10 – They tip out at least 3% of the gross sales.

They have to give at least 3% of their gross sales – not tips – to other staff including: hostesses, bus boys, and bartenders.

9 – They make around $2.50/hour.

They get paid less than $3.00/hour (usually less than $2.50).  While minimum wage can be $7 or over, restaurants work off of a different minimum wage scale.

8 – They have to pay taxes on 10% of gross sales, regardless of tips.

They have to pay taxes on 10% of their gross sales as tip income, even if they don’t get a 10% tip. That’s because their managers have to inform the IRS of each server’s gross sales, not the actual amount of tips they got.

7 – If you linger, multiple your tip by the number of hours you sit there.

If you sit at a table for more than an hour you are reducing their potential income by said number of hours. Which means, if they would have earned a $10 tip from each of the five parties that could have sat at that table over four hours and you sat at that table for the full four hours and tipped $5, you cost that server $45.

6 – Sometimes they’ll have one table, sometimes six, be patient.

Sections in restaurants can range from one table (in a very high end restaurant) to six tables in a more bar like casual setting. So if you have a large party and take up five tables, that’s why you don’t get seated before you’re all there because otherwise you’re monopolizing tables that could be earning for those servers. So please be patient if your entire party isn’t there and they’re not able to seat you right away.

5 – They work for tips, they will do whatever they can to make you happy.

If you need to cut into your food to see if it’s cooked correctly, then it’s unlikely the server could have known it wasn’t cooked correctly. Servers will do whatever they can to fix the issue because they are not on salary – servers work for tips, the manager and the cook don’t.

4 - They may not know if your meal is as you expected it, so tell them if it’s wrong.

If there is anything wrong with your meal please tell the server, they will do whatever they can to fix it. And unless you tell them when something is wrong they won’t know and can’t fix it. Servers have to remember a lot when they’re working, they may have forgotten that you said you wanted your dressing on the side. Just speak up and they’ll fix it. Whatever you do, don’t leave no tip or a bad tip because you didn’t speak up.

3 – Base your tip on the service, not on your mood, your day, etc.

Base your tip on the service, not on your mood. If the server just “did the job” then tip them 10%, that covers their basic expenses (see #8). If the server went a little out of their way for you and they were prompt with everything, tip them 15%, that gives them a bit of their own money when they leave for the night. If they gave you great service and fixed anything that needed fixing, tip them 20%.

2 – Servers have bad days too.

Remember that servers have bad days too. Just think about your last dining experience, was everyone in the restaurant in a great mood? That bad mood rubs off on the servers, and unfortunately is usually shown by snarky customers and bad tips. Or no tip. So if your server seems upset or curt, try to be polite. Sometimes all it takes is one good table to turn a night around.

1 – If you can’t pay the tip, don’t go into the restaurant.

If you already know you can’t afford or won’t pay the tip, please don’t come into the restaurant. As mentioned earlier, servers live off of their tips. Quite literally.

How to quickly calculate a tip, remember to round up.

10% – take the bill total, move the decimal one to the left. A $45.73 check would get a $4.57 tip or $5.00 if you round up.

15% – take the bill total, move the decimal one to the left, then add 50% of the first number. So a $45.73 check would be $4.57, then add half of the first number, so $6.57 and round up to $7.00.

20% – take the bill total, move the decimal one to the left, take any number to the left of the decimal, double and add one. A $45.73 check would be $4.57, double the first number for $8.57, add a dollar to get to $9.57. Either round down to $9.00 or $9.50 or up to $10.

25% – take the bill total, move the decimal one to the left, take the number(s) to the left of the decimal and round up or down based on the first number to the right of the decimal (0-4 keep the number the same, 5-9 go up a number), and add two dollars. A $45.73 check would be $4.57, you round up to $5 (because of the 5 on the right of the decimal), then double that to $10, and add $2 to $12.

Let’s see the actual tip amount vs our calculated amount:

10% = $4.57 (act) and $4.57 (calc)
15% = $6.85 (act) and $7.00 (calc)
20% = $9.14 (act) and $9.57 (calc)
25% = $11.43 (act) and $12.00 (calc)

Overall we over tipped slightly, and overtipping is never a bad thing.

Well, as you read above I’m allergic to the sun – and ironically I’m also allergic to the main ingredients in sunscreen, so I can’t wear any products that have sunscreen. This has made my skin somewhat sensitive, which has made it very difficult for me to find products that work.

Now, I don’t advertise or write about any product I don’t personally use, although I probably wouldn’t have tried Burt’s Bees Natural Skin Solutions collection, I’m part of a site called BzzAgent and I joined a campaign to try their products. I joined specifically because their Natural products have no sunscreen!  You have no idea how difficult that is to find.

