The Pursuit of Quality
When it comes right down to it, my life has been pretty non-difficult. There is not a large number of interesting things that anyone reading this would like to hear. Here are some of the basic things about me:

I majored in CAS (Comparative Area Studies). In case you don't know what that is, I'll tell you. I compare areas. At first I wanted to compare Portland to Seattle. I later changed to comparing Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho because one of those states will be my residence. I thought I was cutting edge for choosing three areas to compare when everyone else compared two, but my advisor said that I should rethink my areas. I didn't really understand that. Anyway, I changed to my final areas which were The US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands. Luckily the coursework was flexible enough to allow me to change my areas in the last semester. That's why I loved CAS.

Now I have a great job lined up for myself. I will be flying a Maule (small bushplane) around Alaska checking out the pipeline for the US Government. I just bought my coat the other day. It has the down feathers from about 25 fluffy little ducks or geese or something like that. I have all sorts of licenses to fly planes around and am looking forward to landing on skis. I plan to live off of Snack Wells and orange juice for two years until I save up enough money to buy my own plane, a Sherpa (STOL airplane). I will then set a new record for the slowest flight across the Atlantic Ocean. If you have any comments or suggestions let me know via e-mail.

This all fits into my philosophy on life which is the never ending pursuit of quality. You need to go your own way. Right on jack.



On the Importance of a Restaurant's Ceiling
In my many years as a restaurant patron, I have come to realize that an eating place's ceiling more than anything more than any other single variable will make or break a restaurant.

"So what do you mean?" you ask. I mean that diners love a beautiful ceiling. They will crush, without mercy, any restaurant with an acoustic tile topper. It is not my intention to inquire about the nature of the modern American restaurant patron. I only wish to point out this previously unrecognized phenomenon, in hopes of aiding budding entrepreneurs with that culinary bent. Perhaps through this admonition, the US economy will not feel the pain of the thousands of annual eat-em-up establishment failures.

"So what kind of ceiling works?" you ask. A high one, I tell you. Pretty much anything high and not acoustic tile should pass. If you are faced with the prospect of peddling vittles from under the cover of a low acoustic tile ceiling, I would suggest you do something. Do anything. Cut it up. Remove it. Paint it cammo. Hang stuff from it.

If there were an axis of evil in the restaurant tactic handbook, a crappy ceiling would be a part of it.