Server Life

She took my cameras. I took a year’s worth of pictures on 35mm for wall decorations before internet pictures and she stranded them somewhere in Corpus Christi. Six months ago. I have no energy left. Here’s a picture of me with a crew I never got to fully appreciate. You can tell who is missing his gf in this picture. I travel solo now.

Were homosexual or bi-curious in Texas than they were in Cincinnati, St. Thomas, and Breckenridge. Especially Breckenridge haha I’m missing the small by looking at giants.

Now that it’s been almost six weeks of this, here’s how my schedule works: 8:30 AM: Wake up to my alarm and shower. Drink several glasses of water while spending an hour on the computer waking up and catching up with the world. 10 AM: Go to the bus stop 10:30 AM: Get to Breck. Go to one of three quick breakfast spots (Or, if town’s unreasonably busy, Subway cause it’s always dead haha) and fill my face before work. 11 AM: Get to work. Clean (Dig) dried guacamole and salsa out of the wireframe tables, this can take a while -_- Put up happy hour boards. 12 AM: Deal with the lunch rush, which consists of a bunch of families coming to a tequila bar and being unhappy we 1) Don’t have burgers or salads 2) Don’t have olives for martinis or coffee 3) We don’t have their specific craft beer they tried on their last vacation. I’m not listing you the beer taps. We have 37. Here’s a list. 1 PM: Deal with the tables at the end of the lunch rush, which on a busy day are unhappy because their everything-made-fresh bar food took more than thirty minutes to prepare. I do try to warn tables when I notice the entire town coming in for a meal at one time, but I do forget on occasion because I also have to: All Day: In addition to serving, I have to bus and host at all times. This can mean pausing a table from ordering to steer a two top to a small table and not blocking my eight seater for two hours. As this is White People capital of the U.S., everyone gets extremely... how do I say... ‘Officially’ pushy with their requests. They’re being nice about asking for things. Technically. Too bad they word their request so there’s no right answer except letting two people take up a huge table. Oh, and if there’s no food runner I have to balance all of that while going DOWNSTAIRS into the kitchen for chips and tacos. A few times I have to help with making drinks too. I’m not supposed to until I’m being yelled at to do so. Yay. 3 PM: Much-needed moment of respite, as lunch ends and the happy hour crowd starts creeping into town. Along with the constant misunderstanding on how clearly-labeled happy hour specials work, the bartenders change shifts and 1-3 other servers arrive between now and 5. Hosting now involves a 3-5 person rotation, which without a designated host I’m the most qualified to accommodate the mental juggling. A bit of light humor with my coworkers as we run our asses off for $20 four tops. Still the lowest stress part of the day. 6:30 PM: Dinnertime. What always begins with a fully stocked restaurant quickly devolves into a pit of chaos. I juggle the rotation until the owner starts forcing tables out of order, or I get sent downstairs for a party or someone can’t handle more tables. The water cups quickly all find use, and pitchers become empty constantly. Refilling them involves forcing oneself into a narrow bar area and getting in the way, so nobody does it. What starts with happy groups of well-spending drinkers quickly breaks down into drunken vacationers pissed their tacos are taking 45-60 minutes to arrive. Parents can’t eat and get their loud, starving kids away from the loud, cussing partiers in the tequila bar they willingly entered. More white people enter as the tables are all full and get visibly angry at other white people for daring to eat dinner at the same time as them. 8:30 PM: My brain hurts. Several tables have walked out or gotten stuff comped, overly entitled people are trying to banish me to Hell for not making my restaurant do things it’s not designed to do. A couple coworkers are joking about walking out, the owners have started drinking, and I’m struggling to keep my face on so I don’t get short with the slowly-diminishing inflow of new guests. Everything looks bleak. 9:30 PM: Sun is down, it’s getting cold. The patio finally flips for the final time, which means not as many servers are needed. I’m finally nearing the end. Sidework the only part of this entire experience that’s easier than average: Maybe 20 minutes tops. Oh, another positive: Jaded bartenders pouring me more and stronger shift drinks than I’m supposed to have as they want to be vicariously drunk through me as they have their own personal Hell following dinner, which lasts until 12-2 AM. I joke with a few of the cool guests and finally completely ignore the shitty ones. Head out before the owners suspect I’m drinking more whiskey than I should. Rest of night: Whether it be home or out, I am drinking. Alcohol always. It kills everything inside. Being alone is harder, all the thoughts of my broken future I had lost with her find new ways to manifest themselves at all times. Being out and about with people keeps me occupied. Hopefully I’m asleep by 2, 2:30 on a good night. The bad ones I’m up until the very beginning of sunrise and finally black out enough to wake up again. 8:30 AM: Wake up to my alarm and shower. I do this six days in a row. It’s just the same day. They’re unique but they’re not. How my off day goes: Off day: Numb Bliss My off day is tomorrow. Just gotta survive today, Monday, which is easier than the weekends by a bit. Wish me luck. Until next time you beautiful fucks