Because I’ve loved their other products (also without sunscreen – it seems EVERYTHING has sunscreen these days) I was excited to try their moisturizer and fortunately the BzzAgent package arrived while my mother was in town visiting from Canada.  This is important because my mother had been cleaning around my house and was commenting that her hands were really dry and sore and that she had several small paper cuts and nicks.  I handed her a sample of the moisturizer and she put some on and immediately remarked how smooth her hands felt and that the cream didn’t sting any of the little cuts she had, which any other cream would have.

She told me I had to try it as she put more on her arms.  That’s a good product.

Well, I put some on and my hands felt fantastic!  Any dry bits were beautifully moisturized and it absorbed immediately.  Then I noticed something I had to clean up and had to wash my hands and I thought, “Great, I just put lotion on.” But it didn’t wash off.  It had absorbed so washing my hands with soap just washed off what was on the surface and my hands still felt moisturized.  Fantastic!  Especially since I wash my hands around 12-24x a day (there are a lot of people in the world who don’t at all and I would rather not have their nastiness on me!).

Included with the moisturizer was the cleanser.  I cleanse my skin at least once every day and I have been using various products, mostly samples from Birch Box (another great program) and usually moisturizers make my skin feel dry and ‘clean’, but what they really are is oil free, which isn’t actually a good thing for your skin.  Same for hair, if it squeaks, it’s too clean.

The first time I used the cleanser I noticed that my skin didn’t feel ‘clean’ it felt moisturized, it was odd.  I wasn’t used to that as the result.

I got out of the shower and when I dried my face I noticed that it didn’t feel tight.  I put the moisturizer on and went through my normal make-up routine.  At the end of the day, the dryness I had been experiencing on my forehead was gone.  Too much information? Perhaps, but if you know St. Louis in the fall you know that you can go from 85 F in the day to 40 F at night and switch from air conditioning to heat within a few hours.  That wreaks havoc on your skin.

I tried the products for several more days then bought the night cream, eye cream, and a scrub.  Using all of the products together I have never had such amazing skin in my life.  While I’ve always had really good skin – it glows.  It’s clear, moisturized, smooth, and dewy.

If you want to try it go to Target.com right now (click that link, it will take you to the coupon area) and you can save:

• $1 off 30-ct. Burt’s Bees facial cleansing towelettes
• $2 off 1.8-oz. Burt’s Bees sensitive daily moisturizing cream
• $2 off 6-oz. Burt’s Bees sensitive facial cleanser
• $2 off 0.5-oz. Burt’s Bees sensitive eye cream
• $2 off 1.8-oz. Burt’s Bees sensitive night moisturizing cream

I left St. Louis at 0900, got through security relatively quickly considering I had two laptops, iPad, iPhone, Droid 2, two external hard drives, and all their cables. What set the metal detector off was my jewelry to which I received the comment, “Damn that’s a lot of metal!”

I sat next to a woman named Marsha who was on her way for training. We talked a bit of tech and because she didn’t have Photoshop I introduced her to GIMP and outlined how she could deidentify confidential documents using GIMP. It would be nice if Acrobat Reader had the ability to black out areas then resave the document.

The flight was uneventful, we arrived around 20 minutes early then had to wait for 30 minutes until our gate was clear. My bag made it safely, so I grabbed it and headed off to get my car from Hertz.

The Chartreuse-mobile

This was amusing. I arrived at Hertz to a huge line. I tried to use the restroom but they were not made for a person and two suitcases – when will airports and car rental places get that people will inevitably have luggage? I finally got to the counter and got a Ford Fiesta. It definitely had the right name. I walked out to it and the car was chartreuse. Neon green.

Even the people in the car next to me started laughing seeing me in all black going to this car. I did all the normal checkout stuff and used the GPS Drive MotionX app on my iPhone to guide me to the hotel, which it did flawlessly.

The Hotel

I parked and checked in, was welcomed back by staff that remembered me from last year, was given a room just two doors down from the one I was in the previous year. I was supposed to have one queen bed but got two. Didn’t really matter to me. The room was much larger than my other one.

Dinner

I went right to the 8th floor snack bar and got an awesome fresh wrap with a spinach wrap, garbanzo beans, feta cheese, mushrooms, red onions, parmesan cheese, tofu, baby spinach, and honey mustard dressing.  And a half of a pickle.  Total cost: $6.50 seriously.

Headed back to my room to prep for Monday’s training. I got a really good night’s sleep. Fortunately I was a few blocks away from where they were filming Batman.

Monday

I was up bright and early at 0530 on Monday to get registered. I had a tasty breakfast of fresh squeezed orange juice and oatmeal with brown sugar for breakfast. While they had a full breakfast buffet, due to gallbladder removal I can’t eat much in the morning but the oatmeal was nice steel cut oats and were cooked perfectly.

I used my iPhone again to get me to my destination.

Paid the $12 parking fee and headed in to get registered.

Registration was quick and painless and resulted in a little goodie bag with a small flash drive, mints, a hoodie, and some flyers from sponsors.

