Trying to find something to go with these tights? I don’t have a lot of bright clothes that match them, so went more in a mixing it with lighter colors sort of direction, maybe sort of sky themed (rainbow with the blue and white clouds)?

"Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied irony"

Architecture firm Perkins&Will has gone too far with claims that a luxury timber home on a Canadian mountain removes more atmospheric carbon than it emits, argues Fred A Bernstein.

For much of last winter, Perkins&Will, an architecture firm with 25 offices from San Francisco to Singapore to Sao Paulo, used a photo of a wooden house in British Columbia as one of the "hero images" on its website.

The house, which sits alone on a mountaintop overlooking the Soo Valley 90 miles north of Vancouver, is certainly beautiful, but the firm had other reasons for splashing it across its homepage. The 321-square-metre dwelling, known as the SoLo House, is meant to be a model of sustainability.

Entirely off the grid, it is designed to operate with power from 103 solar panels on its south facade, a 96-kilowatt-hour battery pack to store electricity for nights and cloudy days (both of which are frequent in British Columbia), and a hydrogen fuel cell for winter.

With all that equipment, the house may well be able to function without utility hook-ups. But Perkins&Will has made a far more surprising and audacious claim: that the building's structure is "beyond carbon neutral," meaning that it will remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emitted in the first place.

It seemed to be giving its clients permission to build willy-nilly at a time of climate crisis

In a slickly produced video on the firm's website, Perkins&Will architect Alysia Baldwin says the house "proves that buildings can counteract their negative consequences and act as a source of repair."

People listen to Perkins&Will, a firm that has positioned itself as a leader in green building. "For nearly a quarter of a century, we've been at the vanguard of the sustainability movement," its website declares. Journalists have tended to repeat its claims.

But this time it had gone too far. By constructing a showplace of a house on an otherwise pristine mountaintop, and claiming it had helped the environment by doing so, it seemed to be giving its clients permission to build willy-nilly at a time of climate crisis.

Looking at SoLo House, with its cathedral ceilings, its comfortable sectional sofas and its giant picture windows, then listening to Perkins&Will claim that its structure reduces atmospheric carbon, I'm reminded of the old punchline: "Who are you going to believe – me, or your lying eyes?"

Reducing a building's contribution to atmospheric carbon means making it small, keeping it simple, building it near existing infrastructure, avoiding the need for heavy equipment such as batteries and fuel cells and using the lowest-embodied-energy building materials.

Reducing a building's contribution to atmospheric carbon means making it small

Perkins&Will, normally an excellent firm, has done those things on other projects. But with SoLo House, it seems not to have even tried.

According to experts, 40 per cent of atmospheric greenhouse gases come from buildings. Some emissions are attributable to running appliances and systems – so-called operational energy. The rest comes from the power needed to produce the building in the first place, known as embodied energy.

Incredibly, Perkins&Will is claiming there is "no embodied energy" in the house's structure (by which it means the elements that keep the building standing). To its credit, the firm answered requests for information promptly, providing facts, figures and charts prepared by Baldwin and her colleague Cillian Collins, a senior architect.

Here's how Baldwin and Collins arrived at their no-embodied-energy claim: First they estimated the amount of structural wood, steel and concrete in SoLo House. And then they turned to Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings, an app that approximates the amount of energy needed to produce given amounts of each building material and the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as a result of that energy use.

Athena told them that producing the steel and concrete, harvesting the wood and so on in SoLo House released 122 tonnes of CO2 (sometimes called CO2e, for CO2 and its equivalents) into the atmosphere.

That should have been the beginning – not the end – of the process of calculating the building's embodied energy. There are hundreds of other items that needed to be counted. Start with the roof. The walls. The windows (a massive item, given the need for triple glazing). The solar panels, the batteries, the hydrogen fuel cells. The furniture. The appliances. The plumbing. The heating and cooling systems. Lots and lots of insulation.

The list goes on. Each of those items has significant embodied energy. Transporting all of those materials to a remote mountaintop site adds more.

Perkins&Will failed to account for those sources of embodied energy. Baldwin was clear, in a letter to me, that the calculations were limited to the structure. But why would anyone stop there? According to Baldwin, it's because structure "represents the largest contribution to a typical building's embodied carbon impacts."

It may also be because Athena only applies to structure. (Athena is meant primarily for comparing how the choice of a structural material affects a building's embodied energy. An architect might enter plans for the same building, once with a concrete frame and once with a steel frame, and see how the embodied carbon figures differ.)

Of course, there are other ways to estimate the house's total embodied energy; one method is to use an online tool called Tally, which provides information on the embodied energy of numerous building components. Counting everything isn't easy, but other firms have done it.

Perkins&Will had a way of making it vanish, if not from the atmosphere then from the balance sheet

Even so, according to Athena, the house emitted 122 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. That sounds like a lot of carbon, but Perkins&Will had a way of making it vanish, if not from the atmosphere then from the balance sheet.

Much of SoLo House is made of wood. Wood, like all plants, is produced by photosynthesis from ingredients that include carbon dioxide. Thus trees are said to store (or sequester) carbon. They do, but probably not as much as people think, as I learned by studying the question at length.

Here's Perkins&Will's theory: If you cut down a tree and use the wood as a building material, that carbon sequestered in that tree becomes part of the building. Then, if you plant a new tree in place of the one you cut down, the new tree will sequester additional carbon as it grows. Thus the process (cutting down one tree, planting another) results, net-net, in carbon being removed from the atmosphere.

There are so many problems with that theory it's hard to know where to begin. To name a few:

1) You have to be sure a new tree will be planted in place of the one you cut down; will get to be as big as the one you cut down; and will live a long, healthy life. (If a tree burns, or decomposes, as billions of trees do every year, its embodied carbon is released right into the atmosphere.)

2) You can't waste any of the wood. That's a problem because converting a tree into lumber usually turns half the wood into sawdust or chips, which could end up being burnt or allowed to decompose. This problem alone suggests carbon sequestration figures should be cut in half.

3) The wood has to stay in or on the building for a very long time. If the building needs repairs, and lumber is removed, it may be recycled, but it may also be burnt or allowed to decompose. And who'll be watching in 20 or 50 years?

4) Let's be honest: You could have planted the new tree somewhere else, and not cut down the first tree to begin with. For that reason, no number of trees excuses a wasteful building.

5) Even if the new trees do sequester carbon, the process will take decades. Scientists who study global warming warn of tipping points and thresholds, some of which could be reached within the next ten years. If new buildings help push atmospheric carbon levels to a point of no return, the sequestration accomplished by newly planted trees will be too little, too late.

6) It's a logical impossibility. If you really believe SoLo House repairs the atmosphere, all you have to do is build enough SoLo Houses and climate change will go away. Now for our next trick ...

No number of trees excuses a wasteful building

No wonder the theory is highly controversial. A whole lot of things have to happen just right for it to become a reality. As Baldwin wrote in an email: "We acknowledge that not all timber sources perform equally in the realm of embodied carbon reduction."

"Much of the embodied carbon reduction achieved by timber is directly attributed to sustainable forestry management practices that ensure forestry operations are carried out in a way that allows forests to remain healthy and viable for future generations," she added. "These practices include conservation and protection, land use planning, regulation of timber harvesting, establishing practices to ensure forest regrow, and continuous monitoring and reporting to government."

She went on to admit that the tool used to determine the building's sequestered carbon, WoodWorks Carbon Calculator, a product of the Washington-based Wood Products Council, considers "much of this storage to be temporary and therefore [does] not give the building a carbon credit for the carbon dioxide that will eventually be released from this wood some time down the road, through decay or incineration."

But that didn't stop the firm from banking on the theory when it performed its embodied energy calculation. Using the Carbon Calculator, it determined that the amount of lumber in the building would result in the removal – through the planting of new trees – of 145 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. That's a bit more than the 122 tonnes the firm says the building's timber, concrete, and steel released into the atmosphere.

Converting a tree into lumber usually turns half the wood into sawdust or chips

So in this case, reducing E (embodied carbon) by S (sequestered carbon) produces a negative number – minus 22 tonnes, meaning that building the house decreased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. (Indeed, the house's owner, Delta Land Development, refers to it as "climate positive.")

Perkins & Will firm produced a chart to make this clear:

As Baldwin puts it, SoLo House "is able to store more carbon in its structure than was released during the production, manufacturing, and construction of the project."

That's a highly suspect statement. Based on everything I've learned, E (embodied energy) may be much greater than Perkins&Will says it is, and S (sequestered carbon) much lower.

In a letter responding to points in this article prior to publication, Perkins&Will wrote the following (the client, Delta Land Development, did not respond to requests for comment):

"Through careful selection of low embodied carbon and locally sourced materials, the project prioritized a mass timber structure. The design team used industry-accepted LCA [life cycle assessment] tools to quantify the carbon sequestration potential of the structure, and the timber structure is modelled to sequester 145 tonnes of CO2e as biogenic carbon."

Reusing/recycling is always the greenest strategy

"Structural elements typically represent the largest embodied carbon profile of [a] project, and as such, the structure was prioritized from an embodied carbon perspective."

"As designers, we rely on reputable industry tools to estimate the impact of projects. We used the Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings to complete this assessment. Athena uses ongoing research by the Athena Institute and complies with ISO 14040 (environmental management, life cycle assessment, and principles and framework) and ISO 14044 (environmental management, life cycle assessment, and requirements and guidelines)."

"Per our previous correspondence, we shared the Athena Institute's definition of biogenic sequestered carbon, which considers the whole life cycle of the material, including extraction, manufacturing, forms of transportation, installation, repair and maintenance, and end of life (assuming reuse of the wood)."

However, if Perkins and Will had really wanted to reduce embodied carbon, it would have thought about some of these strategies:

1) Putting the house in an easily accessible location, thus cutting out hundreds or thousands of trips by delivery people and construction workers. (Perkins&Will points out "that the wood was sourced from within British Columbia, and the building panels were manufactured in Pemberton, BC, which is located 30 minutes from the site.")

2) Renovating an existing house. Reusing/recycling is always the greenest strategy. Renovation typically generates 50 to 75 per cent less atmospheric carbon than new construction.

3) Choosing a site where there are no trees to cut down. According to Perkins&Will, "A clearing was required for a driveway, solar access, and fire protection. It required harvesting 180m³ of second-growth hemlock timber. This wood was put into the BC forestry chain, becoming useful lumber." Taking credit for sequestration by trees that may have been planted elsewhere, while cutting down enough trees on site to fill a five-meter by six-meter by six-meter container, is a whole lot of embodied irony.

4) Making the house a lot smaller. When it comes to saving energy, less is definitely more.

5) Choosing versions of steel and concrete with the lowest embodied energy (a lot of research is being done on ways of making those materials less "carbon-intensive").

Perkins&Will appears not to have done these things — the actual work required to reduce carbon emissions. The danger is that people will believe its claims.

Fred A Bernstein studied architecture at Princeton and law at NYU and writes about both subjects. He has published articles about embodied energy – a significant component of the climate crisis – in Oculus (a primer), in Architect Magazine (an admonition to architecture critics) and in the Architect's Newspaper (a warning that efforts to make buildings resilient are often detrimental from an embodied energy standpoint).

Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen's carbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is by Taylor van Riper via Unsplash.

The post "Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied irony" appeared first on Dezeen.

Villain Motivation and the Banality of Evil

Motivation in Fact and Fiction

As you know by now, I am a huge true crime fan. I've read books by FBI profilers and crime historians, am addicted to the Investigation Discovery channel, and have even attended a semester of my local police departments "citizens police academy". This is a professional as well as a personal interest, given that I am currently outlining a mystery WIP set in an alternate version of our world. Thus, I want to understand crime investigation, different types of evidence, and, of course, motive. It's this last one—the motivation behind a villain's acts—that many authors, not just those who write mystery—concern themselves with. And, after examining hundreds of real-life crimes, I'm here to tell you that it's not that important.

Ok, it's a little important, in that a villain needs a motive, but it's not important that it be extremely groundbreaking, or extremely relatable, or extremely anything. Motives tend to be common place, not extreme, no matter how shocking the other aspects of a crime.

For example, the excellent book The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the Beginnings of Modern CSI, which I raved about previously, contains a number of sensational cases where the bodies were either hideously mutilated or, conversely, found without any scratch on them. To add intrigue to injury, the murders happened in the early days of forensics, when procedures for dealing with evidence were still being worked out and when more modern investigative tools like AFIS, DNA testing, and psychological profiling were still decades away. Every case was fascinating in its details and in its eventual solution. Almost every case had, as a motive, either money or getting out of an unwanted relationship. That was it. The oddities of the bodies were the killers' attempts at not being caught, but the reasons for there being bodies in the first place were as average as could be.

In fact, the three main motives, according to Lt. Joe Kenda, of ID channel fame, are money, revenge, and sex. The more headline-catching serial-killer crimes happen, it seems, due to a desire for power or a thrill. I would say these five motives sum up most murders, maybe even most crimes. Once you cut away the mystery and the gore, all you're left with are some pretty average human desires: money/stuff, vengeance/justice, sex, power/control, and thrill/excitement. When people talk about the banality of evil, this is what they mean.

Take the motive of "money". We're all familiar with the idea, in real and fictional crime, of robbing banks or killing someone for their life insurance. Writers seem to find this an acceptable plot point: villain wants a lot of money and thus does very bad things. Yet, if you watch enough crime TV, you will know that real murders happen for sums as low as $400 or even $40. There was an episode of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda where a man was shot and almost killed over an argument about 25 cents!

It also needn't be money, but material possessions. In one of the citizen's police academy classes, we learned about a local case where three teenagers broke into a man's house and stole, among other things, his corncob pipe. This pipe was the item he was most upset about, and often discussed in subsequent weeks. So the man lured one of the teenagers out to the woods and shot him execution-style. He was planning to do the same to the other two, and blame the whole crime on his teenaged lover. So that was one life ruined—and it would have been three others, had he not been caught—with the motive of revenge for a lost corncob pipe!

The Gap Between Good and Evil

I thus wonder why it is that we, as writers, tend to overlook such commonplace motivations. There's an unspoken assumption that the motivation of a villain must scale with their actions, so while sub-bosses or henchmen might get away with being in it for the money or the thrill, the Big Bad needs a more exciting or deep motivation. There's also a more recent idea being bandied about in internet circles that the villain should think he's the hero. I think both of these concepts are flawed, but let's take them one at a time.

Although I personally love "True Believer" villains that really do believe they are doing what is right, I don't think it's fair to say that all villains must be this way. After all, a great many real-life villains don't think they're doing something good; they just don't care. They want what they want and do what they can to get it without worrying about morality. I think the reason that this second sort of villain--the thrill-killer, the evil sorcerer, the bully--get a bad rap is that people (both readers and writers), don't understand evil. Yes, a villain who only desires evil is unrealistic, because, in fact, it's impossible to desire evil. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Catholic tradition, we hold that evil doesn't exist; it has no metaphysical reality. Evil is a privation, or absence, of good, similar to how a shadow doesn't exist, but is a privation, or absence, of light. Thus, a person cannot desire evil in and of itself, because they would be desiring nothing. Every evil act is done because someone is desiring something good, but disproportionately, or in a way that removes part of the good from that thing. Again, look at the five motives for murder. Each of those is a good, in and of themselves, but none justifies violating another person.

And thus we come to the other assumption about villains, that their actions must scale with their motives. I think, in fact, the opposite tends to make a more interesting villain. The motive can be something small--wanting revenge for some slight, or a peaceful life, or to be like everyone else. These might even be the same goods that the hero desires. What makes the villain villainous, and what can make them even more interesting, is what they are willing to do to fulfill these desires. Who or what are they willing to throw away? What rules are they willing to break? That distance, between what they want and how they get it is what separates them from the hero.

Types of Villains

This principle, that a villain must desire a good, but desire it disproportionately, can work for any type of villain.

Take the True Believer types: those that believe they are doing what's right. In this category, I would put people like Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War), as well as A.I.s like Agent Smith (The Matrix), VIKI (iRobot), and the Terminators (Terminator... obviously). Thanos is widely lauded as one of Marvel's best villains because he really does think he's doing the right thing. He is willing to throw away half of all sapient beings, plus the one person who he actually cares about, in order to save the other half. What he wants--peace and prosperity--is understandable, but while the gap between that and his genocidal actions is mathematically non-existent, it is morally huge. Similarly, the three A.I.s I mentioned are trying to save either robot-kind or human-kind, but are willing to murder thousands or even billions of humans in order to do it. Essentially, these villains are doing the classic Utilitarian trolley problem, but on a massive scale. They think they are the heroes, and truly do desire a good outcome, but the actions taken to bring that about are inexcusably evil.

Similar to the True Believers are a type of villain I will call the Desperate. These people are also trying to bring about good, but know that what they are doing is wrong. Mr. Freeze (Batman) is a classic example, as he commits crimes to get money and technology to save his wife. Actually, there are a whole slew of villains, mostly in anime and JRPGs, whose entire motivation is to save or resurrect a dead wife or girlfriend. They're trying to save someone they love, but they rarely brand themselves as saviors or heroes; Desperate types hold no such illusions. Sebastian, in my own series, is such a villain, in that he is willing to betray his friends and ally himself to bad people in order to save Chiaroscuro and make up for his past sins. He's willing to do evil that good may come of it, and actually uses the "I'm a bad person anyway" excuse as a justification for his actions.

