Sandusky, OH to Cooperstown, NY – 500 mi
Today was a driving day, a day in which the full weight of “road trip” rested its full weight upon our shoulders. These things sound great on paper, when you’ve been working long hours all summer without a break, and you just want to walk out the door and walk until you don’t want to walk anymore. Road trips are kind of like that, except that you have someplace you have to be, so even when you don’t want to walk anymore, you have no choice but to keep on truckin’. And New York is not the state you want to truck across like that.
The day started with a failed attempt at finding functional wifi, as the Starbucks we stopped at before we left Sandusky was having issues with their system. So I had to settle for a cup of coffee, and then we hit the road, passing through Cleveland. If Milwaukee has a twin, Cleveland is it. An industrially-oriented Great Lakes city with a few skyscrapers and that rough-around-the-edges feeling to everything, you just get the feeling that the city is inhabited by people who work too hard to worry too much about keeping their city looking impressive at all times, which to me is impressive in itself and exhibits in the people a certain quality of confidence that while it might not be the pretty thing in the world, they are leading good lives. I could never live in Cleveland.
Upon exiting Cleveland, we realized that we hadn’t exactly stopped for food that morning, and it was approaching 11am. And it seemed as though as soon as that thought had been thunk, God placed a Waffle House just off of I-90. Anyone who knows Dustyn and I knows we have an obsession with the Waffle House, the cheap goodness that’s available there, and the refreshingly familiar yellow-block W-A-F-F-L-E H-O-U-S-E. For just a hair over six dollars, I got myself my “3-2-1” breakfast that I’ve developed over a period of 5 years sparsely frequenting the Waffle House: a triple hashbrown, a double waffle and a single glass of water, which is enough food so that toward end, you’re challenging yourself to finish it. It was wonderful.
So off we went across the little corner of Pennsylvania that reaches up and claims the city of Erie, and then into New York state. Now, to get across New York, you have two options: the first one is the New York State Thruway, which is a bit more direct but is also a toll road. And we’re cheap. So we took option #2, the Southern Tier Expressway, Interstate 86 which winds through the hills of the southern part of the state. We pulled off at a rest stop to grab a map and ask how long we were looking at until we reached Cooperstown, and were told it would be about 5 ½ to 6 hours. This blindsided us because we ignorantly assumed that a) once you reach the state that contains your destination, you should be at least kind of close to said destination, and b) all states out east are small. So we put our heads down and did the drive. The closest thing I can compare it to is driving the stretch of I-94 between Tomah and Eau Claire, except that the hills are a bit bigger in New York. And the stretch is 6 hours instead of one. It was a struggle, not only staying awake, but keeping our sanity. We began singing silly repetitive songs, and creating faux church names based upon towns on the highway signs we were passing, such as “Jerusalem Hill Tabernacle Fist Congregational Assembly of God, Scientist” and other such things.
We finally reached Cooperstown, which is set back in the hills on a lake in east central New York, and has to be about the most perfect all-American town. All the houses are neatly kept, and there are little mom-and-pop shops everywhere, and a big baseball field complex and then, just around the corner… a gigantic Howard Johnson hotel. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, so this makes sense, in a really odd way. It feels like plopping down a SuperTarget in a town of 300 or something. Anyway, we grabbed a variety-pack case from the local microbrewery, Cooperstown Brewing Company, and drove off to our campsite, which turned out to be about 25 minutes away from Cooperstown, set back on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere. We set up the tent in the last remaining light of the evening and set about building our campfire and firing up the grill. Two steaks and a few beers later, we crashed for the night, and even in my dreams, I was driving across southern New York on a never-ending trip.
8.18.2008
8.17.2008
Road Trip - Day One
Milwaukee, WI to Sandusky, OH – 380 miles
As I write, I am currently sitting with my laptop at a picnic table, in the dark, at my campsite overlooking Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie in Ohio. Unfortunately, by the time I actually get this posted, it will be Sunday morning, and I’ll probably be sitting in the Starbucks a few miles away, because we’re in the far end of the campground and I can’t get a strong enough signal from the wifi transmitter. Meh.
So we ended up not going to Cedar Point. I will probably never outlive the personal guilt I feel, but it was hot, humid, and we weren’t really able to go until after 5pm, and the park is only open until 11, so with all the waits in line, we would’ve got about 4 or 5 rides in and wouldn’t have really got our money’s worth. So we decided to go and get some fish for the grill at the Meijer store nearby (Dustyn, a slab of rainbow trout; Ian, a hunk of garlic and herb-marinated salmon), have a few beers from Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company (when in Rome, right?) and throw the Frisbee. This actually turned out quite nice, because between the two of us, we got about 3 hours of sleep, and seeing as I got 3 hours of sleep last night, that means Dustyn got zip for sleep, as he got off work at 7am and we left right away.