I then had nearly 90 minutes to wait for the first keynote. I headed over to Starbucks near the Nokia Theatre and sat there until it was time to head in.

At the first keynote we learned that they would be split into designer talk on Monday and developer talk on Tuesday. You can see the keynotes online here.

During the keynote we found out all MAX attendees would receive a one year subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, which included not only all of the new apps they created but also the entire Master Collection for a year. While I had already spent my $1,500 to upgrade both Mac and Windows versions it’s still nice for everyone else. this was between a $1,700-2,500 value.

We also received a free single edition Digital Publishing Package, worth $395. I’m most excited about that and have until February to do my first single edition.

After that everyone headed for lunch. What I found out after the event was that there were special tables for people who had dietary restrictions, because I didn’t know that (and I did mark that I had dietary restrictions) I couldn’t eat most meals. For example, they had empanadas one day, I scraped out the salsa (beans, corn, tomatoes) from inside one (about 2 Tbsp worth) and that as well as some potato salad (1/8 c) was my lunch.

However I did sit with some great people on Monday including someone from St. Louis, and was recognized by another St. Louisan while eating lunch.

I headed off for my first session Building Business Websites Faster with Dreamweaver and Business Catalyst. I was familiar with Business Catalyst when it was Good Barry, but never used it. After seeing what it could do I am definitely going to pursue it for one of my clients.

After that there was Building a Flex Application for Tablets, which was really a rehash of what I did the previous year. It was fine but I won’t take those courses again. They are very redundant and basically involve you typing exactly what’s written in a book. I can do that on my own time.

Then I had Creating Mobile Applications, which was probably the best session of my three days. I left with a working app that I am already going to use to create another app. Awesome!

After that I headed back to the hotel and didn’t participate in the meet the teams or sponsor meet and greet. They are mostly about drinking, eating, and talking. I don’t drink. I can’t eat most foods. And I didn’t know anyone to talk to.

I spent my night eating a delicious salad from the snack bar (those chunks that look like breaded chicken are tofu) and doing work for my day job and a few small client items then got to bed around 0100.

Tuesday

I was up at 0600, got ready, had breakfast again and headed off to training. After finding out that the Premiere class was super basic I switched to HTML 5 The 2012 of the Web, with Robert Nyman, which was definitely the most entertaining session of my entire tour. He had a hilarious presentation, absolutely geared toward geeks. I recommended it to many people and hope they bring him back — and he should teach how to make effective presentations (click the image to view his presentation slides).

Then the second keynote for developers, it was interesting but I definitely could have missed it.

I headed down for lunch, coleslaw (flavorless) and noodles. I asked if the noodle pack I grabbed was tofu and was told yes. I got to a table and it was all zucchini, which I don’t eat. So I didn’t eat lunch that day either. And I asked if I could join a group of people and they said yes then promptly ignored me the entire time. Very rude group.

After that I headed to The Flex Mobile Bootcamp, during which time I installed the Flash Builder update 4.5.1 (it wouldn’t install just the update) and corrupted my install of Flash Builder on my Mac and my Windows machine. Because the class was both (a) a repeat of a class I took the previous year (with a few minor updates), (b) was written in a way I could do it on my own, and (c) was useless for what I wanted to learn because I couldn’t do the update, I left.

Instead I booked Publishing to Digital Devices with InDesign CS5.5, which was a great session and walked me through doing just that and showed me that InDesign could be used for presentations, who knew?

Next up was Creating eBooks for Distribution onDigital Devices with inDesign CS5.5, this was a great class, though we had some minor technical issues it was really cool to see how InDesign can be used to very easily create eBooks and make everything low the way you want. And I’m so glad I now know a better way to anchor images!

That was it for courses, then it was time for the MAX Awards presented by Rainn Wilson of The Office fame.

He was hilarious and really appealed to the audience. After that was Sneaks. By far the most entertaining part of the Adobe presentations and I really hope they make the voice dubbing and blur reversal realities. They are so obvious now that I’ve seen them.

After the awards was the MAX Bash. I didn’t go last year but decided to go this year. I guessed, correctly on Monday, that IRIS of Cirque du Soleil would be the visual entertainment. They were incredible.  Click the thumbnails to view the full size.

I stuck around for about 45 minutes. Didn’t see anyone I knew, didn’t talk to anyone, couldn’t eat any of the food but there was a lot of it — a seriously excessive amount and I hope extras were donated to a food bank. They had catered food, food trucks, Candy Land the dessert area, a living room for people to sit, game systems projected on a building, various areas for sitting or standing, then Weezer played a small concert. I didn’t stay for that.

I headed back to my hotel, where they had honored my request from the morning to put a wrap in my room before the restaurant closed at 2000 because I knew I wouldn’t be back until at least 2100. Sure enough I got back at 2200. The Los Angeles Athletic Club was very accommodating.

