Tough Decisions

I attended my mother's 80th birthday party. Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you!

Both of my parents are alive and, for the most part, doing pretty well; my mother especially. My father is doing ok relative to other 82 year olds. Some are better; some are worse...I think my dad's probably in the middle.

Like many of us, my dad abused his body during his heretofore life. He drank a bit too much, he ate a bit too much and he smoked a bit too much. Some of those things are now, I'm afraid, catching up to him. He did give up smoking some 20 years ago but his drinking took a toll that may be be recoverable. Oh, and he has that "crappy Irish skin" that many in our clan was born with.

I'm one of seven kids; 2nd oldest child and oldest male. Basically, it meant I didn't need to do the dishes while we were growing up (sorry sibs!). So the day before this party, we decided to have a sibling get-together. My sister Amy has a house a town away from the folks and generously offered to host the event (my other sister Bridget lives a few houses away from the folks and was going to host the main party).

So we started eating and drinking and carrying on...until I figured we were all feeling well enough to talk about "where the folks were". This was one of those conversations that nobody really wanted to start but many of us knew we should.

My folks live in the middle of Pennsylvania right on the Susquahanna River. Since flooding is a regular occurance there, they built their house on stilts so that if the water comes up, the stilts will, hopefully, save move of their belongings (and themselves, if needbe). The downside of the stilt system is that a rather steep set of stairs is the only way into the house. Since this part of Pennsylvania sees a goodly amount of snow, my fear is that entering or exiting the house during the winter months could be dangerous.

I stated as much to my siblings and opened the floor for discussion. Several of my sibs shared my fears but, surprisingly, not all of them. Some of them thought that it could be handled safely and my folks could live though the winter without too much difficulty. Others disagreed and thought we (the kids) should act. I do have 2 siblings that live within the same small town as the folks. I'm sure my folks will call them if they need assistance. What to do, what to do?

I'm sharing these details, not so much for the answers that we came up with but for the question: If the folks are fairly coherent, is it the kids responsibility to come up with solutions whether the folks want to abide by them or not? Since it's very reasonable to assume that some of my siblings will be alerted to said difficulties (and since I'm 1200 miles away it won't be me), is it appropriate to ask my folks to let us in on their thoughts and keep us advised on things that could affect any of us?

I had a discussion with my mom about some of these issues and I came away with some new understanding. One, my mom has actually thought some of these issues through. Whereas we were assuming that she was taking a "wait and see" attitude, she has, at least, thought through the "what do I have to do to make this work" thought process and has a grasp on a solution. It might very well impact one or more of my siblings but at least she's not waiting until the snow flies before coming up with ideas.

I'm still nervous but less so than when I went.

A tale of two Madison Restaurants

A difference in Customer Service

This is a story of two Madison, WI restaurants and how they treat their customers.

Chapter One

I went to Madison yesterday for a gallery event. My friend, Richard Knight, has a wonderful galley exhibit at the Overture Center in the Watrous gallery. Check it out. So my wife, Brooke and I decided to make a night of it. We love Madison and only get there once or twice a year. But it has some fantastic places to dine and Brooke found her choice for that night.

Our friends Josh and Sandy were going to be in Madison for the evening, too! So we booked a party of six at the Harvest Restaurant right on the Captial Square. Big mistake.

We arrived at 8:15 and were seated quickly outside. It was a glorious July evening and we settled in for a wonderful experience. Madison has hundreds of restaurants and the Capital boasts a good number of them all within walking distance from each other. I mention this because we had a choice. We made a reservation beforehand and chose this single place to spend our time and spend our money. Six persons at an somewhat pricey restaurant was going run us a few bucks but that's ok. We don't do it that often and I am a believer in spending hard earned money and getting an experience, not just a dinner.

The waiter was a young man and greeted us in short order. Seemed personable and friendly. Took our drink orders and didn't come back for quite some time. I had a view into the restaurant's bar from my location and it appeared that our waiter was mixing the drinks himself. In any event, in about 25 minutes he returned with our drinks and then took our order.

This is when the real waiting started.