Shortly before 8 this morning, we left Milwaukee accompanied by The Cars’ greatest hits album. I stopped by the Dunn Bros down the road from Dustyn’s apartment, which is the apartment complex that I lived in when I lived in Milwaukee for a year, so I’m trying to get over the fact that the store opened RIGHT after I moved back to Minnesota. Anyway, we hit the road, drove through Chicago and Indiana, and into Ohio.
We were pretty much zombies all day today. But not zombified enough to notice what seemed to be the theme of the day, and that was smells. The air smells really funky as you go south and east in our great country. In Chicago, it’s your standard exhausty 10-million-people-are-surrounding-you scent, and then you drive into Gary, where you breathe sulfur, exhaust, smoke, and metal. Further into Indiana, fertilizer. Enter Ohio, more fertilizer, but with some really odd industrial toxic waste smells. I can hardly smell the Great Lake that’s about 100 feet away from me right now.
I also notice a lot more classic Americana around here than up in Minneapolis. Aside from the dozens of John McCain campaign yard signs we saw all over (you just don’t see those in Minnesota), and the “Drill Here, Drill Now!” mantra being repeated by a fluorescent sign in front of a local bar here in Sandusky, I’ve never seen so many motorcycles, Dodge pickups and lightning bolt-illuminated Old Glories as I’ve seen here today. At the liquor store, the man put my six-pack, which had a perfectly good handle on the top, inside not one but TWO plastic grocery bags without giving it a second thought. You have to ASK for a bag in Minnesota! And at the campground here, we brought our tossables to the garbage area and began to sort out the recyclables from the garbage, before realizing that there was one large bin in which to throw everything. We got some sideways looks when we began playing our music (Cloud Cult, Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens) and as soon as we turned it off, our neighbors in the campsite next door quickly replaced the musical silence with Pearl Jam and Limp Bizkit. I haven’t heard Limp Bizkit in 5 years. Are they still around? Dustyn and I feel a little out of place. Maybe we’ll go and chat with the Canadian group that’s set up camp down the path. I know they’re Canadian because they have a maple leaf flag hanging above their campsite, and I overheard one of them talking about “fishing for trow-oot” in the Delaware River.
Wait, no, Dustyn’s passed out in the tent. Geez.
I think I’ve calculated that I’ve got about 12 hours of sleep since Wednesday, so I’ve got some catching up to do. Unfortunately, I think I just overheard one of the campground employees tell some people he’d been hunting a bear for the past couple of hours and warning them that he might come around tonight. I might just sleep in the car tonight. I don’t understand, though, because this area totally does NOT look like bear country. I guess I underestimate our furry friends.
I'd post some pictures, but apparently the capability is down for the moment... I'll check back later.
As I write, I am currently sitting with my laptop at a picnic table, in the dark, at my campsite overlooking Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie in Ohio. Unfortunately, by the time I actually get this posted, it will be Sunday morning, and I’ll probably be sitting in the Starbucks a few miles away, because we’re in the far end of the campground and I can’t get a strong enough signal from the wifi transmitter. Meh.
So we ended up not going to Cedar Point. I will probably never outlive the personal guilt I feel, but it was hot, humid, and we weren’t really able to go until after 5pm, and the park is only open until 11, so with all the waits in line, we would’ve got about 4 or 5 rides in and wouldn’t have really got our money’s worth. So we decided to go and get some fish for the grill at the Meijer store nearby (Dustyn, a slab of rainbow trout; Ian, a hunk of garlic and herb-marinated salmon), have a few beers from Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company (when in Rome, right?) and throw the Frisbee. This actually turned out quite nice, because between the two of us, we got about 3 hours of sleep, and seeing as I got 3 hours of sleep last night, that means Dustyn got zip for sleep, as he got off work at 7am and we left right away.
Shortly before 8 this morning, we left Milwaukee accompanied by The Cars’ greatest hits album. I stopped by the Dunn Bros down the road from Dustyn’s apartment, which is the apartment complex that I lived in when I lived in Milwaukee for a year, so I’m trying to get over the fact that the store opened RIGHT after I moved back to Minnesota. Anyway, we hit the road, drove through Chicago and Indiana, and into Ohio.
We were pretty much zombies all day today. But not zombified enough to notice what seemed to be the theme of the day, and that was smells. The air smells really funky as you go south and east in our great country. In Chicago, it’s your standard exhausty 10-million-people-are-surrounding-you scent, and then you drive into Gary, where you breathe sulfur, exhaust, smoke, and metal. Further into Indiana, fertilizer. Enter Ohio, more fertilizer, but with some really odd industrial toxic waste smells. I can hardly smell the Great Lake that’s about 100 feet away from me right now.