Wednesday

I got a few hours of sleep before getting up, getting ready, breakfast, drive to the convention center for the last day.

Most people leave early or don’t attend early morning sessions, which is a real shame. If you go plan on leaving the day after the last day so you can take full advantage of what is offered.

I was supposed to start my day with building a Flex app for iPad but since my Flash Builder was corrupt I had to cancel and I switched to InDesign CS5.5 Power Shortcuts, I tried to make that schedule update Tuesday night but the Adobe site was down, however they had computers set up to allow people to make changes quickly and easily.

I am glad went to this class, even though I had to have the most annoying people around me. Very loud, constantly talking, laughing, and carrying on. But I learned the course was offered on Lynda.com so I’ll watch it there for the full selection of tips.

Then it was time for Explore Fireworks Tricks for Designers and Developers. I hadn’t used Fireworks up to this point and it’s like the red headed step child of the Adobe Suite. After this class I realized how powerful it was and decided then that I would use it instead of Photoshop or Illustrator. It’s a very powerful comp tool that is like a graphical interface with the ability to create Pages and Layers like in InDesign. And all of your graphics are vectors. It’s as if Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign had a baby. It isn’t a complete solution to replace any of those but is a great hybrid. I also won a 1GB Lynda.com flash drive at this session.

Then it was time for lunch and once again I couldn’t eat it, eggplant Stromboli. I can’t eat bread or eggplant. They also had chips and cookies. I went without.

I headed to my next class, Hands on with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, and this was a very valuable session. It taught me how I can use the single edition I’ll get in the new year. It was a great hands on course.

My second last session was Building Tablet Applications Using InDesign and Digital Publishing Suite, which was almost a repeat of a session from last year but with new info. The speaker reminded me of Zak (shaggy hair version) from Bones. He took a lot of questions, which was great, and brought up a good point — Adobe should seek out an Apple Developer to have a booth to answer developer questions and Help people sign up and understand requirements and restrictions.

My final session was CSS Takes Over the World, at the start of this session we found out that Steve Jobs had passed. The group was somber but we learned on.

It was a great class that taught me all sorts of incredible things in could do with HTML 5 and CSS 3, in particular really nice form validation. I’ll be using these techniques immediately.

The End of Adobe MAX 2011

That was the end of the sessions for me. I packed up and said goodbye to the conference customer service staff, who were really incredible, and headed to my hotel.

I had a salad, packed, wrapped up any work stuff, then got to bed about 0030. I was up at 0500 because my ex-husband sleep dialed me. That was fun. Then finally got up at 0800, showered, finished packing, had breakfast, checked out and was invited back for next year.

I left the hotel around 0945 and drove to return my car. Got there around 1040. Hopped on the shuttle and went to the airport, checked my bag, got through security without issue, despite two laptops, iPad, etc. — though my wallet did set the detectors off. Got to my gate, had a great conversation with an older gentleman who was coming to St. Louis for his 67th reunion. Then we boarded the plane and I wrote this entry.

Final Thoughts

Even though I only took a few courses, there were over 300 offered.  This board was huge and listed every session at the time of the event (sessions did change throughout with new sessions added and a few canceled).

And even though I only took a few courses, Adobe offers up all of the content and presentations, and videos of sessions on Adobe TV. So you still get everything – all the things you couldn’t attend and learn about, you still get that content.

Say you pay $25 per course, that’s a $7,500 value.  And if you attended this year, you can attend next year for $895 for the three day conference or $1,390 for the pre-conference (two intense days of training) and the three day normal training.  Figure in $1,500 for hotel, car, and flight and you have an amazing educational experience for less than $3,000.

If you go in 2012 let me know, I’ll definitely be there.

But why? Facebook is important for your social media plan!

Sure it is.  For my business, which is why I have a Facebook page for that.  But for my personal life, I want to have at least one thing that is just for me.  No work colleagues.  No clients (well, a couple of clients who are also friends), no worries about what I say to who.  Well, at least a little less moderated than my public profiles.  I still behave.

Why Facebook?

Because it’s where my friends and family are.  While Twitter is great, I can’t share as easily on there and I can’t compartmentalize on there.  And G+ would be ideal, except most people I know aren’t on there and would have no idea how to use it.  Facebook allows me to upload photos, posts (longer than Twitter), and have discussions with my friends and family at their ‘home’  page.

Are you doing horrible things on there? Is that why you hide it?

Not at all, it’s quite tame.  I don’t even gripe on there (too much), because you just never know who is watching and what they’ll say to someone else.

Did you have a bad experience?

I did.  I knew I was being spied on by someone at my day job but I needed to know who it was, so I posted a bait post.  And sure enough, within a day, that bait post was mentioned in a meeting with two higher ups.  I said thank you for telling me because now I knew who the person was who was spying on me.

While you may think that your social activities are private – NONE OF THEM ARE.

Remember that.  Seriously.  None.

