Why Dogs are Idiots

  Let me preface this blog by saying that there actually are smart dogs amongst us. They are few and far between, but they do exist. These are the elite dogs. They are the dogs that may very well graduate summa cum laude, and may be on the verge of being promoted.

  Promoted to what you ask? Who cares! Any dog promotion is better than being a normal idiot dog. Maybe they will be promoted to a human. However, these promoted dogs will probably struggle with fractions and assessment tests after being promoted.

  I am convinced that dogs are a result of regeneration or reincarnation gone bad. Yes, it all makes sense to me now, since I have been living with two visiting dogs for more than a month. These two dogs are idiots. I will refer to them as "MJ" and "DK". MJ is the bigger idiot of the two as well as the younger. DK is calmer, but an idiot nonetheless. While watching the pure and unblemished stupidity of these dogs I have come to the realization that their existence must be a punishment or just plain Karma. I understand that the conservative religious sector of society will call my thoughts heretical, but they would do well to hear my gf logic.

  This line of thinking has made me look inwards at my own failures and idiotic behaviors during my life. High School alone may send me to a dog existence. I am going to be very careful moving forward so as to limit my idiotic instances.

  It makes perfect sense that the creator of life would provide the dog world as a retraining ground for humans. If you are an unadulterated bonafide idiot your entire life you will be become a dog. It is simple as that. An idiot does not need to be a human anymore. Humans were designed to live on a higher plane than that of a regular idiot. Maybe if you fail at being a dog you will become something else. MJ is well on her way to becoming a Jack Ass in her next life. The only way she will prevent this inevitable event is to pull a "Lassie" moment out of her butt.

http://www.jokeroo.com/pictures/animal/yoga-dog.html

 DK will remain a dog. She is sneaky and conniving and takes great pleasure in getting MJ in trouble. She will have plenty of company on her next go around though. I predict a great dog boom in the next several generations of dog life. It is mind boggling how many more dogs are being created by humans every year. For example, I would estimate that seventy-five percent of our great leaders in Washington are headed for a dog's life.

  Why else would be dogs be so kiss-ass? Man's best friend... yea, I know why. Trying to get out of dog world they are. Cats are not like this, neither are parakeets, and fish could give a crap about humans. It is only the canine who is interested in being "part of the family". Do not be lulled into this web of deceit. Cats are perfectly fine being cats. They actually relish being a cat. A cat has no desire in the world to be anything different than a cat. It is as if they have finally arrived in THE perfect world... Cat world. Cat world is full of naps, special food, and licking. Who would want more?

  What happens to dogs who fail at dog world...MJ? It is a frightening thought indeed. I suggested a rat world to the family, but that idea was rejected. "Rats are way too smart and resilient." Then I guess that puts the Cockroach out of the running as well... Squirrels have way to much fun... uh, let's just go with a toad. Karma can go downhill fast from a toad. If you fail as a toad you may end up as a snail. Insects have to be at the end of the road. This is why ants and bees bust ass to get things done. It really must suck being an ant. Bees work hard to just be ripped off. That sucks. Worms, yes the worm world is the end of the line.

 Some idiot folk may just skip the dog world.
 "Hey what ever happened to that creepy lady who got Obama Care to "work"?"
       "Oh, I heard that she is now one of those deep sea fish who glow green and have ugly teeth."

 Look around yourself this week and try to figure out which of the people that you come in contact with are going to become dogs. Then, just for fun, try to figure out what kind of dog they will become.

Why then are dogs idiots? Well, because they are and always have been idiots. They have worked real hard for a very long time at being idiots.  Let's hope that they can focus and not become a toad.

Reincarnation is an interesting thought isn't it? I've been thinking a lot about dogs lately.