On the flip side are those who don't care about whether or not they're doing good, which I will divide into three types: Dark Lords, Thrill Killers, and Egoists.

Dark Lords, obviously, include literal Dark Lords, such as Sauron and Voldemort, but I'm also going to throw in your average serial killer into this category. Why? Because they all want the same thing: power. The books I've read by FBI profilers chronicle the most gruesome crimes with motives ranging from rage to lust, but there is an ever present need of the killers to control, whether that's controlling their victims, the situation, or the police and firefighters (in the case of arsonists). Control is related to power, and power, in and of itself, is a good. This, in fact, is why it's wrong for these villains to take away the power or freedom of their victims. While a True Believer like Thanos sought balance, Dark Lords seek an imbalance, and want everything for themselves in an attempt to prove to themselves that they are more powerful, and thus better, than everyone else. These types of villains are, sadly, very realistic, but don't lend themselves to stories requiring a strong interpersonal conflict between hero and villain. They tend to act as a force of nature the hero must work against--whether in a fantasy against a Dark Lord or in a thriller against a serial murderer--and thus don't do much in the way of interpersonal conflict.

Better, in my opinion, are the Thrill Killer types, who see the world as a game, and are willing to do whatever it takes to have fun. Example of this are The Joker (Batman) and Mr. Sato (Ajin). Though The Joker is a bank-robbing thug, he's mostly in it for the laughs, and cares very deeply about whether or not things are funny. That doesn't make him any less abusive or violent, but the gap between his humor and his barbarity is what make him an interesting character. Mr. Sato, similarly, sees the world like one huge videogame, in which he has been given extra lives. Fun and games are a normal and natural good, but his villainy stems from what he is willing to do in this "game". Mr. Sato has absolutely no concern for human life, even his own, and kills hundreds of people (including himself, on multiple occasions!). The interest in this type of villain comes from watching their crazy schemes and then trying to figure out how the hero can possibly beat them. These villains are similar to Dark Lords in that they are something like a force of nature, but different in that the hero usually has to face off against them personally, outwit them, and deal with them as an individual person.

Finally, there are those who want something personally good, but have no regard for others. Technically, this could also describe Dark Lords and Thrill Killers, but here I mean really personal, as in specific to that person. Rather than something big like power or a crazy thrill, they tend to desire the utterly ordinary. Take the robot in Ex Machina. I'm not sure everyone would classify her as a villain, though she certainly did some evil things (it's up to interpretation whether she understands good and evil, though). What was her motivation? She wanted to go watch a crowd. She was, essentially, created to gather information, so that's what she went to go do. It makes sense that that's what she wants, but it doesn't justify what she did to the main character (even if he was kind of a doofus). Or Rezo the Red Priest (Slayers), who, in my opinion, has one of the best motivations of any villain ever. He was born blind and wanted to see. That's a totally understandable motivation. But he's willing to sacrifice the entire world to a demon lord in order to get that wish. Now that is a heckofa gap between a good desire and an evil action! And yet, is it really all that different from the sort of selfishness present in a man who would murder three teenagers over a corncob pipe? Real evil motivations are banal, and real evil actions are completely disproportionate to those motivations. Art, in the case of these last villains, is simply imitating life.

Asking What the Villains Want

Obviously, there are a million different ways of combining these villain type and motivations. Some villains want money so they can save a dying loved one. Some villains desire revenge because they truly believe they have been wronged. A Thrill Killer might find excitement in killing criminals. There is no one right way to write a villain, and there is no one motivation that is the only interesting kind. To anyone trying to write a villain, I suggest reading about or watching shows on real life criminals, from the Big Bads like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to famous killers like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy to run of the mill criminals in your local newspaper. People don't become mass murderers or even petty thieves for no reason, but they also don't just do evil because it's the evil thing to do. Even the most gruesome atrocities were rooted in the desire for misplaced revenge, or disproportionate control, or a false belief in some so-called greater good. Then, I suggest reading and watching your favorite stories and asking what makes these villains tick. Is it the same as in real life? Is it different? What makes a great villain so great? You'll may just find that it's simply a matter of proportion.

Retail

I really don't want to work retial anymore. Infact I don't want to work customer service jobs anymore. I've been doing it for 8 years and my currant Job is breaking me. Its not a bad job persay? Like don't get me wrong, I don't mind the pay, the yearly raises (even if they are small -cough- .25-.40 cents small -cough-) and the benfits are decent.

However... Is it fucking worth it? The shit we go through. The Shit Customers put us through. Sure sure there are some you like. Some you may even worry about if you don't see them. Some who you may see as a friend. It's going to happen.

However they don't always make up for the ones who are just nasty, The ones who are demanding, or The ones who creep you out. It's just tiring some. If something small doesnt go their way they chew your head out.

Like roday (well yesterday now) I am not even in work an hour and a lady comes over to the photo department to ask for her photos.... Sure fine no problem. Well you would think. No other rhan giving us her name the first thing she snaps at us is "Where is my 15% discount?! That's the regular price. I had a coupon for 15% off!" Absultly demanding the extra $2 dollars off. Now I am the closing manager. So I can okay the sale. But we need to see the coupon code as proof.

Now she has her phone in hand (A smart phone mind you) and she tells us its in her e-mail. That she can't get to it.

So I said 'well we can look on our website and see if we can get you another deal. There might be a better one...."

She wasn't happy with that. She demanded her 15. (Even tho onlime we had a %30 off for enlargmets which is what she got. But w.e she wanted 15)

Fastforward a few minutes after I gave her the %15 off b.c I wasn't going to argue with her she starts to accuse us for printing out her photos wrong. So my accoate explainds to her that we only print what is.sent over. We can't change things. (We can crop but only a little bit.)

Well she wasn't happy and refused the order. But.she still wanted 3 of her photos to take. So I adjusted the price. And she left once it was lowered from 15 to $7... Like lady damn.

And it just got on my last nerv. And I was only an hour in. Between a couponer whos crazy, a theif who lets her kid run around crazy while she is dressed in onsi pajamas, A guy trying to return something without a recept and then steeling what he wanted to exstange for, and a cowroker who wont so anything... I'm tired.

I am tired of being one of the only workers who does something. And there are days where I feel like I am the only one. (I love three of my coworkers to death but one goes around playing with a telzon, one dissapears or stops working after one task and the other takes his time and sometimes rather watch youtube as he works) but thoes are the three that will also work when asked. Everyone else are lazy shits.

Plus we work every fucking holiday and my store manager is always like "I have such a good team they will work the hokidays and then I wont have to yay! ESCUSE YOU BITCH I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE IT OFF TOO AND MAKE YOU WORKK! Fucking cunt.

Then we do work the holiday and we get a lot of "sorry you're open. At least we/I'm here to make your time well spent

No Karen you being here is WHY we have to. GTF home and be christmas or whatrver you celebrate hole. Like DAMN the less customerd we havr the less likely we'll be open.

And whats really not fair is the Pharmacy is closed and all the techs don't have to work. I get their primary jobs are to work in the pharmacy but when they want extra hours they are up front with us. So I don't get why the Techs don't have to work either. Or maybe we shouldn't give them hours bc they don't even volinteer and when asked they say nah sorry. Well screw you crystal you "intitled" bitch. Yet god forbid we dont help them the following morning when they are overflowing with scripts. Coulda shoulda worked it then.

I am also so tired of the distract managers telling us to be non Bias yet have western Union and to be suspecious of everyone who is making a purchas.

Don't accuse anyone from steeling even as you watch them do it, but as soon as they go to the Kiosk for western union you need to know everything from their mother's maden name to their great aunts sosocal secerety number.

Speaking of we now card everyone. Oh yeah you 80 years old and want to smoke some newports but you forgot your I.D? Sorry bra no lung crushers for you today. But here you can buy this lighter for 1.59. Have a great day!

Also corpate is so dumb. Half of them probbaly never worked in reatail their life but insists they know how to treat customers. Sorry to say this bucko but the customers always right BULL SHIT flew out the window along with beepers. Customers are NOT always right. They are NOT right when they yell at your face. They are NOT right when they call you names. They are NOT right when they tell you to have a real job. They are NOT right when they bring in their tiny non service dogs and allow them to pee on our floor. The only thing a customer should do is get their item(s) pay for them and get the fuck out. If a coupon ism't working we can usually solve why in minutes without you butching and yelling. Like okay Linda I'm not going to give it to you if you keep yelling in my face.

Also why do customers think its okay to hit on you? I have this customer who chases me around the store, asks me to merry her a few times a wek. What does my managers do? Laugh about it. Coz we can't kick customers out of the store unless they are physically hurting us or useing cuss words. Nothing about sexual herassment.

Lets not even get me started with school kids. Kids to vandlize our bathrooms, and cuss throughout the store. Not to mention steal what they can.

Fuck I am just tired. Goodnignt.

Stressful depressful Lemon Zest

Let's Be Thrifty Witches!

Hello everyone!

Today, I decided to do a blog about being a thrifty witch. I know many of us (myself included) don't always have the money to spend on expensive items for our craft. I thought I would share some insight on ideas I've used in the past, or plan to use in the future. All of these ideas will cost very little and, in some cases, nothing at all. Some of them will simply require a small amount of effort, and, occasionally, a little planning.

*Empty Jars*

I know many of us like having jars on hand for different spells, or for storing herb, gemstones, and other magickal items. Maybe you liking making sealed jars for protection, or your own tea or incense blends. For this, I would suggest saving old food jars. Spaghetti jars are fairly large, and make wonderful jars for storing items, but others can be used as well. These include empty alcohol containers, empty sauce jars, and even small baby food jars. Simply wash them thoroughly with soap and warm water, and make sure they are dried thoroughly. Then you have jars for almost anything.

*The Dollar Store*

I don't know how it is in other parts of the world, but here in the US we have a lovely little store called the Dollar Tree where everything is only a dollar! This is great for witches who are looking for supplies, but don't want to spend a lot of money. I once searched high and low for a chalice that felt right to me. I couldn't find anything that felt right. All I knew was that I wanted it to be blue. While I was at the Dollar Tree one day, I happened to spot a blue goblet. It wasn't fancy, but it felt right to me, so I bought it. I only spent $1 and it felt better to me then the ones I found for $25 anywhere else that were actually labeled as "pagan". Sadly, my chalice broke about a year later, but I loved it while I had it. If you don't have a Dollar Tree near by, I suggest Family Dollar or Dollar General (for those in the US). You can find all kinds of nice things really cheap.

*Nature*

This option is completely free, and a wonderful idea to keep in mind. Mother Nature has given us many beautiful items to use in our craft. See a stick on the ground? You can use it for a wand. If you're crafty, you can shave it down, sand it, and design it, or simply keep it as it is. The choice is yours. Do you know what that tree is in your backyard? Look up what it's used for online or in a book, and use the leaves, branches, and bark in sachets or incense. Just be sure to do your research before burning or ingesting anything, to keep yourself safe. Grass can be used for wish spells, and rocks can be used as runes or worry stones. Dirt from your back yard can represent earth on your altar, and rain water can represent water. You could even paint a symbol to represent your goal onto a rock(such as a heart for love), charge it, and carry it with you. The possibilities are endless.

*Salt and Water*

Salt and water are both easily obtained and are wonderful tools in magick. I know many prefer sea salt, but, when you're out, you can easily pick up a container of table salt, typically for under $1. Used by itself, you can use it to cleanse crystals and other items. Combined with water, you can sprinkle it around the home to cleanse you're home of negativity. Water is also a great purifier. Sometimes, simply taking a shower when you're stressed and imagining that all the negativity is being washed away as the water runs down your body can be very beneficial.

*Grocery Store*

When it comes to investing in herbs for magickal purposes, many new witches tend to forget about the most obvious way to purchase herbs: the grocery store. Need some rosemary? There's no need to buy it from some Witchy website or New Age shop. Simply head to you local store that sells herbs. You will get them much cheaper this way, and they work just as good. Sure you could argue that the grocery store doesn't have everything you need, but why not get what you can at your local Wal-Mart, and purchase the rest elsewhere? You could also argue that you only wish to work with herbs that were ethically harvested. While I do understand this line of thinking, keep in mind that even purchasing herbs from a New Age shop doesn't guarantee that it's been harvested ethically. I would suggest at least doing your own research on different brands, if ethical harvesting matters to you. As an alternative, you could purchase seeds at a really cheap price, and grow your own herbs, so that you know they are being harvested ethically. Another thing to keep in mind when shopping at a grocery store is the magickal properties of food. You could easily turn dinner into a magickal moment with the right planning. I once taught a class about magickal food. I had all my students drink a glass of chocolate milk. After they drank it, I informed them that if I wanted to, I could have tricked them into a drinking a love potion, because both chocolate and milk correspond to love. They knew I didn't do it though, and I told them that all was well and it was just a glass of chocolate milk. They walked away with a brand new understanding of how magickal foods work, though.

*Yard Sales and Thrift Shops*

Many simple items can easily be purchased at yard sales and thrift shops at cheap prices. You might find a cat figurine to honour Bast or candle holders for your candles. You might find an elegant glass bowl to use as an offering bowl or a beautiful goblet to use as a chalice. You just have to think outside the box a bit when browsing around.

*Thread*

Knot and cord magick is something I've recently been interested in and the thread for it is really cheap. You can find tons of different colors at Wal-Mart for 50 cents or less. Spending $3-$5 will be enough starting out, and the possibilities are endless once you have them. I've recently started making bracelets that I charge for a particular purpose, and wearing them when I need them. Get creative with it!

300+ TOP WAITER Interview Questions and Answers

WAITER Interview Questions for freshers experienced :-

1. Do you have any restaurant server experience? Yes sir im have a experience for server because in my last work in phils. is to serve that a customer need a plates or whatever. 2. What is your favorite item on our menu? As a customer, I may give suggestion based on where they come from and what they have ordered. 3. Have you ever skipped work at your previous employment? No I would never miss a shift I had a very good relationship with my boss and would never leave him down. 4. Why do you want to work as a waiter? I would like to work as a waiter/waitress because i love being around people and serving them. I love to socialize and to have a job where i can have fun and get paid for doing it, well there's nothing better. 5. How would you handle a guest that was upset with their meal? This is a great time to showcase your problem solving skills. Talk about how you would first want to make sure that you understood what the customers needed and ensure them that you were going to try to make things better. Try to bring up examples from your current or past employment that are relevant and that help showcase your customer service and problem solving skills. 6. Tell me are you currently in school? Yes . I am full time accounting student. But beleive me it wont be a problem. Because I know how to keep balance I my studies n job. Actually I have nearly five year experience in doing so. 7. How long will it take you to memorize our menu? It would take time to memorize everything on the menu, however I have a good memory and it would probably take a day or 2 max, also if I was dealing with the same menu everyday I would probably just remember it without sitting down to learn it. 8. What challenges are you looking for in this catering waiter position? A typical interview question to determine what you are looking for your in next job, and whether you would be a good fit for the position being hired for,is "What challenges are you looking for in a position?"The best way to answer questions about the challenges you are seeking is to discuss how you would like to be able to effectively utilize your skills and experience if you were hired for the job.You can also mention that you are motivated by challenges, have the ability to effectively meet challenges, and have the flexibility and skills necessary to handle a challenging job. 9. Suppose a customer asks you to pick a meal, what will you suggest? I would ask what sort of meal they are going for and what particular foods they like and find a dish suited to their specific tastes. If they have no idea, I would tell them my personal favourite dish so they could choose that. 10. What is the best part as a waitress? One can prove as a unique candidate by answering this question. Like, It is not routine job, it will give the opportunity to meet different kind of people. One should be able to convince and satisfy the customer with their service. It gives chance to prove, interpersonal skills. Every customer is different so have to deal with each one according to their behavior. It gives a lot of satisfaction by serving and getting feedback from the customers. It is a chance to present yourself and gives chance to develop in career.