Even though I keep my Facebook profile private I know that, at any time, someone could read what I write and could relay it elsewhere.  Remember, pages can be printed, saved as PDFs, screen captured, and forwarded to anyone.

Should I lock down my Facebook account too?

That depends.  When you Google yourself what shows up?  What photos show up?  Do you really want someone seeing you drinking at a party?  Someone who may hire you.  Do you really want them reading that you were so drunk you passed out and couldn’t remember anything? Or that you hate your job so much you can’t wait until Friday?

If you don’t people to see that – lock it down.  Keep Facebook just for you.  It’s okay to do that.  The world doesn’t need to know every little tiny thing about you.  No matter how much you may want them to care, chances are, anything you put out there will be used against you.

So keep it clean.  If you’re tagged in photos often, set your privacy to not show others when you’re tagged.  If people post stupid things on your wall, remove them.  If people are always posting stupid things, unfriend them.  Set your privacy to friends only – for everyone.  And set it so people can’t search for you.

In this digital world sometimes it’s nice to have a little safe space.

Why a Coloring Book?

I’m not sure why the authors chose coloring books to get their message across (they have several of these but this really is the best). But if you think about it, kids LOVE to color; hell, I know that when I get really stressed I want to color.  It’s something that calms me and centers me.  Odd?  Perhaps.  I believe my sister does the same thing.  There’s just something about slowly and methodically filling in the spaces. It’s like meditation for your hands.

And kids, well they don’t care what they’re coloring. They enjoy the act. The fact that these images are amazing and happen to have great messages of acceptance and gender exploration behind them, all the better.

Do little girls like to play with trucks? Absolutely. Do little boys like to wear sparkly things? You betcha! And why not encourage those very natural desires? Here’s a sample:

And that’s just one of 24 great panels in this book.  If you’re curious to see the rest go spend $9 on Amazon and buy a copy (Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon Coloring Book).  Gift it to the child in your life or keep it for yourself.  We could all use a little more acceptance in our lives.

ConAgra worked with Ketchum (of Omnicom Group) to come up with an idea for people to try their lasagna and razzleberry pie products from the Marie Callender’s line.

Their plan was to have five nights of an exclusive “underground” restaurant where specifically chosen bloggers and the like would be invited to this invitation only limited event and they could even bring a guest from their blog.

They would be treated to a four course meal by a celebrity chef, George Duran of TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off.

Sounds great right? Yeah … not so much.

What Really Happened

Instead of a dinner cooked by George Duran, the guests were treated to Marie Callender’s Lasagna and Razzleberry Pie – without being told that’s what they would be served.

Afterward, they were asked to sign wavers because the entire thing was video taped ala Punked.

What Went Wrong

Bloggers are bloggers because they’re really good at sharing their opinion and writing their opinion in such a way that it influences others naturally.  This is how they build trust with their audience.

This PR stunt made these bloggers lie to their audience saying that they had a chance to win a four course dinner with them cooked by a celebrity chef.

The Outcome

Many guests were enraged that they were tricked into tasting foods they would never try due to the poor nutritional value (you have to remember a lot of the guests are niche bloggers – none of which, I believe, specialise in frozen food).

As you can imagine, the bloggers had a responsibility to come clean to their audience about what happened to them and that they felt bad they tricked their audience because of it.  This resulted in several very upset bloggers posting about the evening and resulted in a lot of negative PR for ConAgra, Marie Callender’s, George Duran, and Phil Lempert (food industry analyst).

Unfortunately George Duran made the decision to go along with this charade and now his reputation is ruined because of it – as is Phil Lempert’s.  It is unlikely they’ll recover any time soon.

What They Should Have Done

Now, what ConAgra should have done is made the dinner more of a Pepsi vs Coke challenge.

“We’re inviting you to a spectacular evening of gourmet tasting!
Enjoy an evening of fine company, great conversation and one-of-a-kind sangria.
Taste an amazing array of small dishes by renouned chef George Duran and be a part of our exclusive Chef challenge.
We’re pitting Chef Marie vs Chef George – you tell us which dish takes the cake.”

(Notice the little “takes the cake” a reference to George’s Ultimate Cake Off show on TLC.)

Now – had they done that, then everyone would have been aware that they were tasting two separate dishes and Chef George would have been able to keep his reputation.

They could have done several taste tests:

Start with Appetizers

Say using the Country Fried Pork Chop dinner – a chef from ConAgra could have made a small appetizer of some of the potatoes made into a croquette with some of the batter from the pork as the base, little cubes of the pork, tiny bits of the apples, and a little bit of gravy as a one bite appetizer.  It may have looked odd but probably would have tasted fine – sweet, salty, crunchy, soft.  Perfect.

Then Chef George could have created his version of an appetizer with the similar ingredients.

Then ask the diners which one they thought was better and what they would improve about the one they didn’t like.  Asking them what they would improve is really important because that would allow ConAgra to get better instead of just forcing their existing products on people.

