Coffee By Thirty

So we were watching the extra scenes from Dawn of the Dead special edition yesterday (which I’m sure is just the theatrical realease with a few extra seconds of boobies and people making babies), and there’s a scene at a mall coffee stand.

Zombie bait #1, standing in front of the espresso machine, declares he’s going to “make something special” for attractive, female zombie bait #2. Special, evidently, as in the “crappiest latte ever” sense, because the dark brown gush spewing from the portafilter was the sorriest excuse for espresso in the history of beverages.

Now, for a zombie movie, one cannot expect every minute detail to be researched and checked, but sweet Christmas, this didn’t even look good. I mean, everyone’s death is imminent - the least the director could do is give a few people a decent latte.

Hey Gang. The Caribbean was peachy. Thanks for askin’.

Our cruise ship had a few espresso bars, which were certainly novel. The whole trip, though, I only had one espresso beverage: a semi-tolerable mocha. It was a little chalky, and they added flavoring last, so nothing blended very well.

On the bright side, all the baristas kept their portafilters in the group head when they weren’t using them, and their name tags all actually said barista, which was a novel touch.

Drip coffee was abundant, and fairly tasty. Every gift shop sold Jamaican Blue Mountain beans (even though Jamaica’s a couple hundred miles west).

Still, it’s good to be back home. I’ll be reworking some aspects of the business plan in the days ahead, and I’m picking up some basics of employment law. Fun fun fun.

Hey kids, I’m settin’ sail for a few days around the Carribbean with the wife’s family. No email. No voice mail. No blogs.

It’ll be nice, since I seriously have not been away from the Internet for more than a week since 1994. Even my honeymoon saw a few emails come and go.

Talk to you when I get back.

When I made coffee the other day, I purposely left the burner off. Additional heat is bad for coffee, you see. But that’s not why I’m mad.

Oh no.

I realize not everyone is down with the care and feeding of brew. I also realize I’m not the only coffee drinker in the office. But sweet Christmas, boys and girls, that pot was half full at the end of the day, and two days later, I found the burner still on and a friggin’ pile of black ash at the bottom of the pot.

Seriously, did it not occur to anyone to turn the thing off after the foul smell of burning wafted from the kitchen? Now, coffee pot “A” is more or less ruined after only two uses. What’s more, the office, which we have only been in for two weeks, could have ended up being a giant replica of the bottom of that pot.

Remember kids, only you can prevent our workplace from burning to the ground.

Over the course of this past year, I’ve learned a lot of stuff. Three things, however, really stick out in my mind.

• Opening a small business takes way more money than one originally thinks.
• Very few people in the world can make decent espresso.
• There are elements of business you just don’t like. They’re that way for a reason.