Groupon Redux

So I cranked out the following analysis in a fit of pique over on Facebook. Decided not to put it there (why stir things up) but I'll put it here. In lieu of actual blogging, which I have been doing little of, lately.

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So here's one way to think of it. East-West sold 345 "groupons" this morning. They sold $10 (lunch) and $15 (dinner) "deals", worth $20 and $30 worth of product. Let's average it at $12.50 and $25.

Now, Groupon takes the money from the Groupon, and sends something to the restaurant. I don't know the details but for low value deals like this it's at maximum 50% (and could be nothing, I've read that for $10 deals, Groupon takes $100%).

So East-West has just assumed liability for $25 (average) x 345 = $8625. They (hopefully) get paid $7.50 x 345 = $2588. So today's Groupon advertising cost them a bit over $6000.

Now folks will bring friends, buy more than the Groupon amount, etc. (all good) - and a certain percentage wll not be redeemed. But that $6000 in lost receipts is coming from somewhere. Assuming that the restaurant is making 10% profit on gross receipts (very optimistic, from what I have read), then East West needs to boost sales $60,000 to break even on the Groupon.

It works out fine if there are a lot of empty seats or folks visit during off-peak hours. But I don't go to East West on weekend nights - it's often full with a wait for a table. So one can assume that some of the Groupon customers are going to be taking seats from full priced customers for a while.

One can do an awful lot of advertising and buy a lot of goodwill with existing customers for $6000. But I think Groupon sales folks are pretty good at communicating "you don't have to pay anything, look at all the new customers, and we'll send you a check!" and businesses do not figure out how much all this advertising will be costing them in the long run.

I do think Groupon makes sense for a lot of businesses - if you can steer customers to off peak or slack times, if you have extra capacity, if you are new in the market or are branching out into new areas.

OK, I'm done kvetching (no, really!).....but please, if you DID buy a Groupon this morning, please tip your server based on the full, regular price of the meal. One of the gripes about Groupons is that folks tip based on the post-groupon bill - so the server / staff gets the raw end of the deal. And undertipped waitrons might be cranky and take it out on customers - even the full-fare ones. Yet another hidden cost of the Groupon experience.

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I've been a long time customer and fan of East-West Grill from the very start, and I want them to stay in business. Have no idea how well they are doing these days. But I would hate to think that one bad decision to advertise with Groupon might push them under.....so call all this sturm und drang self serving.....

Groupon - No!

This morning's Groupon deal is one of my favorite little Thai restaurants (East-West Grille) - a converted old diner that service great lunch and dinner, and has recently branched into some amazing breakfasts. I noticed it in my In Box, and one of my Facebook friends posted it to his wall.

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

I've been looking into Groupon lately for some clients, and it's not always good news for the businesses who sign up for the service. Some businesses have been driven under ...by the flood of Groupon business - often one-time customers who do not come back without a "coupon" - and in the meantime, having to staff up for the high volume, alienating regular customers (due to Groupon volume), and subsidizing the Groupon customers. Hey, we all know the folks who boast of getting a basket full of groceries for $0, through shrew sales shopping, rebates, and coupons. Not exactly the target demographic for a successful, ongoing business.

Groupon is reportedly pretty aggressive at selling themselves and their unique "deals" (encouraging businesses to agree to 50% off or more deals, etc.), and not permitting a cap on the number of deals sold. Would be one thing if one could limit the number of Groupon deals that one processes per day (like a service business that takes reservations, you could string it out for months) - but it's plausible that a restaurant could be full of groupons for days or weeks following the offer.

For low dollar deals, the business will probably get zero dollars for every Groupon sold or redeemed. (Groupon takes a high percentage of the receipts, 100% for offers under $10). Imagine trying to run a small restaurant for a few weeks with ZERO receipts, as your tables are full of folks with Groupon offers.

Here's one business's experience: Posies Cafe - a bakery / cafe that is probably not too different from my hometown restaurant in terms of scale and economics.

Bottom Line: I have been an East-West customer from Day 1, love their food, and especially their breakfasts. Would hate to see them driven under by a (perhaps foolhardy, and yes most certainly free will) decision to work with Groupon. But if, three or six months down the road, we read about the restaurant closing, I told you so, and I will sorrowfully take my Cassandra-like derriere elsewhere for Thai food.