Thanks for reading,
gf

DiChicko's Peri-Peri Cafe ~ Augusta, Georgia

  Jill, Alex, Katelyn, and I arrived at DiChickO's Peri-Peri Cafe with cautious anticipation, having never dined there before. Upon entering, we found ourselves in a health store stocked with every conceivable health pill and potion known to man. As we made our way through the small jungle of plants and herbs that were for sale in the entry way, I secretly picked out a Rosemary sprig that I intended to bring home.  To the left there were three rows of grocery items. Items such as  whole-grain breads, nuts, flax, and crazy uber-healthy-looking seed and herbs (that look like marijuana and such), packed into nifty plastic boxes with clicky-click lids. You know the type lids I speak of, so do not mouth "clicky-click" silently.

  We meandered to the back of the store and stood by the "CLOSED" sign and read the store hours with our heads slightly cocked to the left. The sign said: "Saturday 11:00-3:00". We looked at our watches. (Actually, we looked at cell phones.) Then we looked at each other, cocked our heads, and blinked several times, the way George Bush Jr. used to do at press conferences. We finally stepped up to the young lady at the register and asked if they were still serving lunch. She graciously apologized for the sign faux pas and gave us a menu to explore.

   DiChickO's has an easy to read menu with sandwiches, soups, salads, "flaps", quesadillas, and smoothies. On the back side of the menu, there is a chart that has nutritional information. This nutritional page was the first gold star that I awarded DiChicO's. I am not "in the know" of this cafe's affairs, but after speaking to some regular patrons, I found out that they are in the process of moving the kitchen (most likely due to Master's week ending). This may explain the overall clumsiness of the cafe's appearance and execution of order taking.
We found a comfortable table with slightly wiggly chairs after placing our orders and gathering our drinks.

  Settling down, we chatted about DiChickO's signature Peri-Peri sauces which were prominently on display. The Extra Hot is premier. This is a terrific sauce. It has heat with tons of flavor. If you go to DiChickO's and do not see anything on the menu that you might like, just buy the sauce and leave. I ended up slathering it all over the Mahi Mahi Panini sandwich that I ordered. It made this epic sandwich "Peri-Peri-epic" (golf applause). The flavors offered are Garlic, Lemon Pepper, Mild, Medium, Hot, and Extra Hot. Just get the Extra Hot and be done with it. You can order these sauces on line by going to www.dichickos.com.

  The food delivery was quick enough, although we were distracted by the tea remaking process. Hold times on sweetened tea should be a discussion at the next manager's meeting. "We made it fresh this morning" was a team member's try at an apology. That let me know that The Boy had swallowed four-and-a-half-hour-old-room-temperature sweet tea (give or take thirty minutes). Yuck-O. The guacamole dip served with blue corn chips also helped us through the tea dilemma. Freshly made with avocados, diced tomatoes, and red onions, it was a rock star appetizer. The new batch of tea delivered with our lunch made everything right as rain. The Mahi-Mahi Melt was spectacular. It is marked on the menu (with an umbrella tag) as having fewer than 400 calories. I figure that I lowered that to 300 calories by dipping it in the Extra Hot Peri-Peri sauce as aforementioned.

  We thoroughly enjoyed our lunches while we chatted about the uniqueness of the cafe. This is a fairly random dining environment. The cafe is squashed into the back of New Life Natural Foods. Cushy couches are strategically placed in the cafe for reading books and enjoying beverages the way that the cast of "Friends" used to do. There where books labeled "Not for sale, but you may read them" on specially marked bookshelves. The right of the market is a bookstore nook which also sported its own cushy couch. The left of the market was organic produce, breads, and the "clicky click" boxes. This is where Alex spotted "Bible Bread". I am not real sure about this bread yet. I will have to investigate and report the findings. Overall, DiChickO's is a perfect spot to pick up a healthy lunch. Go to www.newlifeaugusta.com to check out the market's information.

On a scale of one to five hot sauce flavors, DiChickO's Peri-Peri Cafe, I give thee four hot sauce flavors!

Thanks for reading,

gf

Lifestyle Change 86 Poison ~ Year One

  Have you ever wondered how to un-fat yourself? The scientists at According to gf have been busy working on the system for your healthy future.

