 4 shots of espresso, iced it, and poured it into a fresh liter of seltzer (from my soda stream machine). That proved to be a problem since there was a lot of fizz reaction and not enough space.

I poured the leftover espresso in two cups and added the water over top. It was a foamy mess. I’m not sure, but I think the crema really reacted with the carbonation.

The really funny thing was it tasted more like beer than iced coffee. Maybe I’ll try again maybe with a cold brew.

There are quite a few different types of vac pots designs and they are designed to work with different heat sources (gas stove, electric based, or sterno powered). I wanted something inexpensive I could use on my gas burner and suggested the Yama vac pot idea to Mrs. G (it runs about $50).

How does the vac pot work? You heat water in the lower pot until water vapor forms, which creates a pressure and forces the hot water to the top pot (filled with ground coffee) via a tube that runs between the two pots. There is a filter between the chambers that keeps the coffee grounds in the top pot. Eventually almost all the water travels to the top and the coffee “steeps” for a couple minutes until you remove it from the heat source.  After removing the heat the water vapor decreases and creates a small vacuum that siphons the freshly brewed coffee through the filter back to the bottom pot. This picture shows the stage where the water is still travelling to the top pot. This is half-science experiment and half coffee preparation. It’s fun to watch but more work than drip or press.

The Yama has only five parts and it’s very functional. I think the design is solid and seems to be well manufactured.  Particularly important with these devices, the gasket sealing the upper and lower pots is a pliable thick rubber material and provides a good positive seal. It’s also fairly easy to separate the upper and lower sections when brew is done.  The upper and lower pots are a nice thick tempered glass that you should not worry about breaking (but I store it back in the original box after cleaning).  There is also a lid  made of plastic that nicely doubles as a stand for the upper chamber (which is awkward to stand up due to the 5 inch glass tube at the bottom).  The filter is just a cloth-wrapped periforated stainless steel disc.  I’d highly recommend this pot to anyone who wants a n0-frill inexpensive vac pot.

So how does the coffee taste? The coffee is steeped, and so it shares some of taste you expect from a french press –  yet it’s a very clean taste. The coffee lacks the “sludge” of a french press which should be good, but I think it is almost too clean (disclaimer: I love the french press). I’ve tried several coffees with varied brew times and feel the vac pot does not produce the same lingering body as other brewing methods.  I still enjoy it and I am enjoying a cup right now!

I’ve used the search/news widget on several sites and it works great! Anywhere you can embed some HTML you can use these widget.

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I get an average of five election phone calls a day and over half a dozen letters in the mail (nice big color ones). Most all of them are negative, but I’ve learned a new trick to figure out what people are for based on the bashing. One fiscal conservative I plan to vote for is accused of wanting “guns in schools”. I’m guessing that means he supports our current state law, not that he wants tweens packing heat at the local middle school. The same guy is labeled as a puppy hater. A puppy hater? Well there is a big fight over a new law to stop puppy mills (I guess all the ones we have aren’t enough yet). Because of the two party system my options get pretty narrow after the primaries. I’m sure people in politics would tell me this is all part of the process of our democracy. Just like the founding fathers imagined it right? … well we aren’t supposed to talk about them anymore.

The way I see it the majority of people representing us are part of a political system we don’t really understand  and it’s broken. I’m biased, but I think we have the best form of government on the planet.  Maybe you look around the world with romantic notions about Venezuela, Iran, or Sweden but I don’t.  In some sense though I feel like our government is held hostage. I see a two-party system controlled by big companies, unions, and special interest groups. The people they control build huge election war chests and continue to “serve us” election after election. As our government has become more centralized and powerful so have the forces that seek to influence it. When I look at a number of our “representatives” I see a lot of millionaires, many that got that way while in office [hmmmm]. I see men and woman that started out trying to make a difference and became a part of a dysfunctional machine.  President Obama is an example of this. I don’t agree with his “progressive” philosophies but I do think he was interested in a more open, transparent government. He figured out quickly that the political machines didn’t see it his way. Before long his idealism was lost and he was operating just like the ones before him.

Tomorrow you probably have two imperfect choices.  One of them is likely to be a progressive. This person wants us to continue the path of growing the government and it’s role in our lives. Maybe it makes sense to have the Social Security Administration take and manage your 401k? Maybe all student loans should go through the government. Maybe the government should decide what light bulbs people should buy, what night they trick-or-treat, and what 3 types of healthcare insurance should be allowed for sale (but you must buy it).  Generally they support higher taxes to pay for their programs (nothing is free) and more deficit spending if required. Progressives want everything to be “fair” and generally equal for everyone. The other option you have is some sort of conservative. They might have a label like libertarian, tea-party, or neo-con. They are pretty pessimistic about the role of government and think we need to take a step back and have a smaller, leaner government. Some of them want very little government at all. Regardless of the size of our federal government, all of them want  it operate generally within its means (without new taxes). That sounds good, but most of them aren’t ready to make the needed cuts to achieve their goals. Their view is that everyone should have a fair and equal opportunities for success but everything isn’t going to be fair or equal in the end.

The options tomorrow might not all be great, but they are clear. We can keep moving toward the government as the centerpiece of our American existence or vote to take a step back.  If you think your government is doing a great job, vote for more of the same. If you think our government is growing out of control, vote for a change.

Comments closed, this is a soapbox entry.