Then move onto the Entree

If they want to do the lasagna, sure, let’s move ahead with the pasta idea but instead of one, let’s do a trio: a little cube of the meat lasagna, a bit of Balsamic Chicken, and some of the Garlic Herb Chicken and take some of the garlic bread from the meals and use that as the bread for these.

And Chef George could create his version of each.  Make each one only 2 bites worth because it’s a lot of food for people to get through.

Everyone says which they liked best, what they would change, … and so on.

And finally for Dessert

Do a little duo of desserts, same idea as before, this time use the Razzleberry Pie and the Chocolate Satin Pie and have Chef George create his own  version of each.

Once everyone was done then you have the reveal.  Each mini-dish is shown on a plate, the votes are tallied for each for who liked which one best and the chef is revealed – be it Chef Marie Callender or Chef George Duran.

My bet is that some of Chef Marie’s dishes would be favored and Chef George wouldn’t win everything.  And the diners would be glad to have tried everything and had a chance to give their feedback.

And you would get genuine and positive surprise at the end revealing where each dish came from.

The Benefit of the Competition Model

When you do a competition people want to participate, they want to give their opinion and be heard.  Because they know there are two different things in play they would know that there’s something that will be revealed (like the Pepsi vs Coke challenge) but they wouldn’t know what.  However, in this case it would be so incredibly positive for ConAgra to showcase how their food can compete with a Chef’s offerings – and more over, would show that they really care about what  people think and want to make their food better.

Then they could take the feedback from everyone at these events, work with Chef George, and incorporate the things people liked most about his dishes into theirs.

The Outcome of the Competition

Bloggers would write about how they had fun, had great conversation, and tasted things they wouldn’t have tried otherwise and how some of the Marie Callender’s foods actually tasted good.

ConAgra would get positive reviews.  Marie Callender’s would get positive reviews.  Chef George Duran would maintain and potentially increase his reputation and would get positive reviews.

And everyone would win.

Well … everyone would have won if things were done that way.

What do you think?

Read More

New York Times’: Bloggers Don’t Follow the Script, to ConAgra’s Chagrin

Mom Confessionals’: When the food turned sour…

Food Mayhem’s: Open Letter to George Duran

Due to events in my life I knew I’d have to eat cleaner, and the best way to do that is to grow it myself. So I researched and converted my entire front and back yards into gardens.

The back yard received three large beds full of fruits and veggies, and the front was converted into both a flower / seed garden and a place for me to experiment with growing certain fruits and vegetables in the front beds without being cited.

Rather than be haphazard about the whole thing I planned it all out by the square foot.  Literally.  And planned for companion planting and succession planting.

Front Yard

These were my plans for the front beds, and they are kind of like that now.   They’re all laid out and planted with the summer and fall plants and I have all of the fall bulbs coming this month.  The front garden is actually a little overgrown currently and needs some selective pruning.  but more about that later.

This was the front yard after the beds were laid out.  And the enormous pile of mulch that we named Mulchasaurus.

This is the front yard right now – since it’s been so hot I haven’t gotten out to cull.  Notice the now 12′ tall cannas right next to the house (reddish/brown leaves with a red flower poking up).  Cannas are only supposed to get to 6′ tall.  The plastic edging at the front was a temporary measure for the massive rain storms we’ve had just to keep the soil up.

Back Yard

Now onto the backyard, this was the plan – three large beds.  And that’s exactly how it turned out.

This was the back once the beds were up and growing:

Oh, that little house you see above, that’s a little heated cat house for the neighborhood feral cats.  I’m a cat lover.

Now, onto the good stuff.

What I Learned

This year was my experimentation year.  While I originally simply tilled the back yard and created impromptu gardens, I knew it was best to build raised beds.  So ultimately that’s what I did.  And I will add another 6″ to each bed this winter and fill in the beds with a compost and top soil mix to make deeper beds to allow for better root growth.  That way I can more easily grow things like beets and potatoes.

I planted a lot in both the front and back gardens so I could tell what would and wouldn’t grow well.  This was the time to flesh out the garden enough so I could see how tall things are, how they could grow, what I should do more of, what I should do less of, and more.

Remember, in the first year a garden sleeps, in the second year a garden creeps, in the third year a garden leaps.

So what ever you do, don’t expect your first year to be how your garden will actually look.  I knew this going in, which is why I filled in many areas with annuals like zinnia.

In the front beds I learned that many things need to be started as seeds in the ground rather than indoors and transplanted.  While you can easily grow many seeds in those little peat pots and pods, most plants don’t transplant well.  However, in the back I found that many plants are best started indoors months in advance and in those little pots.  For example, my pumpkin and watermelon plants did fantastically in little pods then pots.  But remember, if you start anything indoors you have to provide the plants with resistance (like the wind would if they were outdoors).  This keeps plants short, stubby, and strong.  To do this, simply brush your hand over the plants like you’re petting them.