  "Fit at fifty" was a common dream of mine; therefore, in earnest I started to investigate how to accomplish that goal. I tried counting calories for the previous two years, and the result was a total loss of ten pounds and hunger for two years. However, I did learn several things during those years. First of all, when I ate more fiber I was less hungry. Secondly, the more sugar I ate, the less I could actually eat on my allotted one thousand calorie a day goal. High fiber, low sugar was the ticket. This translated into high vegetable, low processed foods and breads. However, this type of "diet" was unsustainable. As soon as the counting stopped, weight came back. One thousand calories a day for my 6 '2" 275+ pound frame was not an easy task. I needed fuel to function. I needed a sustainable long-term lifestyle change, not just a diet.

  A visit with the family resulted in a discussion about how to combat and/or control diabetes. Juvenile diabetes is debilitating and life changing. Researching lead to the conclusion that carbohydrate control was the key to success. The carbohydrate management research lead to the Atkins Diet. The Atkins diet that I had known seemed to have changed since I had last heard of it. I was not overly excited about the plan, as I had heard that the founder dropped dead of a heart attack. Upon further investigation, I discovered that he actually died of a severe head trauma after slipping on some ice. Click here to read a USA Today article written by his widow.

  The information that my wife and I found in the program lead to our researching glucose or sugar control. This is right up the alley where we needed to go to find out about controlling diabetes.

 " Eating the right foods can improve your body’s metabolism, particularly how it handles fat. When you eat fewer carb foods—relying mostly on vegetables rich in fiber—your body switches to burning fat (including your own body fat) instead of carbs as its primary fuel source."

  This is the golden information. Sugar is the poison. Food high in carbohydrates (which are converted easily to glucose in your body) is the enemy. Upon researching sugar, several other enemies of the body came to light. The next evil poison to come to light from this research was High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Inexpensive, and two to three times more sweet than sugar, this poison is in everything processed these days. Cheap non-food is what I call it. It is processed in your body similarly to alcohol and or other poisons. It robs your body of the ability to feel satisfied from eating. Listen to this video to hear more about HFCS. While researching HFCS and the body's trouble processing/digesting that substance, another poison reared its ugly head. Hydrogenated oil is the reason that more than half of America has a fat belly. It is processed oil that was designed not to separate, and to be "shelf stable". It is "shelf stable" in our bodies as well!

  Having armed myself with this information, I set some new lifestyle change goals. Having my lovely wife jump right in and research, cook, and read a thousand labels and articles helped us get healthy this past year. "Net Carbs" is a catch phrase used by Atkins that started to make more sense as we moved down this path. Not digesting poison in any form is our lifestyle change. In our "eat-on-the-run" society, this can be a challenge.

  From the 275 pounds that I weighed last year, I have lost close to fifty pounds in one year. I am not ever allowed to speak of my wife's weight, but she has had to change her entire wardrobe. Not bad for a lifestyle change. We just changed the way we ate with out trying exceptionally hard at all. We have done so without any pills, gadgets, or anything sold on the TV. We did not purchase an expensive gym membership or even workout very much, other than walking on occasion.

Preparing your mind is a vital part of a lifestyle change. If you do not diligently prepare your mind for success in this endeavor, you will most likely fail. A lifestyle change is needed. The loss of weight and a slimmer, more toned body are the mere results of the changes that you make in your everyday routine. I think that people focus too much on the results and not enough on the lifestyle change. This issue causes a short-sighted focus on the lifestyle change. Dieters get discouraged because they do not see immediate and fantastic results. Then they quit trying. Focus on a life style change, and there should be no disappointment. Set goals for yourself. A goal for me was not to eat sugar for a day, then a week, and then a month. Another was not to purchase or eat anything made with hydrogenated oil. Once I did those, I moved to High Fructose Corn Syrup elimination from my diet. A goal of walking two to three times a week was reasonable. Be realistic. Losing the weight slowly and the right way will be the result of a lifestyle change and not a quickie diet. If you were to lose two pounds a month, that would be twenty four pounds a year. I think three to four pounds a month would be a fantastic result. That is thirty six to forty eight pounds in a year. A better goal may be to follow this BMI chart provided by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

