Fritanwich

Dear Frito's,

My friends and I were talking about the Taco Bell Dorito's Loco Taco, and what a good idea it was.  I think our immediate question was "what took so long?"  So with that in mind, I'm giving Frito's their next good idea: the Fritanwich chip.

Bear with me...

We've all grown up enjoying Frito's on our sandwiches.  Nothing would improve a boring bologna & mayo sandwich better than adding a handful of Frito's in between those slices of white bread.  This treat is as old as Frito's themselves.

So why not make a chip that is branded for a sandwich?  And, not only is it branded, but it's the exact size of a standard slice of bread or lunch meat?  We'd call it the Fritanwich, and we'd sell them in a specially branded container that carried about a dozen...or just enough to fill enough sandwiches made from a loaf of bread.

Frito's...you're welcome.

3 Steps to Keep Your Options Open

Regardless of your comfort level at your current job, you never know when you might suddenly be looking for a new career, sometimes unexpectedly.  Your company might get purchased, you might lose a huge client, you could get fired, your boss could get replaced…the possibilities are endless.  There are a few easy steps you should take to keep your career network open, regardless of your current status, since it could change tomorrow:

1. Build & update your Working Resume - Use this ‘working resume’ as an opportunity for you to keep yourself updated on what you’re doing & accomplishing at your job.  Too many times I’ve seen candidates stay at a company for years and years, but when it comes time to build their resume, they’ve forgotten all of their major accomplishments!  Were you the top biller in the 4^th quarter of 2011?  Go into your working document resume and write a short bullet about this.  Awarded good citizenship award in August?  Make a note.  If it comes time to actually begin looking for a job, it will be extremely easy to go in and clean up this version of a resume, rather than having to write one from scratch.
2. Build a relevant LinkedIn profile.  The phrase “If you build it, they will come” was made famous in the movie Field of Dreams, and it’s relevant to your online profile as well.  Upload your experience, education, and activities onto LinkedIn, and use LinkedIn as your professional network, only including things that you would want a potential employer to view. (I discourage you from connecting your twitter feed, especially if you’re updating twitter on a Friday at 1 in the morning)  Include a professional profile picture, and join several LinkedIn groups such as your school’s alumni group, or any professional associations related to your chosen field.
3. Reply to any headhunter that contacts you.  LinkedIn is the lifeblood of recruiters, and they will find you online if you’re visible.  My advice is to reply to them all, even if you are not willing to interview for a job.  Letting them know that “you’re not ready to actively interview, but would love to find out about the type of positions that they specialize in, and keep in contact for future opportunities.”  Many (good) recruiters appreciate this, and would be willing to have a 5-10 minute conversation about your dream job, so they could keep you on file.

That’s it!  By taking these three simple steps you’ll keep opportunities open for without exposing yourself to your current employer as someone wanting to leave your current position.  By taking these easy steps you won’t be too far behind if you all of a sudden you find yourself in need of your next opportunity.

The Steps of an Unsuccessful Salesperson

I’ve read enough books about how to be a success/make more money/rich dads to make me puke (more on this in step 6.)  So, I thought I would jot down the steps that someone goes through when they’re not a success at their job.  I write this because I have a feeling that many other people have wrestled with the same type of dilemma and steps that followed.  For the most part these steps occur in order, for as long as the drought lasts.

Step 1: Drinking the Kool Aid. I haven’t made a sale, and try and analyze what I’m doing.  I decide that I’m going to go back to my training and say exactly what they teach you about that job.  Phrases like “mitigating cost” (mitigating?  Really?  Where else besides in business speak does this work get used so often?) “robust productivity” or “low hanging fruit” were made fun of before, but as I witness other people making sales using these terms, I decide that what the hell, maybe it will work for me.  Sounding like a douche is a small price to pay for higher commissions.

Step 2: I Just Gotta Be Me.  Using the company buzzwords don’t seem to be working, forget it.  I’m just going to drop the act and be completely authentic in front of a client.  No salesy attitude, no charades, I’m just going to lay it out there, and if they see me as a real person then they’ll work with me.  It sounds like this: “look, here’s what we can do.  If you think it’s going to help your company¸ let’s do this.  If it’s not then I’ll pack up my briefcase and you won’t hear from me again.”  This is followed by slow, long drives back to the office, so I can take in my surroundings, smell the roses, etc.  No hurry, no worry because I'm just being myself.  Clients would want to someone that’s not trying pull a fast one on them, so I’m sure this will get things going.