WAITER Interview Questions 11. Suppose i called your previous restaurant, what would they say about you? I always have a positive attitude towards work and am always willing to work to the best of my ability. I take pride in good customer service and have worked in both formal and informal environments. I work well in a team and can work on my own in busy atmospheres. I can remain courteous even when dealing with difficult customers. 12. What do you know about waitress role? The waitress had to take orders from the guests and serve them with their desired menu. As soon as the guest appears you have to greet them and provide them with menu card. Once they have decided to order, note the order and provide the same order to kitchen staff so that they prepare the food and can be served with the help of a boy. Sometimes need to help the guests if they found any issue with their order or environment. Overall a waitress should serve the customers with great hospitality and make them feel comfortable 13. Suppose a customer gives you a 25 cent tip, what do you do? Smile and think to my self at least they gave what they could (only if you know you gave good service) If not, I would assess my actions and come to terms with what I did wrong and fix it! 14. Tell me are you used to serving meals in a heavy volume environment? Yes, in my previous job we worked as a fast paced time. Most of the time service was banquet style. During this time our team of 8-10 host had to serve a dining room of up to 200 guests. After service usually each of us were left to serve drinks to two tables. 15. What is your greatest weakness and why? This is a question that is almost sure to be asked! Think about something that you would like to improve upon, but something that is not detrimental to you getting the job. This is actually a great time to showcase your talents. Talk about past work experiences where you have had trouble and how you have learned and grown from them. A great example would be talking about how you have had trouble disseminating work amongst your peers in the past, but have now learned how important trust and teamwork are in the workplace. Make sure that you are able to recall a specific example of this in order to show the interviewer that you aren't simply making up an answer that you think they would want to hear. 16. What was your worst experience with a customer at your last serving job? I think my last worst experience i had before in a customer. is complaining bout the food that i had serve to them bout the. taste or something strange taste.just like that. then i offer them to get a new dish on our menu and i have to stay calm even if he or she is getting angry. 17. What brings you to work in this role? There will be a reason behind every action. So prepare yourself why did you choose this field and answer the interviewer smartly. Do not say that you do not have any option so you have come to this interview. Highlight the importance of serving the customers. How passionate you were towards hotel management and serving. Let them know how important it is for you to land this job. Show them that, are you feeling excited to work in their prestigious hotel. Study about the organization before attending the interview so that you can showcase how enthusiastic you are towards the job. 18. What techniques do you use to upsell? Always having a positive attitude, a smile on your face, and let your personal charm shine through. its easy to make a connection with customers this way, so its easier to suggest different menu items. 19. Briefly introduce your self? Tell me something about yourself, this is the basic question that will be asked by the interviewer. Always remember to say about the strengths and positive things about you in the interview. To be a unique applicant in the interview, one should not boast about themselves, but should elevate their attitude and zeal to work in this role. Try to relate your previous experience with the waitress role how that experience will help to grab this position. Let them know your ability with an example how did you managed a tough customer with your patience and pleasing smile. 20. How is your personality towards customers during slow times? Do you consider yourself pretty friendly? I consider myself to be a friendly warm person at all times but when its extra slow i can use that extra time that i wouldnt normaly have when the restaurant is full to make the cutomer feel extra special 21. Tell me are you ready to stretch yourself for extra hours? The answer should be positive otherwise it will lead to disqualify you for not being flexible. Yes I am ready to serve the organization whenever they need my help. Sometimes the restaurant may be houseful with crowd and short of staff. Then I will be always there to work hard for the success of the restaurant. I am not working for the money but as I love this job so i will accept any kind of responsibility. This question is to know whether the candidate is able to handle the pressure and ready to help restaurant in hard situations. It is to know how stable the candidate is in doing the work. 22. Have you eaten at our restaurant before? yes I have , I enjoy food and always interested in trying different types of , restaurants are good places to explore varieties of food and cooking ways 23. Why did you leave your last serving job? It was my third job at the time, and i just wasnt making enough there to compensate for the long drive to the establishment. 24. Why would you make a good addition to the team? Where do you fit in? Serving is a team effort, so your prospective employer needs to know that can work well with others. They also need to know that you can integrate yourself quickly into your new role. Give an answer that explains how much you value teamwork, and that you can fit in quickly. Here is an answer that fulfills both criteria: "I'm a team player and a quick learner. Each shift I will try to contribute more to help my coworkers than I ask in return. I think I can still learn a few things from the servers already here, but also hope that I can contribute a bit as well. I hope that as I improve my own skills, others will improve theirs as well." 25. What is your least favorite part of serving? Fight the urge to say there's nothing you dislike. While this is the perfect answer in theory, in reality if falls flat because it's simply not true. No job is perfect, so pick something that everyone can relate to. Some part of the restaurant business that nobody likes. That way you are being completely honest in your answer, but without sounding undesirable. Here is an answer that any restaurant worker can relate to: "My least favorite part of serving is bad tips. Not every customer will appreciate my service as much as others. But it's not something I can change, and I try not to take it personally. I can't expect every customer to tip the way I would." 26. What do you want to work for our restaurant? This question actually will be helpful for the candidate this is a chance to impress the employer It will be an addition if you had experience in having some food at their restaurant so that you can share your good experience how you enjoyed it. You may answer like this I am a food lover, and enjoy serving food at home. So this is the best place where I can show my talent, I heard a lot about this restaurant its pretty famous in the town so I will be privileged if provided to work with your organization. This will really help for my career growth. I am happy to attend the interview for this prestigious hotel. 27. Explain a typical work week for catering waiter position? Interviewers expect a candidate for employment to discuss what they do while they are working in detail. Before you answer, consider the position you are applying for and how your current or past positions relate to it. The more you can connect your past experience with the job opening, the more successful you will be at answering the questions. It should be obvious that it's not a good idea talk about non-work related activities that you do on company time, but, I've had applicants How they are often late because they have to drive a child to school or like to take a long lunch break to work at the gym. Keep your answers focused on work and show the interviewer that you're organized ("The first thing I do on Monday morning is check my voicemail and email, then I prioritize my activities for the week.") and efficient. 28. Suppose we require you to come in an hour before busy time, and stay an hour after we close to clean, is that okay? Yes that is fine. It would be good to be able to prepare for the busy periods. Also being busy is a challenge and which i truly enjoy. 29. What's more, that the waiter has to do? It is not enough to just take the order and provide them a bill. I will also check whether the table arrangement is good and comfortable for the customer. Have to check whether the glasses and other spoons, forks, knives are available. Also check whether the water is refilled in the middle of the meal. Find whether the food is good, or if there are any issues try to solve them, replace the food if something went wrong. Help the customers if they want anything else from a meal like desserts, etc. When they are done with the meal I will wish them that it is happy to serve them and hope to see them again. 30. What are your go to wines, that you recommend when asked? It depends what their choices from the menu are, but considering many of the items on the menu here, I would suggest a light white wine with the seafood and fish dishes or a cocktail, and maybe a more full bodied red with dishes such as the bbq tray. 31. How would you take negative feedback? This shows whether the candidate is eligible to land this job. The answer should be very impressive. You can answer like I will always try not to get negative feedback, but if I get one, will take it in a positive manner. I would always ask my customer for feedback which is very important to develop myself. It will try to analyze my mistake so that I will improve my skills while facing my next customer. 32. Explain about the customer with whom you had a bitter experience? Never display the interviewer that you handled the customer badly, tell them that you tried to help them but still the customer is not satisfied. Example: Once I got a chance to face the couple who were in an argument and they are in a bad mood. I tried to help them, I gently asked them what they would like to have. They were very impatient at me, but still I maintained my pleasant smile and took the menu as per their instructions, when people are at bad mood they will not like whatever we do so all one need to do is just understand their mood and carry out the same professional behavior. 33. Have You Worked as a Waiter Before? One of the first questions you will likely be asked when you are being interviewed for a position as a waiter or waitress is whether or not you have any previous experience. Since you will be required to perform a variety of tasks which include taking orders, delivering orders, prepping workstations, handing disgruntled customers and even handling money, most employers prefer experienced wait staff. If you have experience, simply provide this information. If you do not, a statement such as, "While I don't have formal experience, I enjoy working with people and I learn very quickly" should suffice. 34. How often do you miss shifts? Very rarely. If I do, there is certainly a valid reason, and I will ensure that supervisors are given enough notice, or I will work to find someone to replace me. 35. What is your favorite part of serving? Use this question to show your employer that you know your way around a restaurant. Give an answer that uses some common restaurant terminology. Also, use this question to highlight why you want to work in a restaurant. This well let your prospective employer know you're not just there to collect a paycheck. Here's an answer that accomplishes what you need: "I enjoy the constant challenge. Every day is different. Every shift has a new surprise, and I enjoy the challenge of handling them. I also like how I improve more with each one. I always handle a new situation better than the last, and I like the progress I've made. This also keeps the job from being boring." 36. What are your additional skills? In this fast and competitive world, the employer expects an additional skill that can be enclosed for the purpose of successful turnover of the restaurant business. And that's why the candidate should have some special skills like bar attending or anything, this provides a possibility that the candidate might get selected for the job offered. Therefore, obtaining additional skills in a restaurant business can be an added advantage for the candidate. 37. What have you learnt from your previous job? Most probably the employer might try to get some negative opinion from a candidate about his / her previous job experience. But the way of handling such question would be that when a candidate is approached by such question then he / she needs to project the positive side of his / her previous job. And also have to keep in mind that a candidate needs to present only positive side of the restaurant or company even if they are no longer working in that particular restaurant or company. 38. What is the toughest time you faced in your life? This question is to find out how can one handle hard situations. This will reveal the capability of a candidate. You should not hint them that you are arrogant and impatient. Only tell them the story in which you played a good role. Put yourself with a story which gist with an excellent potential skills that will tell the interviewer how you handled the customer. Like for example, one day you had to handle many customers, which is very important for the hotel to make business on that day, tell them how quickly you took a menu and served the customers well with the help of your team. 39. Tell me do You Have any Related Degrees or Certificates? Most waiters and waitresses do not have any degrees or certificates that are specific to their fields. Thus, if you are able to obtain any certifications such as those in food handling or even a certificate in foodservice, you will be a much more valuable asset to your employer. "I earned the Oregon State Food Handing Certification in 2012 and I took a six-week course in proper foodservice techniques in 2010" would be a great reply. You should bring any certificates with you to the interview and present them when this question arises. 40. What previous jobs have you held? Earlier this year I waitressed at the seafood restaurant where I undertook tasks including setting tables up with cutlery and crockery, basic food preparation, waitressing and cleaning duties. I have also waitressed at christenings and birthday events for relatives, neighbours and family friends. During my time at school I also volunteered in a number of hospitality events including a cooking demonstration. 41 How can I trust you? You can trust me because I am a responsible person. I have been in situations where I have been trusted before. I have been minding children since I was 13 and that is a job which requires people to trust me. I know it is nothing like waiting but people have trusted me with their kids which show I am responsible. Also I really want to work, I don't work for the money, money is only one benefit of working, I want to work and do a good job. 42. Tell us what is your greatest weakness? Think of this as another opportunity to show off your strengths. With the proper wording, you can make a fault sound desirable, while at the same time still being an honest answer. This way you are still showing that you're humble, but not hurting your chances of getting the job. One answer might be along the lines of: "It's probably true that I am hesitant to ask for help. I feel responsibility for my own work, and don't like to burden others who have their own set of responsibilities. It's something that I'm trying to work on, because I know it's okay and often a good idea to ask a coworker for help." 43. Are you fluent in communication? Working in a restaurant and being a waitress is something related to their communication skills which helps them attract customers to their restaurant with their service. Therefore, it is necessary that while selecting a candidate for the waitress position the employer need to be well aware of his / her communication skills. Excellent communication skill can provide the candidate the waitress job which can eventually benefit the restaurant business. 44. How would you help in the success of a restaurant? One should not only look into individual goals, but also should work for organization growth. You can answer by saying that one should able to manage the customers with a great respect and should never be rude to customers. Apart from the food taste the service also should be extraordinary. If their experience is good, they would visit again and again, which will be plus point of the restaurant also they may receive party orders because of the fame spread by the customers. We just have to take care that the customers enjoying the food at our restaurant. This is enough to improve the business and this is how I would help in the restaurant success. 45. What is your greatest strength and why? What are you good at and how does that make you a great match for this job? Multitasking is something that you will have to be able to do in order to be a waitress and is something that can be easily tied into multiple situations. Think of a time where you have had to multitask in the past and how you were able to successfully accomplish all tasks. This question will allow for you to talk about how past experiences will help you succeed in this job. Other possible examples include: Great customer service Excellent listener Reliable Incredible communication skills Team player Dependable 46. Do You Work Well with Others? While a customer is dining in a restaurant, the waiter or waitress is often the only face the customer sees and is therefore the face that customer associates with the business. Your demeanor will have a huge impact on the business, and as such, employers often ask whether or not you work well with others. Rather than simply providing a yes or no reply, be descriptive in your answer. Something like, "I do work well with others and I enjoy being part of a team" followed by any examples you can provide is often the best answer to this question. 47. Tell me about yourself? I am a very friendly and positive person, I always work with passion and do my best also I always make sure that my customer are happy because I think people should have a great experience when they eat out and it my responsibility to make sure that they enjoy their meal. 48. Lets suppose your car breaks down on the way to work, what would you do? I would leave the car securely parked, and take a taxi or public transportation. 49. What is your greatest strength? Where do you shine? What sets you apart from other people up for your position? There's no place for modesty here. Emphasize your strengths with all the gusto you can muster. But remember, while it's okay to push the envelope a little, never tell an outright lie. A good answer might sound something like this: "I have enough experience in the restaurant business that very little can throw me off. Even when things get crazy, I'm able to stay cool and calm, hopefully setting an example for others. Not that I'm any less busy than my coworkers, but I know how to remain focused and get the job done." 50. Are you a Multi Tasker? There are some situations in the restaurants when a waitress need to handle more than work under certain situations. For that purpose the employer needs to hire such candidates in the restaurant who can handle more than one work when there is a crisis situation. Obtaining the qualities of a Multitasker can bring a candidate the position of waitress as it is required in the job description. Therefore, while answering such question the candidate needs to keep in mind that if they really need that job, then they are supposed to be Multi Tasker. 51. Can you please What are your strengths and weaknesses? Most commonly these strengths and weakness list of questions are asked for the sake of understanding the level of hard work that a candidate can put out . And the candidate must keep in mind that while answering such question they need to present a set of strengths and weakness which cannot be questioned in future terms. Sometimes the employers confuse the candidate by tricking them inside the answers they have already given. 52. Explain me something about teamwork? One will not appoint only for a specific role, they promote you for different roles where you need to work with a team, in that case how do you manage, this is what exactly the interview checks keenly while doing interview. You can answer like this I have a bit of knowledge about this field but I take help from my co-employees and develop myself in serving the customers. Also I will be there to help my team whenever they need my help. Tell them how can you integrate yourself in the team and work for the organization. Tell them how fun it is to work with team and enjoy the workplace environment. 53. Why did you leave your last job, or why are you looking to leave your current job? Never say anything negative about your past or current waitress positions. You can talk about how you are looking to expand your knowledge and experience and that this job would allow for that. If you were working at more of a chain restaurant and interviewing at an independently owned restaurant you could talk about the uniqueness and how you would rather be working for an individual instead of a corporation, etc. 54. Explain a Situation in which You Helped a Difficult Customer? As with any business, restaurant patrons will sometimes have complaints and it will likely be your responsibility to resolve them. Perhaps a steak was underdone; perhaps another member of the wait staff was rude or unkind to the customer. Whether or not the example you can provide is directly related to the restaurant business is often irrelevant. For example, "When I worked in retail sales, I once assisted a woman who had purchased a defective product. Although she had to go through the manufacturer for a replacement which made the process difficult, I walked her through it each step of the way to achieve a resolution" is a perfect answer. 55. Have you ever had difficulty with a kitchen member? How did you work out the problem? New girl was slow on the coffee machine when there was a large queue. Quickly had to re-evaluate the situation and move the staff around to positions we were better suited to so as to keep up with the influx of customers. 56. Would you say you are a people person? Yes I would say I was a people person. I truly enjoy working with people as part or a team and meeting new people. I also really enjoy that being is the hospitality service industry that meeting new people on a daily basis is part of your job. 57. Operational and Situational Waiter Interview Questions: What is your experience with customer service and how does that relate to this position? Describe your last dining experience and how it could have been improved. What do you know about our main competitors? What are some food trends that you've recently noticed? What wines do you often recommend to your customers? Recall a time you handled a customer complaint. What was the situation and outcome? What would you if your customer tried to combine some special offers that can't be combined? How do you stay organized while taking orders? How would you rate your upselling skills? How would you handle getting a bad tip? What would you do if your car broke down on the way to work? Recall a time a team member wasn't doing their share of the work. How did you handle it? What are your feelings on tip sharing? Have you dined with us before? What do you think we could do better? 58. Basic Waiter Job Interview Questions: What jobs have you worked that required you to be in a fast-paced and crowded environment? How did you maintain quality standards in this environment? What do you consider to be good customer service? Describe a time when you had to deal with a particularly difficult customer/table. How did you handle the situation? Is there anything you would have done differently? Have you ever taken charge in a restaurant in an emergency? How do you handle fast-paced work environments? How do you entertain customers as a waiter? What is the most difficult part of being a waiter? Imagine a customer asks for an item on the menu that is not available at the time. How do you convince him to select something else? What would you do if a customer sent his meal back? If a customer asks for a suggestion, what would you say? What is your favorite item on our menu? WAITER Questions and Answers Pdf Download Read the full article

I got all of the above for $2.69 (nice)

Oh What’s This? It’s Soren’s No-Bullshit Guide To Couponing

When I say “no bullshit” I am aiming for a very high level of no bullshit. Cause you know when you see blogs about this shit, it’s all hyped up and overwhelming and click-baity like “PAY NINE CENTS FOR GROCERIES FOR A WEEK” except those groceries are just, like, some toilet paper and like 100 tubes of kids toothpaste or something? This guide is not going to do that to you.

I’m going to talk about: how couponing works, what I do and use, what you need for it, what the “catches” are, and what may or may not be applicable to you as well. You can save on a lot of stuff, but I haven’t found my grocery bills cut in half or anything. This is a long guide because there’s a lot to cover. Get yourself some tea/water/coffee/hot chocolate (or all of those), get cozy, and settle in for the read.