Make a plan for success. Our plan is simple:

• Stop eating poison (hydrogenated oils, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and sugar/high carb low fiber food). I simply started off with not eating sugar. I copied my son's girlfriend Katelyn's idea of not eating sugar for a week. I did not realize how challenging that was going to be, or how much it would change my life. Poisons also include diet soda and fruit juice. Yes, fruit juice.
• Always eat breakfast (I also eliminated milk from my diet as it hurts my stomach. I believe I am lactose intolerant). Dairy is not your friend. By the way, 99.4% of all "breakfast food" is poison. Please be careful. I recommend two eggs.
• Eat until full. Eat often. Prepare healthy snacks (apple, veggies) for when you get hungry between meals. Full equals fiber. Fiber is the antidote for sugar in the body. 
• Treat yourself. Drink a glass of wine on occasion (Jesus made wine, it's OK.). Drink a beer on occasion, as long as it is a light beer like Michelob Ultra. Eat a treat on occasion. When I first started eliminating sugar from my diet, the treat eating was particularly important. Make sure that you have plenty of Atkins Bars or similar health bars on hand when you have a treat attack. Make sure that they are low in Net Carbs. I don't need those treat bars anymore, since I have beaten my sugar addiction. 
• Eat organic as often as possible. Another reason that we steered away from the Atkins bars for treats was their long ingredient list. That teamed up with long words on an ingredient list is not a good thing. An ingredient list for an apple bar should read apples, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, organic flax seed. 
• Purchase the tools. Tools for losing weight? I am not talking about some junk you buy on that info channel on TV. The tools of losing weight are: 
• A scale that you will put your chunky butt on every day when you wake up. 
• Food. Real food. No processed food. Food that is God-made, not man-made. Food free of hydrogenated oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and sugar. Yes, 86 sugar. Purchase food with fiber; white flour is junk.
• Shoes. Walking shoes and appropriate work out wear. Don't go crazy on this one. You are not on TV.
• Get a Posse. Help and encouragement are essential when making a lifestyle change. If you have a partner eating the same way that you do, it makes life easier. You will have less desire to eat junk if there is none of that junk to eat. Shopping with your partner and making wise purchases will keep you from "slipping". Talking about how you ate during the day will help you through the ups and downs.

Year one, check.

gf

Stacking Dishes and LSD

  Servers always struggle with stacking dishes. It seems like this is a minuscule issue in the larger picture of life in our universe.  I will argue that it is a bigger issue, and it may in fact stretch the limits of time, space and light. Life itself hinges on the efficient process of washing dishes. Our civilization would simply fall apart without dishes being washed. Even the ancient tribes deep in the rain forests wash dish(es). With those thoughts in mind I go forth everyday, seeking to inspire efficient dish washing within the restaurant.

  Perplexed by this deficiency in the servers I often wonder what exactly the obstacles are. Is it really that hard to separate the dirty dishes and place them with like size dishes? I think not. Therefore, for the past twenty odd years I have analyzed this problem looking for the answers.

  I have thought for many years that a lack of education was the reason why some servers just could not grasp the concept of efficient dish stacking. The basic training for the dish stacking job should have been acquired early in life. I believe that in kindergarten or first grade the skills of stacking like items and similar smallish organizational challenges should have been conquered.

  There are educational tools that were created by mastermind toy makers that teach this simple process. The octagonal ball toy with stars, squares, circles, rectangles, triangles, and other shapes is one.
Also, the hammer toy with square nails, circle nails, big nails, small nails, etc. helped me through this learning curve. These days there are computer toys and video games which are much harder to deal with than different sizes of dishes.

  I now have a new idea why servers have trouble with stacking dishes. They are drugged. This may sound harsh at first, but I think you will enjoy my logic.

  A normal server is a happy-go-lucky type who is light on their feet. They can balance twenty dishes in one hand, and serve hot tea with a side of lemon and honey in the other. They can remember a ten top's order without writing a single line of text. They know an entire menu with all of the toppings with prices. They know by heart the ingredients of twenty cocktails, and know how to up-sell them to a more expensive brand of liquor. They show no signs of stress, and you can never make them sweat.