I also notice a lot more classic Americana around here than up in Minneapolis. Aside from the dozens of John McCain campaign yard signs we saw all over (you just don’t see those in Minnesota), and the “Drill Here, Drill Now!” mantra being repeated by a fluorescent sign in front of a local bar here in Sandusky, I’ve never seen so many motorcycles, Dodge pickups and lightning bolt-illuminated Old Glories as I’ve seen here today. At the liquor store, the man put my six-pack, which had a perfectly good handle on the top, inside not one but TWO plastic grocery bags without giving it a second thought. You have to ASK for a bag in Minnesota! And at the campground here, we brought our tossables to the garbage area and began to sort out the recyclables from the garbage, before realizing that there was one large bin in which to throw everything. We got some sideways looks when we began playing our music (Cloud Cult, Death Cab For Cutie, Sufjan Stevens) and as soon as we turned it off, our neighbors in the campsite next door quickly replaced the musical silence with Pearl Jam and Limp Bizkit. I haven’t heard Limp Bizkit in 5 years. Are they still around? Dustyn and I feel a little out of place. Maybe we’ll go and chat with the Canadian group that’s set up camp down the path. I know they’re Canadian because they have a maple leaf flag hanging above their campsite, and I overheard one of them talking about “fishing for trow-oot” in the Delaware River.
Wait, no, Dustyn’s passed out in the tent. Geez.
I think I’ve calculated that I’ve got about 12 hours of sleep since Wednesday, so I’ve got some catching up to do. Unfortunately, I think I just overheard one of the campground employees tell some people he’d been hunting a bear for the past couple of hours and warning them that he might come around tonight. I might just sleep in the car tonight. I don’t understand, though, because this area totally does NOT look like bear country. I guess I underestimate our furry friends.
I'd post some pictures, but apparently the capability is down for the moment... I'll check back later.
8.16.2008
Road Trip - Day Zero
Minneapolis to Milwaukee – 390 miles
Yeah, so I took the long way. But let me tell you that there is nothing more soothing to the soul than driving down Highway 61 along the Mississippi, with all the hills and bluffs slowly drifting by, while listening to the latest Sigur Rós album.
I decided to take the “long way”- Highway 61 to LaCrosse and then Highway 14 to Madison- because I had an experiment to carry out. I set out with a goal of driving about 60mph the whole way and seeing how far I could go on a tank of gas. I figured that if I took Barack Obama’s advice and properly inflated my tires and didn’t drive like an ass, I could really make this happen. And I did. I’ve gone 402 miles on this tank, which will end me up somewhere in the neighborhood of 34mpg, which is about 5mpg more than the EPA estimates I’m supposed to get in “realistic” conditions. So, my nerdlike tendencies aside, I’ve saved a few bucks to spend on something else. Huzzah.
The other reason for taking the “long way” is that I wanted to drop in and surprise my parents. Which I did, quite successfully. And I even got a bonus out of it- steak was for dinner, and seeing as my family seems to eat at 8pm every night, arriving at 8:30 was close enough to earn me a steak. Not like the store-bought Cub stuff, but the small-town Wisconsin stuff- my family just bought an entire side of Angus beef, as in half a cow, from a local farmer. Yum, steak. And for dessert they also happened to have two pies from Michael’s Frozen Custard, which is pretty much the best frozen custard ever. My Minnesota friends will insist that Culver’s frozen custard should carry that distinction, but that’s okay because, well, they don’t know any better. And my Milwaukee friends will insist that Kopp’s frozen custard should carry the day, which I agree it is a close match… but I’m sticking to my guns.
As long as we’re talking about food, I’d have to say that if Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, then Wisconsin has to be the Land of 10,000 Frozen Pizza Brands. Seriously. On top of the Jack’s, Tombstone, Bernatello’s, Freschetta, DiGiorno and Tony’s that you find in Minnesota, you’ve got Roma, Orv’s, Palermo’s, Connie’s, Home Run Inn, as well as Uno, Gino’s East (!), Infusino’s, and scores of little ultra-local mom-and-pop brands. What’s a hungry dude to do at 2am? Which begs the question: what’s a dude who just ate an amazing steak doing still hungry at 2am? And why is he up?
Because he’s on vacation.
Anyway, here’s some pictures. We just bought us a new camera at the National Camera Exchange Tent Sale, so I was able to mess around with it some:
The moon was really bright, and this picture turned out well.
Catching everyone offguard...
My little sister Audrey is amazing. She won 15 blue ribbons, 2 red ribbons, some super-important trophy, and two other top-notch awards for her 4-H projects at the Dane County Fair.
I really do miss my family. And my wife.