Step 3: Double My Energy: Apparently clients don’t like to be shot straight and hear from authentic people, therefore I am upbeat.  I am a ball of fire.  People will want to circle around me like the moons around Saturn because of my positive vibes and happiness.  Inertia: A body in motion tends to stay in motion, therefore I am moving.  I achieve this through heavy caffeine doses throughout the day.  A double espresso at 7 am.  Two cups of coffee at 9 a.m.  A 5 Hour Energy at 1, Red Bull at 3.  My voice is loud, clients are cheered up by my clapping and wild anecdotes.  They can almost smell my positivity (and probably the weird, jet-fueled sweat that’s coming out of my pores.)  When I high five them to end my presentation I KNOW they are going to sign my contract.

Step 4: WWDDD: Which is short for ‘What would Don Draper do?” The Mad Men character is brooding and thoughtful, and he gets results.  I gather that he gets this way through scotch, and therefore begin drinking it the minute I get home, still in my suit, while staring at the wall.  My hair has pomade in it, and I have a constant hangover.   Hangovers allow me a higher level of thinking, and I feel like I’m floating when I’m on a meeting (or am I under water?  I can’t tell which one…and I can’t tell if this is a good thing.) Icy stares and long pauses let clients know that I’m serious, and they realize that they better trust me or lose out on something big.

Step 5: Monkish living: People don’t trust Don Draper if he looks like I look.  Pale, haggard and bloodshot eyes don’t inspire people to buy.  I need to be a picture of health and vitality, and scotch and coffee aren’t doing it.  Therefore I meditate in the mornings, followed by a handful of blueberries (high anti-oxidants) and oatmeal (fiber) with walnuts (healthy fats.)  I drink green tea and filtered water, salads with dried fruits & lentils.  I attend spin class & yoga on alternating days.  A smoothie at dinner with farm fresh ingrediants.  My product should be viewed as something that’s going to make people feel good, therefore I will be feeling good.  My resting heart rate of 50 means that I have no nervous ticks when describing the virtues of buying from me.  This will work.

Step 6: Be the smartest person in the room: I’ve learned that this perfect health comes at a cost-it’s a full time job.  My afternoon naps in the car aren’t allowing me to actually meet with people.  Planning my meals and shopping for superfoods happens on company time, and I’m not actually doing anything at work.  Therefore I strive to pack my head with knowledge.  I wake up early to read the Wall Street Journal every morning, and every meal is accompanied by a business book.  I twitter the NY Times and have the latest feeds.  People are loving my views on the economy, environment, and how it will impact their business.  How can they not love a company that hires someone like me, so full of information?  They will buy.

Step 7 Put up or Shut Up: All this knowledge is great on a meeting, I have in depth philosophical discussions with my clients.  After these discussions, I’ve realized that I have no time to tell them why I am here though.  When I have this much to share, I do it…and don’t tell them about what I’m selling. Enough is enough, these are dire straits, and I tell anyone who will listen that it is.  I’m watching movie clips: Glen Gary Glen Ross, Boiler Room, etc.  I know that ‘always be closing’ needs to be a way of life, and this desperation will propel me to success.  I slam my fist on the table if a client refused to meet.  I pace the office rubbing my temples, showing my concentration & concern.  Veins appear in my temple.  Something MUST happen…

Step 8: ...Play the Lotto: I’m not going to make it rich by selling things, f#^* it.  Super Lotto Plus is up to 8 Million, and they pick their numbers on Wednesday nights, and the Mega Millions is drawn on Saturdays.  It’s up to 75 MM!  My focus is on my lucky numbers, and I spend my days looking for meanings that I see.  Arrive at work at 8:15?  Add it to my lucky numbers.  I'm ticket number 56 at Chipotle?  Here we go.   Somebody's gotta win, might as well be me.

There weren’t any classes that dealt with this in Graduate school, and certainly it wasn’t part of my sales training.  Luckily I can take a step back and laugh at myself when I realize how my “strategies” have fared (after the fact, of course.)   

Minimalization and my Craigslist Friends

I've made a real push to reduce the amount of stuff I have.  I really have just gotten to the point where I feel like I have too much clutter, and it's making me a bit uneasy.  Every time I've gotten ridden of something, it's very therapeautic.