We were in a pretty chipper mood. We hadn't seen Josh and Sandy for a while and were catching up. Kay and Rick were in fine form after Rick's gallery event which went well.

But shortly it became apparent that something was amiss. There seemed to be quite a few waitstaff running around but food was coming out slowly if at all and our visits from our friendly waiter were few and far between. After about 45 minutes of this, we started to get a grumpy. We're closing in on 9:30pm and most places stop serving at 10:00. Some of our party needed to hit the road and get back to Milwaukee, too.

After a while, our friends who needed to get on the road simple couldn't wait any longer and decided to close out their check. He walked inside was confronted by the manager who informed him that our dinners were being set out on the table as they were speaking. Not true, though we did receive our appetizers while he was inside. Unfortunately, he hadn't ordered one.

We were talking amongst ourselves and the manager heard us and came to see what was the matter. We explained the situation and she curtly informed us that a larger party was in the back room and that was probably the issue. This is our problem? She then asked us "what direction we wanted to take our grievances?". We were certainly getting irritated at this point and said that we needed only to get our drinks and our dinners. She told us she'd check with the kitchen staff and left.

We were getting fed up quickly but not with a nice dinner. Josh went after her to see if we could just pay our bill. He caught up with her at the door to the kitchen where she was explaining to the staff that "another 5 minutes and she was going to ask our table to leave". Perhaps we were complaining too much? Josh said we didn't need 5 minutes and could we just have our bill.

We were unhappy and incredulous that such a supposedly nice restaurant would treat us like this. We are not unreasonable. An explanation at the beginning might have made it better, but at least we could have made a decision to go elsewhere. Instead, the manager was rude and unpleasant and unnecessarily brash. We'll certainly never eat there again. (or, perhaps I should say, we'll never be back since we didn't eat there the first time)

Chapter two

Peppinos on Capital Square is a city block away from the Harvest. At 10 after 10:00 we walked in and it was apparent that they were just about settled for the evening but we asked for a table. An older fellow behind the kitchen counter space thought for a second, and said, "sure, no problem".

We proceeded to have a fantastic dining experience. We were still unsettled from the previous experience but drinks were ordered and our lovely waitress presented them with a smile on her face and a bounce in her step. We had a leisurely dinner, never wanting for anything and always delivered cheerfully.

The food was great. The company was great. The restaurant (Peppinos) was great. The experience was great.

Shortly before we called it a night, Peppino himself showed up. He was the fellow that gave us entry before.

He was born in Sicily and came to Wisconsin as a young man. We found out many other interesting fact because he took the time to meet us personally and engage us in some history and drama, all from his life's story. By the time the night was coming to a end, we had received a complementary Citronella (lemon liquor; appropriate since Pepino had grown up on a lemon farm) and a bunch of smiles back on our faces. The waitress received a nice, fat tip, too.

I've been involved in customer service for many years. Some would say that we're all customer service representatives no matter what we do for a living. What I've discovered is that the customer isn't always right, but they're always the customer and there is never a reason to be rude or insulting to somebody who's funding your business. My friends and I were treated poorly and left the first establishment unhappy. We finished the evening quite happy because a second establishment knew what their priorities were.

It's unfortunate that some people need to be reminded but it's not surprising.

Harvest: Consider yourself reminded.

Back in Milwaukee...now for some video!

After spending a couple of months in the Carolinas, we've returned to the great state of Wisconsin and have gotten right to work.

Heretofore, we have focused mainly on the interviews: identifying appropriate candiadates, gathering the necessary equipment, going on location.

We've now performed about 20 interviews and the video is burning a hole in our website. We're anxious to get excerpts and full videos done.

Some of the videos almost edit themselves. Perhaps, they're concise or we just remember them well enough that we can go right to the juicy stuff. In some cases, we bonded to the people to whom we were talking. We may have become friendly with them or we may just have enjoyed the interview ourselves. In any case, editing them can seem almost easy.

Other videos will require some intense study and, in some cases, we may need to watch the entire videos again: reliving our time at the shoot. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it is time consuming and it slows us down.