Seven doubles in a row, had to do a bunch of errands in the morning, desired to go for a hike and attend a party last evening. Ended up with extreme vertigo before the hike and couldn’t physically control my limbs. That was a new experience. I’m halfway there

The controversies that surround the practice of tipping occur at all times; the restaurant should pay my salary, I can’t thank my kitchen for perfecting a large party’s order without a quip about a tip share, bartenders working in table service restaurants always bitching the minute they don’t make the most money of all the FOH staff. The list goes on. It’s honestly quite frustrating to me, when I learned there’s a potential to earn some real money my response was not jealousy, it was to be the best at being the person who earns that money. Guess the world can’t be full of go-getters. My favorite human behavior to people watch has, for several years, been the rituals people exhibit when they leave bad/no tips after I do the same level of service I do for all my paying tables. A lot of times it’s reminiscent of how a dog acts when they shit on the carpet or when a child destroys half the kitchen. Luckily it happens little enough to where I find it mildly amusing and not restrictive. The verbal tip - the most common of these, usually accompanies a poor/bad tip and not a complete stiff. I personally find this more of an eye roller than insulting, as the difference between a good and their tip is a few bucks. Whatever. Hiding the credit card slip - If I gotta undo some origami level folding to enter the tip into the PoS, it’s a 90% chance I’ve got less than ten percent to look forward to. Exploiting tragedy - this happens the least often in this list, but has always accompanied a 0% tip. A lady falls out the front steps and hits her head, some crazy woman on xanax flips out at us for being racist, the power goes out in the entire town. Next thing I know I’ve got $100+ checks that I’m losing money on thanks to tip out based on sales. How is any of that shit my fault? Hating me for traveling - happened the first time recently, but I had a 3% tip with a note that stated ‘Server not from Colorado’. Fuck off is all I have to say to that one. Hater. Lying like a little twit - the one that pisses me off the most >:( Had a dude drinking a beer after his family meal as the rest of them went shopping so he could watch NASCAR. Kept checking on his drink and kept his water full. Two minutes after his family returns a coworker tells me “Table 2 is looking for you, saying they haven’t seen you in a while and they need beers.” They wanted the check immediately. 5% GTFOH assholes Food quality or length of cooking time - I can understand not having any desire not to tip above the bare minimum if you didn’t enjoy your experience, but especially if I warn you against less-liked items or the high volume and its affect on meal preparation time, what do you want me to do? I’ll get you another beer chill. Dining in the wrong location - I can understand being unhappy with a loud drunken party of thirty year olds drowning out your family dinner at 7 PM, but if you bring your grade schoolers out to eat at a Tequila bar at 9:30 at night, don’t look at me like I care. I don’t. Paying in cash and disappearing in record time - Thirty seconds to round up all your coats and bags and get four people out the door without me seeing you is awfully impressive. Hopefully you rounded up to the dollar, might cover what I owe the busser. Splitting the check and being a cheapskate - Splitting a check three ways, two credit cards with the same name and cash, doesn’t make tipping 15% on one bill and not the other two ok. And you wasted my time instead of just shitting on my soul with one payout. Thanks for that. Asking twenty questions about a dish, then finding the one point you didn’t ask a question about and complaining about it to get free food *breathe* - I practically lay out the entire cooking process for a dish, just to have you eat two thirds of it then have everything removed from the bill and leaving exact change on one 1/4 the amount. Now you’re fucking over my coworkers and not just me >:( Coming in five minutes before close - your meal was awkward and stiff because you were the only two people in a dining room designed for 150 patrons. I’m not a magician. There’s probably a few more I’ve missed (Never had the ‘Food and service was great, I’m just poor!” excuse written on a $70 tab) so if I successfully set this thing up to leave responses, feel free to ignore this and leave me sounding like a crazy person :P

It’s quite a rough life.... only for another month, and only because I can regain all the resources I exhausted getting to the islands and Texas over the past year. All of it. To imagine what I’m making, imagine yourself serving a busy Saturday night, for ten hours a day, six days a week. Yea it’s a lot. Adventures are seemingly coming in September, when this ends. I actually have a couple weeks completely off as my store will close for a break. Sweetness.