As for me, I'm not purchasing a Groupon. I'll buy one for a place that I've never been to and would like to try out. But I value local businesses too much; I'll pay full price for my next lunch and consider it a fair trade....

Terry

My landline (dually purposed for my business, and usually pretty quiet except for an occasional call from clients thanks to cell phone dominance) has been ringing off the hook the last few weeks. Terry Gerratana, Democratic candidate for CT's 6th Senate seat, has been beating the bushes for votes for the special election this Tuesday, Feb 22nd. I've also gotten 4 or 5 post card mailings from her (compared with 1 from the Republican candidate, Mayor Tim Stewart). Some of the calls have been from campaign workers, but at least one of the messages was from the candidate herself.

I'll probably vote, I'm usually pretty fastidious about civil responsibilities, and I'll vote for Ms. Gerratana assuming I get to the polls. Mostly just in an "I lean to the left" kind of way, although Mayor Stewart's potential double-dipping does not sit well with me - I'd fear he's let his New Britain responsibilities slide if he tried to fill both posts.

Just be happy when Tuesday rolls around so my landline goes back to it's normal state of rest....

Oscar Nominated Shorts

Snuck out into the world twice this week - over to Real Art Ways to see the Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action and Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation. Love to have these under my belt going into the CARC Annual Oscar Night event - gives me something to root for!

Not a lot of time to blog, but a sentence or two about each of the films works...

Live Action
The Confession - Just a really dark film. As a young catholic kid often overwhelmed with my own sense of dread and sin, this was pretty horrific. As my friend Cheryl said at the end "I'm going to kill myself now". An amazing film, but oh so very dark.

The Crush - Adorable, although when played after The Confession, some of the concepts were a bit horrific. We feared the worst, but the worst did not occur....

God of Love - Had every potential of being pretentious, but it was funny, cute, and lovable. Neat concept, artful B/W presentation, and interesting actors and location.

Na Wewe - Having recently read read Tracy Kidder's Strength in What Remains, this film was also very dark and scary. But I liked it a lot - brought the imagery and location of Kidder's book to life for me. A little too pat an ending considering the seriousness of the documented encounter.

Wish 143 - Totally smitten by this film. It was really sweet to see a Catholic priest just being a humble and kind servant. The lead actor was great.

I'd say it's a toss-up between God of Love and Wish 143, in my opinion.

Animated

Day and Night - I kind of cringe at the Disney/Pixar shorts (having sat through one too many CARS shorts) - this one was different and slightly interesting, but felt like it could have come right out of the 70's drive in features. Meh.

The Gruffalo - Loved the voices, the animation was whimsical and sweet. Story was OK. Felt a little more corporate / kid centric.

Let's Pollute - I dunno. Sarcasm turned up to 11. Kind of funny animation (nice to see something not CG'd to death). But felt like getting clubbed over the head with a concept.

The Lost Thing - Loved it. Very odd and whimsical, a little tear at the end. Combine Wallace and Grommet with Terry Gilliam.

Madagasgar, Carnet de Voyage - Best in my opinion - a collage of animation styles, sounds, a compelling subject. Made me want to buy a ticket and set off for Africa!

2nd Annual Santa Flight in Memory of Mike Bollea

Eleven hot air balloons rose from the back lot of Southington's Aquaturf Club this morning. The CT Lighter than Air Society (CLAS) sponsored a holiday balloon rally in memory of Mike Bollea, who passed away in March 2009.

Each year in December, Mike would don a Santa suit and fly his balloon, he and his crew handing out candy canes to the kids they encountered on their flight. In his honor, we recreated his flight this morning.

Most of us wore hats and festive garb, although we did manage to field two Santas and one Mrs. Claus. It was a beautiful day to fly, with most pilots heading northeast toward Camp Slopers and Timberlin Golf Course.

After the flight, a toast to our friend Mike, and a meet-up at the Plantsville truck stop for breakfast (not exactly haute cuisine, but a big enough space for the 30 or so pilots and crew)

At left, student pilot Kristen on the burner, initial ascent. Kristen bought a small basket a while back, with room for just two passengers. The propane tanks are suspended outside the basket, and the burner is affixed to a ring connected via cables and carabieners.