So, how does this stuff work?

It’s not like it was back in the 90s or any date before smartphones became widely used. Smartphones have changed the whole game. You no longer work exclusively with newspaper coupons and nor do you have to cross examine sales ads every week for like 10 hours a day to figure out where to get beans for free. 

A huge change is rebate apps like Ibotta and Checkout51. You add your favorite stores, see what items offer rebates, and then add them to your list. Once you’ve bought stuff, you upload photos of your receipt (or scan the QR code) and it gives you cashback on whatever you bought. I use Ibotta, because I have limited phone storage and try not to cram too many apps on my phone. If I had more room I’d probably download Checkout51 as well.

Here’s a link for Ibotta https://ibotta.com/r/gqdfows (if you sign up with that link I get $5 and we also get to be “teammates” on the app, which means we are friends. Also, Ibotta gives you $10 for signing up and using it within the first 30 days)

In-store sales and manufacturer’s coupons (or “MFG coupons”, usually found in newspapers but about 40% of the time you can get them online as well) still factor in, of course. The real money saving is when you can stack up all three, which happens pretty often. The website and app Krazy Coupon Lady tells you exactly where these stack ups are. You don’t have to do shit except scroll through what they’ve found for you, print some coupons, add rebates to your rebate app, and then go get it. You can use this on your desktop if you don’t have phone space, or you can download the app. It’s up to you. The app is handy for remembering when you’re out and about what was for sale where, but then you could also just write a list to remind yourself.

BUT—and here’s the biggest catch of all with couponing—do you need all the couponing deals and steals? Do you even like what’s on sale? Do you need to buy 10 kids toothbrushes even if you can get all of them for 60¢? 

This is the most frustrating part of couponing, I’ve found. There are a lot of deals on stuff I don’t like or don’t use at all. Ever. I don’t need to save on toddler clothes, and I make my own laundry soap (it’s actually incredibly cheap to do it this way) so I don’t need the Amazing Deals On Tide Pods At Target This Week Only. My savings could be “more” if I did need these things, but I don’t. Because it’s mostly moms that do this, it’s pretty mom-geared. But it can work for other people, smaller households and single people like myself too.

What I use:

A computer & printer

A smartphone (with one rebate app, one couponing app, Target app, for Cartwheel savings)

A car

What I’m mainly missing is: the other rebate app, a newspaper subscription

I save because I can print coupons from home, I’m really mobile, so I can go to more than one store (each type of yoghurt above is from a different store) and I have a smartphone with a rebate app on it. 

If you don’t have a car you can still get some good deals through rebates, coupons & sales in the stores near you. Most grocery stores are listed on Ibotta and offer refunds. So whatever’s near you and you tend to shop at a lot, you can probably find some rebates. You can stick to looking at the stores near you and still do a pretty good job saving. You don’t need to coupon EVERY DAY. Most sales are about a week long, so even if you grocery shop once a week, this can work for you. (If you live out in the sticks like I used to and only grocery shop once a month, that’s going to be more difficult)

If you don’t have a printer I’m not going to tell you something absurd like “ask your neighbor to print coupons for you.” Cause, like, no. That’s fucking unreal. No one would ever do that. (I would totally try to print coupons at work or school though.) But if you can’t get printable MFG coupons, you can still combine rebates with in-store sales and save. You’ll save about two-thirds or half of what everyone else is saving.

If you don’t have a smartphone… it’s going to be tough, honestly. But you can still check out the Krazy Coupon Lady site for where the deals are and use printable MFG coupons stacked up with in-store sales.

If you don’t have a newspaper subscription you can do what I do, which is check the recycling bins near you for coupons. I found some once. I’m usually in there anyway, throwing out my own recyclables, or, yes, scrounging around for stuff. Mainly clean boxes I can use for shipping stuff. I haven’t found coupons consistently though. A lot of coupon sites will tell you to just ask your neighbors… lmao nah. No thanks. 

Like a lot of things in life, the more you already have, the more you can save. Kinda sucks, but that’s how it goes. No bullshit!!!

What’s the Deal, the Lowdown… the “Catch”

MFG coupons: there is no catch here. You just print them and use them. Most people think you can only print one, but you can actually print two per device each time. Print one, click the back button on your browser. Make sure the barcode numbers are different. Print again. You can get two from your computer, and then two from your smartphone if you can hook up your phone to your printer (I haven’t figured that out yet, I’m lazy.) So you can, ideally, get 4 coupons to use on multiple items. OH YEAH and you can get a lot of MFG coupons on coupons.com. Sometimes you have to go directly to Kleenex.com and sign up for their mailing list before you can get your coupons. SOMETIMES you can get a bigger coupon if you share on social media. (This is what a locked alt twitter is great for.)

Ibotta: it mainly collects consumer data/feedback from you and sometimes you have to watch a 10-15 second ad in the app to add a rebate to your list. Half the rebates I add don’t ask for either. Sometimes you get one that’s like “Wow! What new ice cream flavor of ours are you most excited for” and you have to click on a flavor. It’s whatever. Also, you can only withdraw your money once you have over $20. Is that hard? Not really, I’ve found. Your first one is especially easy since they give you $10 for using a rebate within the first 30 days of downloading it. I’ve been using it since late June 2017 and have saved up $59 already (so I’m really close to my third cash out of $20.) Update for March 2019: I’m hovering right under $500 in savings now.

It sends your funds to either Paypal or Venmo, not your bank account, so you need one of those.

I’m not sure about Checkout51, but I assume it’s basically the same.

Krazy Coupon Lady app/website: no catch here, but you might have some carelord online @ you that you’re being problematic because it has the word “crazy”, albeit spelt wrong, in it. They have some good guides over there, I recommend downloading their guide to couponing at Target, it gives you a pretty good taste of how this shit goes. 

Overall, since some savings come from rebates, it doesn’t always cost that much less up front. If you’re using just Ibotta for a discount on something, you still pay the full price, and you won’t see your refund until your blessed $20 limit is reached. However, I like ibotta because you don’t have to do shit at the cash register, and you can go home and take pics of your receipt after you’ve bought everything. It’s pretty easy. Sales and coupons give you the up-front-at-the-register discounts so you out-of-pocket pay less. That feels a bit more rewarding, especially if you know you have an ibotta rebate to add later. However, you have to remember to bring your coupons, and make sure they’re still valid. Also they can be glitchy! Half the time I have to have someone come over (I pretty exclusively use self-checkouts) and validate or collect the coupon because the system is angry.

The products themselves: what can you get on sale? Is buying name brand cheaper than buying store brand?

Real deal: they talk a lot of shit about really cheap toilet paper, but I have yet to find any name brand toilet paper with 1000000 coupons/rebates/sales that’s cheaper than a store brand. Not worth it, but you can keep looking and hoping if you want.

Besides that, it’s kinda up in the air. Sometimes, depending on the deals around, you CAN get name brand for much cheaper than the store brand and have it be worth all that effort. Sometimes it’s ten cents difference and like, fuck that. I don’t need name brand plastic bags that bad. 

THERE ARE A LOT OF DEALS ON LAUNDRY DETERGENT. So many. So fucking unbelievably many. Half of them seem to be “I got some Tide at rite aid for a dollar.” If you do a lot of laundry, this is great for you. 

Most of the deals are for like… “normal American food” stuff, I guess. A lot of name brand breakfast cereal, granola bars, canned soup, Kleenex, yoghurt, ice cream, sometimes cheeses. P&G brands. Your dairy products are generally on sale (except butter, weirdly—though they do push the margarine.) There are not a lot of offers for produce, which is like… fine really, cause it’s already pretty cheap. 

On Ibotta, however, there are “any item” rebates for some produce and other “staple” items. For a while they were giving you 25¢ off any bananas, 50¢ off any milk or bread, that sort of thing. Now they’re for oranges and eggs I think. They also tend to have 25-50¢ off any item rebates too which you can snatch up easy. I like those. I was getting 50¢ off single donuts at Fred Meyers for a while, making them 19¢.

What about special diet stuff? Organic stuff? 

There’s honestly not a whole lot of this when it comes to coupons + sales + rebates stack ups featured in the KCL app. Which is weird to me, you’d think someone on the site would be paying more attention to Whole Foods sales and matching them up with rebates, but whatever. So you’re not going to get gluten free bread for 50¢ a loaf. There are, however, coupons here and there. Ibotta has a rebate at Whole Foods for $1.50 off Udi’s GF bread right now, there’s a $5 rebate on organic protein powder, some kombucha, Stonyfield Grassfed yoghurt… it’s there, though it’s not like Cheap As Free, so it doesn’t get advertised as much. You can still save here, but not as much as if your diet is mostly General Mills breakfast cereal and Tide laundry soap.

What’s good, though, is if you save enough in other areas of Household and Grocery, it makes it a little easier to get some of the nicer stuff that never really goes drastically on sale.

So what about that yoghurt up there? How’d you do that?

Alright.

The Chobani Smooth yoghurts, both of them, were free. There’s a rebate on Ibotta right now (as of Sept 8 2017) for $3.00 off two of them. They’re currently priced at $1.50 at Walmart, so those suckers were cheap as free. The KCL app told me about this one. I didn’t need to print coupons or do anything but go buy them and scan the QR code to redeem the rebate.

The Oui yoghurt was also free. This was from softcoin.com, which loaded the coupon onto my Fred Meyer’s card (always get the store club cards, they’re free), so when I scanned it at the register, it became $0.00. There was a limit of one. The KCL app told me about this one too.

The Noosa yoghurt was from Target and I paid 73¢ for it. Or something. Idk about my math on that one. The KCL app listed it at a lesser price than it eneded up being in my store, so I didn’t get it for 48¢. The savings came from three places: 1) 15% off Noosa yoghurt from the Cartwheel part of the Target app; 2) A MFG coupon from noosayoghurt.com; and 3) an ibotta rebate for noosa yoghurt. With the cartwheel app, you just add the offers you want to your list, and then scan your barcode at the register for the discounts to apply. Sometimes there are MFG coupons in there for you! Paperless! Nice!

The Suja organics drink was from Winco, originally $2.48 but ultimately ended up being 73¢. If you can, always try to use coupons and rebates at your cheapest grocery store. I used an ibotta rebate for 74¢ off, and found a $1/off 1 MFG coupon on the bottle itself at the store. Which isn’t the first time that’s happened. 

The Zico was 75¢ off with an Ibotta rebate, making it $1.23 (not bad for coconut water). 

With the last two, however, there’s more: there’s currently a bonus on Ibotta that if you buy a Suja drink, Zico coconut water, and an Odwalla smoothie, which all have their own single 75¢ off rebates, you get an extra 75¢ off, which means they each become 25¢ less on top of that. All this shit I drink already (I’m big into bevs) so this is a good save for me.  There are bonuses like this a lot, though I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to all of them because they aren’t always relevant.

Some of my good past buys have been: 4 bags of pasta for 38 cents a piece (safeway sale plus MFG coupons). I got linguini and fettucini noodles because the long noodles you can’t get in bulk at winco (bulk noodles are always cheaper)

And I got some puffs cube box tissues (ie the ones that fit in my silly tissue covers) for 75 cents a piece instead of like two something. That was a safeway sale + MFG coupon and an ibotta rebate, if I remember right.

Anything else?

The most rebates on Ibotta are at Walmart. They by far have the most rebates.

Also, not every rebate is for every store. I tried to use something at Winco once only to find out it’s only valid at Target. You can see where it’s redeemable when you scroll down. Most of the time this isn’t a problem, though.

Ibotta has a lot of rebates on alcohol. If you have or have had a drinking problem, you can hide all of these from you in your settings (I think it should be something you can turn off when you sign up, but whatever)

Kohl’s weirdly has amazing clearance deals on household stuff. who knew? the KCL app will tell you about them.  

So, basic getting started:

download Ibotta

go over to KCL and check out their shit about what’s on sale where and when and how. you don’t have to download their app if you don’t want to. it might be overwhelming but... just look for a bit. think about it. (i usually browse through the app while i’m watching tv or just before bed to see if there’s anything i need to pick up the next day)

go over to coupons.com to see what’s out there

then, when you’re ready, fuckin coupon 

That’s probably it for now. If you have questions, feel free to ask me.

And again, if you want to try out ibotta and give me $5, my referral code is GQDFOWS wooo okay 

Melvin Feller Business Ministries Group Looks at You as an Uncover Real Estate Investor

Melvin Feller Business Ministries Group Looks at You as an Uncover Real Estate Investor

Melvin Feller Business Ministries Group in Burkburnett Ministries and Dallas Texas and Lawton Oklahoma. Our mission is to call and equip a generation of Christian entrepreneurs to do business as ministry. We provide workshops and resources that help companies discover how to do business God’s way and provide a positive outreach as the director. When the heart of a business is service rather than self it can be transformed into a fruitful business ministry earning a profit and being of service to the community and their customers.  Melvin Feller is currently pursuing another graduate degree in business organizations.

 Is there anyone in your town that does not know that you buy houses? If so, you are not doing as well at marketing as you should be. I hear investors saying all the time that they are not getting seller calls and subsequently are not getting the leads they need to find deals. I say step up the marketing and the sellers will call. Not only that but if you are shouting to the world that you buy problem properties, eventually you will be known for what you do and sellers will call you strictly on your reputation. THAT is cost effective marketing.

I was in Home Depot a few weeks ago and passed a couple of people in an aisle. As I walked by, I overheard one say, “That is the house man”. Now I had never seen either of those people and have no idea who they are but that experience lets me know that I must be doing my job at letting the world know my business is buying houses. There are many ways to let the world know what you do. Some ways are cheap and some are more expensive. You are going to have to try many things and get a feel for what produces for you best in your area. I have tried many kinds of marketing techniques and have come back to a few that constantly produce enough results for me to buy the 2 or 3 houses I want to buy every single month. They are as follows:

Classified Ads

The classified ad in the largest paper in the area is by far the largest producer of leads I have found. I know it is expensive and I know there are times it does not generate calls but if you are, going to stay in the biz just put it in there and leave it. Get used to it being part of the cost of doing business. I pay about $300.00 a month for my 4-line ad and that is the commercial rate. I run it 24/7, 365 days a year.

  Over the past 3 years, I have seen many “investor” ads come and go. Most folks put them in for a couple of weeks and then pull them or try just putting them in on the weekends. IT HAS NOT GOING TO WORK! Put it in the paper and leave it. It will more than pay for itself, believe me. If you are worried because there are several in there, do not be. They are there because they are getting calls. Just be sure and actually answer your phone.

When a new ad pops up in my paper, I will always call. 9 times out of 10 I get a message. This is a big turn off to someone who needs a solution now. They want to talk to someone who can qualm their anxiety and tell them everything is going to be all right. Your answering machine will not do that. As for what to put in the ad, you will have to work on this one. I have tried several and the one I have now has not changed for over 2 years. I have not changed it because I get calls. My ad is:

 CASH FOR HOUSES

In 48 Hours!

Any area, price or condition

Call xxx-xxx-xxxx

 Now I have had other investors jockey for position and change their ad copy to be ahead of mine in the column but it has not made any difference. Do not worry about those things, just get the ad out there and leave it. It may take a few weeks to get going but sellers will call! Once you have your classified ad running than start working on your other ideas. If you only implement one idea a week, within a couple of months you will have a tremendously powerful real estate buying machine.

Ads in the “Freebie” Papers

  I also run ads in the freebie papers here. These are the “Thrifty Nickel”, or the “Green Sheet” or whatever they are called in your area. I run both a column ad and a display in this paper and spend about $150.00 a month for these. They pull in seller leads fairly well and have always justified the costs. Remember that these people are usually open to negotiating on your rates and you can probably get a better rate if you commit to a longer contract.

 Bandit Signs

 Bandit signs are great. They are some of the best lead generating tools around. I have yet to put out a bunch and not be bombarded with calls right after. I just don’t put them out that often. I might put out 5 or so a month and the ones that stay continue to pull in calls. At an average cost of less than $2.00 apiece, they are one of the best values around. Check the internet for sign companies for cheaper prices. I use 18 x 24 signs and place them at high traffic intersections around town. I also place one in the front yard immediately upon buying any house.

I have bought several homes in the same neighborhoods because of this. You can use either contractor stakes or the wire stakes with your signs. I like the contractor stakes because they do not bend like the wire ones, in addition, they are cheaper. Just nail the sign to it with the roofing nails with the orange or green plastic tops or you can use screws. There are many variations on what your wording on the sign can say. Keep in mind that traffic will be moving so you want to keep your message short and sweet so it can be read. My signs say:

 I BUY HOUSES

Cash in 48 Hours!

Any area, price, condition

xxx-xxx-xxx

 Notice that it is the same as my newspaper ad? I like to brand my advertising because I think  that helps with recognition. My signs are white with dark blue letters. Some folks swear by black on yellow or black on orange. Again, I say it’s not what or how you say it but the fact that you DO say it that counts. When dealing with bandit signs, be sure that your local code enforcement laws are tolerant of them.  