So, with that in mind; I started posting all of my things on Craigslist.  What I didn't anticipate (although I should've) was the amount of , ahem...interesting people that I've met while unloading all of these items.  I wanted to tell you about all my new craigslist friends, before I forgot about them.  Starting with:


Sue decided to buy my jackalope.  I posted it for $40 and Kari never thought it would sell.  About a week later I get an email from Sue saying "I've been looking for one of these!" I met her in a Spires parking lot in Long Beach and she gave me the money, grabbed the jackalope (it was for a friend of hers) and peeled out in her minivan.  But she wasn't nearly as quick as

rivertrash@yahoo.com, who wanted to buy one of my Muhammad Ali posters for $5.  He emailed me about 5 time asking for details. What's the size? What is the frame made out of? Is it in good condition?  Sheesh rivertrash, it's $5.  If you come over and ask if you can have it for free, I'd give it to you.  But he came over, said "hi" slapped the 5 bucks in my hand, grabbed the poster and left.  I was laughing as I shut the door.  I never really knew his real name.  I did get to know

Ernie & Jene, as they were interested in the aquarium.  If fact, their emailed response to my add said "we are Ernie & Jene, we are husband and wife who would like to buy your fish tank."  They came over on a Friday night to take a look at it, and 45 minutes later we were still bullshitting about what kind of fish they have, and their respective jobs as nurses.  Then, they gave me a $40 deposit so they could come back and pick it up later.  Ernie came back on Monday with Jason, his neighbor/friend who asked me if I was a bodybuilder for a living.  Whaaa?  If, by bodybuilding; you mean I fill my gut up with beer every few days, then yeah...I'm a bodybuilder.  But they ended up taking the tank, and drove to my house to get it.  Unlike

Jamie Lou, who was interested in buying the corkboards I put on sale for $10 for three of them.  She wanted them, and then conned me into believing that she wasn't sure about how to get around in L.A.  So I met her at a Winchell's parking lot in Hollywood.  She gave me 9 $1 bills, and the last dollar in nickels and dimes.  Thanks a lot Jamie!

(Side note: I've got a tip about selling things on craigslist.  If you want to sell it, then agree to meet someone somewhere, preferablly closer to their house than yours.  That way, they have a sense of guilt, and they feel that since you've come all that way, then they just have to buy it.)  Case in point...

Orpha, who wanted Kelly's ottoman and pillow, we talked and she was supposed to pick it up the next day.  She seemed to flake, and didn't call me back for a couple of days. When I called her, she confessed that she got her wisdom tooth removed, and didn't want me to see her with a fat face.  I assured her this wouldn't be an issue, and even offered to meet her at a Starbucks, near her home in Hawthorne.  Up pulls Orpha, wearing a medical mask over her face so I can't see her swollen wisdom face.  She was so happy that I did  meet her that she gave me $25, even though we only asked for $15!  She said it was because "I seemed like such a nice man."  I'll show her, trying to flake on me.  Although I did get flaked on by

Alton, who agreed to buy my nunchuk's that I had posted for $10.  Then he didn't call to come pick them up when he said he was going to.  Oh sure, he phoned me later that he was at church and "couldn't break away"...is that supposed to make it right?  I agreed to hold nunchuks for you.  Which didn't put me out nearly as much as

Tormo, who came to look at my mountain bike.  Tormo had a good french (or was it spanish) accent, and 3 cigars sticking out of his army jacket breast pocket when he looked at the bike.  He road it around and said "this looks good.  I will buy your bike.  However, I have a slight problem"  You see, Tormo drove over in a convertible 2-seater with virtually no trunk.  "I don't know how I am going to get your bike home."  Tormo looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.  "Meeetchell, can you drive this bike to my house?  Why don't I pay you extra to do."  Clearly, I have a problem saying no, because I agreed.  I put the bike in my car for an extra $10 and drove it up to a bike shop in Venice for him.  It only took me 45 minutes round trip.  Ridiculous.

I still have several other things I'd like to sell, so stay tuned.  The money is nice, but these characters I'm meeting along the way are even better.

Final note: NONE of these names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Loma Wines...the final step

Tom's landlord and friend, Jerry told him "be careful when you bottle."

We didn't really know what he meant by that, but the time finally came for us to bottle our wine. Really, the hardest part for us was to coordinate weekends that we were each free. Between weddings and family reunions, it was tough for Tom and I to pick a weekend that we were both free. But finally we nailed down a weekend, and it was time to put our prize into bottles.

The first order of business was to have enough bottles to put all the wine in. We re-used bottles, which meant drinking, and asking friends and roomates to save any bottles that they drank. We were specific too...green bottles, with high 'shoulders' and punts in the bottom of them. What I learned was that it seems that no two bottles are alike, so while they all look similar, they're not exact.

Tom was in charge of filling the bottles, we used our siphon hose that he kinked after each bottle got filled. We filled our tasting glasses before the first bottle to make sure that it was palatable.



He was good, but if he overfilled it a bit, we'd have to pour some in our tasting glasses to get the wine just up to the necks of the bottles.

We rented a cork machine from the brew shop, and it held the bottle in place with a spring-loaded platform.



When you pull the lever, a vice tightens the cork down until it's no wider than a pencil. Then the punch pushes the cork into the bottle with a satisfying "thwunk." We toasted our first corked bottle.