So the education theory was weak. It just did not stack up...sorry. I remembered some pictures I saw in a magazine on spiders and other bugs on drugs. Here is a picture from bitescize.blogspot.com to evaluate which drug the servers may have ingested to make them ineffective dish stackers.

bitescize.blogspot.com

From these pictures I believe that we may be too harsh on the Marijuana cigarette smokers. Even the pill poppers may be O.K.. Benzedrine (amphetamine) influenced servers would stack most of the plates correctly. If the servers took the chloral hydrate they would just call out or be a no show because it is a sedative. However, I do believe I will prohibit servers from drinking coffee moving forward.

This video may shed some light on the whole business.



Thanks for reading,

gf

Restaurant Quantum Time Warp Part 2

Restaurant Quantum Time Warp Part 1, although slightly dull, has officially discussed the perception of time as it related to and individual dining in a a restaurant. This is crucial information to understanding Restaurant Quantum Time Warp (RQTW) Part 2. Yeah, I know, you hate homework, but it has to be done.

RQTW Part 2 is made of the stuff that most people really do not see, hopefully. To outsiders restaurants seem simple and straight forward enough. Cook the food, deliver it, and take our money. Close, but no cigar. Time warps should be a first year study in Culinary Schools. The cooking and cleaning is relatively easy compared to dealing with time warp issues. The entire restaurant world runs off of time warp energy.

Time warp activity has never been at a higher level than today during our current recession. Allowed time has shrunk to an all time new low. Do more with less. This is the latest RQTW that has taken place in the last two years. True, it has always been there, but it has recently been recharged and reactivated to wormhole time into a smaller space. The same amount of work must be done but within a smaller time space continuum. The friction of this faster working activity within the time space actually shrinks the time space; therefore less time is needed. The result being less monies spent on time. I call this Recession Quantum Time Warp Activity. Go fast, spend less time, spend less money.

Note that this really works better during a recession. You cannot usually generate a positive Recession Quantum Time Warp during a prosperous time. The result could be devastating if you would be so silly to try. I can hear Scotty yelling at Captain Kurk something about the Di-lithium Crystals.... . When this process is tried during a prosperous time the result is usually a negative warp energy which results in turnover (the worker quits). This most likely will not happen during a recession as there is no where else to go work. During the good times speed of activity can be achieved, but it must be stimulated through other methods, like money.

My head is starting to hurt with all of this quantumness.

Servers are the first ones to recognize Restaurant Time Warps, as they scream for the floor to be cut. When it is slow in the restaurant a server's brain is like honey in February. When there is low volume in a restaurant the servers go into slow motion. They steal food, they whine, the skip out on work, they whine, they start drama, and they whine. It is very important to schedule the employees to the needs of the volume of the restaurant's business or a fair amount of chaos will ensue.

The lower the volume of the restaurant the more negative the time space becomes. Time stretches, slows and then pretty much stops. If you have too many workers standing about time could actually go backwards. Send them all home too soon and the managers will be hearing complaints like " I cannot believe you don't have any more people working today!"  This is an old method to stimulate time into speeding up. Call "volume" in a restaurant, send everyone home, and you are sure to get business that regularly never show up. Tricky business this Restaurant Time Warp stuff is.

This is why a busy restaurant is a happy restaurant. No negative time warps exist. Time flies by and everyone's pockets are full of money. Everything is right as rain, sales are up, labor and costs are beautiful. Your boss and your accountant call you a genius. You can actually meander around smiling at your over staffed store, and for a brief fleeting moment bask in the glory of being a manager.

I think that this is all of the warping I will think of for a while. Keep your eyes open for it, and I promise it will be a while until I bring it up again. Thanks for reading.

gf

Hey Sugar Sugar!!

Hey suga' I have been reading about sugar.
Click here to read about the benifits of honey and the evils of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).

Think about Barry B. Benson when you read this information.

As always, be very aware of any evil corn eating kittens.

Enjoy,
gf