Today was my first day back on the line. It was a late partial dinner shift, and we only had two covers and luckly the owner came in with some company and over ordered and told us to take a portion of each order so we could all evaluate it. Oddly enough, the pasta sauces were under seasoned and the pita pizza ( stop laughing ) could have been crispier. Its funny how when put to the test, you fail every time – this is something that has to stop for me, in order to be a great chef. Being that i am the new Kitchen Supervisor, this is now my responsibility. This experience ( the owner eating as a customer while i am on duty ) will no doubtingly come again, and it will be of up-most importance that i do not fail the second time. I do not second guess myself in this matter, however, i do plan on making it a big deal. We can call this the ‘entry-test’ , and when i pass, i will have fully come into Managerial Control.

A big part of this job is not changing how things are ran, but rather insuring that they do run, and they run smoothly. All these years i have only been a line cook, a chef de partie , and just another line monkey. There are pro’s and con’s to this position, and overall, everyone really is in control de partie . But regardless, this is the one position i have yet to experience. Changing how things run or are prepared will be interesting, but none the less, rewarding. The majority of my job will simply be my boss’s eyes and ears in the kitchen ( and obviously, hands and feet ). This usually is the case for all line monkeys – we have to always be aware of how much and the rest ( what, where, and when ). But a Kitchen Supervisor ( or the chef as it is professional called ) is ultimately responsible of the entire kitchen , as a unit, or as one partie.

I am excited, truly excited to be part of this team and to be the man for the job. Its no Hells Kitchen, but its gonna be home to me – at least for half a decade

Tomorrow is my first breakfast shift – then i do dinner again, and then i do weekend breakfast . Should be a hoot

“Order up!” The server yells out. You hear the ticket rip and there hand land in the basket, a top a few more tickets. I would grab them, but i don’t have any room at the moment.

“Edger! I need more browns and we need more whipped egg ” I passively shout to the back. Edger had been working here for a few years before i started. he is the prep mistro, loves his job, but refuses to cook. A really nice guy, in or out of the kitchen, but quick to lose temper and so forth. “Please !” I added with a smile, speaking over the clatter of the kitchen.

I thumb through the tickets in the basket; ‘I have seven browns, six polenta ,… ‘ immediately setting down orders and checking the ‘ready’ tickets. Its time to tell my lead what to start.

In a kitchen, everything is a stage, or a process. But a table is always served at once. In a five star, you would want all the plates of a table done at the same time and the floor staff would serve at once. The true test is when the rush hits, and it pushes and shoves you until your boiling over and losing control. This is a crucial point, and forever as long as this point lasts ( could be thirty minutes, could be the rest of the shift ), you don’t give in.

“I need four omelets , one is whites which goes with the onion, the others are the Florentine. On top, i need double sides  of two easy ” I calmly tell mike, my lead. On this line, we only have two cooks, which is typical, and in some restaurants , you only have one. One cook is ‘expediter’ and assigned usually to two or even three stations ( all with in arms reach, ideally ) . the other cook is assigned to the hot station, and usually shares cold station with me. I would call them the ‘lead’ for two reasons; to motivate, and because that’s usually where the more senior cook worked. No matter what or how many cooks are on the line, one is always the expediter and the rest are chef de partie ( or line-cook,… slave in layman terms)

After commanding the lead cook, i will have already begun setting plates. This process is a short one, and usually done in advance , but after you flip 100 covers in a hour, you start creating time to make it all come together.

As i am setting the last garnish, the lead starts setting down his omelets , i double check the tickets and simotainously place the proper side with each dish. “Service!” I say loudly towards the floor, and in a split second, the first two wait staff appear.

“Where are we going” The wait crew echo.

“Table 11, come back for three more” and by three more, i mean three more items. With in a few seconds, that table is served and eating there hot breakfast and we already onto the next items. At this point, or soon after i am happy to grab those now five tickets in the basket to add them to the clip-line.

With in the blur of shouting, popping grease,and pan-slamming mayhem , is an art. a dance. a acrobatic walk in the park only a select few hundred thousand are capable of. This is what we call ‘cooking’

In the ten years i spent on the line, i spent many evenings reading books and blogs about how it is done. Now that i have taken captains seat in the kitchen, i feel it is now time to share my story.

It was never dead,…

After my first ten years in the food service industry , i looked back and realized i didn’t document any of it. I had spent most of the time trying to get out of it, but all the while taking my job very seriously and finding the most entertaining aspects of being a cook and learn to enjoy it.
Most cooks who are humble will think of the job as a over-glorified janitorial position, or ‘a janitor with a spatula’  – and this is said mainly cause even with the glory of being a cook, you still are just a monkey. Of course, this isn’t the greatest of mind sets to go at this type of work, but its the truth.