But tomorrow is the real fun, and the actual "road trip" begins. Stay tuned...
Yeah, so I took the long way. But let me tell you that there is nothing more soothing to the soul than driving down Highway 61 along the Mississippi, with all the hills and bluffs slowly drifting by, while listening to the latest Sigur Rós album.
I decided to take the “long way”- Highway 61 to LaCrosse and then Highway 14 to Madison- because I had an experiment to carry out. I set out with a goal of driving about 60mph the whole way and seeing how far I could go on a tank of gas. I figured that if I took Barack Obama’s advice and properly inflated my tires and didn’t drive like an ass, I could really make this happen. And I did. I’ve gone 402 miles on this tank, which will end me up somewhere in the neighborhood of 34mpg, which is about 5mpg more than the EPA estimates I’m supposed to get in “realistic” conditions. So, my nerdlike tendencies aside, I’ve saved a few bucks to spend on something else. Huzzah.
The other reason for taking the “long way” is that I wanted to drop in and surprise my parents. Which I did, quite successfully. And I even got a bonus out of it- steak was for dinner, and seeing as my family seems to eat at 8pm every night, arriving at 8:30 was close enough to earn me a steak. Not like the store-bought Cub stuff, but the small-town Wisconsin stuff- my family just bought an entire side of Angus beef, as in half a cow, from a local farmer. Yum, steak. And for dessert they also happened to have two pies from Michael’s Frozen Custard, which is pretty much the best frozen custard ever. My Minnesota friends will insist that Culver’s frozen custard should carry that distinction, but that’s okay because, well, they don’t know any better. And my Milwaukee friends will insist that Kopp’s frozen custard should carry the day, which I agree it is a close match… but I’m sticking to my guns.
As long as we’re talking about food, I’d have to say that if Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, then Wisconsin has to be the Land of 10,000 Frozen Pizza Brands. Seriously. On top of the Jack’s, Tombstone, Bernatello’s, Freschetta, DiGiorno and Tony’s that you find in Minnesota, you’ve got Roma, Orv’s, Palermo’s, Connie’s, Home Run Inn, as well as Uno, Gino’s East (!), Infusino’s, and scores of little ultra-local mom-and-pop brands. What’s a hungry dude to do at 2am? Which begs the question: what’s a dude who just ate an amazing steak doing still hungry at 2am? And why is he up?
Because he’s on vacation.
Anyway, here’s some pictures. We just bought us a new camera at the National Camera Exchange Tent Sale, so I was able to mess around with it some:
The moon was really bright, and this picture turned out well.
Catching everyone offguard...
My little sister Audrey is amazing. She won 15 blue ribbons, 2 red ribbons, some super-important trophy, and two other top-notch awards for her 4-H projects at the Dane County Fair.
I really do miss my family. And my wife.
But tomorrow is the real fun, and the actual "road trip" begins. Stay tuned...
8.14.2008
Road Trip Bloggings!
After a long, hot summer (actually, it wasn't so bad, but still... summer's summer) I shall be cashing in some vacation time, hopping in the Focus and taking off across the country. Two countries, to be exact.
My friend Dustyn (college roomie, best man, and veteran of numerous shared hole-in-the-wall apartments in Minneapolis and Milwaukee) and I will be driving to Portland, Maine, where we'll meet up with our friend and (my former, his current) roommate Adam, who chickened out on a road trip and decided to fly. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But there will be much merry-making, and between here and Portland, many delightful side-trips and other such nonsense.
All of which shall be recorded right here, on my blog.
So stay tuned...
My friend Dustyn (college roomie, best man, and veteran of numerous shared hole-in-the-wall apartments in Minneapolis and Milwaukee) and I will be driving to Portland, Maine, where we'll meet up with our friend and (my former, his current) roommate Adam, who chickened out on a road trip and decided to fly. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But there will be much merry-making, and between here and Portland, many delightful side-trips and other such nonsense.
All of which shall be recorded right here, on my blog.
So stay tuned...
7.28.2008
OMG! Favre 4 Da Vikes? LMAO!
http://ww3.startribune.com/blogs/randball/2008/07/28/favre-and-childress-a-secret-transcript/
I personally don't care if the Vikings get Brett Favre to be their quarterback. It'd be fun to see him in Purple for a year or two, and to see what becomes of all the Favre-4-Ever shrines in Wisconsin once he commits against the Ghost of Lombardi the unpardonable sin of becoming a Viking. On the flip side, I'd rather he not waste his time with my team, dabbling in his ridiculous habit of self-inflicting wounds, namely game-ending interceptions in overtime with the Super Bowl on the line.
On second thought, what a perfect audition to become a Viking. We'll take him!