We're using Final Cut Pro for the editing although we have Sony Vegas as a back up...just in case. We have plenty of hard disk space, but even a Terabyte fills up fast when you're dumping hours and hours of video on it. We're evaluating upgrading our disk drives, but haven't made that decision just yet.

We have two Mac systems on which we can edit. Brooke does the vast majority of the editing; she's a pro! I've been going through some Final Cut tutorials and may take a whack at some of the interviews...it'll be good for me to get this ability so we both can crank out the videos.

The website is being updated daily but we're still searching for a good look and feel. We're using a content management software system called Joomla. It's pretty easy to add pages and change the look and feel of the entire system but this may turn out to be phase one of the site. Phase two may just require a professional designer to be involved.

It's exciting to be home but it was equally sad to leave Asheville. We really fell in love with the city and have already spoken about making a return visit either in the Summer or next Winter (or both!)

Asheville Interviews

Greg, Toni, Brooke and Greg Flys with Eagles, Black Mountain, NC

















Bob White, Lucia Daugherty and kids, Asheville
















RegJamyl, Asheville, NC

This and that...and the other thing

I'll cover a few different issues in this entry. Might be all over but please
bear with my "stream of conscientiousness"

Technology
Shortly after my arrival in Asheville, my new Canon Powershot camera went belly up on me. It's just a cheap, digital camera but it did an adequate job and we were depending on it for website pictures. New batteries, mess with the contacts, connect the USB (that part actually worked)..it wouldn't take pictures reliably. So off to Best Buy, I go.

Came back with a cute, little portable Panasonic and I'm loving it so far. The camera takes 8 Meg pictures and it's easy and fast. It uses somewhat expensive rechargables, but I'm hopeful that the battery will last a while. I'll add some of its' results to this blog posting. As a matter of fact..here's a picture that I took at one of interviews. We were interviewing Lori Theriault, a local potter. Lori has a beautiful studio over in West Asheville (somewhat of a hipster section of Asheville) and this is her favorite pottery wheel. As you might see on the final video, I was able to take a turn throwing a pot on that wheel. Definitely good energy.

Our first interview was with Lori Theriault, a delightful ceramics creator based in West Asheville. She came to this city by way of Chicago, Washington DC and Atlanta and has really settled into the area and the artist's community.

Lori creates a multitude of ceramic items and teaches pottery students the way of the potters wheel. She's designed a small studio in a sort of artists enclave where artisans of different materials practice their craft. She's connected to a local artists guild and hopes to have a weekly art tailgate where all of the vendors can display and sell their creations.

Black Mountain

Fifteen minutes away is a small village called Black Mountain. I had previously contacted Tori de Lisa, another potter originally from Miami. She's married to Gregory Dunn aka Greg Flies with Eagles. He springs from Cherokee roots and is creating authentic tribal headdresses as well as Native American masks. He uses all authentic materials and relies on some of his mountain friends to supply him with feathers and other materials.

Our first attempt to meet Toni and Greg met with some slight disappointment on our part. They live near the top of one of Black Mountain's local mountain tops and when we drove up in our Rav4 we didn't think we could make it. The snow starting to fall helped us chicken out as well. After trying to raise Toni on our cell phones and discovering no service, we headed back down the mountain where we were able to call her and explain the situation. We were a bit freaked out by the experience but when Toni invited us to lunch on a future date, our excitement overruled our fear of falling and we promised to come back.

Today we met with Bob White, an organic food grower and socially conscience activist. Bob's past includes stints as a carpenter, a painter, a framer, a book store owner and a Black Panther.

My next entry will detail our second trip up the mountain to meet Toni and Greg as well as our wonderful meeting with Bob and his wife Lucia.

Discovering Asheville has been a real joy. We find the people wonderful and friendly, the restaurants eclectic and interesting and the surrounding landscapes absolutely breathtaking. The mountains tower in the distance from every vantage point of Asheville and day trips into the mountains are literally 15 minutes away.

In progress in NC and SC

We made it to Asheville and are actively meeting and recruiting persons for our project. We have met some already and they look promising.

