mike the mountain

Sooooo… yeah.

I go away for a couple days to hang with my family and… I guess we can say my stock dropped.

Lewis called to say that he’s got me “on the floor” a lot this week. I didn’t realize this meant that I was being scheduled as a server. This guy named Harvey (that was around at the very start) is now back, helping Lewis manage, getting systems set up, basically doing everything that I have been. Oh, and one of David’s friends is now appearantly in charge of the new delivery service.

Yeah.

I now feel totally out of the loop. I’ve said before that the money is a secondary concern for me. Respect, however, remains a vital requirement. This is not the case any longer.

After speaking all day in meetings that I was not invited to, Howard and Harvey decided to offer me the princely sum of $7.50 per hour. Oh, and I get to keep my tips. I’ll spend most of my time serving, but they still want me to handle management duties, train the new GM, and be in charge of corporate marketing.

Yeah.

I would like to call upon the Gods of Internet Expression and Annonymity to express my true feelings on the matter in a venue not likely to be witnessed by those concerned:

FUCK YOU.

What does this really mean? Nothing. It only serves to accelerate my existing plans of departure. I keep getting all these “pep-talks” that start out with how much everyone respects me and values my contributions, then turn around and reveal exactly how little my position here is truly considered, and what sort of pity/charity they wish to extend to me to keep me around and tap what skills I do have to offer (but they don’t want to pay for).

So be it, time to go. Now I just have to figure out how to get all my furniture and crap across the country. Anyone know a good cheap option? Renting a moving truck is stupidly expensive, even having my stuff shipped is way too much cash. But I only have a little car… any ideas?

The music is back! My life’s soundtrack is in full swing again! My beautiful little iPod died last week, much to my agony, and I found out that Apple will not allow any repairs or exchanges to take place at local retailers; everything has to go back to their central office. So I made a quick phone call (website wasn’t working), Thursday I received a postage-paid Purolator shipping box in the mail, and with a kiss and a prayer sent my little piece of happiness away to her ancestral home. Now I know that Apple has a great rep for customer service, but I don’t trust anybody that I can’t personally strangle on short notice, so I’ve been very nervous. Then, this glorious morn, I get a jubilant call from Roomie Bill: “IT’S HERE! YOU’RE IPOD’S HERE!!” So a spotless new mIkePod is, now as I write, reaquainting itself with the 6161 tracks I’ve got on Susie at the moment.

My darling baby sister was in town last week… just got back from visiting our cousin in Europe, now she’s kicking butt at her new job. Her hair’s finally back to a beautiful natural blonde, pixie-cut short, she looks awesome. And if I catch any of you looking at her, I will kill you.

A lot.

Parent’s visited over the weekend. Friday we actually got to go to dinner together, a rare and wonderful treat. Took them to a slick little French bistro called Michelle’s Brasserie here in Yorkville. Foie Gras, Frites, and Beer. Ain’t I classy?

Happy Birthday Dan.

Happy Birthday Becky.

OK, enough of the personal stuff. It has now been two weeks since Lewis and I gave notice, still no sign of a replacement. How long does my loyalty hold me to this place once it becomes obvious that the owners are stalling to keep us around? I don’t want all my work here to be for nothing (say for example Lewis and I leave and the place just closes). No sign of Dave for days. Personally I think he’s done with the restaurant. I’d put money down that he’ll sell it before Christmas. The only thing stopping him would be his father. But how long will his father put up with losing thousands of dollars every month?

Oh yeah, the little side project I mentioned? Lewis had an interesting offer that he’s mentioned bringing me in on: a training video for restaurant/bar staff. A very high-end restaurant asked Lewis to produce a video for their staff. We were thinking of making a series. Do the basic, generic, floor-staff one, applicable to everywhere, then do specialties: fine dining, cocktail bartending, wine service, etc.. License them out across Canada and the US. Profit. Lewis has the connections and service knowledge, I have the business and bar skills. This could work. Or at least be fun for a while, which is all I really ask.

Yeah, I just couldn’t grok the code to make everything work. I had no post titles, no comments, had to re-write all my links n stuff… Oh well, it was worth a shot. Dude, is this even HTML anymore? I feel so newbie.

No reason in particular… I was just bored with the last one, and I was seeing too many other blogs using the same template. So I found one I really liked here, messed with it for a while, and voila! It’ll do for now.

OK, now I KNOW I’ve wasted too much space on this site…

I put Google’s AdSense text advertisement code on my site (left side, below the Archives). I’m not thinking I’m going to make a bunch of cash off them, I am honestly more interested in what Google thinks I’m talking about. The ads that appear are based on search algorithms that look for key words in my posts, then tries to match them to companies that are marketing products or services that seem to fit. For example, if I was to talk at length about motorcycles, I would imagine that I would begin to see ads offering leather jackets, helmets, bike rentals, etc.. This could be kind of cool.

You know what keeps coming up?

Public Service Ads. That’s what Google posts when they can’t find ANYTHING on the page to match a product with.