Below, the Berkshire Balloons team - pilot in training Kristen, pilot Robert, and crew Jude. The most entertaining balloon team in the state, bar none!

The Only Thing We Have to Fear.....

I'm going to break one of the cardinal rules of this blog.....

A young transwoman killed herself recently. You can see a video from the local ABC affiliate here, and read a news story posted on a local news radio site, here.

The flavor of the month, from the GLBT community, is bullies, and this story drops right in there. I posted a few things on Helen Boyd's message board, My Husband Betty, and this has gotten me torqued up enough to repost out here in public, which I usually avoid, ironically because I fear a different sort of bullying, coming from within the queer blogosphere.

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I watched the video. And nowhere in there did it say that Chloe was actually, you know, bullied. Over and over, the refrain was repeated....she FEARED being bullied.

"Overall, her peers accepted her for who she was....but she was still terrified of being bullied for coming out."

"She struggled with fears of harassment and abuse."

"Who wants to see a young man walking down the street with a dress on.....in his eyes that was the worse fear...."

"Her family said Chloe's death mirrors that of other teens who have committed suicide due to bullying...."

And some wisdom from step-dad "...that's what we are creating as a society, we are creating this incredible cloud of fear for these individuals..."

And going back to the print article:

"And while he wasn't outright bullied, Murphy says the pressure to fit into society grew increasingly heavy for Justin."

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself - apparently.

Look, I get bullying. I was not out as trans, but I was the smart kid, the nerdy kid, the unathletic kid who lived in fear for most of my youth. Fear in my case meant occasional incontinence - so you can imagine how popular I was when I was young. I guess I had the wrong roles models; it never entered my mind to kill myself. Or maybe I grew up so marginalized and used to being on the fringes that gender transition was not that big a deal.

And I get fear too - I was raised with fear. Thankfully, by the time I needed to transition, I had dealt with my fears - "I do not want you to get hurt" was fairly debilitating throughout my youth and young adulthood. Dating = fear. Moving out of state = fear. Marriage = fear. Taking career risks = fear. Flying overseas = fear. Stepping into a hot air balloon = fear. Visiting NYC = fear. By the time I decided to transition, I guess I had enough practice dealing with fear that I could ignore the internal messages.

Getting back to the whole idea of suicide contagion, let's look back to the print version of the story:

Dempsey says Justin "Chloe" medicated with marijuana, but that, unfortunately, fed the depression rather than eased it.

Following graduation from Buchanan High in 2009, Justin moved north to Eureka, where Dempsey says he found a close-knit circle of loving and acceptance and "was able to become more of 'Chloe'."

And the difference in perspective was remarkable when "Chloe" was able to express herself more freely. Dempsey says, "There was friendship, there was peace, there some happiness, and she loved that."

Justin slowly began to dress as "Chloe" while living in Eureka but lacked the confidence to do so outside the safety of home. Murphy says the process to fully transform into "Chloe", which could take 10 years or more, began to take its toll which became "really overwhelming" with regard to the already prevalent anxiety and depression.

So, Murphy proceeded to set up therapy sessions for "Chloe" but despite seeing several therapists, her outlook grew more grim. Murphy says she was completely hopeless "...like there is no way this is ever going to happen for me, so why am I here."

Seems (to me) like a kid already struggling with depression and addiction, faced with a pretty daunting life project, decided to end it. But instead of facing that reality, we blame bullies - it took about 24 hours for this sad story to be spun into the flavor of the month, bullies did it.

What is really sad is (a) that, looking at her photo, she seemed to have nothing to fear. Really quite beautiful. And (b) her family and the media seems to have ensured that he will be remembered as the son they lost (photographs, names, etc.), not the daughter she was becoming.

Look, I want young people to stop killing themselves. But my fear (there's that word, again) is, that the more we honor and mourn these kids as helpless and powerless victims, following a logical pathway in response to external stimuli, the more they are going to follow that script.

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Social Media

Social Media has been on the table the last few days.

At Thanksgiving, my sister's use of Facebook to keep tabs on her eldest (1/2 a country away as a college freshman) was bantered about - her son refuses to friend her, although has let in an uncle. So she keeps in touch via text message and skype. We were teasing her as a "stalker" although my niece used the perhaps trendier word creeper. She's not really that much of a helicopter mom, but a mom cannot help herself. We were laughing at what our mom would have done had she had access to such technology when we were in school - no cell phones even back then, and no land lines in the dorm, so we had to rely on the catch as catch can payphone in the dorm hallway.