I didn’t know that originally and thought long leggy plants were great … not the case.

I learned that corn needs to be planted in a 4 x 4 square with 16 plants in order to properly fertilize because it’s wind fertilized. Who knew? Needless to say my corn was a bust.  Peas too, not sure why.  Lettuce grew great but was hard to distinguish from the weeds … oops, my fault for not weeding enough.  Tomatoes grew beautifully – but were stolen by neighbors.  Note to self – install cameras and no trespassing signs.  Or get a very large and angry dog that is loving to me.

Oh – sunflowers, while beautiful, their roots secrete a poison into the soil so nothing else will grow around them.  Keep that in mind if you plant them.  Speaking of sunflowers, Teddy Bear sunflowers are adorable and great short bushy plants.

And finally – composting is to your benefit and can be as simple as quite literally making a pile of compostable materials.  That’s what mine is, it’s a heap.  I put grass in there, branches, leaves, food scraps (no dairy or meat products), cardboard, paper, and much more.  It’s very simple.  As they say, compost happens.

The Most Important Thing I Learned

Every single seed grows into ONE plant.

While I knew this and I understood it, I still thought more seeds were better.  I would haphazardly sprinkle seeds all over the place … fine with things like zinnia or cosmos, not so much with things like broccoli or sunflowers.  Did you know a sunflower stalk can get as thick as a soda can?  You can’t have more than one of those per foot.

One package of seeds is more than sufficient for a bountiful harvest of that item.  Though I do suggest buying more packs of things like herbs because you want to stagger them and plant them every 2-3 weeks for a constant supply.  And they grow perfectly in pots (those long ones are best).

Where to Buy

I learned that bulbs from DutchBulbs.com are a great buy – especially in late spring when everything goes on sale and seeds from JohnnysSeeds.com are guaranteed to grow.  Unfortunately, almost all of my plants and trees from Arbor Day Foundation died, but they will be replacing them soon and at no charge.  I’ll let you know how those fare.  And don’t discount sellers on eBay. I found one of the best sellers on there – who, unfortunately, has gotten out of the business.  But there are many and the seeds are cheaper in bulk so share with others.

Overwintering and Saving Seeds

Now, once you have all of those amazing plants you can learn how to keep things like Gladiolus bulbs happy in the winter (by digging them up or very seriously insulating them – the best way is with straw, mulch, and the dead plants from the previous year laid over them), and how to save seeds from the amazing Zinnia that Johnny’s sells (wait until the flower dies and goes brown – it has to stay on the plant until it does this naturally, then just pop the heads off and pull all of the petals out – seeds are on the ends).

Once you buy all of these seeds and bulbs you’ll learn what works and is worth replanting, and what is worth giving up on.

Books

These are the books I’ve found helpful, and I disclose that these are affiliate links (money goes back into my garden). The top row are books that you have to buy the paperback version of, the bottom row are links to the paperback but they have Kindle versions (remember, Kindle can be installed on your computers, phones, iPad, etc. so you aren’t limited to a Kindle). Buy used when you can or get Kindle versions to save paper.

What is it?

It’s a simple open-source program that runs quietly in the background of your computer and monitors its location.  So if your computer (laptop or desktop) or phone gets stolen or lost you have full control over your device.

Will it work on my Mac? My Linux machine? My iPhone?

It will work on Mac, Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and Android devices. (Download)

They’re working on making it functional on iPhones and iPads.  Until they are able to do that use Mac’s “Where’s my iPhone” app.

What do you mean by full control?

Well, if someone steals your computer or phone you’d want to know where it is, who has it, and you’d probably love to lock that device so the thief couldn’t do anything with it, right?

Prey allows you to do just that.

How does it know where my device is?

Prey uses your device’s built in GPS or the nearest WiFi source (for devices without GPS) to get a fix on the device’s actual location.  And it’s incredibly accurate.

How does it know who has it?

Well, most laptops and phones have a built in camera, Prey will snap a picture of the thief for you. Nice eh?  This can also be used as evidence for your police report or lawsuit.

Prey can also snap a screenshot of the desktop so you know what the thief is doing – if you’re luck you might catch them logged into their e-mail account or a social media account with their unique name listed.

That all sounds great but how does it protect my data?

You can lock your machine down – remotely – so it requires a unique password to access the data.  The thief will have to reformat the machine to use it – thereby erasing all of your data.  However, if you want to prevent a thief from doing that you should make sure your machine has a BIOS password.  If you’re not familiar with how to do that, read up here.

You can also hide your e-mail (Outlook or Thunderbird), and you can remove any stored passwords you may have saved.  Thereby saving your data from the thief.

Won’t the thief know it’s on there?

Unlikely.  Prey has a really tiny footprint and doesn’t leave a memory trail like other applications.

So does this all happen on its own or how do I tell it my device is missing?