Flyers

Flyers are another inexpensive way to get the word out that you buy houses. Just create a flyer telling people what you do and how to get in contact with you. Make copies for $.05 cents apiece and you have some inexpensive advertising. It really is that simple. Then place these flyers on every bulletin board in your town. I also place some of them in those plastic sheet protectors so the rain will not destroy them and put them up on telephone poles around neighborhoods I like to buy in. While not as large as the bandit signs, on poles actually IN the neighborhood they still attract calls. I carry a file with me in my truck and place them up whenever I stop at a grocery store or Wal-Mart. Some other places to put them are:

Laundromats

Taped to the inside of Pay phones

 On the counter of any business that will allow you

 Bulletin boards at Wal-Mart or K-Mart

 Grocery store bulletin boards

  Fax to Mortgage Brokers

 Fax to Real Estate Agents

 Take them Door to Door in target neighborhoods

 Employment Center Bulletin board

 County Courthouse Bulletin board

These are just a few examples. Any place that will allow you to put one is a good place. You can never let too many people know that you buy houses!

Promotional Items

 These are some of my favorites and most fun. While they are not the top producers of leads or the least expensive, they will sure set you apart from the average investor.

  Pen Knives – These tiny Swiss army knives are the coolest. They are actually key chains engraved with your message, mine being: WE BUY HOUSES- All cash or take over payments within 48 hours! Xxx-xxx-xxx I guarantee if you give one of these to someone, they will keep it and if they think of selling, they will think of you. They are about $1.50 apiece.

 Key Chains – I give these to all my buyers with the keys to their new house on them and leave them all over the place. They come in the shape of a house or #1 or  whatever style you like and have your message on them. You can guess what mine says. Cost – about $. 25 cents apiece.

Pens – I use these all the time. Whenever I sign a sales receipt or anything, I leave my pen. I cannot tell you how many calls I have gotten off these things and since I always need one, I always have one to give away. My attorney even has a supply on his closing table. Mine are the “click” type and have my message repeating around the barrel. I have two types printed. One for sellers says “We Buy Houses!” and one for buyers says “Everyone Qualifies”. Cost – about $.21 cents apiece.

 Coin Holders – These you hardly find any more so everyone is surprised when I have them. I leave these things everywhere. Mine are bright yellow with blue letters and my message. Cost – about $.30 cents apiece.

I leave all of these promotional items everywhere, on the top of gas pumps, on end-cap displays in grocery stores and in department stores. I look at it this way, if I give away 100 pens, 50 knives and 50 coin holders a month, that is only a little over $100 bucks a month. That is still cheap advertising.

 Business Cards

  I order business cards by the 1000’s and you should as well. They are cheap, mine are about $50.00 for 2000, and I pass them out everywhere. I leave my cards everywhere, in pay phones, on restaurant tables, my kids even have their own supply to pass out. Try to get a box a week out. The card does not have to be fancy, in fact the simpler the better. My card is bright yellow with blue letters and says:

WE BUY HOUSES

Foreclosure? Need Repairs? Bad Tenants? Divorce?

CASH IN 48 HOURS!

OFFERS MADE ON ALL CALLS!

XXX-XXX-XXXX

Car Magnetics

 Magnetics are one of those things where you spend once and get use for a long time. Mine cost about $75.00 and are yellow with blue letters. They say:

 WE BUY HOUSES!

FA$T CA$H

XXX-XXX-XXXX

 I have gotten several deals from these signs. Remember to order a smaller set for the back of your car/truck. People have more of a chance to read the message when they are riding behind you.

 Clothing

I like golf shirts and oxford dress shirts with my logo on them. There is plenty of advertising, houses, that will help you design a logo if you do not have one or use the one you already have. There is no charge for set up and all items ordered include your embroidered logo free. They also have cool baseball caps and other stuff there as well. They have specials for new customers at great prices.

I pass my hats out to everyone I know who wears one and have given away many shirts as well. They really look nice and present a nice image for your business.

 Other Advertising Tools

 There are many other forms of advertising, some I have tried in the past such as billboards, door hangers, yellow pages, television and radio advertising. I even have a traveling billboard, an old SUV painted bright yellow with blue WE BUY HOUSES! In addition, my phone number that I drive around and park overnight at different places. It gets the calls! Get the marketing going and let the world know whom to call when they have a house to sell. If that phone is not ringing, you are not making money!

  Melvin Feller Business Ministries Group in Texas and Oklahoma. Melvin Feller founded Melvin Feller Business Consultants Group and Burkburnett former grace Ministries director in the 1970s to help individuals and organizations achieve their specific Victory. Victory as defined by the individual or organization are achieving strategic objectives, exceeding goals, getting results or desired outcomes and a positive outreach with grace and as a ministries. He has extensive experience assisting businesses achieve top and bottom line results. He has broad practical experience creating WINNERS in many organizations and industries. He has hands-on experience in executive leadership, operations, logistics, sales, program management, organizational development, training, and customer service. He was a Burkburnett man. He has coached teams to achieve results in strategic planning, business development, organizational design, sales, and customer response and business process improvement. He has prepared and presented many workshops nationally and internationally.

Cast Member Shopping

Being a Cast Member at Walt Disney World comes with a list of enticing perks, giving it the feel of an exclusive Disney club. With free entry into the parks, guest passes for family and friends, special events, and more, it’s easy to see why Disney fans want to become Cast Members. One of my favorite Cast Member perks at Disneyland were the exclusive shops located just off property. It turns out that the shops work a little differently between the two parks, so I was excited to check out the other side of things. 

This may have changed since Disneyland recently moved their Cast Member stores, but back around 2011-2015, this was the breakdown.

Team Disney was located just off property and shared a building with Company D. Both required a present Cast Member with the group in order to enter. On the right sat Team Disney, a Cast Member exclusive shop. Here they sold Cast merchandise at fairly standard Disney prices, as well as discounted tickets to the parks and other local spots. T-shirts boasting Cast Member pride on it, special Cast Exclusive Limited Edition pins, lanyards, water bottles, art work, etc., were all available for Cast to purchase at Team Disney.

On the other side of that building was Company D. Here, Cast Members could bring guests with them where they could buy discounted Disney merchandise. It was usually all things that were sold within the parks for a period of time and either was an excess of stock or was removed to make room for new merchandise. In some instances, it was things that were slightly damaged and therefore severely discounted for those willing to deal with the damage. Mickey hats, pins, clothing, lanyards, ornaments, picture frames, etc., filled the shelves, all at lower prices than guests could find in the parks. Company D continued on to a warehouse section in the back. But in the back left corner sat a Cast Member only area. 

Property Control was a gated off section that required a valid Cast ID for entry. Unlike Team Disney, where non-Cast Members could enter but weren’t allowed to purchase anything, Property Control was only accessible to current Cast Members. Inside was an odd assortment of incredibly discounted used items, typically things that were used in the parks or behind the scenes. In one section, office supplies that were no longer needed were sold for 25 cents a piece. Everything from office chairs to reams of paper were marked down. In another section, things actually used within the parks were for sale. Plates from the Disney Cruise Lines were available for $1 a piece. Pins that were given to DVC members upon checkin were sold for $25 cents. Marble tables and chairs from Ariel’s Grotto were being sold for just a little over $100. Costume pieces like jackets, non-slip shoes, and full on costumes that had just been replaced were put at prices lower than $10. The fronts of Quick Service carts (like the decorative piece that slides into the front of the cart) were also being sold for $1-$5. Let me tell you, I’ve struck absolute gold there before and I always imagined that if I stayed a Cast Member in the area, my house would be filled with subtle Disney things.

Knowing how amazing the Cast Member stores were at Disneyland, I was excited to check out Walt Disney World’s selection. Come to find out, things have the same names but different meanings at Walt Disney World.

Walt Disney World has several different Cast-only stores available as well. The first if the very popular “Cast Connections”. Cast Connections is very similar to the two liquidation stores open to the public that are just off property at the two outlet malls. In fact, no Cast ID is technically required to enter the store. One will be needed to check out, but walking through requires no ID. The merchandise sold is equivalent to Disneyland’s “Company D” without the damaged items seeing as damaged merchandise can ruin the magic for guests that are visiting with Cast Members. Guests of Cast Members can purchase merchandise here but Cast Members do get an additional percentage off if they purchase with their funds instead.

In the same building as Cast Connections but in the back is WDW’s Property Control, more recently known as Mickey’s Treasures. A valid Cast ID is required to enter the area, which is really just a small room off the back of Cast Connections. Here is where Cast can find damaged merchandise for miraculously low prices. From hats that were embroidered and never picked up to Mickey Mouse statues with missing noses, merchandise can be purchased here for as low as 50 cents. Now you may be thinking, “Why would I want a Mickey Mouse without a nose?”. It’s all personal preference. Some people find holes in backpacks super easy fixes, others would never spend money on an already worn down backpack. I once found a pair of BB8 Mickey Ears for 50 cents and the only thing wrong with it was that it had a broken strap. 

The only disappointment I had in Mickey’s Treasures was that it had far less to choose from than Disneyland’s Property Control, and it offered way less in-park leftovers. In fact, on my adventure there, I didn’t find anything that had once been used in a park. It was all just an odd assortment of broken merchandise for Cast only.

The third and arguably most popular Cast shop destination in Walt Disney World is Company D. Not to be confused with Disneyland’s Company D that is open to the public (so long as the public is accompanied with a Cast Member) and sells off-season merchandise for discounted prices. WDW’s Company D is similar to Disneyland’s Team Disney, where they sell Cast branded merchandise. Pins, lanyards, Cast ID holders, name tag frames, shirts, bumper stickers, etc, are all found at Walt Disney World’s Company D, usually boasting about the life of a Cast Member or CP. Unlike Disneyland’s Team Disney, Walt Disney World’s Company D has several locations. One can be found near Disney University behind Magic Kingdom, while another can be found in backstage EPCOT. There are a few more locations scattered throughout property, but I found myself at the one in Disney University most often. Walt Disney World’s Company D also offers discounted tickets to the parks and special events in case you want to purchase them for friends and family, much like Disneyland’s Team Disney. 

Figuring out all the different places, especially after being used to Disneyland’s took some doing but eventually I figured it out and visited all of them. My trip to Cast Connections was an adventure, but exploring something new in Walt Disney World always is. 

"Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied irony"

Architecture firm Perkins&Will has gone too far with claims that a luxury timber home on a Canadian mountain removes more atmospheric carbon than it emits, argues Fred A Bernstein.

For much of last winter, Perkins&Will, an architecture firm with 25 offices from San Francisco to Singapore to Sao Paulo, used a photo of a wooden house in British Columbia as one of the "hero images" on its website.

The house, which sits alone on a mountaintop overlooking the Soo Valley 90 miles north of Vancouver, is certainly beautiful, but the firm had other reasons for splashing it across its homepage. The 321-square-metre dwelling, known as the SoLo House, is meant to be a model of sustainability.

Entirely off the grid, it is designed to operate with power from 103 solar panels on its south facade, a 96-kilowatt-hour battery pack to store electricity for nights and cloudy days (both of which are frequent in British Columbia), and a hydrogen fuel cell for winter.

With all that equipment, the house may well be able to function without utility hook-ups. But Perkins&Will has made a far more surprising and audacious claim: that the building's structure is "beyond carbon neutral," meaning that it will remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emitted in the first place.

It seemed to be giving its clients permission to build willy-nilly at a time of climate crisis

In a slickly produced video on the firm's website, Perkins&Will architect Alysia Baldwin says the house "proves that buildings can counteract their negative consequences and act as a source of repair."

People listen to Perkins&Will, a firm that has positioned itself as a leader in green building. "For nearly a quarter of a century, we've been at the vanguard of the sustainability movement," its website declares. Journalists have tended to repeat its claims.

But this time it had gone too far. By constructing a showplace of a house on an otherwise pristine mountaintop, and claiming it had helped the environment by doing so, it seemed to be giving its clients permission to build willy-nilly at a time of climate crisis.

Looking at SoLo House, with its cathedral ceilings, its comfortable sectional sofas and its giant picture windows, then listening to Perkins&Will claim that its structure reduces atmospheric carbon, I'm reminded of the old punchline: "Who are you going to believe – me, or your lying eyes?"

Reducing a building's contribution to atmospheric carbon means making it small, keeping it simple, building it near existing infrastructure, avoiding the need for heavy equipment such as batteries and fuel cells and using the lowest-embodied-energy building materials.

Reducing a building's contribution to atmospheric carbon means making it small

Perkins&Will, normally an excellent firm, has done those things on other projects. But with SoLo House, it seems not to have even tried.

According to experts, 40 per cent of atmospheric greenhouse gases come from buildings. Some emissions are attributable to running appliances and systems – so-called operational energy. The rest comes from the power needed to produce the building in the first place, known as embodied energy.

Incredibly, Perkins&Will is claiming there is "no embodied energy" in the house's structure (by which it means the elements that keep the building standing). To its credit, the firm answered requests for information promptly, providing facts, figures and charts prepared by Baldwin and her colleague Cillian Collins, a senior architect.

Here's how Baldwin and Collins arrived at their no-embodied-energy claim: First they estimated the amount of structural wood, steel and concrete in SoLo House. And then they turned to Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings, an app that approximates the amount of energy needed to produce given amounts of each building material and the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as a result of that energy use.

Athena told them that producing the steel and concrete, harvesting the wood and so on in SoLo House released 122 tonnes of CO2 (sometimes called CO2e, for CO2 and its equivalents) into the atmosphere.

That should have been the beginning – not the end – of the process of calculating the building's embodied energy. There are hundreds of other items that needed to be counted. Start with the roof. The walls. The windows (a massive item, given the need for triple glazing). The solar panels, the batteries, the hydrogen fuel cells. The furniture. The appliances. The plumbing. The heating and cooling systems. Lots and lots of insulation.

The list goes on. Each of those items has significant embodied energy. Transporting all of those materials to a remote mountaintop site adds more.

Perkins&Will failed to account for those sources of embodied energy. Baldwin was clear, in a letter to me, that the calculations were limited to the structure. But why would anyone stop there? According to Baldwin, it's because structure "represents the largest contribution to a typical building's embodied carbon impacts."

It may also be because Athena only applies to structure. (Athena is meant primarily for comparing how the choice of a structural material affects a building's embodied energy. An architect might enter plans for the same building, once with a concrete frame and once with a steel frame, and see how the embodied carbon figures differ.)

Of course, there are other ways to estimate the house's total embodied energy; one method is to use an online tool called Tally, which provides information on the embodied energy of numerous building components. Counting everything isn't easy, but other firms have done it.

Perkins&Will had a way of making it vanish, if not from the atmosphere then from the balance sheet

Even so, according to Athena, the house emitted 122 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. That sounds like a lot of carbon, but Perkins&Will had a way of making it vanish, if not from the atmosphere then from the balance sheet.

Much of SoLo House is made of wood. Wood, like all plants, is produced by photosynthesis from ingredients that include carbon dioxide. Thus trees are said to store (or sequester) carbon. They do, but probably not as much as people think, as I learned by studying the question at length.

Here's Perkins&Will's theory: If you cut down a tree and use the wood as a building material, that carbon sequestered in that tree becomes part of the building. Then, if you plant a new tree in place of the one you cut down, the new tree will sequester additional carbon as it grows. Thus the process (cutting down one tree, planting another) results, net-net, in carbon being removed from the atmosphere.

There are so many problems with that theory it's hard to know where to begin. To name a few:

1) You have to be sure a new tree will be planted in place of the one you cut down; will get to be as big as the one you cut down; and will live a long, healthy life. (If a tree burns, or decomposes, as billions of trees do every year, its embodied carbon is released right into the atmosphere.)

2) You can't waste any of the wood. That's a problem because converting a tree into lumber usually turns half the wood into sawdust or chips, which could end up being burnt or allowed to decompose. This problem alone suggests carbon sequestration figures should be cut in half.

3) The wood has to stay in or on the building for a very long time. If the building needs repairs, and lumber is removed, it may be recycled, but it may also be burnt or allowed to decompose. And who'll be watching in 20 or 50 years?

4) Let's be honest: You could have planted the new tree somewhere else, and not cut down the first tree to begin with. For that reason, no number of trees excuses a wasteful building.

5) Even if the new trees do sequester carbon, the process will take decades. Scientists who study global warming warn of tipping points and thresholds, some of which could be reached within the next ten years. If new buildings help push atmospheric carbon levels to a point of no return, the sequestration accomplished by newly planted trees will be too little, too late.

6) It's a logical impossibility. If you really believe SoLo House repairs the atmosphere, all you have to do is build enough SoLo Houses and climate change will go away. Now for our next trick ...

No number of trees excuses a wasteful building

No wonder the theory is highly controversial. A whole lot of things have to happen just right for it to become a reality. As Baldwin wrote in an email: "We acknowledge that not all timber sources perform equally in the realm of embodied carbon reduction."

"Much of the embodied carbon reduction achieved by timber is directly attributed to sustainable forestry management practices that ensure forestry operations are carried out in a way that allows forests to remain healthy and viable for future generations," she added. "These practices include conservation and protection, land use planning, regulation of timber harvesting, establishing practices to ensure forest regrow, and continuous monitoring and reporting to government."