So I took a step towards making this blog awesome and bought a GoPro for cheap.... here’s a bunch of pictures of wildflowers near my house.

I know you all want to :) - Despite its legal status, for people stickin’ to the good ol’ chron john, most residents of Summit County so far seem to prefer buying it illegally. Two reasons 1) Independent growers will undercut the dispensaries with $25 eighths 2) The quality difference is readily noticeable if the independent grower has just a decent amount of knowledge and experience. A lotta chemicals seem to be going into the legal stuff. - Despite its legal status, the community of Breckenridge seems to have a lightly negative attitude towards cannabis. They forced the shops that opened on Main Street to close, as to not affect the image of their slutty douchebag bro trash bars. They put them back in the corner of town, much closer to the elementary school. I’ve only seen one smoking circle behind one of the more low-key bars. Contrast that to Austin, Texas, where it’s way more illegal yet I’d see people smoking publicly on a consistent basis. - There are THC and CBD patches now. - The amount of plastic medicine containers that are being used to meet legal requirements makes me somewhat sick. What was wrong with minimalist plastic baggies? - I get to have super awesome awkward conversations with tables who think they have to talk to me about buying it as if I was selling it myself. I can’t get enough! - As far as Summit County is concerned, people still drink to extreme excess. So much for legal weed stopping that. - Also hard drugs are still present. I thought mountains would feature significantly less cocaine than places near the ocean. Nope. - We’re getting shit on in Ohio with $50/Eighth pricing >:( - Everyone touches the white-hot nail on the dab rig once. It fucking hurts. - Part of the reason other states and individuals can’t call out ‘Weed Tourism’ too much is because millions of people have been vacationing here for all of time. I’m sure the original Americans even did. It’s gorgeous here. - Definitely way more Grateful Dead fans here than I’m used to. - The only place you see everyone being completely comfortable about the subject is.... the T-Shirt stores? It’s confusing. - I’m hoping Denver is way different than Breckenridge (Duh) - DUI Stops are now all about sobriety tests, not breathalyzers - Thanks to the medicine bottles, 40 mg seems to equate to an average oral dose while 80 mg is a strong dose. 10 mg is more of a medicinal dose than a psychoactive one. And finally - Nothing’s really that different than it was anywhere else.

So, yea, between moving to Colorado on a whim and having the love of my life push me away, a lot of people have been very supportive of me. Well... in their own ways. It’s honestly a lot of talk but, what do you do for someone who’s traveling the world willy-nilly while you’re sitting in your hometown with nothing to look forward to? Sharing pictures and stories seems like the best thing anyone can do. My least favorite part are variations on this sentence: “It all happened for a reason so you can learn and grow.” Bullshit. I’m not saying I can’t learn and grow from bad experiences, but the concept of everything being tied to this line of fate our lives are set on and these challenges are also good.... that doesn’t sit right with me. We are the masters of our own fate, the grass is greener where you water it, some things that don't kill you leave you emaciated and broken, painful things aren't always beautiful and new beginnings can be worse than the last. I appreciate all the positive sentiments but seriously, a lot of people are taking that line of thinking into false territory. Not all things happen for a reason, some happenings in life are pointless. The best way to give something meaning is to DO IT YOURSELF. Leaving it up to a higher power is not acknowledging the higher power we all possess. It’s almost dismissive, when you are open with the pain you’re experiencing and the only response you get is ‘It all happened for a reason’. To me, it expresses a lack of interest, it has nothing to do with taking a critical look at the situation. It also functions as a good way to shrug off any responsibility if you were involved in any way. Don’t gotta answer for anything you did, it was all Fate’s fault! As for those not involved, they’re trying but I think they sometimes forget how us humans love to live pain vicariously through others. Between the shock I gave my hometown from moving suddenly to a place people always dream about, to the breakup of two really happy people, I’m starting to feel like I’m on stage. Instead of making this my travel blog I seem to be reverting it back to my venting blog. Path of least resistance, I suppose.