Anyway, I digress. At least if he became a Viking, he wouldn't need to be sending around these ridiculous text messages. Keep in mind, this is two grown men, one the head coach of an NFL football team, and the other one of the Top 5 quarterbacks of all-time... I laughed so hard.
I personally don't care if the Vikings get Brett Favre to be their quarterback. It'd be fun to see him in Purple for a year or two, and to see what becomes of all the Favre-4-Ever shrines in Wisconsin once he commits against the Ghost of Lombardi the unpardonable sin of becoming a Viking. On the flip side, I'd rather he not waste his time with my team, dabbling in his ridiculous habit of self-inflicting wounds, namely game-ending interceptions in overtime with the Super Bowl on the line.
On second thought, what a perfect audition to become a Viking. We'll take him!
Anyway, I digress. At least if he became a Viking, he wouldn't need to be sending around these ridiculous text messages. Keep in mind, this is two grown men, one the head coach of an NFL football team, and the other one of the Top 5 quarterbacks of all-time... I laughed so hard.
6.17.2008
Tips For An Ailing Economy
I’ve been meaning to write this particular blog for a month or so now, but it’s simply gotten away from me. So here we go…
Last month, our government released to us our “economic stimulus checks”, or more accurately, the largest infusion of Chinese-loaned money ever to land in our pockets and leach into our economy. Now, don’t get me wrong- I am not against doing business with China, or any other non-American entity, as we operate in a global economy and to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world would be foolish. To a point, I’m not even against BORROWING money from China, though someday I will write a blog about my thoughts on the unfortunate “debt culture” we find ourselves in. What I do find to be a crappy deal is when we are giving money that we don’t have in the form of “tax cuts” or “stimulus checks”, with no well-thought-out means to pay it back. That’s a no-brainer. Anyway, I digress from my point.
I believe, being the hook-line-and-sinker Obamanian that I am, that WE are the solution to our economic problems, but not in the way you might think. The other day, my wife came home and told me about a bumper sticker she had just seen. It read:
“CLASS WARFARE …Brought To You By Yuppies Who Don’t Tip”
I thought about this for like two seconds before it affirmed my feelings about this whole economy going in the toilet thing. Not that yuppies are the root of the problem or anything; it’s the people who don’t tip period, regardless of class or status, that really irk me (though in my 5 years of coffee shop experience, it seems as though the people who have less money and status tip better). I guess I view a tip as a thank-you, a hang-in-there, and one of the few concrete signs in the service industry of how much you actually mean to the person you are serving. To give me a tip is to tell me that you appreciate my service to you; that you believe it is not your birthright to be served by another human being, but a privilege that you pay for. And I will do my best to insure that you get fast, friendly, “legendary” service (in Starbucks-speak), not just a simple cup of coffee. So aside from the philosophical aspect of the whole deal, I think this tipping thing is one of the keys to turning our economy around, without cramming another tax down our throats.
The shortened version of my theory of our current economic problem is that peons like me don’t have enough money to buy stuff. That the top 10% of the population controls like half the wealth in this nation. Don’t quote me on that stat, but I’m sure it’s not too far off. Here’s my overly simplistic solution to the problem: tip. Tip well. Wherever you’re at, if they accept tips, tip well. I’ll share with you my rule: at coffee shops, a dollar in the tip jar, or whatever change is left in my pockets (leaving myself just enough for a refill if they charge for them, and if I won’t have enough for a refill, it all goes in). At restaurants, 20 percent is my minimum. Up to 25 percent for good service, and sometimes as high as 30 percent for great service. I know the classic minimum is 15 percent, I was taught that. But I think, at least in the case of tipping, crappy service should be rewarded with the bare minimum, not below that. I don’t give out many 15 percents, because I don’t often get crappy service. Call it karma, what-goes-around-comes-around, whatever… but I think the best way to guarantee your own security is to give security to others. And if financial security is what this country needs right now, then there is no better time to be tipping like it’s going out of style.
Here’s my case study. At the drive-thru Starbucks I work at, we earn tips by taking the total dollar amount of tips we’ve earned throughout the past week, dividing them by the total number of labor hours we’ve worked, and then are assigned a dollar amount based upon how many hours we worked that week. So in any given week, it usually comes out to somewhere between $1.30 and $1.50 per hour (non-drive-thru stores make a lot more; draw your own conclusions). Now imagine this scenario: out of the 500 or more customers we serve every day, just half of them, 250, tip us a dollar. That’s $250 a day, multiplied by 7 days in a week. That’s $1750. Divide that up amongst us baristas, and you’ve got somewhere between $4 and $5 dollars per hour, which is 4 times what we make right now. So, a person working a part-time, 20-hour work week (as most Starbucks employees do), makes between $80 and $100 per week. Now multiply that $100 by 120,000, which is my approximate number of people working hourly for Starbucks in the U.S. (8,000 domestic stores times an average of 15 employees per store), and your dollar a day becomes $12 million per week, $624 million per year. And that’s just using part-time hourly numbers. Even running with 100 customers tipping a dollar every day, you still arrive at an extra $250 million per year of cash money floating around in the economy. And that’s just Starbucks employees. Imagine that extra dollar or two tipped in every restaurant in the country. We’re talking billions, easily… maybe even trillions, I don’t know. But you get the point- it’s probably more than any economic stimulus package can provide.