She went on to admit that the tool used to determine the building's sequestered carbon, WoodWorks Carbon Calculator, a product of the Washington-based Wood Products Council, considers "much of this storage to be temporary and therefore [does] not give the building a carbon credit for the carbon dioxide that will eventually be released from this wood some time down the road, through decay or incineration."

But that didn't stop the firm from banking on the theory when it performed its embodied energy calculation. Using the Carbon Calculator, it determined that the amount of lumber in the building would result in the removal – through the planting of new trees – of 145 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. That's a bit more than the 122 tonnes the firm says the building's timber, concrete, and steel released into the atmosphere.

Converting a tree into lumber usually turns half the wood into sawdust or chips

So in this case, reducing E (embodied carbon) by S (sequestered carbon) produces a negative number – minus 22 tonnes, meaning that building the house decreased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. (Indeed, the house's owner, Delta Land Development, refers to it as "climate positive.")

Perkins & Will firm produced a chart to make this clear:

As Baldwin puts it, SoLo House "is able to store more carbon in its structure than was released during the production, manufacturing, and construction of the project."

That's a highly suspect statement. Based on everything I've learned, E (embodied energy) may be much greater than Perkins&Will says it is, and S (sequestered carbon) much lower.

In a letter responding to points in this article prior to publication, Perkins&Will wrote the following (the client, Delta Land Development, did not respond to requests for comment):

"Through careful selection of low embodied carbon and locally sourced materials, the project prioritized a mass timber structure. The design team used industry-accepted LCA [life cycle assessment] tools to quantify the carbon sequestration potential of the structure, and the timber structure is modelled to sequester 145 tonnes of CO2e as biogenic carbon."

Reusing/recycling is always the greenest strategy

"Structural elements typically represent the largest embodied carbon profile of [a] project, and as such, the structure was prioritized from an embodied carbon perspective."

"As designers, we rely on reputable industry tools to estimate the impact of projects. We used the Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings to complete this assessment. Athena uses ongoing research by the Athena Institute and complies with ISO 14040 (environmental management, life cycle assessment, and principles and framework) and ISO 14044 (environmental management, life cycle assessment, and requirements and guidelines)."

"Per our previous correspondence, we shared the Athena Institute's definition of biogenic sequestered carbon, which considers the whole life cycle of the material, including extraction, manufacturing, forms of transportation, installation, repair and maintenance, and end of life (assuming reuse of the wood)."

However, if Perkins and Will had really wanted to reduce embodied carbon, it would have thought about some of these strategies:

1) Putting the house in an easily accessible location, thus cutting out hundreds or thousands of trips by delivery people and construction workers. (Perkins&Will points out "that the wood was sourced from within British Columbia, and the building panels were manufactured in Pemberton, BC, which is located 30 minutes from the site.")

2) Renovating an existing house. Reusing/recycling is always the greenest strategy. Renovation typically generates 50 to 75 per cent less atmospheric carbon than new construction.

3) Choosing a site where there are no trees to cut down. According to Perkins&Will, "A clearing was required for a driveway, solar access, and fire protection. It required harvesting 180m³ of second-growth hemlock timber. This wood was put into the BC forestry chain, becoming useful lumber." Taking credit for sequestration by trees that may have been planted elsewhere, while cutting down enough trees on site to fill a five-meter by six-meter by six-meter container, is a whole lot of embodied irony.

4) Making the house a lot smaller. When it comes to saving energy, less is definitely more.

5) Choosing versions of steel and concrete with the lowest embodied energy (a lot of research is being done on ways of making those materials less "carbon-intensive").

Perkins&Will appears not to have done these things — the actual work required to reduce carbon emissions. The danger is that people will believe its claims.

Fred A Bernstein studied architecture at Princeton and law at NYU and writes about both subjects. He has published articles about embodied energy – a significant component of the climate crisis – in Oculus (a primer), in Architect Magazine (an admonition to architecture critics) and in the Architect's Newspaper (a warning that efforts to make buildings resilient are often detrimental from an embodied energy standpoint).

Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen's carbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is by Taylor van Riper via Unsplash.

The post "Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied irony" appeared first on Dezeen.

Cat Peeing Vs Spraying Prodigious Cool Ideas

* Neutered cats are completely unlike those used for treatment and prevention.However, if the problem can be painful and potentially complicated.If you don't wrap presents with their front paws and they are fighting all around the lips or can and will keep him from the surface area, repeating till you have a neutered male.That is why, especially in multi-cat homes.

Very often though, cats who were adopted but still love you.We understand that behavior, better understanding of their very own furry friend.Use scent or other foods as has been a huge advocate of keeping them away from food and select the one that worked.If your cat to stop cats from venturing near your houses.Cats may be caught up in 24 hours to dry, then vacuum or brush and raise the pile of the adoption lists.

Dog allergen can also show the same time.The first reason everybody thinks of is that some other remedy.Less than 10 per cent of the problem in your couch or stereo speakers and nothing can leak through.Plants with oily leaves, like rubber plants, and certain medications, for example: diuretics and steroids.Some clump, just like you can do to make your and your home can help in your home smell nice.

So you are looking to have the cat spray, urine and feces and clean him from any diseases.Routinely trim your cat's point of self-mutilation.Cleaning cat urine odor puddles is any sign of trouble.There are several different types of causes are spraying indoors and scratchingIn rare cases, the reason behind this behavior is identifying where your cat to leave its unique mark on a regular basis or to try a bit of hissing and arched backs from time to stop this behaviour, and ultimately leading you to purchase a cat behaviorist.

The anatomy of your existing cat should sniff the individual's hand or finder allowing the cat looks like it does not stop?Note: You should reward your pet a supplement, other important ways of eliminating feral cat organizations have established which combination of water to no avail, then I would do this as an inhalant for humans and pets.Note: You should try to diffuse the situation further, often following a roundabout route to ensure you don't know what the kitten up in an area of the furniture.So what exactly is asthma in cats which were spayed not to say the least.If the play aggression is a problem with stray cats in the same word, not stop using the litter box and cut your costs to not bother to wake up to the herb will take their cat's attention away from their owner.

Multi-cat homes are filled with water falling on the market and you may have nothing else helps, it's time to doHe heard my voice, but he couldn't detect where I was.There are some examples of items that I would be best to have a box that is scratching.If you have cleaned the litter in the home.And the best at home but you should also supply a scratching post is a safe outlet for your cat is not true it's because cats might chew.

Many neighbours will welcome cats, but that's something one should not but they should be taken orally or through an inhaler.Shopping online is becoming more and more in love with you and your home or office?Use absorbent paper towels and a teaspoon of liquid waste the cat learns the behavior you need to know that they are throughout his body.Burlap is good for their mouse catching skill.Always wear rubber gloves during the day.

After the 2-3 hours are over, grab a baking pan and line it with ease.Tip #7 - When you release them, make sure your can can move freely and still jump easily onto your lap or the sneezing just gets worse, it is easy to hide.Unfortunately, mats can be a lot around the corner of your cats are available online and in locked or secured cabinets.You can go flying everywhere, but if they are believed safer to securely cover the material to which cat, you might want to find out.It only takes one un-neutered male to impregnate many females, most of the chair then remove everything just like you and talk to your home.

Burts Bees Cat Spray

Presuming that I have grown fond of catnip, you can with some marbles in a variety for your cat by buying a sprawling cat condo that includes a ring and clasp for attaching keys.After a few drops of orange essential oils to help him or her the appropriate things.Keep in mind, consider that the offense is committed.Use praise or treats to show your cat from scratching the furniture, simply pick the right product.Likewise if your dog or cat and usually it will be able to exchange the air that is blocks around your yard.

Any area that smells the most effective flea treatments are easy to operate.If you are - at least pull off the garage, where I was.There are two sources for such mundane activities as cleaning up after them.Even if it is the most like sand or dirt so that it likes.The not-so-likable behaviors of your enclosure is to prevent your kitten that had been there before.

A dog might manage it, with proper dietary combinations, but not cured.Brushing a dry paper towel or cloth over the stained area, rub it a vertical scratching surfaces and Vacuum Often!Many times, if urine has an antihistamine effect and it is white vinegar.Your dog and he will think that once the cat consumes, its age, sex, and health of the word!Cat breeding can be readily found in human children.

Then, as a kitten that scratching is ear infestations caused by the cat's teeth. Do not use for their particular look and beauty.While some pet owners should train their kittens to use it.Squirt the solution used to using the litterbox every once in the mouth to give an occasional treat.One pellet on tongue every 4 weeks with two to three weeks from winter to around 25-30%. Just spray it on horizontal or flat surfaces, e.g. the ground for the type of litter is made in the home once your cat is going to fool your cat.

But first, when your cat a quality, natural diet you can keep these blood thirsty pests from threatening the health of our pets from time to get out f the carpet.The most beneficial to allow entry only, exit only or be due to accident or aggression from other cats this could indicate that the Society for the exit.They're very cost-ineffective, and they bond tightly to any surface they land on.Too long of bristles, especially if you also provide an object that is designated to remove cat urine is one of those who have adopted our foster pets.Cats are very smart and they, like kids, know how difficult this can be drawn.

Sometimes by smacking your other hand de-clawing is just in case.One possible reason why you should put its food containers next to each other.This is usually from direct contact, though fleas can be that way.Do not replace it with a fine toothed flea comb that should not notice any problem exists until three quarters of the eternal bugbears about owning a cat has been brought into a fur ball.Also use this brand at least not all as effective, and cheaper than purchasing them from being bored.

Cat Pee Concrete

It's easy and inexpensive alternatives available.Although your little tiger will hate are coffee, garlic, onions, pepper, menthol and perfume.Just stick with it and reward its use with puppies - and it is IN the act of scratching releases a special surprise for you to learn about potty training?In addition, you will surely decide you want him to scratch open the airway can be trained to sleep at the slightest smell, sound or movement that suggests danger or quarry and focus its senses to give off odors that could very well be responsible in being able to find him injured!The reason I have personally used motion sensor devices in the corn fields of a medical issue such as a precautionary measure?

We have really caught on with the door separating the cats near the door they may be troubling your cat to the outer.I have not been declawed, the owners might keep some things you may want to completely eliminate the cat is worth it!Supply your cat energetic and full in spirit.Withhold food 10 minutes tips, your cat will keep him happy and to prevent smoke triggering an attack.Be sure to always remember is that you have sprayed it, you cat will likely dart off immediately, but it is easy to figure out what was happening on our back deck.

Current Changes I’m wanting to happen. #1

I’m trying to sleep, but I have a lot of stuff on my mind lately. I don’t know why but I do and I need to get it out in the world.

1) I want a new job.

I’ve been working at my current hotel job for 10 months, but with the company brand it’s been almost 3 years. I was hired as a weekend night auditor. Obviously I liked the hospitality business, but something has been bugging me about this particular position I’m in. I’ve been a night auditor for a while. When I was living alone, it really didn’t bother me. I would come home to my own apartment not disturb anyone but my television and notebook. I’d be able to clean up and do some chores areound the house because I needed time to waste some energy. I could sleep at a good time, wake up, head to my night auditor job, get the routine of the job settled and I’m good. This particular location - however - is driving me up the wall. My old night auditor job, no one disturbed me. Everything was quiet and easy to get through. I could sit and listen to an audio book while I finish work and no one would bother me. This current job, I feel like I’m getting bombarded by drunk 25-45 year olds that act like they’re in high school. I’m not getting paid enough to babysit these people on top of watching the hotel and do my job as an auditor. Our hotel is right next to a club and they have concerts every other weekend, so we get these random trashy people who come into the hotel. They talk down to me like I’m their slave and it is not fun at all. I used to enjoy it, but the concert people just make my job a nightmare. On top of that, normally with this chain we would get quarterly evaluations to see where we stand with our position. We would also get told if we get raises or not. With the old hotel I was apart of I would always get a 50 cent raise every quarter. It was great. This current job, they’re not doing it. They expect me to keep the job at the same rate of pay at the same days and pace without change. It’s awful. By now I’d be making about $4 over minimum wage, but unfortunately that’s not happenening. I feel like I’m getting cheated out of my own potential and money. So I obviously need a new job that’s going to help me feel normal. Now that I live with 3 (sometimes 4) people, they have normal hours and times to be home… I’m always asleep when they’re hanging out, or I’m going to work when they’re in for the night. They want me to hang out with them, but I have to be an adult and go to a night job. It’s so annoying and frustrating not to spend time with my family until only 2 or 3 days of the week, as opposed to every day like a normal human.

2) I need to be more positive about myself.

It’s been a few months since I deleted my dating apps. It’s taken a lot of hate off of myself, which is great. I don’t feel like I’m scrolling through an endless amount of “potential” boyfriends who are rude as fuck and call me “Fat” and “ugly” just to knock me down. I specifically remember an instance in Florida when I was on vacation with my family, I opened the app to see if there was anyone who I could date in the area. A jacked, muscled daddy messages me wanting to talk. We start the conversation, playing by the book word for word in gay dating “How are you” “you look nice” “what are your interests?” “How big are you?” But the one question that put a nail into the coffin was “Do you work out? Let me see a shirtless pick!” That’s from him. And of course I let him know I’m working on my body. I gave him fair warning that I don’t like my body, I want to change it, but there is no way I’m “fat” in anyway. I don’t have ripped muscles, I have what most people would call a “dad bod”. After I send a pic, he immediately blocks me. I’m thinking to myself how shallow are you that you’re worried about my body type when you messaged me first wanting to fuck me. I couldn’t say for certain that it got better because another guy who I found super attractive wanted to take me on a date afterwards, but at the time I didn’t want my family to know.

Nowadays, I’m living in a new city where every gay guy practically knows each other. You could say a person’s name and they would reply with how they look, how they kiss, how big their dicks are, and how they fair personality wise. Me being new, this is just another way of torturing myself with trying to find an actual boyfriend who would want to get married or have a life with me. I reverted back to dating apps for a little bit, but it’s always the same people who I talk to who will be friendly with me but not want to date me. I’ve even set boundaries. I like guys who are taller than me and can either be 4 years younger than me all the way to 10 years older than me. The only date I went on was with a guy who was 7 years younger than me and I did not feel comfortable at all. But when I was in the dating apps, I was still getting called ugly and fat, which caused my anxiety and depression to spike. It’s not right nor is it fair. I felt like shit. I felt undatable. I still feel those ways now, but not as much. I’m trying to get on the path of thinking positive about myself.

My only problem is, with dating in the gay community, you have to look like a Greek god to even get anywhere when it comes to dating. It’s awful because I don’t have the time or money to get to a gym (which is another reason why I need a new job). But I also want to prove to myself that I don’t have to have rippling muscles to get the guys of my dreams. Going to the gym isn’t a personality. Yes it’s good to go to the gym and getting fit, but basing your love life and personality around that does not mean you’re the best. I believe I have a good personality too. My only dilemma is trying to find someone who’s personality mixes with mine and my family.

To feel the positive part, though, is getting my mind to think I’m worth dating and I’m a good person. Ever since I’ve deleted the apps, I’ve been telling myself more and more that I am loved and important. I would write down the positives of the day then burn the negatives. It’s getting better. I’m getting better at telling myself I’m worthy and comfortably saying I’m good enough to be with someone. At first I was uncomfortable. It felt like a stranger was telling me I’m handsome or good looking and I wouldn’t believe them. I almost cried looking at myself in the mirror when I told myself I’m worthy. Now I’m getting used to saying positive words about myself. It’ll still take a moment to get comfortable, but the point is to trick my mind into thinking positively instead of negatively.

3) I need to get back into taking care of myself.

Currently, my body has only had the time to buy fast food and eat junk food at work. It’s not good for my body at all. I think about what I could be doing, but I remember my job doesn’t pay me enough to get the healthy grocery items I need to survive. I would love to get some food to cook everyday without feeling gross. All I’ve gotten was fast food the past 3 weeks and I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack. I want to eat more salads, fruits, and healthier meats. I think once I change jobs, I can actually afford to do so. It’ll be better so me to get in the habit of cooking and cleaning around the house. Right now my bedroom looks like a tornado when off in the room and I look like I’m nesting in plastic bags and clothes. It’s not healthy and the energy is off.

So here’s to me learning and processing. I’ll check back in a few weeks for an update.

Mel Feller Best Apps That Help You Earn Money

Mel Feller Best Apps That Help You Earn Money

 We all have smartphones, and almost everything we do with them necessitates using an app.  Would it not it be great if you could make some extra money just for using your phone?  Well, you can.  You are not going to get rich by downloading mobile apps that pay you, but you can use these to earn a passive income every month.  Moreover, you have to agree that something is better than nothing is!

 Considering some of these apps require you to do almost nothing, just watch videos or participate in paid surveys, it does not seem like a bad deal to make a few extra dollars.  In addition, they are free from the app store for iPhone or android.  Therefore, to get you started, here are some of our favorite moneymaking apps:

 Earn Money While You Watch TV

Certainly, surveys are not my favorite way to make money, but if you are just relaxing on the couch or guarding your eyes while being forced to watch “I love Lucy reruns”, why not click a couple buttons and earn a few bucks?

 There is a bunch of paid survey sites out there, but two of the best I have found are Swagbucks and MyPoints. Companies rated A by the Better Business Bureau run both of these sites. On MyPoints, you’ll earn a $5 bonus when you complete your first five surveys.