It doesn’t make things better or worse; It just makes all the nuances and changes that much more striking. I need balance and I’m forcing my brain to work in overdrive finding it.

really is becoming an important part of my overall happiness. Cincinnati has good water; prolly why our beer is so amazing. Couldn’t brew any in St. Thomas cause it’s all converted ocean water... it was tolerable to drink, usually I was so thirsty I could care less. Summit County has delicious water, every house and restaurant I’ve been in tap water is great. Austin is not so fortunate, at least the section I was in (apparently our source was the Colorado River) it tasted dirty. I found myself going to the gas station for bottled drinks way more often. Finally we bought one of those pitchers you can make cucumber lemon water with. Still was time consuming. Colorado also boasts better beer than Austin, so maybe that’s correlated maybe not. Point is, water.

The view from my front porch

Not even gonna try to pretty this one up or put it in any specific order, here’s the unnecessary-but-ever-present list observations I’ve made of similarities between these two locations. A bit of background, keep in mind that Breck is a tourist mountain town for skiing (not right now, summer boasts a slew of other activities) and STT is a tourist island (Of which I’ve been there only during winter); the rest of my life has been spent in Cincinnati, visiting various areas and cities in the Midwest and South (And NYC). So all the ways the first two are similar and the rest aren’t is what this list is. I don’t know which ones will be surprising and which ones will be obvious. Let’s go: - Beautiful summer days in the Rockies feature the same sun that a beautiful winter day in the islands does. - Weather is best predicted by looking at the sky, which way the clouds are coming from, and what’s coming. Rain occurs in both locations sporadically almost every day while long-lasting storms are rare. - Looking up from town into the hills at the rich houses overlooking the scenery porn surrounding main street. - Almost no chain restaurants, it’s all locally owned and operated table-service and counter-service spots. - Rent prices are roughly the same in both places; Expensive. ~$700 for a room or ~$1000 for a one bedroom or big studio, with cheaper spots existing if you know where to look off in the corners of both regions. - Extremely-easy-to-use bus systems due to layout; Outside of several beaches, Safaris in St. Thomas get you to most places you’ll want to go regularly, and Summit County has an easy layout for the buses to just go back and forth on a crooked line. The similarity ends with convenience; buses in Summit are way more comfortable and are FREE! (Not that dropping a dollar or two on a Safari ride was ever something I thought about). - They’re both tourist areas. OK sorry moving on: - I’ve heard the same story in both places from similar individuals: “Yea, I came here to visit 25 years ago and here I am!” - A bunch of restaurants feature delicious Mahi Mahi dishes that don’t kill the bank. Yea, I dunno why that’s true in the Rockies. I was having trouble finding decent Mahi or Swordfish plates in Austin for under $22 and that was three hours from the ocean. Capitalism is weird. - I can walk fifteen minutes from where I live and arrive at a bar that features Cruzan Rum. I live near Lake Dillon up here which kinda explains it. - I work with a quirky cast of 20 and 30 something misfits from all over the U.S. - Dogs frequently roam off leash, often without any human as well. - Despite cannabis being a known and accepted part of the culture, there are a vocal part of the communities that do not like it and don’t appreciate it being public. To contrast you can smoke on Sixth St. in Austin if you try, and in many bars you can get away with it too. - $10-$11 seems more like the ‘minimum’ wage in both areas (As the kids say, gotta check my white privilege here, I’m fairly certain there’s still people being taken advantage of for federal minimum in both places) - Tourists get really drunk - The bars are amazing until those nights when tons of douche-bros and easy women show up - There are definitely people on cocaine - Some of the coolest people you’ll meet are the outdoor enthusiasts. They are usually very willing to introduce newbies to some amazing scenery porn - SUV’s and Jeeps - St. Thomas features Catamarans; here they have Catarafts (OK not a similarity but still, a Cataraft? Awesome) - There’s never a such thing as too many beautiful women - Bars called Fatty’s - Dark and Stormy’s - Mosquitoes - Areas where they’ve given up on the roads - Facebook pages, one dedicated solely to helping with housing and one dedicated solely to people buying/trading stuff - A sense of connectedness to the random people you meet living here too, moreso than in cities. - Scary windy roads OK my brain’s getting mushy, is that enough?