When i came into cooking, as most do, by working first as a dishwasher and then moving your way up, i was young and naive. Ashland is a small city, and very touristy. During the spring to fall, there is the Oregon Shakespeare festival, which brings tons of folks from where ever – usually passer-byes and some come just for the plays. This of course brings strength to the local food service market. In Ashland, there is over 60 restaurants ( small business types ), and only a taco bell, Wendy’s, Burger king, and a typical Chinese food restaurant to round out your fast-food cravings ( the city board has pushed/forced all others out of town – usually on aesthetic requirements on there premise , like unique signs and such ).

Though cooking can be tough, its worse when you choose the side of good versus evil. Such as choosing to be nice all day every day, versus being a turd-bucket cause you question the value of your life every day until you begin to get depressed yada yada

I worked at the first restaurant for six years ( brothersrestaurant.net ) . A simple deli and breakfast joint, i worked there first as a dishwasher and then moved up to prep and line cook.  One of the cooks there also worked at another restaurant and got me a shoe-in and was able to quit and move to Morning Glory ( morninggloryrestaurant.com ) as a full time cook. I worked there until August of 09 when i finally quit. I did quit during the tale end of the busy year, but i swear i was burned out – an in a way that i most confusing. The entire time i had been doing web development on the side, and learning the ropes and eventually doing freelance which led to meeting my current business partners.

After 16 months of being a mildly successful web developer, i decided it was time i should go back to cooking, not only because i am good at it, but because my family needed it. And hey, after 16 months working from home, i can say i am easily ready. What is even more splendid, is the job i am now taking is not just any cooking gig, its a cooking gig with managerial duties – which is more then i expected, but even more so, very exciting . It also does one of two things, 1) Will end my cooking courier on a high note or 2) blossoms into something more.

The other difference is that i will be documenting the experience – sort of in a ‘Anthony Bourdain’ style, we will see. Cooking has made me part of its world, and i more in tune with that then i ever have been. So, look out oysters, here comes the shucker .

get it? its a cascade of sheets,...??? eh,.. nerdy joke

CSS is a wonderful thing, but it was one those things your friends who know more then you would bring up ( this is in the late ninety’s ) and you would roll your eyes claiming tables were easier. Truth be told, i am not good with browser side situations and code – except for flash – which isn’t really a browser side code as its simply a flash app. Anyways, i hated css for the longest time. And to be clear, we are talking about Cascading Style Sheets . The great and magical thing about CSS is the ability to style sections of the site/theme so it can easily and quickly be changed later, grouping your different parts by names ( class or a id variable with in almost any standard html tag like p,a,img,div,table DO NOT USE TABLES ). The hard part about css, is learning how to use it, and worst of all, manipulate it.

When i learn things, i usually find source documentation and keep it bookmarked and constantly read it. This is a common method and part of most peoples ‘learning’ routines. The most annoying part of using css, is the fact that most browsers on different OS’s have there own ‘default’ rules. This can be a serious, huge pain for some of us. Especially me, as i am very dim-witted but pretend to act smart. I actually have a hard time putting things together.

Luckily, its not as bad as i said it was, but it maybe your first conclusion if looking at css for the first time. Fortunately, for the default rules, its pretty much MSIE ( Microsoft Internet Explorer ) against everyone else. And then there is the occasional freak attack cause by the small percent of users who prefer running safari and own a mac. The rest usually will be fine, as long as both MSIE and the rest are looking good. Unfourtanatly, i can’t debug css issues with safari on mac ( even though safari on windows will look fine ) mainly because i don’t own a mac. A lot of people are in this situation, especially when just starting out. I should own a mac for this one reason… i don’t . Its only cause i normally can’t afford anything better then one computer. The best solution is finding someone who does and either ask to come over and borrow there computer, or call them and ask them to tell you what you see. Better to be able to actually use the machine, that way you can check the source.

A lot of people stress on backward compatability. This dosent make sense to me. Windows xp and up all automatically update, including forcing MSIE to update. This is presumable on mac as well ( correct me if i am wrong ). It’s possible a user may not update firefox, but it will usually force an update after so many are skipped. I am not sure about this on safari , opera, or chrome. I have sites that run 6k+ daily visitors, and in that, none of them run ie version 6 or less. its all seven, and now with eight being out, you see more and more of that. Most users run msie7 and more and more are running msie8, eventually all will. Thats a fact – if your on the internet, you cant browse a site until your mostly up to date. The biggest stress is MSIE7 and safari on mac, and then the easy peasy is firefox and the rest. I have MSIE8 and it always parses the css perfectly, as firefox does. I have a lot of faith in MSIE8 . But this can change, it has in the past. all of a sudden there browser stops doing something. Not until you put some random word into some random css class that practicly makes no sense. But it will work then, and the change is always written in MS’s doc’s on line, but who wants to waid through it – i would rather wait until it breaks and fix it then. Bad way to work, but easier then reading a ten page short story on a single change in MSIE css rules.

If you ever herd of a css ‘crack’ or ‘hack’ , thats what it is reffering to. In the midst of designing a site, you get to a point where you stand back and mutter ‘done?’ . You open MSIE and go to the site, and ,… well. now the hacking begins. And really, a css hack can be anything, and often is changed or eventually made obsolete ( due to browser upgrades/changes ). I don’t call it css hacks. its just working or not.

