One year ago today: September 12, 2017, 27 disappeared, huh?
Five years ago today: September 12, 2013, another early warning.
Nine years ago today: September 12, 2009, why I dislike Disneyworld.
Random years ago today: September 12, 2008, aroma of fresh ozone.
Another day in Winter Haven, but you want to know about the hotdog trial run. Here’s a sneak preview of the official Hot Dog #1. It was taken after dark, mainly because I was two hours late showing up. Sorry, got tied up in a meeting with no cell phones allowed. And I was trying to borrow the club dog control birdhouse, but Agt. M says they no longer have it. I may just wind up driving to Jacksonville just for that item. How these are related is they involve the continued use of the car and my gasoline budget is completely thrown off balance. Hang on, I’ll get you the total in gas for this year to date. It’s $1,592 where the amount shown on the books is still the $594 allocated for the scooter.
Another letter from Ray-B and he is gradually switching to country music, right on schedule. He’s undergoing the same musical transformation that I did at the same age. Around forty-ish, if you have not made it to the top, it’s time to start presenting what the audience wants. Of the tunes on my list today, I’ve kept track since 1996 of which ones produce the best tips, and recommended eight of them to him. I also tried to talk him out of going to Nashville to learn country music. Plainly he’s never been there. Instead, I advised, there are excellent tutorials for free on-line that cover every possible country song that is worth playing.
And some of the best videos are made by these Russian-sounding guys who have totally analyzed the music, note-for-note. I know Ray-B means learning the country licks, but there is still no need for either lessons or an expensive trip to Tennessee. There are four basic patterns that can be learned in a matter of minutes. What I’m saying to him is if I can play them on the bass . . . .
Anyone call the police?
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Dress rehearsal, hot dog style. Who was right about a practice run, c’mon, you can say it. Here is a general list of what went wrong. We discovered a few positives, but in the main it was a real eye-opener and hopefully has conveyed to Agt. R that far more things can and will go wrong before we make any money off this little adventure. He doesn’t seem to differentiate between on-going problems and those that can be solved on the spot. Well, this weekend, he’ll be finding out some of the difference on his own. I’ll be available but in the end, he’s the one responsible for learning the ropes and he has not done so to date.
Problem 1: the new battery went dead. I purposely installed a cutoff switch to prevent that. I still had to throw it on the charger and tomorrow I’ll load test it. It tested fine three days ago. The cart can still be operated without electricity but that hot water is required even if it is never used.
Problem 2: we discovered when the water supply tank is full, one man cannot move the cart by himself. Also, it makes the cart over balanced, so the solution is to transport the water separately in a five gallon jug and fill it at site.
Problem 3: getting the water to a rolling boil takes 1/2 hour. When tested before, there was just enough water to heat a few dogs at a time. But to run a production line, the enough water has to be boiling that even a full 24 pack of frozen wieners dumped in at once will not drop the temperature below 165°F.
Problem 4: the grill self-ignition switch is busted. For some reason, it is manufactured with that frail little wire hanging unprotected below the pan.
Problem 5: the grill itself has to be positioned differently, and we’ve decided it works better when it is place upside down. Hopefully, this is not against some bylaw, but the manual specifically says not to do that. Don’t ask me, it is just a piece of metal.
Overall, I rate the trial as “mostly” a success, since we did manage to cook and serve an entire 24-pack of hotdogs. One pleasant discovery is that when we got low on buns, somebody remembered we still had a package left over from the initial run a couple weeks ago. I was not pleased that my instructions to freeze them were not followed, but when they were put in the steam pan, they came out beautiful. There were minor items as well, for instance, once the grill is fired up, there is no place on the countertop, either metal or wood, that you can rest the meat thermometers or they will read wrongly.
I’ve made sure I learned the exact operation of the rig. This is important, methinks, because it’s like barbering. When you take on an assistant, you are just training your own competition. The fact alone that this cart must pay the operator and the owner will foster all kinds of hallucinations of striking out on their own. This is partially why I’ve been reticent about anybody learning the office procedures, as it is this behind-the-scenes activity that goes a long way to keeping things going right.
I’m reminded of the phone company, how the people trained in repairing PBX boards would often quit and try to go contracting. They’d become aware of how much the company was billing the customer, I think the going rate was something like $135 per hour back in the 90s. That was a tempting amount in those days and they’d mistaken conclude they could get rich contracting out at half that. But then they’d find out the hard way how important the support staff was over at the central office.
And that parallels the view of many people that if you just reach for a hotdog, it is miraculously going to be there. What did I just say last day about beer labels?
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