Once you install Prey you register your device at Prey’s website.  If your device goes missing you just log into the site and mark it as missing.  Prey then goes into action and will report its location and more as soon as it’s activated.

This all sounds great but how much does it cost?

Your first three devices are free. Beyond that you need to pay for the Pro Account:

• Home – 10 devices, $15/month
• Plus – 30 devices, $39/month
• Premium – 100 devices, $99/month
• Max – 500 devices, $399/month

Can I pay for a year at once?

Yes, and you get a 10% discount if you do.

I have more questions, where do I go?

Head on over to Prey’s website, the FAQ page specifically [http://preyproject.com/faq].

Before I do that, are you an affiliate or something? Do you make money on this?

Not at all.  I’m just a happy user, who is thrilled to not have had to use this service yet.  But I know I have it so I feel more secure about my machines.

Do you know of any other programs like this?  Share with me in the comments.

With the economic environment the way it is, I want to be able to share this information with the groups I manage to better help those individuals secure positions that make sense for them.

I’ve been encountering several very disconcerting behaviors during this time and any company out there that has a “talent acquisition team” or who uses generic people to do their interviewing (screening, etc.), you need to read this.

Here are some major issues I’ve personally encountered.

The company uses a general Talent Acquisition Specialist.

Who happens to have absolutely no idea at all about specialty IT or media positions.

If the person interviewing for a Social Media Manager position doesn’t know what social media is or how it’s used, they’re useless as an interviewer.

The company doesn’t permit the recording of the call.

This means the person on the other end not only doesn’t know what you’re saying but is also probably writing down the wrong things, which will likely get you tossed in the trash even if you’re perfect for the position.

Missouri is a one-party state, if you’re here (or any other state), just say that you want to record the call so you can be sure not to miss anything.

The company doesn’t have a proper follow up procedure in place.

If you call someone and they call you back and then you ghost out on them (don’t return any communication), it reflects very poorly on your company.

Take a minute to follow up with each person to say that you’ve hired someone else, canned the position, whatever.  You’re burning bridges otherwise.

The company uses generic e-mail addresses and doesn’t have the sender include a signature.

This was a funny experience, I was actually contacted out of the blue by someone who saw my resume online, their e-mail said:

We’d like to discuss an open position with you, please call us at your earliest convenience, plan for 10-15 minutes for this call.

Recruiter 3

Notice, there’s no phone number.  So how exactly was I supposed to call back to tell them that I wasn’t interested?  Even though I’m not interested I’ll still contact them in case I am ever interested in the future or in case I know someone and can refer them.   So what I did was I looked up the recruiter’s e-mail address online (via the other recruiting posts she posted).  And they refused to get back to me.

Then, when they did send me a new e-mail (with a phone number) the recruiter tried to pass it off like it was a computer glitch and the first e-mail should have said that they weren’t interested in me … um, if you contacted me, you’re interested.  Not the computer.

All of this made me think so much less of the company that even if I was looking and they offered me a job, I would refuse.

The company expects the world for $25,000 / year.

This speaks to the item below as well, if you can’t be bothered to look up current salaries, then don’t post the position.

And when you do post it, give a proper salary, benefits, and perks.

Don’t screw your potential biggest asset.

The company asks the candidate how much this position should pay.

If the recruiter and company can’t be bothered to look up current salaries for the position they’re offering then they shouldn’t offer the job.

This is a BS move for recruiters to do that pigeon hole’s the candidate, “What do you think you should make for this job???”

The company asks the recruiter to ask how much the candidate is currently making.

Did you know that almost every company out there has a confidentiality clause in the contract you sign when you’re hired that says you won’t reveal your salary or compensation or benefits to anyone?
Company and recruiters stop asking this.  And don’t say, “Well, I’m going to write down that you refused to disclose your salary.” If you have a confidentiality clause and I break it, I’m in trouble.  Same goes for any company I work for.

The company has the candidate go through several interviews to get to the point where they might be considered.

How rude! You expect this person to give up all of their time for you to probe them?  If you like them and they have the skills, and have demonstrated the skills, hire them in on a Right-to-Hire basis.  No benefits, very little paperwork, you get them working with you for 3-6 months and hire them as a full time employee if they do well.

Candidates aren’t show dogs, don’t make them jump through hoops.  Their time is just as valuable as yours.

The company requires a degree.

Read my article about Degree vs Skills. Degrees these days are useless unless you’re a Doctor or Lawyer.

Can you honestly tell me you’d take someone fresh out of school with no experience but who has a degree over someone with 10 years in the field but no degree?

Summary

That should give you an idea of some of the horrible things that are currently happening in job recruiting that are preventing really great people from being hired.

At this rate, it’s no wonder there are a lot of amazing candidates out there with no job prospects.  Especially those in the high end tech field.  You wouldn’t have a janitor interview a surgeon for a job, would you?  So why are companies doing what they’re doing?