That kind of suprises me to be honest. Aside from all the whining, I did talk about camera phones, painting, lots of movies, the Toronto Film Festival, comics, anime, sci-fi and horror, booze… you’d think they could grab onto something! I suppose I’ll actually have to talk about something relevant to the outside world once in a while now.

This was very cool.

The pic below is from a party I was fortunate enough to attend recently. It was a gala celebration of Latin film makers, actors, directors, etc.. Open bar (I’m really developing a taste for good Gin… more on that later), lots of pretty people, linked up XBoxes, great music, more pretty and famous people (Cuba Gooding Jr. and I think Mena Suvari, bunch of others), and this smoking hot woman on stage… painting! She started with a blank canvas around 9pm, and for the course of the evening she painted a really striking portrait of a classic latin lady, flowing red dress, bright sash, big, sensual eyes and lips. I was absolutely hypnotized watching her create this image; seeing the dancer come to life, growing more real with every brush stroke. I’ve never even attempted to paint a picture in my life, I remember watching the hippie dude painting happy little clouds on TV when I was a kid, but this was a very moving experience.

On another topic, the reason I’ve really started liking gin (specifically Bombay Sapphire, though I’ve yet to explore other options) is the smell. Gin is made from juniper berries, and the house I grew up in had the walkway to the front door lined with juniper bushes. I never made the connection before, until one night I was with Lewis and some friends downstairs. They were all drinking scotch, for some reason I didn’t feel like my usual “classy” choices of silver tequila with lime or good vodka on ice. So remembering the favoured drink of one of my favourite writers/characters, I grabbed the Bombay. Once the smell of juniper hit me, I immediately flashed back to those bushes I used to jump over with all my might when I was young.

We’ve since sold the house, I have no idea if the bushes are still there or not. I know that when my parents moved to their new home, they had transported my sister and I’s “kindergarten trees”. I don’t know if they did this in your school, but in ours they gave each kinder student a little evergreen sapling to plant somewhere. I’m happy to say that despite the number of times they’ve been moved, both our trees are doing very well. Mine’s almost 10 feet tall now! I love the idea of a tree as a legacy; always growing, representing strength, connection to nature, giving breath, etc.. I think that when it comes time for me to take my dirt nap, I would like to have a tree planted above me. I like the idea of my physical remains becoming part of a living monument. OK, I know I’m getting really sappy at this point, so I’ll stop with some shread of dignity left.

Oh yeah, the restaurant. Haven’t seen Dave in days. So much for his big change of heart and commitment blah blah blah. Oh well, he almost made it a day. Lewis and I have been thinking of a few fun ideas… I’ll let you know what comes of it.

Je suis désolé. 我抱歉. Ich bin traurig. Sono spiacente. 私は残念である.

Sorry.

I looked over all the stuff I’ve been writing lately, and it’s all been a load of whiny, self-pitying crap. I hate that stuff. I want to apologize to everyone that may have forced themselves to read this tripe in search of something of mild interest or amusement. The final nail in the coffin of my hypocrisy came when my dad of all people calls me up this morning to tell me to stop whining about my boss. It wasn’t a “toe the line, don’t rock the boat”, Willy Loman-esque bit of advice… not either of our styles. It was more of a loving kick in the butt to shut up and do something about it.

Thanks Dad.

With everything I have to be thankful for and happy about, there ain’t nothing negative worth more than a passing mention for posterity’s sake. And as I find quite often, the world tends to move to suit the mood I choose to view it through. With Owner and Father (David and Howard respectively, I’ll try to minimize condescending nicknames) realizing the seriousness of the situation, things are actually changing the way they need to. David is taking an active role in the business, helping out at lunch and dinner, making decisions, learning everything he can about running a restaurant. I don’t expect him to become a master manager overnight, nor can I fairly demand him to act as a glorified bus boy every day at the expense of his own pride. He is still right in hiring a skilled manager to run the day-to-day operations, but now he can actually be motivated to take some ownership, responsibility, and connection to the place and the people that work and eat here.

I want to take some time and write about all the interesting people I’ve met this week, but not right now. There are many things I should be doing (other than writing this of course), so I need to go do those. Don’t worry folks, I’ll be back soon (keep watching for pictures!).

IT WORKS!!

After dicking around with Rogers “help” desk for the last three days, I finally managed to stumble across the one semi-useful member of their staff to walk me through the dozen or so changes I had to make on my phone before I could use one of the supposedly simple and cool new functions (picture messaging). Now I’m a geek. I know what an IP address is. I pity the poor sucker that gets sold on one of these phones and doesn’t already know how to explain the problem to 15 different departments (all of which have to ask the SAME QUESTIONS to verify my identity, that naturally anyone who grabs my phone bill would have in front of them… this is the phone company, DON’T YOU HAVE CALLER ID??? Can’t you TELL the next person you’re transferring me to WHO I AM???).

Ain’t near-monopoly market power a wonderful thing for consumers?

Anyway, before I go off on THAT rant… I just wanted to say that I can now post crappy low-rez pictures directly from my cell phone, such as the stunning self-portrait of me on another phone talking to Rogers. Don’t I look like a satisfied customer? Do you like my new beard?