Mike and Jill are a musician and a photographer in the current life. Past lives include computer geek for a financial company and social worker type. Very cool and loving Asheville when they're here: She is and he's travels here when able.

Lori, a pottery maker and pottery instructor. She was involved in the theatre (production) in both Washington DC and Chicago. Great ceramics studio and very much connected to the artist community in Asheville, which is quite active.

Other persons on the horizon include an organic vegetable farmer (or, at least, grower) originally a carpenter and a painter. Tomorrow, we're off to see a ceramics person whose spouse is involved in Tribal art in the Black Mountain area.


Our trip to Asheville was uneventful and not as bad as I thought a 13 hour drive was going to be. I've gone on longer drives before but haven't been on one for many years. For this one, I was accompanied by my favorite canine companion, Lafayette.

Asheville is a pretty city in the Smokie Mountains and we're having fun exploring it as we figure out the layout. My GPS has come in pretty handy so far (though it can be annoying sometimes: it doesn't always know if a street is one-way or even connected to adjoining streets so you CAN'T follow its' directions all the time.

On the road, with a dog

Left the home court (Milwaukee) yesterday for our adventure. Figured I'd try for Lexington, KY but I wasn't sweating it since we can't get into the place until Saturday so I needed to "kill" a day anyway. Main reason I left early was to avoid any bad weather...turns out there wasn't anything to worry about and I could have just left today.

Gives me a couple of days to bond with our dog.

I made Louisville, KY yesterday and bedded down at the local La Qunita...one of the dog friendly hotels I found when searching www.petswelcome.com . Pretty nice place and dogs are common...Lafayette (our cockapoo) seems right at home. I went to get the lugguage and he barked for 30 seconds and then calmed down...I guess I'm coming back after all.

The 7-8 hour drive was, for the most part, uneventful. I had purchased a GPS from buy.com and was a bit excited to try it out (the geek in me never dies). Has an FM transmitter and can show videos and play audio, so before I left I went to the library and got a few books on tape and then ripped them to some spare SD chips I had.

About an hour into the trip, I went to switch SD chips and somehow clobbered the GPS chip so it wouldn't load up the GPS system at all...nuts! Luckily, I had printed out my entire trip with maps but I had hoped for some extra geekiness on the way. So I have my laptop but it doesn't have an SD reader so I couldn't re-init the chip (the GPS system came with a map cd so you can create new map SD's if necessary).

Now, I do have a micro-SD with an adaptor (the micro SD fits into my phone for my pictures and ringtones)..and I have a cable to configure my phone/SD as a drive. Cool. The map disk found the drive and created the GPS map stuff on the micro SD.I installed it into the adapter and plugged it in.I'm in business once again! Today or tomorrow, I'll see if I can find an adapter so I can program my SD's directly but it's low priority.

The GPS is my first and it's a Plenio VXA-3000 (does the VXA really mean anything?). My opinion so far is that it gets you close but it's not totally accurate. For example, it instructed me to enter the freeway when there wasn't an entrance close by (though I was driving next to the freeway). I tried to go to a POI about 4 miles away in Louisville (Thomas Edison's House) and it got me close but then kinda 'lost it'. It did get me there eventually though and I would have had much difficulty finding it without its' aid.

The books on tape thing is working well. I'm just about through my first book (a Dan Brown novel). The clarity is ok: it does transmit to the FM radio but if/when I get close to a real FM station that shares that frequency, I get distortion. In that case, I can go into the GPS's setting and change the frequency so it can play undisturbed again.

Started smoking again but those days are numbered. I'll give it up as in early January. 2 years being good and then off the wagon! I just have to remember that I can't smoke ONE cigarette without going back to Potter (as my dear wife might say).

Lafayette slept the entire way...popping his head up briefly as we'd go through a toll booth (in Illinois) and then settling back down immediately afterwards. The La Quinta has a small 'park' in the back with some cement tables and a large yard. Dog shit all over the place but it did the job.

I've been communicating with some people in Asheville who are interested in the project. One guy, a musician, is leaving on Sunday and I hope to meet him before he goes. I believe he'll be back before we leave Asheville so it might work well.