Anyway, I think I heard somewhere that between 10 and 15 percent of U.S. citizens work in food service jobs. Imagine 15% of us having extra money… money to pay off credit cards, loans, mortgages. Money to buy food, clothing, gas (ha), pay our electric bills. Money to buy some stuff we don’t need, sure, but isn’t that what the economy runs on, anyway? As tight as times are right now for most of us, we need to be okay with giving more. And tipping is a good place to start. It makes sense to me. So next time you get the check after your dinner date, or you eye that tip jar at Starbucks, consider that one extra dollar out of your pocket might just be a dollar toward your own financially-secure future.
Last month, our government released to us our “economic stimulus checks”, or more accurately, the largest infusion of Chinese-loaned money ever to land in our pockets and leach into our economy. Now, don’t get me wrong- I am not against doing business with China, or any other non-American entity, as we operate in a global economy and to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world would be foolish. To a point, I’m not even against BORROWING money from China, though someday I will write a blog about my thoughts on the unfortunate “debt culture” we find ourselves in. What I do find to be a crappy deal is when we are giving money that we don’t have in the form of “tax cuts” or “stimulus checks”, with no well-thought-out means to pay it back. That’s a no-brainer. Anyway, I digress from my point.
I believe, being the hook-line-and-sinker Obamanian that I am, that WE are the solution to our economic problems, but not in the way you might think. The other day, my wife came home and told me about a bumper sticker she had just seen. It read:
“CLASS WARFARE …Brought To You By Yuppies Who Don’t Tip”
I thought about this for like two seconds before it affirmed my feelings about this whole economy going in the toilet thing. Not that yuppies are the root of the problem or anything; it’s the people who don’t tip period, regardless of class or status, that really irk me (though in my 5 years of coffee shop experience, it seems as though the people who have less money and status tip better). I guess I view a tip as a thank-you, a hang-in-there, and one of the few concrete signs in the service industry of how much you actually mean to the person you are serving. To give me a tip is to tell me that you appreciate my service to you; that you believe it is not your birthright to be served by another human being, but a privilege that you pay for. And I will do my best to insure that you get fast, friendly, “legendary” service (in Starbucks-speak), not just a simple cup of coffee. So aside from the philosophical aspect of the whole deal, I think this tipping thing is one of the keys to turning our economy around, without cramming another tax down our throats.
The shortened version of my theory of our current economic problem is that peons like me don’t have enough money to buy stuff. That the top 10% of the population controls like half the wealth in this nation. Don’t quote me on that stat, but I’m sure it’s not too far off. Here’s my overly simplistic solution to the problem: tip. Tip well. Wherever you’re at, if they accept tips, tip well. I’ll share with you my rule: at coffee shops, a dollar in the tip jar, or whatever change is left in my pockets (leaving myself just enough for a refill if they charge for them, and if I won’t have enough for a refill, it all goes in). At restaurants, 20 percent is my minimum. Up to 25 percent for good service, and sometimes as high as 30 percent for great service. I know the classic minimum is 15 percent, I was taught that. But I think, at least in the case of tipping, crappy service should be rewarded with the bare minimum, not below that. I don’t give out many 15 percents, because I don’t often get crappy service. Call it karma, what-goes-around-comes-around, whatever… but I think the best way to guarantee your own security is to give security to others. And if financial security is what this country needs right now, then there is no better time to be tipping like it’s going out of style.
Here’s my case study. At the drive-thru Starbucks I work at, we earn tips by taking the total dollar amount of tips we’ve earned throughout the past week, dividing them by the total number of labor hours we’ve worked, and then are assigned a dollar amount based upon how many hours we worked that week. So in any given week, it usually comes out to somewhere between $1.30 and $1.50 per hour (non-drive-thru stores make a lot more; draw your own conclusions). Now imagine this scenario: out of the 500 or more customers we serve every day, just half of them, 250, tip us a dollar. That’s $250 a day, multiplied by 7 days in a week. That’s $1750. Divide that up amongst us baristas, and you’ve got somewhere between $4 and $5 dollars per hour, which is 4 times what we make right now. So, a person working a part-time, 20-hour work week (as most Starbucks employees do), makes between $80 and $100 per week. Now multiply that $100 by 120,000, which is my approximate number of people working hourly for Starbucks in the U.S. (8,000 domestic stores times an average of 15 employees per store), and your dollar a day becomes $12 million per week, $624 million per year. And that’s just using part-time hourly numbers. Even running with 100 customers tipping a dollar every day, you still arrive at an extra $250 million per year of cash money floating around in the economy. And that’s just Starbucks employees. Imagine that extra dollar or two tipped in every restaurant in the country. We’re talking billions, easily… maybe even trillions, I don’t know. But you get the point- it’s probably more than any economic stimulus package can provide.