Step one for running a travel blog: Share pictures and experiences of the places you travel to. I have completely failed step one. I’ve come to learn there’s a lot of new emotions that came into play when setting up the whole experience in advance; my first travel experience was done on a whim, with many of my extended circle not learning of my endeavor until (sometimes months) after I was on St. Thomas. This time around, I made a production of it; started this blog, started a Tripadvisor, constant Facebook activity, bringing people with me, I wanted to share my glorious experience with the world. I built up the expectations in others. The highest expectations I built were in myself. Everyone knows what high expectations can do. So yea, things didn’t go as planned. A few things didn’t work at all; most of my attempts at moving forward were met with some form of success. However, my reaction made it seem like the world was ending. Criticism started flooding in, the reality of my decisions and circumstance were brought to light, and I let my ego blind me. I was hurt, and I let that excuse hurting everyone and anyone. Worst of all, I let it hurt her. And she left. The one blessing I received for my travels and she doesn’t feel comfortable being around me now. Granted, I’m making it sound horrible (There were many amazing times we shared right up until a month ago, experiences I owe to you all so you may be inspired) but I didn’t address my mistakes quickly enough and I’ve paid deeply. Been over a month now and the pain has not receded an inch. I didn’t come on here to hurt (I’ve got family and friends to inflict that upon, I am blessed to be able to say that) I came here to start sharing things. So let’s go. I have two friends, brothers, one was coming through Austin from NOLA on the way to Colorado to visit the other. In my infinite suffering I realized I could fund a trip by catching a ride and staying with them for a few days for almost nothing. I had never been this far west; never seen the mountains. The experience of first arriving here, of driving past South Park High School and the Continental Divide, knowing I was as close to the Pacific as I’d been, was extraordinary. I didn’t want to leave... I had nothing to go back to in Austin, A great job, sure, but besides that and my coworkers I had nothing. I was there with her and I’d continue to try and be there with her if I had opportunities. It’s very fortunate Breckenridge is a tourist town, because I found a job within 24 hours of arriving. I didn’t have to leave anymore, and with the option I decided to stay. It took a couple weeks but I found a room in an awesome house with some awesome roommates and an awesome dog. I’m currently typing this on our porch, with the mountains framing the laptop screen as I look. Emotional pain sucks but living in a painting can help alleviate the symptoms. Lemme write a list for you, I’ve got something immediately interesting I can put together :)

I got a lot to say, but I’m still suffering through some losses right now. Not gone though. Just derelict at the moment.

Here’s a few of those ‘articles’, whatever they technically qualify as I don’t care, that I’m thinking will be really good as the standard weekly/monthly postings for this blog, with my stream-of-consciousness posts about myself and my life occurring sporadically like they always do. I really do want this blog to be popular and liked, and read, so I guess it’s time to roll up my sleeves and do some real work. A few ideas I’m considering: - City/Region, In Depth: Posts in this group will be a narrowly-focused look at anything related to restaurants, bars, food, drinks, and culture in whatever city or region I am currently living in. Austin will, naturally, be the first one to be featured for these. I’m thinking roughly a monthly update will suffice for these, maybe breaking posts into two parts if I have a lot to say. - A Week In City/Region: These posts will be regarding places I will be visiting as a vacation, similar to how I covered numerous aspects of Austin back in October for my first time in the city for ten days. The focus will be less on the deeper meanings and impact of culture, less on the competition and differences in restaurants and bars, and more covering how my experiences feel, as well as recommendations to places I enjoyed during my stay. - Bartending 101: I’m by no means a bar expert, but I’ve accumulated enough knowledge to this point that I’m in a prime spot to teach individuals with little knowledge in alcohol better than most. I just got out of the dark, allow me to show you the light. Experienced bartenders and servers will probably skip over these articles, but I hope to include a few interesting facts at times that may surprise those better versed in spirits. - The Ultimate Guide To Rockstar Serving: Still working on the name, but I really want these posts to stand out from the rest. There are those of us, many who will work in the industry for life/most of life, who take our jobs very seriously, and always are looking for ways to improve. A friend of mine once ran a website for a bit called ‘Rockstar Serving’ or somesuch and that’s the best way I’ve heard anyone put it: it’s a term for those of us who demand to work hard and play harder. These posts will center around various aspects of working as a service professional, taking a microscope to methods and routines restaurants employ and the theories behind them. Taking what makes a restaurant successful, making it a personal aspect of ourselves as employees, is what puts us above the rest. - Where To Work?: A series of posts that will focus on 1) types of restaurants and 2) serving in different tourism spots/cities, in regards to the types of hours, pay, clientele, perks, upsides, downsides, and in-between-sides to working different varieties of FOH jobs and parts of the country/world one can work at. I will naturally be taking a close look at how to get started in the St. Thomas restaurant scene, as it is the one I am most familiar with. As the blog expands, I will hopefully become acquainted with some of you, and feature your experiences as part of guest posts. I also may post some more comedic content at times, but the focus of this blog is of a more cerebral nature, with the comedy peppering more serious and deep thoughts. I don’t want to just repost Shiftgig and Bitchy Waiter memes, that’s been done already. More to come :D