Then at the reunion, a clear line of demarcation between those who have embraced social media (a handful) and those who have not. Interesting. I'm on the cutting edge, I suppose, at least for my age group (surely not in general) - part of my work involves staying abreast of such things for tourism and small business concerns, I've been blogging in one for or another since 2002, and have had an online presence (personal essays, business) long before that. And my social network skews younger and hipper - folks without land lines, who text first rather than call, who have less concern about privacy.

Being self employed helps - my clients come and go, but I am not wholly dependent on one entity for financial survival. So a lot less concern about propriety and discretion. And in some ways, all of my online presence is a marketing campaign for my brand - my self. My music, my balloon chasing, my yoga teaching, my writing - all of these little bits of renaissance me stirred into one gumbo.

In some ways perhaps I am a bridge figure, between we oldsters coming to terms with the new media, and the young guns who do not know anything different. Not fully embracing the technology but exploring it's capabilities and seeding the potential within my generation.

Reunion

Last evening was an overdue (31) reunion of the Marian High School class of 1979.

We've been reuniting sporadically over the years. 5 and 10, surely. Not sure if we had a 15 - if so I did not make it. We did a big deal at 20 (I was in attendance, probably right on the cusp of my big life change). And now here we are at 31. Can it have been that long?

A reasonable turn-out, 45 or so pre-registered out of a class of 160 and a few dropped in, but that (I think) includes a handful of spouses and SOs. Kudos to the folks who planned this (Dawne, Eileen, Jacqui....you rock!). It was nice to see old friends and schoolmates.

Always a little disappointing regarding who did not show - a lot of what might have passed for my posse (or at least the clump of kids I knew best, by dint of taking similar classes) were absent. Going through the yearbook now - Nancy, Keats, Mary, Jeff, Winifred, Claudette, Joyce, Rich, Kevin, Mike, Andrea, Cheryl, BJ, Maura, Jim, John. All you guys were missed, by me at least.

A few random observations. A couple of my classmates could have walked out of their yearbook photos and into the reunion - Dan, Kevin, Lisa, Marcia - you guys are timeless. Pushing 50 and you look like kids! Others seem to have grown a few inches - almost as if high school was diminishing and somewhere along the line they figured life out and grew into themselves - people you want for friends. Others have aged a bit but still bringing their spirit and energy forward from high school to now. And a handful changed quite a bit - often for the better. The women especially changed hairstyles and fashion, or grew into themselves.

All in all, the class seems to have done very well - lots of kids, interesting careers and lifestyles, lot of great energy. One might suspect a bit of selective filtering (the folks who made a point of coming were happy to be seen) but on the other hand, perhaps those missing have amazing lives that they were not willing to step away from for the reunion. So let's just call us a typical cross-section and say "bravo!"

Although "Most Changed" was not one of the class superlatives to be elected (thanks for trying, organizers!), I nevertheless accrued a significant write-in vote. Kind of hard to top my journey in terms of changes. Tee hee.

A lovely time. Thanks for your kind words everyone. I'll try not to be a stranger going forward.....

Long Time No Post

Yes, I am still here. No I am not posting much. Quick updates:

1) My engineering work has been a bit too busy (overloaded) which has kept me from too much recreational web geekery (including the blog)

2) My yoga teaching / practice is still chugging along. Teaching 2x a week at the studio, 1x a week at Bristol adult-ed, and subbing regularly. I am working with a fairly chronic shoulder / upper arm issue that has kept me out of full chaturanga, of late, but does not impact my practice too much other than that.

3) Guinea Pigs are also making some progress, with a few gigs this month, and a soon to be available EP / CD with 7 original songs.

4) I'm clearly in a bit of a writer's block (or whatever the engineering equivalent of that is) with a few projects overdue and hard to get cranked out. However, I find that when I am stuck with something, I tend to get a lot done. A lot, in this case, means a complete cleaning of my office (it has become an almost civil place to work, it was turning into a bit of a cave) as well as the rest of my domicile. I've actually had folks over to hang out and visit - almost unheard of.

