Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Blog Number 331

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

My mother came for a short visit this past week.  The kids got their intense dose of grandma and the wife and I got a night out together since our free babysitter was in town (and staying at our house).  It all ended to soon though and soon it was time to drive her to the airport.  For reasons I won't go into here, she had to be at the airport by 5:00 AM on Monday.  This meant that I had to get up at 3:30 AM (something I have not done in quite a while).  I had a job about 12 years ago that required me to be at work at 4:00 AM.  It was about  a 30 minute drive so I had to get up around 3:00 (6 days a week).  I was in my mid to late 20's then so I could pull that kind of thing off much better than I did yesterday.  I was really feeling it around lunchtime let me tell you.

Our Panera Saturday was scheduled for when she was here (this is the once a month Saturday when we go to Panera for breakfast).  I think I have mentioned before that we budget $80 per month for eating out ($30 x 2 for dinner out, $10 for Panera Saturday and $10 for our Ice Cream Social).  This month I told the kids that any money left over from the $80 budget would be split 4 ways at the end of the month.  It was my simple hope that I could not have to deal with the leftover cash at the end of the month.  I have a strict "every penny accounted for" budget and dealing with leftover small piles of cash is not worth the hassle.  With this profit sharing program, I can write off the balance of the $80 rather easily.  Since mom was here for Panera Saturday, she paid for our breakfast.  The kids were quick to point out that they were making $2.50 each on the deal.  Tonight we had out 2nd dinner out night and the kids opted out of Italian Villa for Brooklyn's Pizza when the were reminded that Brooklyn's was about $10 cheaper.  It does not matter to me where we eat out and the wife does not care that much either (since she just does not want to cook) so the kids usually pick anyway.  Now they have incentive to figure out where the cheap night out places are.

Speaking of pizza, I was reminded of a great idea I had a while back for a restaurant.  I would call it Leftover Pizza and the basic premise would be that the only meal we serve is breakfast and the only thing we would offer is leftover pizza from the night before.  Basically each table would have a small microwave oven on it and people would order slices of pizza left over from the night before.  We would have to hook up with a local pizza shop and order 20 pizzas or so at the end of the night.  They would deliver them and we would refrigerate them overnight.  When we ran out of leftover pizza then we would close for the day.  We would even leave a small percentage of pizzas on the counter overnight (not refrigerated).  We might need to have the customers sign a small waver removing our responsibility for any sickness they might incur.  We would server coffee and soda and probably make a killing.  We would not have the need to have an actual kitchen or hire kitchen staff.  We would just need a few wait staff really.  I still think this is a great idea so who knows, maybe someday I can still do this.

OK, since it has been a while since I blogged, I think it is time for...

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My New Cell Phone

 

The wife and I went to Central Market and there were pumpkins / squash galore.  I had never heard of the Fairytale Pumpkin.  The do look pretty cool.

  

The one on the left was just plain ugly.  I thought it was interesting that they had to call out the "Edible" varieties of the squash with special signs.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

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