Anyway, I think I heard somewhere that between 10 and 15 percent of U.S. citizens work in food service jobs. Imagine 15% of us having extra money… money to pay off credit cards, loans, mortgages. Money to buy food, clothing, gas (ha), pay our electric bills. Money to buy some stuff we don’t need, sure, but isn’t that what the economy runs on, anyway? As tight as times are right now for most of us, we need to be okay with giving more. And tipping is a good place to start. It makes sense to me. So next time you get the check after your dinner date, or you eye that tip jar at Starbucks, consider that one extra dollar out of your pocket might just be a dollar toward your own financially-secure future.
6.02.2008
An Eye On Health Care
I had an eye doctor appointment this past weekend. First one in five years. I normally go more often than that, but 1) my eyes haven’t gotten much worse in these five years, 2) I like my glasses and 3) I did not have vision insurance until the past couple of years, through Starbucks. Anyway, five years is a long time to go between medical examinations, so I said, what the heck.
After getting lost trying to find the place, and reading old copies of magazines in the waiting room, I was taken into a room full of all kinds of widgets and gadgetry. The nice lady, who sat in the middle of this revolving chair thingy that spun around four or five place-your-face-here machines, had me place my face in all of them, and then took me to another room, where the Good Doctor entered. I was promptly told that I need a backup pair of glasses. And also a pair of sunglasses. Prescription sunglasses with some kind of special UV coating. Do I wear contacts? No. Do you want them? No. Have you ever had Lasik? No. Do you want to have Lasik? No. Okay, but keep in mind, it's a great option for you. Okay.
I was then read a laundry list of orbital diseases that I could contract, and how serious each and every one of them was. I then read the letters on the wall, followed the pen with my eyes, and was asked if I would rather have my eyes dilated, or use their big, fancy Opto-Map machine that takes a picture of the inside of my eyes. I told him I would like neither today, as I had to work in an hour and would rather not have dime-sized pupils and bright, blurred vision while I run a shift on the floor. And at the moment, I could not afford the extra fee for the Opto-Map machine, as it was not covered by my insurance, so I would like to pass today, please, thank you. Well, you need to do one or the other, so choose. No, thank you.
At that moment, I felt my name being entered into the “Shit List” database.
I was told he would come back to me, and sent out to look at new glasses. I was helped by a very friendly lady, who, after going over the plethora of options available to me- lens density, frame type, coatings, polishes, clip -ons, backup pairs, etc- explained to me quite nonchalantly that my new pair of glasses would cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. After insurance. Even after I deleted some of the options, like glare-resistant coating and a special polishing procedure, they still would cost me almost $200. After insurance. I thanked her for her help and explained that I would pass on the glasses today.
The Good Doctor then called me back into another room. So what’s it going to be? Neither, I can’t do it today. You know, I was just telling your wife that… (insert horror story here) and well, it’s like going to the dentist and not opening your mouth, and (insert horror story here), and we really care about you here, we don’t want you to end up like (tragic horror story victim), and all the diseases that are out there (insert laundry list here), and some things in life you just have to suck it up and do it.
After checking my breath to make sure I hadn’t swallowed this guy’s firstborn or anything, I sucked it up and said no, thank you. I will do it another time. I promise.
The Good Doctor then proceeded to insinuate that I was hopelessly doomed, and then he checked my eyes and from what he could see, they looked great. Awesome. On my way out, I set up an appointment for an Opto-Map scan, because in a few weeks, we won’t have a rent check that needs to clear as urgently and we’ll have recovered some from putting another $500 into car repairs. Walking out to the car, I felt like I had just been to a fire-and-brimstone revival meeting and rejected Jesus to his face. Quite honestly, I felt guilty and crappy.
But I never knew there were so many things that they could SELL YOU at an eye exam. No wonder they only charge $10 for the office visit- they know that once they’ve got you through the door, you’re good for at least another $300. And this is only the optometrist. There’s so many other doctor-types out there, I can’t imagine the HORROR STORIES they must tell people, the THINGS they can sell, the MONEY they must make off of us poor, scared, unhealthy peasants! And this is on top of paying hundreds of dollars a month for the insurance.