5) Went to The CT Forum last evening (Education) which was enjoyable. Even if I went with a teacher...

6) Have gotten a bunch of movies in recently - between Real Art Ways (Freakonomics), Bowtie / Cinema City (Waiting for Superman, A Social Network), and Netflix (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, among many others).

7) Getting regular walks in nature with the dog. Getting out balloon chasing pretty regularly. Finding it hard to believe that it is mid November already. The weather, remarkably, remains quite temperate.

Will post more regularly, I promise. For now, off to bed.

And another untimely death....

This in relation to a story about a 19 year old gay male who killed himself after attending a city council meeting, where a gay pride proclamation was approved. Gay Teen In Oklahoma Takes His Own Life. News story on the Dallas Voice, here. The city council meeting, all 4 hours, here.

A member of the community exhorted us to "...write about it on your blog or Facebook page...."

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Anyone actually sit through the 4 hours of council meeting, posted online?

I scrolled through, and seemed like there were a lot of folks in favor of the proclamation - it was far from an overwhelming shit-storm of hate. One of the comments on the linked Dallas Voice website notes:

The council voted in favor of supporting this proclamation and 24 out of 40 citizens stood up and spoke in favor.

24/40 = 60%; if 60% of our congress were in favor of ENDA or gay marriage or repealing DADT, those things would all be law.

It sucks that a young gay man chose to kill himself. But I personally believe that the media spotlight and canonization of these young people makes it MORE likely, not less, that the next suicide victim will choose death over life. If one is feeling particularly worthless or empty, knowing that one will find fame and purpose in death seems to me as good an incentive to die as any.

I've noted before the phenomena known as suicide clusters, and although these generally happen in a geographic area (a city or school), I see no reason in this connected society why they do not happen in subcultures rather than geographic communities. There is a lot of information out there about this issue, but some quotes from the piece linked above:

"We know from studies that have looked at the impact of the media that there is something called the 'dose-response association.' So the size of the increase in suicides following a suicide story is proportional to the amount, and the duration, and the prominence of the coverage."

There are ways that the media can cover a suicide that can actually help mitigate the risk of additional suicides, says psychiatrist Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, who regularly advises the media on how to report on a suicide. For example, they should report on the many complex factors that may have led up to the suicide and emphasize that 90 percent of people who kill themselves have mental health problems.

Clayton cautions, though, that using details about a suicide can increase the risk of suicide clustering. "Don't talk about the method, or show the place where the suicide occurred. And don't glorify it," she says.

It's a pity this young man did not find a reason to celebrate 24 people standing up for the proclamation, to celebrate the city council approving the proclamation, and have a social network to go have celebratory pizza with and rip the haters apart.

So no, I will not blog or post to facebook or increase the media footprint of this sort of event. Because there is another GLBT youth sitting out there right now feeling unloved and unimportant, and that young person might just decide that, like this young man, he or she is worth more to the cause as a beloved martyr than as an obscure, lonely youth.

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Yeah, I know, I lied. I just blogged about it. But I do so in the hope that the community, the activists, the people working with queer youth stop turning these kids into martyrs, into saints, into beloved, admired, role models. We're making it easier for these kids to decide to pull the trigger, folks. As John Gorka once noted "...people love you, when they know you're leaving soon....." (Gypsy Life)

I do admire the It Gets Better project, started by Dan Savage and his partner, Terry. Because it does get better.

Unfortunate Icongraphy

I've been watching (for reasons as yet unknown) Ken Burns' Civil War series on Netflix. The other night, watching the first episode (The Cause) I stumbled across two resonances with the present climate of political unrest.


An illustration of a southern protest, where "...Lincoln was burned in effigy...." is focused on a monument bearing a familiar flag.


A few minutes later in the episode, this quote, from the Charleston Mercury "The tea has been thrown overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been initiated."

Whatever one feels abut the Tea Party, I find it interesting (and somewhat unfortunate) that the iconography that has grown up around this movement is rooted (wittingly or not) in the images and language of the secessionist south.

A Beautiful Mind

There is a scene in the Russell Crowe flick A Beautiful Mind where Crowe's character John Nash is portrayed as being enmeshed in numbers. I feel like that right now.