Looking back on the year, i remember getting this laptop i have now and it being loaded with vista. This was the first time i had a chance to use vista. needless to say, the vista experience was saddening, and costed a lot in loss work and annoying times. Nothing more aggravating then spending hours installing and uninstalling operating systems trying to find a set up that would work ( other then using OEM vista ).

With windows seven, there was this last year of the free beta testing license give aways. I nabbed one and was happy to get to install it. I did, and at this point in MS’s development of seven, it was already at god status. They released it a few months later, but i got a free license for a year, and coupon for when i do buy it. In any case, it came with Internet Explorer Eight, which in its beta form sucked ass. but there was one noticable difference. The Developer Tools!!!!

Holy cow, it has a firebug written write into the freaking program! how ingenious! and a clear cache button! Firefox dosent even have that ( though there is a short code, and MSIE dosent have that ).. To make matters even greater, you can parse as MSIE7!

For those of you who don’t know what FireBug is, and learning css is really important to you, go get the firebug plugin for firefox.

The wonderful thing about firebug is you can change the css rule-set and see the changes as they would appear if actually changed. This is great for learning, and super nice when editing a wordpress theme, or your myspace layout

I would say 99% of my css knowledge came from using firebug.

The one downside is that it only runs on firefox. The upside is that firefox rules are about the same when it comes to opera, safari, and chrome. If you don’t have IE8, get it now – and inside it ( Tools->Developer Tools ) you will find a firebug tool ( and the ability to parse with IE7 rules ). And now you can edit css rulesets for your sites on multiple platforms easily and quickly

When your bored, are tired of talking to real people, check out cleverbot.com . Yeah, thats right, i am writing on clever bot. Why you say? well, cause it rocks. And the ‘the future’ of clever bot, i think , is even cooler ( cool =nerdy as hell ) .

The basis princable under cleverbots working is that it absorbs knowledge from every one who uses it. This makes for a endless possible avaenues of intelegent. Of course, its comprehension is in infancy status right, it will soon become a staple in our homes ( like in I am,robot ).

go over, and check it out. Ask it something phenomonal, or clever even. Don’t let it fool you, it will try and say its human. It may even change names or sexes mid conversation. I would hope its because of how it interacts with others, and how they interact with it makes it do that back at us. If you be nice, concioise , and very patient, it can be quite fun.

However, it is sad to know i now get a kick out of talking to myself ( clever bot told me that )

A few funny conversations

User: What should I blog about today?

Cleverbot: Nothing. Blog about nothing. (I didn’t know you blogged.).

User: I do infact blog.

Cleverbot: Why?

User: Generates revenue.

Cleverbot: What?

User: Makes me money.

Cleverbot: WHAT are you talking about?

User: Blogging!

Cleverbot: Molecules.

User: So, what should I blog about?

Cleverbot: Nothing!

Cleverbot (To myself): Lets talk about Pie.

User: I want to talk about blogging.

Cleverbot: Ok. Tell me fives times three is…

User: 15.

Cleverbot: 35.

User: Five times three is fifteen, idiot.

Cleverbot: So, glutton for punishment, eh?

Articualtion Was written shortly after a break up, during a very chaotic time in my late teen life. I had found some drugs, well,… a lot of drugs, and wrote this album out of the back of my truck and in a few different closets ( i literally bunked at few friends closet, recording the album on a huge ass pc tower,… dragged it around where ever i went ).

This album was supposed to be a horrible way of being a ass hole, but later i noticed how much energy i put into it, and in the recording its somewhat noticble ( though still weak in nature ). This energy was something i lost for a short while after recording articulation.

There is some crackling noises in some of the tracks. This is due in part by the recording first being mastered on to a tape ( i know,.. cd burners were hard to get working with pre windows xp LOL ) and after wards being pushed back on to a dat tape, and then a cd, which was then scratched to all hell.

Some of the tracks are remixes of older songs, or re-recordings.

1. Whine and Cheese

2. Inner child

3. Princess of fairyland

4. Soups on ( miss sweet pea )

5. Dont be sad ( just to loud )

6. Falling ( again )

7. To Much

8. You suck the dirty roxtar

Waking Life – David Kilmer

2003

Waking Life was recorded right before i found out my son would be born. During that time of bachelor hood, nothing really mattered, neither did my music. I would carelessly put this stuff together, deem something ‘good for now’ based on its chaotic and somewhat unsure sound. This of course is the one downfall that annoys me most of the music i recorded years ago, the simple wish that i would have done it as best as i could.

The Albums title track is inspired on the movie. I had a better album cover too!

Enjoy!

1. 90 degrees

2. Awake to Silence

3. Gaia

4. How Human We Are,…

5. Dawn

6. Dusk

7. The Sound and the Furry

8. This Eternal

9. Waking Life