I think this is why I want that dreaded “government-run” health care. I want someone who cares enough to keep me alive and healthy, but who has no vested interest in selling me all this extra stuff. I want a nice, clean, impersonal service, not a guilt trip and a sales pitch. Keep the snake oil salesmen out of the biz, keep it minimalist, and keep it inexpensive. I can handle the taxes- it’d probably end up being cheaper than monthly health insurance payments, anyway. They do this in almost every other country in the world, and every other country in the world is healthier than ours. Why can’t we create a unique, American single-payer health care system that we can all live with?
Anyway, I’m glad I went for an eye exam. I’ll probably even go back to this place. But the whole experience speaks volumes to me about why we need something different, something simpler, and something that’s much less of a drain on the psyche and the wallet.
After getting lost trying to find the place, and reading old copies of magazines in the waiting room, I was taken into a room full of all kinds of widgets and gadgetry. The nice lady, who sat in the middle of this revolving chair thingy that spun around four or five place-your-face-here machines, had me place my face in all of them, and then took me to another room, where the Good Doctor entered. I was promptly told that I need a backup pair of glasses. And also a pair of sunglasses. Prescription sunglasses with some kind of special UV coating. Do I wear contacts? No. Do you want them? No. Have you ever had Lasik? No. Do you want to have Lasik? No. Okay, but keep in mind, it's a great option for you. Okay.
I was then read a laundry list of orbital diseases that I could contract, and how serious each and every one of them was. I then read the letters on the wall, followed the pen with my eyes, and was asked if I would rather have my eyes dilated, or use their big, fancy Opto-Map machine that takes a picture of the inside of my eyes. I told him I would like neither today, as I had to work in an hour and would rather not have dime-sized pupils and bright, blurred vision while I run a shift on the floor. And at the moment, I could not afford the extra fee for the Opto-Map machine, as it was not covered by my insurance, so I would like to pass today, please, thank you. Well, you need to do one or the other, so choose. No, thank you.
At that moment, I felt my name being entered into the “Shit List” database.
I was told he would come back to me, and sent out to look at new glasses. I was helped by a very friendly lady, who, after going over the plethora of options available to me- lens density, frame type, coatings, polishes, clip -ons, backup pairs, etc- explained to me quite nonchalantly that my new pair of glasses would cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. After insurance. Even after I deleted some of the options, like glare-resistant coating and a special polishing procedure, they still would cost me almost $200. After insurance. I thanked her for her help and explained that I would pass on the glasses today.
The Good Doctor then called me back into another room. So what’s it going to be? Neither, I can’t do it today. You know, I was just telling your wife that… (insert horror story here) and well, it’s like going to the dentist and not opening your mouth, and (insert horror story here), and we really care about you here, we don’t want you to end up like (tragic horror story victim), and all the diseases that are out there (insert laundry list here), and some things in life you just have to suck it up and do it.
After checking my breath to make sure I hadn’t swallowed this guy’s firstborn or anything, I sucked it up and said no, thank you. I will do it another time. I promise.
The Good Doctor then proceeded to insinuate that I was hopelessly doomed, and then he checked my eyes and from what he could see, they looked great. Awesome. On my way out, I set up an appointment for an Opto-Map scan, because in a few weeks, we won’t have a rent check that needs to clear as urgently and we’ll have recovered some from putting another $500 into car repairs. Walking out to the car, I felt like I had just been to a fire-and-brimstone revival meeting and rejected Jesus to his face. Quite honestly, I felt guilty and crappy.
But I never knew there were so many things that they could SELL YOU at an eye exam. No wonder they only charge $10 for the office visit- they know that once they’ve got you through the door, you’re good for at least another $300. And this is only the optometrist. There’s so many other doctor-types out there, I can’t imagine the HORROR STORIES they must tell people, the THINGS they can sell, the MONEY they must make off of us poor, scared, unhealthy peasants! And this is on top of paying hundreds of dollars a month for the insurance.
I think this is why I want that dreaded “government-run” health care. I want someone who cares enough to keep me alive and healthy, but who has no vested interest in selling me all this extra stuff. I want a nice, clean, impersonal service, not a guilt trip and a sales pitch. Keep the snake oil salesmen out of the biz, keep it minimalist, and keep it inexpensive. I can handle the taxes- it’d probably end up being cheaper than monthly health insurance payments, anyway. They do this in almost every other country in the world, and every other country in the world is healthier than ours. Why can’t we create a unique, American single-payer health care system that we can all live with?
Anyway, I’m glad I went for an eye exam. I’ll probably even go back to this place. But the whole experience speaks volumes to me about why we need something different, something simpler, and something that’s much less of a drain on the psyche and the wallet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