I'm digging in to a new project - setting up a ticket ordering system for website clients. There are a LOT of ticket combinations / permutations - 100+ operating days, 7 departures per day, and lots of options: class of service, type of passenger, etc. Right now we are at 5000+ "products" to be sold, organized by type, month, day.

It's becoming quite a project. It's not physically possible to load up all that data manually so I am cranking into a spreadsheet to make it all happen. So my mind is buzzing with formula, spreadsheet functions, and little tricks and bits of cleverness to make it all happen.

I could actually do this full time - my mind gloms onto this stuff like a piece of chewy fudge - tasty, tactile, irresistible. So if I'm a bit distracted for the next few weeks, you'll know why.....

Pterodactyl

Walking Elo at Deming-Young Farm this afternoon, a winged creature swooped across the field. I though canadian goose at first, but the profile was wrong - seemed almost prehistoric with a long thin tail. Turns out it was a Great Blue Heron. Beautiful and awesome.

Becoming a Teacher

Yesterday, I taught my final Wednesday morning All Levels class. I took over this class last winter, as one of the studio rock star teachers needed to give up the class. Class numbers immediately dropped, and those who remained were palpably dubious - who is this woman; she's not the teacher we want. For weeks, I felt on the verge of losing the class. But yesterday was nearly a full room - 20 bodies and spirits, I have built that class up slowly over the past 6 months, even through the traditionally slow summer. My students were cranky again - not because I was stepping into the room, rather because I was leaving. It was a very affirming experience.

I'm trying not to be attached - I'm simply slipping over to a Monday morning class, a shift planned last spring before I seem to have hit my stride, making room for another teacher on Wednesday. I'll build up Monday as well, I am sure.

As I look at my calendar this month, I see a string of yoga classes that I have taught or am teaching. Between my own classes, a string of subbing for others, a free intro class, and my Adult Ed class starting up, I've taught 9 out of 10 days in a row this month. I've also picked up a private session this week.

I've been teaching for over two years now, and I seem to have turned the corner on something this summer. I'm not the new kid on the block anymore, or the novelty - I seem to have grown into my teaching, to have seasoned.

It's a good feeling. And also something to be wary of - hoping to retain my freshness, stay out of pride and not take the privilege of teaching yoga for granted.

Slabs of Cheese

Last night, taking Elo out for a quick bio break after coming home after a Guinea Pigs rehearsal, I discovered in the yard between my place and the apartment building next door, two slabs of cheese.


These were unwrapped - one looked like a Stop n' Shop slab of sharp chedder, the other some sliced swiss. I picked them up and tossed them last night, but pulled them out today to recreate the scene of the crime, for my Facebook friends. Hard to wrap your mind around slabs of cheese appearing in your yard.

I'm befuddled about this cheese.

I could understand wrapped cheese - someone bringing home the groceries and things fall out of the bag. I could understand rough chunks of moldy cheese - an animal gets into the trash and drops some cheese. A few slices - somebody is decheesing a sandwich or grinder. But these looked remarkably fresh and almost as if they were dropped into the yard deliberately.

My theories:

a) Some domestic dispute next door that resulted in cheese being tossed out the window. Dammit, I wanted provolone!
b) The cheese is poisoned, and placed to take care of vermin, feral cats, or perhaps even Elo (he's a pretty good dog but who knows what might piss off somebody - his barking antics when we get ready for a walk, or perhaps a pissed off dog walker who Elo terrorized one time when he got off the leash.

In any case, I'll be keeping an eye on the lawn looking for future foodstuffs....

Dear Random Facebook Person....

.....who is now Facebook friends with 1/2 of my Facebook friends, but who I have never met. Here is my Friending Policy: At least one meaningful, in person encounter before I Facebook friend, please.....

It's a little like a wave....you watch this heretofore unknown person "friending" your friends, first one, then two, then 6 or 10. And then they decide that I am worth friending. Almost invariably, this is a person who is trolling for a network to sell or promote something. No thanks....

New Media vs. Old Media

A not so happy story from down in Essex - there was a fire at the CT River Museum last night. The Middletown Press seems to have the best coverage so far: Fire at Conn. River Museum may have destroyed historic artifacts

One of my clients is the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat, so I'm familiar with the CT River Museum as a tourism partner - which drew my attention last night. I did a bit of web surfing, dropped by Twitter, and watched the 11 pm news. WTNH's Jamie Muro was on site, but was not able to get close enough, quickly enough to catch the fire on video.