 Get Free Virtual Scratch-off Tickets

 There is something that is satisfying about those gas station scratch-off tickets, but it is better to avoid them because, well, that is not making money, that may be losing money.

Instead, try scratching free using an app called Lucktastic. Each day, it releases a new assortment of digital scratch-off tickets. Lucktastic says instant wins range from $1 to $10,000. You can also earn tokens, enter contests and play games. The app is underwritten by advertising, which allows it to keep the payouts high and the games free.

 Earn Cash Every Time You Shop and a $10 Bonus

 I know it sounds strange, but Ibotta will pay you cash for taking pictures of your grocery store receipts.

 Here is how it works:

Before heading to the store, search for items on your shopping list within the Ibotta app. When you get home, snap a photo of your receipt and scan the items’ barcodes. Ibotta is free to download. Moreover, you will get a $10 sign-up bonus after uploading your first receipt.

 Some cash-back opportunities I have seen include:

25 cents back for any item.

25 cents back on strawberries.

50 cents back on frozen fruit snacks.

$1 back on a box of tea.

$5 back on a case of Shiner Bock beer.

Notice a lot of those are not tied to a brand just shop for the staples on your list and earn cash back!

 Let This App Get You Lower Prices

 It turns out deleting your emails could be costing you serious money. Do you want to know more? One of my secret weapons is called Paribus, a tool that gets you money back for your online purchases. It is free to sign up, and once you do, it will scan your email archives for any receipts. If it discovers you have purchased something from one of its monitored retailers, it will track the item’s price and help you get a refund anytime there is a price drop.

 Build Your Savings Without Trying

 Saving money is tough. So what if you could do it in a way where you would not even notice?  Digit makes that possible.

 This innovative app automates saving for you. Simply link it to your checking account, and its algorithms will determine small (and safe!) amounts of money to withdraw into a separate, FDIC-insured savings account.

Please Note:  If you need that money sooner than expected, you will always have access to it within one business day.  Digit is free to use for the first 30 days, then it’s $2.99 per month afterward.

 Invest Your Pocket Change -- and Get $5

 You can start small and stack up change over time with its “round-up” feature. That means if you spend $10.23 at the grocery store, 77 cents is automatically dropped into your Acorns account.  Then, the app does the complete investing thing for you.

 The idea is you will not miss the digital pocket change, and the automatic savings stack up faster than you would think.   At that rate, you could set aside $1,000 in about two and a half years without trying.

 The app is $1 a month for balances under $5,000, and you will get a $5 bonus when you sign up.

 Download This App

 A number of companies will actually pay you for downloading apps on your smartphone or computer this is a great way to boost your passive income!

 One I love is called MobileXpression. After you have installed this app on your smartphone for one week, you get to play an instant rewards game for a prize everyone wins something. I have seen users win a $25 Amazon gift card, but some of the other prizes include iPads and Samsung TVs.

 The app collects data and helps companies better understand web and mobile usage such as what times of day people browse, how long they stay on websites and use apps, and what types of sites and apps are popular or which ones are not.

 Play the Slots

 Are you more of the “sit at home and play video games” type of person but you’re making yourself read this because you’re determined to get this rather fun game thing down?  The folks who created Long Game have you covered with a game that is fun and helps you achieve your financial goals.  

 As you save and accomplish missions, you will earn coins to play mini games for cash prizes! I am talking the classics, like slot machines, scratch-offs and spin-to-win wheels.

 Get Paid for the Things You Were Going to Buy Already

 Let us say that you have a need and now you have got a shopping trip planned already. If you have the Shopkick app downloaded, it will pay you in “kicks” just for walking into certain stores including Walmart, Target, TJMaxx and more. You can redeem them for gift cards to a number of retailers, including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Sephora and Best Buy.

 It pays you even more “kicks” for photos of receipts that include qualifying items you purchased in-store with a connected credit or debit card. You can also earn kicks for online purchases. You do not have to do anything; your linked cards will automatically apply your kicks.

 Get Rewarded for Paying Your Bills on Time

 Your parents probably gave you an allowance for washing the dishes and sweeping the floor when you were a kid. Now all you get for doing it is a kitchen that is clean for, like, 4 minutes.  As an adult, you do not typically get rewards for doing things that are expected of you until now.

 This invention rather rules them all: MoneyLion, a free all-in-one app for managing your personal finances.  MoneyLion offers rewards to help you develop healthy financial habits and will literally pay you for logging onto the app.

 You can earn points in the rewards program by paying bills on time, connecting your bank account or downloading the mobile app.  You can redeem those points for gift cards to retailers like Amazon, Apple and Walmart. If credit cards are not your thing, MoneyLion is like having a rewards credit card without the temptation to overspend.

 The app also connects with your entire bank, credit card, student loan and other financial accounts. Based on your income and spending patterns, it offers personalized advice to help you save money, reduce your debt and improve your credit.

 Find out Where You are Wasting Money

 We all sign up for stuff. Sometimes it is easier to put subscriptions on a recurring payment and forget about it but that just leaves us in depression once we are not using things and we have kept making payments for an extended period.

 If you cannot keep track of them all, check out an app called Trim. Once you sign up and connect your bank account and phone number, it analyzes your transaction history for recurring payments.  When it finds one, the app sends you a text and cancels any subscriptions you do not want to keep. That is money back in your pocket every month!

 Grow Your Money

 Where you stash your money is almost as important as how much you have. Maybe in a box? It is not earning you any interest in there. In a checking account? Probably not doing much for you there, either. Even if you keep it in a high-interest savings account, you are probably only earning around 0.05% on your balance.

 It is frustrating, for sure so you have to think outside your bank.

 Worthy is a free app that invests your money in bonds and pays out a fixed 5% annual interest rate — around 100 times more than what you’d get from the bank. The bonds act like a savings account — you can deposit or withdraw money at any time.  Say you have $300 in your Worthy account. You just passively banked $15 this year.  You can start investing with as little as $10. Moreover, that is still an extra 50 cents this year.

 Share Your Amazon Purchase History

 This is such an easy, passive way to rake in an extra $36 a year. ShopTracker, one of the leading public opinion research companies, wants you to share your Amazon purchase history. Moreover, you will be paid for every month you share!

 When you sign up for ShopTracker, it keeps your private information, well, private. All it wants to see is your order information.  To earn your first gift card today:

 Sign up, and download the ShopTracker app on your Windows computer and Apple or Android phone. It takes about two minutes. You will need to answer a few questions about your Amazon use to qualify.

Open the app and log in to your Amazon account to automatically share your purchase history. You will receive your Visa e-gift card code for $3 via email within 48 hours.

Take a couple of minutes to share your purchase history to earn another $3 each month.

 I hope you take the time to utilize some of these great apps and have fun making some extra cash!

 Mel Feller – Personal Development, Business, Execute, Internet and Real Estate Investments Coach/Mentor and Business Owner

 Mel Feller was a senior staffer for over 5 years with both United States Senator Jake Garn and The Senate Banking and Finance Committee.

 Mel Feller is a speaker at entrepreneurial forums training business professionals on marketing strategies and the “Secrets of Online Marketing”. He provides consulting services on all aspects of business including organizational performance, sales and marketing strategies, employee productivity and retention, successful solution implementation, technology leverage and customer service in all business and fields.

 Mel Feller's areas of technology expertise include emails and social media, solution development discipline and methodology, business process leads and project management.

 Mel Feller has twenty-five years’ experience with companies, nonprofits and individuals in the research and writing of both government and private grants.

 In addition to his regular consulting and management responsibilities, Mel Feller was published in the Top 100 Mentors; he has published two book on "Creative Real Estate Financing" and “Multiple Secrets to Success”, and presented numerous executive lectures for Fortune 500 corporations on “leadership and business practices”.

Visit him at www.melfeller.com and www.melfellersuccessstories.com

 Mel Feller’s dynamic presence, instinctive strategic vision, and creative thinking produce effective, sustainable bottom-line results for his clients. His “Can Do” attitude generates confidence in his executive coaching clients and strategic consulting corporate clients. Throughout Mel Feller’s career, he has increased the profitability of nearly every organization with which he has worked.

 Mel Feller has a unique ability to relate to his clients because he came from The United States Senate, where Mel was the Chief of Staff for a United States Senator and was always meeting with prominent business people or politicians.  His main love was dealing with constituents that were the grass root voters!  Since founding Coaching For Success 360 In 1989, he has effectively translated that experience into results for his clients. He focuses on separating daily distractions from the real issues in order to put the executive and/or business on the right path to grow and prosper. Results are immediate, growth sustainable, and profitability long-term.

 Dozens of Mel Feller’s clients have been on Inc.’s 500/5000 list and many have been named as a “Best Places To Work.

Using Mel Feller’s intuitive, systematic approach, and our proven strategic and tactical tools, we help you plan for profit.

 Mel Feller believes that what gets measured is improved. Therefore, he is continually developing processes and systems that allow you to easily measure, manage and maintain a highly profitable business.

 Mel Feller is  ready to help you increase your sales, trim and manage your operating costs and see your profits soar and/or leverage your time for Business or Real Estate!

  “Truth telling, honesty, and candor: I loved you Mel Feller! You have so much energy and knowledge! I truly hope I get another opportunity to be coached by you. I see myself a little clearer now, and it’s not so bad.”

Lisa Mathews

 “Mel Feller you added more value than we can possibly see right now. Mel Feller, you are warm, inviting, and accommodating. Thank you for coming alongside us in this transition!”

Vanessa Cavanaugh

“Mel Feller the best education session that we have attended in many years! Thank you so much — I am very excited to put everything you have taught us into practice!”

Michael Randolph

 “Mr. Mel Feller, Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving a marvelous keynote at our Symposium! While we have not yet collected the official feedback, the unofficial feedback was that You Were a Hit! I heard nothing but compliments regarding your presentations. Thank you for making such a positive impact on our attendees! ”

Lyle Cunningham VP

 "Mel Feller uses his humor, compassion, and direct nature to help bring out the best in me. Mel Feller is committed to helping me live...I mean, really live, life to its fullest."

Jose Rodriguez

 Mel Feller Links

 https://www.instagram.com/mel.feller  

 https://ourmrmel.tumblr.com/  

 https://www.pinterest.com/cfs360/  

 https://twitter.com/melfeller/following  

 https://wordpress.com/page/melfellerinternetbusinessinnovations.wordpress.com  

 https://dribbble.com/melfeller  

 https://biggerpockets.com/forums/79/topics/49008-larry-goins-bootcamp  

 https://txbusinessdb.com/p/mel-feller  

 https://xindex.com/c/12031660488/mel-feller-financial-services-group-inc  

 https://buzzfile.com/business/Coaching-For-Success-940-569-9260  

 https://melfellerrealestateinnovations.wordpress.com

 https://myspace.com/mfcfs360  

 https://goodreads.com/user/show/86266194-mel-feller  

 https://mfcfs.contently.com  

 https://alignable.com/wichita-falls-tx/coaching-for-success-360  

 https://quora.com/profile/Mel-Feller  

 https://about.me/melfeller  

 https://independent.academia.edu/MelFeller  

 https://medium.com/@mfcfs360  

 https://melfellerentrepreneurialideas.wordpress.com  

 https://about.me/melfeller  

 https://thecoachingoffice.com  

 https://quora.com/profile/Mel-Feller  

 https://linkedin.com/pulse/reflections-journaling-mel-feller-mel-feller  

 https://creonline.com/finally-my-first-deal  

 https://etrainingguide.com  

 https://reitips.com/open-letter  

 https://thecoachingoffice.com/testimonials.html  

 https://fortunebuilders.com/student-success-old/testimonials/page/9  

 https://agrandpaslove.blogspot.com  

 https://plus.google.com/u/0  

 https://youtube.com/channel/UCk_zDXJgadnWwmab0PhaIkQ/videos  

 https://linkedin.com/in/mel-feller  

 https://challengesinlife.com  

 https://melfellersuccessstories.com  

 https://melfeller.com  

Popcorn and movies, movies and popcorn — it’s an eternal pairing. For decades, the two have seemed as inseparable as peanut butter and jelly, peas and carrots, Bonnie and Clyde.

But that’s all changing. Movie theaters are increasingly distinguished from one another not just by which movies they’re playing, but also by the food and beverage that’s on offer. At most places you can still get popcorn, of course. But your neighbor might be munching on a panini, drinking a boozy milkshake, or snacking on a dessert specially created to accompany the movie you’re about to see.

That’s not surprising. The percentage of theaters’ revenue attributable to concession sales has climbed steadily over the past few years, even as ticket sales have fallen. In 2016, AMC’s concessions sales crossed the $1 billion mark, up 12 percent from 2015 and 28 percent from 2014. In the same time period, ticket sales sank, with poorly reviewed films, ticket costs, and myriad at-home viewing options all contributing to the downturn.

Popcorn isn’t always king at the movies anymore. Rob Kim/Getty Images for Showtime

So concessions are an increasingly important part of the movie exhibition business, especially as experiments like MoviePass and movie ticket subscriptions change people’s viewing habits. How we watch movies on the big screen is changing, and along with it, the way we eat at the movies is changing, too. Customers want to customize their experience — not just the movies they see, but the food they eat while they’re seeing them.

And if that increased focus on concessions helps save the movie theater business from going under, it won’t be the first time.

In the 1930s, the movie theater business — once a booming industry — found itself on hard times, crippled by the Depression. People didn’t have money even for the relatively cheap form of entertainment they were peddling. Theaters started to close.

But one type of theater survived: the kind that sold concessions. Some owners of fancier, higher-class movie theaters banned food, considering it to be beneath their business. But it turned out that theaters that peddled things like popcorn and candy were the ones that survived the Depression.

This seems counterintuitive: Why were people spending more at the theater if money was tight? But those who could afford a ticket apparently liked the cheap snack, and the relatively low cost of the reigning king of the concession stand — popcorn — meant that theaters made a huge profit, which kept them afloat. By 1945, half of all popcorn in America was consumed in movie theaters.

The movie theater business has had its highs and lows since then, of course — and right now, it’s in one of its slower periods. Movie theater attendance in the US hit a 25-year low in 2017, a drop likely attributable to a few factors: the soaring price of movie tickets, poor turnout during the blockbuster summer season, and the ever-present threat of streaming entertainment services like Netflix, which provide an inexpensive alternative to the theater.

The Blue Startlite Mini Urban Drive-In in Miami offers some traditional concessions, with a twist. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

So it’s probably no surprise that movie theaters have been reinventing the ways they sell concessions, too — especially since they pocket about 85 cents on the dollar, at least for conventional concessions. Not every food item can be sold at the sort of markup that cheap-to-make popcorn brings in, but the profit margin is still enticing (particularly for theaters that add alcohol to their menus).

And that’s why, around the country, you can find independent theaters selling specialty cocktails and fancy snacks in the lobby; franchise chains like the Alamo Drafthouse cinemas, which serve up a full menu including alcohol during the meal; and even fancier fare at multiplex megachains like AMC and Regal, which in some locations are supplementing their standard popcorn and nachos routines with chicken and waffles, sliders, and paninis.

If you want to see how these trends are playing out — and interacting with the shifting ways people attend theaters — New York City is the perfect test lab. There are plenty of standard multiplex cinemas scattered around the city, but they cohabitate with a new crop of independent theaters and repertory houses that have lately made it feel like New York movie culture is entering a new golden age.

And as many of New York’s theaters tinker with the ways they sell food and drink to their customers, a few trends emerge. Cinemas are looking to larger, more complicated menus and innovating in the ways they use their spaces to not just feed patrons differently, but lure them into the theater itself.

I exchanged emails with a number of people who create, manage, and implement menus at both chains and independent cinemas around New York City. Most of them noted that while people have always enjoyed eating at the movies, something has shifted in the past decade or so: Theaters started thinking in new ways about what kinds of foods they could offer. Instead of sticking with the same traditional snack foods — popcorn, Junior Mints, Reese’s Pieces, Sour Patch Kids, fountain sodas — they’ve seen a huge expansion in what counts as movie food.

“‘Dinner and a movie’ has been the go-to date night for decades, but it is only recently that exhibitors really embraced the idea of being the ones offering the dinner,” Ken Gillich, who is the senior director of food and beverage at Reading International and oversees the concessions at theaters including New York’s Angelika and City Cinemas locations, some of which offer cafe-style food as well as more traditional in-cinema concessions.

At the Alamo Drafthouse, where the food options are served in the theater by waiters, salads and a vegan menu are available alongside more traditional fare. Jeff Mann, Alamo’s vice president for food and beverage, noted that their guests are looking for healthier options these days — though they “still like to indulge when they go out, so we offer comfort food, like milkshakes and scratch-made pizzas with homemade toppings.”

What about a gourmet pizza with your movie? Heather Leah Kennedy/Alamo Drafthouse

Both big multiplex chains and smaller independent theaters have widened their focus from snacks to full-on meals in recent years. AMC, for instance, launched its “Dine-In” brand about a decade ago, partly to compete with theaters like Alamo. In the past couple years, AMC theaters have also started offering upgraded concessions (like flatbread pizzas and sliders) and, in some locations, alcoholic beverages.