We didn't want to bottle the "lees" which is the thicker sediment that was in the bottom of the barrels. But hell, we weren't just going to throw it out. We ended up all drinking it, and although we had done enough 'tasting' to warm us up, the lees wine still tasted delicious, if not a bit thick and pulpy.

We bottled 55 bottles, and drank the rest of the lees down at the beach afterwards. This is where I realized what Jerry meant when he said to "be careful." I couldn't tell you how much I drank (since it was usually straight from the hose,) but I can tell you that I was feeling pretty damn good by the end of the day. And had a truck-sized headache the next morning.

We designed the label the next day, and Tom and I both had a similar design in our minds when we started the design process. We wanted something clean, sharp, and bold. So here is the label:




I have 26 bottles, and I'm going to enjoy them over time with friends. I want to see how the taste evolves over the next couple of months, and save some to age for years.

I had my first bottle with Kelly at Frito Misto, my favorite neighborhood italian restaurant. After Kelly told our waiter that it was our wine, we poured them a glass and the staff tried it. They gave it rave reviews, but I suspect they were just being polite. Whether they were or not, I still know that it's the best tasting wine I've ever had, and I can see why winemaking is such a great thing. Tasting the fruits of your labor, there's nothing finer.

Richness for my plants

I just fed my garden some of the richest, blackest composted dirt today, and I'm expecting beautiful results from my fruits & veggies since I did. These tomatoes better be huge, the tangerines better start growing, and my lemons better resemble mini-suns by the time they're ready to be picked, all as a "thank you" to me for taking good care of them.




I've been saving my food scraps for a while, and adding them to a wooden box that is my compost box. I've been doing this for almost 2 years now, turning the scraps over regularly and watching the food and leaves slowly turn into this black, rich, moist soil. Hell, it looks so good I wanted to try some myself!

A weekend of Wine Chemistry

This past weekend was "Wine Chemistry" weekend that I signed up for in Sonoma. I spent two days learning about tartaric acid, PH, sulphur dioxide, etc etc. We signed up for the course thinking it was going to be for home winemakers like us. When we arrived for the class, the first surprise was that there was 50 people signed up for the class! The guy running is Clark Smith, someone who (apparently) is quite well known in the Napa and Sonoma area as a wine expert. His website is: grapecraft.com

Clark's first words of the class were: "Out of everyone here, there's only 3 of you that are home winemakers. The rest of you are either professional winemakers, or own a winery. So I'm going to make this a very high level class." What tha'? Tom and I were both there, so that's 2/3 of the home winemakers?

The discussion was high level, and I felt like my brain was on overload (not exactly what I had in mind...I figured I'd be sipping on wine and getting a tour of the wineries. Not exactly writing and being asked to remember complex formulas.)


In the end it was extremely stimulating. The first day was all about chemistry, measurements, suflite formulas, etc. etc. Tom, his Aunt Dorothy (a serious winemaker by the way, she owns a winery in Iowa called www.wideriverwinery.com) and I retreated to a tasting room nearby to review our 'homework' for the night. Our heads were spinning as we thought about everything that we went over.



Day 2 was better. The first exercise was for everyone to picture the wine that they wanted to make. Who did we expect the customer to be? Where did we picture them drinking the wine? What feelings did we want them to have when they drank it? From there we were supposed to work backwards to how we would make this wine, what type of grape we would use, what time we would pick the grapes, and how the design of the bottle and the mood of the tasting room would fit with this wine. Very interesting stuff. The weekend finished with a lecture on how we should be "artistic" with our wine. Let the wine go where it wants to go...nudge it in the right direction, but don't get caught up too much in the #'s. Think of it as a symphony that you're conducting, with many moving parts....PHEW! That's what we've been doing the whole time! Forget this chemistry crap!



The best part of the weekend was the connections we made, and we took advantage of it on day three. For those that are keeping track, day 3 was a Monday. Tom and I went wine tasting, and we first visited Alan Viader at Viader Wines. Awesome wine, and our boy Alan turned out to be the head winemaker (he was real modest the whole weekend. When we got there his picture was all over the tasting room.) We then went over to Madrigal Wines, where a classmate set us up with her boyfriend, who gave us a 3 hour tour of the winery, even though he's never met us. He pulled wine out of barrels to have us taste it, and asked us our thoughts. Shit, Tom even told him at one point that he thought one thought a wine smelled "Bretty." The winemaker agreed. Bret is when a wine has a little bit of a growth to it. I could tell you full word for bret, but that means I'd have to go look it up.

And now I'm home measuring the PH of my wine, and my head is still buzzing from all the info I learned. How am I going to remember all this? I guess we'll just have to make more wine...