The Middletown Press, on the other hand, rocks it in terms of integrating text, photos, and video, and really documenting the heck out of this story better than anyone else on the web. Their coverage seems to be entirely generated by one reporter (Lauren Flaum), with a camera that captured video. WTNH - needing to set up a Sat Truck and Camera Crew, was unable to get close enough to really cover this as it happened (Mr. Muro noted in his first stand-up that he would have to walk over to see what was happening and would be back later in the newscast) - but Ms. Flaum (on foot, light, and mobile) from the Press got right in there, got some photos and video of the fire itself, and some eyewitness interviews.

Just an interesting example of "how the new media works vs. how the old media is limited"

And from the Press article: ‎"At one point as firefighters hammered away at the roof, a cluster of bats was disturbed and fluttered away into the dark night sky."

It's the little poetic touches....heh.

Staining the Deck

Spent a couple of days working outside - staining the deck on the back of my condo. As I came back from folk fest and was washing yoga mats, I noticed the deck was not particularly well suited to bare feet (rough surface, popped nailheads) so it was due.

Just the right size project - not too many hours, not too much major work. I pulled a warped bench apart for scrap, I drove in all the loose / popped nailheads, I scrubbed the deck down with prep solution. The railing was a bit challenging (lots of vertical poles / risers) and the outside needed a small ladder (borrowed from Zippy). One coat on most of the deck; two coats on the top of the railing and the deck itself. I stained the underside risers and supports but not the underside of the deck itself.

Although I live in a condo, it's sort of a hybrid (four units, the condo fee is minimal) so we do a lot of the little outside projects ourselves. I've noticed that the three other decks are in various states of stain / paint, so figured this was a "do it yourself" project.

Felt good to be doing physical work - although the engineering work is queued up. There is something to be said for having a project, digging in, getting sweaty, dirty, and a little sore - and then being finished. Hopefully, I'll be motivated to use the desk a little bit more....dining, cooking, hanging out.....

A Real Job

It's been a LONG time since I had the sort of job where one drives to the office in the morning, sits at a desk for a more or less traditional workday, and drives back home at the end of the day. December 7, 1995, if I recall correctly.

Wednesday and Thursday, I headed down to work with a client as they launch ticket sales for a big seasonal event - traditionally the first few days of sales are pretty crazy (we sold close to 10,000 tickets today) and there are lots of opportunities to muck it up - overselling, not cutting off sales fast enough, losing orders, pissing off customers. Near as I can tell, today was a huge success, in part because of changes made this year vs. last, one of which was that I was onsite keeping a very close eye on internet sales, updating the website, tracking ticket sales, etc.

But goodness - is that what work is? Going in for 8-9 hours, sitting at a desk, taking a quick break now and then, framed by a 45 minute commute on either end? Yeah, there was some lovely banter and fun with co-workers, but we had the excitement of an "event" to keep things fresh - a 2-3 day push to answer the phones, move the tickets, and make things happen. I'm certain that a regular workday is far less engaging.

In any case, it's a nice change of pace (and I'll get to bill for my time) but you can keep that 9-5 workday, the organization gig. 15 years of self employment have spoiled me for corporate work.....

In the meantime, I'm off the grid again tomorrow.....

A Beehive of Activity

I'm camped out (figuratively, I better add that considering how many nights I slept in a tent in July) in Essex CT for a couple of days. We've starting selling tickets for the 2010 North Pole Express down at the Essex Steam Train, one of my clients.

My job:

a) Monitor online ticket sales, using some extensive email filters that drop individual orders into a folders by departure date and time

b) Shut off online ticket sales as needed

c) Keep a tally of online sales plus group / walk-in sales

d) Monitor the Facebook page for customer feedback and to post updates

e) be here "just in case" we have issues with the ticket sales, website, etc.

Last year, the ticket sales could best be described as a FIASCO - with the railroad folks unable to keep up with the flood of online orders. This year, by pulling the most popular Saturday sales offline (phone orders only) and bringing me in to track the remainder of online orders, things are going much more smoothly.