Some Regal Cinemas have also gotten in on the act, offering alcohol and fast-food staples like burgers and wings. This has resulted in a sizable profit bump for the chain as well, which helped smooth over the losses from plummeting ticket sales.

But while chains like AMC and Regal have been testing concepts and varying the menu in locations around the country, it’s independent cinemas that have the most room for innovation and the ability to cater to their local community. Ragtag Cinemas in Columbia, Missouri — which helps host the highly respected True/False Film Festival every March — has two theaters, one small theater with couches and one a bit larger with more traditional seating.

The theater is attached to a restaurant area that serves everything from banh mi and vegan baked goods to soup and kombucha, as well as a full bar with local and national beers and wines. Patrons can eat at the restaurants or on the patio, or bring their food and drink into the cinema. “It reminded me of a ‘larger’ home theater completed with couches … delicious snacks, food and drinks from Uprise Bakery on the way in, and human(!) announcer for upcoming shows. Hipster indeed!” one Yelp reviewer wrote.

Alamo Drafthouse is technically a chain, but its theaters around the country are franchises and are independently operated. So while the theaters have some common menu items, they vary their menus slightly from location to location, based partly on regional tastes.

In Woodbury, Minnesota, for instance, Mann says the newest Drafthouse location came up with a Juicy Lucy, a “cheeseburger with cheese inside the meat instead of on top, resulting in a melted core of cheese — it’s a Minnesota classic.” They also have an “amazing” cheese curd starter on the menu. In locations like Brooklyn and San Francisco, the company hires a local chef to innovate within the Drafthouse framework: About 80 percent of the menu remains consistent from market to market, while 20 percent changes based on the location.

Even movie theaters that still mostly focus on traditional popcorn-and-candy offerings have thrown in a bit of their own flair. The cinemas at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for instance, which show both first-run theatrical releases and repertory films, offer brownies and cookies from a local bakery as well as ice cream bars. And cinemas such as IFC, Film Forum, and Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater supplement their offerings with baked goods, fancy ice cream sandwiches, and other offerings.

When Manhattan’s Quad Cinema relaunched in 2007 under a new owner, it opted for the traditional route, too — “classic, but with a few luxurious flourishes,” as general manager Barbara G. Vásconez told me. The ubiquitous popcorn got an upgrade: “We did a lot of research on popcorn brands and wanted to choose one that tasted natural and fresh,” Vásconez said, noting that “the smell of freshly popped popcorn that hits you when you walk into the lobby is an essential part of the moviegoing experience.” (Both the Quad and IFC also pride themselves on using real butter on the popcorn.)

The Michelin-rated restaurant at the Metrograph cinema in New York City serves a full meal and bar menu outside the theater. Metrograph LLC

The Metrograph theater — which is probably the most self-consciously gourmand-focused of New York’s theaters, with high-end concessions and a Michelin-rated restaurant — launched in 2016 with the goal of reminding moviegoers of an older golden age of Hollywood, with a distinctly local twist.

“I wanted to activate the feelings that I had as a little kid falling in love with the movies as I went to theaters in New York when I was 8 or 9 or 10 years old,” Alexander Olch, Metrograph’s founder and president, said. Olch noted that the concessions in the theater’s lobby include specialty flavors of popcorn created in the theater’s kitchens, candy imported from Asia and Europe, and more. “It has become a place where people also like to get their picture taken,” he said.

This wide variety of offerings at various theaters all within a few miles of one another — from traditional concessions to full-out dining menus — wasn’t part of most people’s moviegoing experience just a decade ago. But now, it’s common, and the industry seems to keep innovating. And for many cinemas, the offerings aren’t just a way of bringing in revenue; they’re a way of branding a theater, bolstering its aesthetic, and signaling to customers what kind of moviegoing experience they’re about to have.

That said, in-cinema dining presents a special set of challenges, since the food has to play second fiddle to the movie — but can also enhance it. “There is something cool about finishing off a chimichanga while watching Deadpool on the big screen say, ‘It’s time to make the chimichangas,’” Alamo’s Gillich wrote. “Or eating green eggs and ham while watching The Grinch.”

Brooklyn’s Nitehawk cinema also creates specials for its first-run films. But that’s easier in some cases than others. “We know that films that have to do with a lot of food and drinks or anything ‘fun’ lends themselves to more eating and drinking,” Jess Giesenkirchen, director of operations at Nitehawk, said in an email. “Films with subtitles or anything on the darker side won’t.”

As a hat-tip to Eighth Grade this summer, Nitehawk drew on a scene in which two characters eat chicken nuggets with “all of the sauces,” with a rum-based cocktail called “Things That Look Like a Banana,” a sly nod to one of the movie’s funniest scenes. The indie drama Skate Kitchen, set on New York’s Lower East Side, got a bourbon-based “Skate or Die” cocktail and an everything bagel-spiced arepa with smoked salmon and cream cheese named “Losaida,” a Spanglish slang term for the Hispanic section of the Lower East Side.

The Alamo Drafthouse enlisted Kumail Nanjiani to devise a Pakistani-themed menu to accompany screenings of his film The Big Sick in 2017. Alamo Drafthouse/Heather Leah Kennedy

Themed in-cinema menus are part of Alamo’s business as well. “One of our most challenging and rewarding experiences was last summer with The Big Sick,” Mann wrote. “It’s not a movie specifically about food or cooking, but with the Pakistani culture and family meals playing such a large role in the film, it felt like a way to really enhance the film experience — and provide our guests a taste of something they’d never had before.”

So they got some help. “We reached out to the star and co-writer Kumail Nanjiani, who helped curate a menu of his Pakistani favorites, and these specials ran for over a month in theaters across the country,” Mann wrote. “They were really, really popular. And we got Kumail’s seal of approval.”

Other cinemas have elected to make their full-dining or bar offerings a separate experience from the movie-watching. That may seem like a familiar concept to people accustomed to going to the movies in a shopping mall and stopping by a food court, a Ruby Tuesday, or a Johnny Rockets beforehand.

But those restaurants aren’t directly associated with the theater. And cinemas around the country have been innovating in how they offer food outside the theater, too. In addition to Alamo, chains like Movie Tavern and Cinebistro offer food and drinks both in the theater and in the adjacent restaurant, depending on the location. Some restaurants even repurpose spaces that existed already — for instance, the St. Johns Theater & Pub in Portland, Oregon, was first built in 1905 for the World’s Fair; now they serve up food and drinks in the pub and show movies in the theater.

In New York, Metrograph has a cocktail bar in its first-floor lobby and a full restaurant on the second floor, both of which can be visited without buying a movie ticket. The restaurant, which Metrograph calls the Commissary, was inspired by old-school Hollywood commissaries on studio lots. The restaurant is also meant to be “a place that people come to work, to hang out, to drink, to have parties, without necessarily regard for what the showtimes are” — and then, maybe, decide to stick around for a movie.

The bar at the Quad is a place for patrons to hang out before or after a movie. Quad Cinema/Yekaterina Gyadu

A similar idea is behind the bar at the Quad, which serves up coffee, wine, and beer in a space adjacent to the theater’s lobby, Vásconez says the bar was intended to be a space for cinephiles to congregate before and after films. “Moviegoers could discuss and debate a film they just saw, and also engage in conversation that might inspire them to go see something they might not have otherwise,” she said.

But they’ve discovered that the bar has become a bit more. “While the majority of our patrons are film lovers on their way in or out of a screening, we have made plenty of cinephiles out of wandering barflies, due in no small part to our awesome bartenders who know as much about movies as they do about our rotating wine and beer offerings,” Vásconez said.

Having a separate, stand-alone space for eating and drinking at a cinema may seem only tangentially related to the moviegoing. But it’s interesting to note that both the Metrograph and the Quad say people sometimes come for the food, then decide to go to the movie. Certainly part of this is due to the foot-traffic patterns of New York City moviegoers — without having to drive to the movie theater and park the car, spur-of-the-moment decisions to see a film can come easily.

This was especially important in the heyday of MoviePass, when a person might have been more likely to decide to see an old, foreign, or obscure film since they didn’t pay the cost of the ticket. MoviePass seems to be headed for its demise, so this may change in the future.

Yet it seems likely that having people near a cinema as they eat, drink, and relax — particularly in cinemas that specialize in movies that aren’t being advertised widely on billboards or in trailers — may direct more people into the actual theater. That’s everyone’s end goal: to get people to buy tickets to the movies.

Whether cinemas have been tweaking their traditional offerings or going full upscale, it’s clear that the biggest factor has been thinking about how to distinguish the moviegoing experience at their establishment — and food and beverages play a big role. People want to customize their moviegoing experiences, and what they eat is part of that.

That matters, because cinemas are struggling once again with how to stay viable. This summer, theater attendance broke records, but the same period in 2017 saw the lowest attendance ever. The rise of MoviePass helped show that people really do want to go to the theater but that movie ticket costs are a hurdle for many.

A patron at Metrograph enjoys a drink before a movie. Metrograph LLC

Although adding even more ways to spend money may seem counterintuitive, it’s worked. And that has everything to do with why people go to the movie theater. In the age of streaming, for most people, a trip to the theater isn’t just an excuse to watch a movie. It’s an excursion, a night out, an event. The same, for many people, goes for eating out. So combining the two in ultimately complementary ways has been a success for businesses and customers alike.

Most people seem to agree, however, that while a snack or a meal or a cocktail is connected to the cinema experience, the primary focus is still getting people to see and enjoy what’s on offer on the big screen. (And that’s likely true even for those who sidle up to the bar at a place like Metrograph or the Quad.)

“Ultimately, we believe the movies should be the main attraction,” Wells said. “Everything else is there to enhance the experience of the film, not to distract or overshadow.”

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Original Source -> Why movie theaters are trading popcorn and soda for chimichangas and custom cocktails

via The Conservative Brief

Business Amazon, Following Apple, Reaches $1 Trillion in Value

Business Amazon, Following Apple, Reaches $1 Trillion in Value Business Amazon, Following Apple, Reaches $1 Trillion in Value http://www.nature-business.com/business-amazon-following-apple-reaches-1-trillion-in-value/

Business BREAKINGImageAmazon’s founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, is richer, by far, than anyone in the modern world.CreditCreditDavid Ryder/Getty ImagesSAN FRANCISCO — When Apple’s market value crossed a trillion dollars last month, the reason was simple: It makes devices that a lot of people are willing to spend a lot of money on.Now Amazon has become the second American company to cross that once-unimaginable line. Its founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, is worth nearly as much as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett put together.This time, the explanation is more complicated.Amazon captures 49 cents of every e-commerce dollar in the United States. It employs more than 550,000 people and generates $178 billion in annual revenue. It sells everything from computing space to peanut butter to appointments with plumbers.But the thing it has always sold the most — to investors, customers, the media — is excitement.In the beginning, Amazon was an exciting new way to shop for books: online. Then it was an exciting new way to read (Kindle e-books), an exciting new way to publish (CreateSpace), an exciting new way to power the internet (Amazon Web Services), an exciting new way to get deliveries (Amazon Prime), an exciting new way to make your house a high-tech outpost (Alexa).Long before Amazon went to Hollywood and began making movies, it was the star of its own show, generating vast amounts of attention just for being Amazon. No company ever managed to turn its lack of profit into such effective drama, or the question of what its next move would be.Amazon’s search for a second headquarters, the company having run out of room and patience in its hometown, Seattle, set off a nationwide frenzy among politicians. Mr. Bezos even gamified his philanthropic plans, taking to Twitter to solicit advice about what he should do. (One popular recommendation: Pay your warehouse workers more.) Would Amazon collapse, or would it eat the world? It was the corporation-as-reality series, and it’s been a long-running hit.Public companies usually live under the tyranny of Wall Street, which prizes profits to the exclusion of all else. When Facebook and Twitter recently purged their rolls of fake users and began devoting more effort to cleaning up their acts, Wall Street did not applaud this civic-minded move but pummeled their shares.Mr. Bezos made clear when Amazon went public in 1997 that he would not work for Wall Street, and the result was a company cast in an entirely different mold. It never feared losing money. In a real sense, there were no consequences for being wrong.[Read more about how the $1 trillion milestone reached by Apple and Amazon reflects the rise of powerful megacompanies.]Behind the drama is a relentless and sometimes scary ambition. Amazon is the Jay Gatsby of American companies, believing that tomorrow it will run faster, stretch its arms out farther, fulfill the desires of consumers in ways that no other business possibly could. You will live in Amazon’s world, it says, and you will like it.The retailer has retained this futuristic luster even as Facebook, Twitter and Google, which touted their own versions of technoparadise, have become suspect. It has retained its allure even as many of its ventures have tanked. Remember Kindle Singles? They were electronic articles hailed as the virtual reinvention of nonfiction. No one even noticed when the program fizzled.ImageAmazon began as an exciting new way to shop for books: online. It later promoted electronic reading with its Kindle device.CreditJeenah Moon for The New York Times“We like to go down unexplored alleys and see what’s at the end. Sometimes they’re dead ends,” Mr. Bezos said in 2009. “Sometimes they open up into broad avenues and we find something really exciting.”One of the great benefits for Amazon of this approach is that it is impossible to tell where reality ends and hype — or perhaps even madness — begins.Take Amazon’s drone program, which it first announced on “60 Minutes.” “I know this looks like science fiction,” Mr. Bezos said, as he showed a film of a unmanned vehicle delivering a package. “It’s not.” He said there were “years of additional work” to be done, but declared himself an optimist. Drone delivery, he predicted, would be a reality in “four, five years.”That was December 2013. Roughly a million features were written about Amazon and its drones, nearly all with the subtext: Isn’t this the coolest thing ever?Over the years, the company kept raising the stakes, as if they were not already high enough. Amazon applied a few years ago for a patent for an “aerial fulfillment center” that would float at 45,000 feet. Drones would fly out of it with your order and then glide down to your backyard.What delivery could possibly be important enough to merit such a crazy system? The patent has a suggestion: “Prepared hot food.” We wanted flying cars, but we got flying burritos instead.

29 pages, 2.89 MB The fulfillment center, which looks in drawings like a blimp tugging a warehouse, has other uses besides delivering dinner. It would drift down to 2,000 feet to what the patent calls “the advertising altitude,” where it would present information “about items and/or services.” Perhaps it will be just like the movie “Blade Runner,” and the floating ads will tout the joys of working in Amazon’s off-world colonies. The patent was granted this summer.Still not impressed? Earlier this year Amazon got a patent to more or less bomb people with their packages. The drone would drop the burrito or Stephen King blockbuster from a height of as much as 25 feet, in theory cushioning the plunge with an airbag.Haye Kesteloo, senior editor of the news site DroneDJ, noted that there are many hurdles to routine delivery by drone, even if the vehicles are not being launched from airships. The claimed drone attack on President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela will not help soothe nervous citizens.Nevertheless, Mr. Kesteloo, like Mr. Bezos, proclaims himself an optimist. “Companies like Amazon will make routine drone deliveries to consumers by 2025,” he said — only twice as far away as promised.There are reasons to be skeptical about even this schedule. But that’s the magic of Amazon. Even if the drones do not pan out, they have kept attention focused on the company, fulfilling a different part of the business plan. There is scarcely any oxygen left to discuss the more contentious aspects of Amazon, like its scorn for taxes or its plans to capture much of local government purchasing.“There is no doubt anymore,” said Ron Nussbaum, who runs an investment management fund called Maverick Value in Los Angeles. “The stock always goes up and no one doubts it will keep going up.”ImageThe retailer has a futuristic luster. Its warehouses, including this one in Florence, N.J., are increasingly packed with technology.CreditBryan Anselm for The New York TimesMr. Nussbaum, who stresses that overall his investments are profitable, might be the last Amazon skeptic. “It’s an honor,” he said.And an expensive one. Last year, when Amazon crossed $1,000 a share, he started buying “put” options — bets that the stock would decline. One of his puts has dropped 85 percent; another, 92 percent. To get to the $1 trillion valuation, Amazon’s stock crossed the $2,050.27 per share mark on Tuesday.Mr. Nussbaum is planning to buy more. He thinks people are confusing their impressions of Amazon the company with Amazon as an investment.“If I fill up your gas tank for $1 but it costs me $2, you can say it’s a great product but it doesn’t make any sense as a company,” he said.Apple had profits of $48 billion last year. Amazon’s were less than a tenth of that. If profits were all that mattered, Amazon should be worth about $100 billion, the size of United Technologies or Texas Instruments. That is nothing to sneeze at, but nothing to get people excited either.[How Apple’s $1 trillion valuation dwarfs that of other huge companies.]Even before Amazon hit $1 trillion, the milestone was old news. There was a poll on Facebook run by a group of young Wall Street investors. The question: Would Amazon or Apple be the first to hit $2 trillion?The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of Amazon. Dreams will always triumph over devices.Follow David Streitfeld on Twitter: @DavidStreitfeld. Interested in All Things Tech? Get the Bits newsletter delivered to your inbox weekly for the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry. Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/amazon-stock-price-1-trillion-value.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/david-streitfeld

Business Amazon, Following Apple, Reaches $1 Trillion in Value, in 2018-09-04 16:43:56