A quick recap of what has happened since October 2014: - I spent $5,000 over a wide variety of costs tied to moving to the VI and getting everyone settled, including what I expected to be two joiners in January. We never made it that far. One of the girls dropped out of the plan after a few quick weeks of being on the island, and the other girl (who I had set the plan up with a year in advance) moved out and made alternative living arrangements. The two joiners got cold feet and stepped out, leaving me and my longtime friend with a four-bedroom house to pay rent for, with money close to being gone. By the time the dust had settled, one or both of us could have stayed on the island. However, as my buddy wasn’t as thrilled about the place as I, and my girlfriend moving to Austin instead of St. Thomas, we decided to move back to the States. Why was money such an issue? - The season in St. Thomas did not start until VERY LATE this year. The 2013-14 season started in early November, and as I came to learn, held strong straight into the summer months right until hurricane season. Unfortunately, the cruise ship schedule was not as robust this past winter, and many locations were waiting until December to hire for seasonal positions. My old job from my last season, they had one position to hire for, and a longtime seasonal employee took the slot before me. I never heard back from them. I worked specific days at a very poorly ran ‘beer garden’ downtown, boasting misleading beer specials and pretty terrible, extremely slowly-prepared food. The final three-and-a-half weeks of November I would bust my ass for 5% tips over a 9 hour shift, where I had to hold a sign in the street when I wasn’t serving tables. It was very hot and the cement killed my feet... All to have $160-200 for the week so I could eat and catch buses. It was miserable. - I finally got hired when a classic spot for tourists and locals alike reopened, featuring the same burgers, wings, and drink specials that made it popular in the first place. I was working 50-60 hours a week, but I was now inside AC and on a wood floor, and didn’t have much to do if it was slow and I wasn’t making much. I worked there from November 29th until I left the island two days before Christmas. It’s the hardest thing to contend with, as far as the decision to leave goes; this spot in particular stays decently busy year-round, and has options to work lunch, dinner, and late-night. It could have been a good spot to become a prime bartender. It’s not worth the mental attention now, but it was a door I had to close to open another one. - I still have my girlfriend. Being away for two months was extremely stressful, and we both hurt each other, acted selfishly, and spoke in ways to hurt one another. Things are equalizing out now. She’s going to get her nursing degree here, and get a bit of experience to open up travel nursing. I’m still into serving gigs for now, so I looked around, and found... - A really fucking amazing job. It’s a locally popular restaurant in Austin that, because it was once a hangout for a soulfully psychadelic female vocalist that died too early, pulls a lot of tourist business on top of the citywide draw for its traditional southern cuisine. It’s busy in the exact way the job I was trying to reclaim in St. Thomas is busy. I’m allowed to run sections with 7+ tables at times, there’s always a minimum guaranteed volume of business on any shift, and I lucked out getting hired during a time of great turnover and I already run two headwaiting shifts out of the week. Sunday brunch being one of them, between the breakfast buffet and the southern food, I feel like I’m in an alternate universe version of my last job in Cincinnati. It’s actually kinda nice, if a bit bittersweet. Makes me homesick some... actually more than just this, but I’m trying not to think of all the people I miss right now. I’m on schedule to reclaim my savings by the end of the summer, maybe mid-fall. By the summer after that me and my gf will be primed to move elsewhere. - I’m not going to plan a year in advance anymore. Things change wayyyy too much in even that small amount of time to write too much into stone. When I move to the next place, I will do so much more spontaneously, when it’s right. September 2013 I was in a place in my life where I could have benefited from moving away and mixing things up for a bit. September 2014, I had carved myself out a good job, a robust friend group, a beautiful girlfriend, and a daily feeling of success out of what was a mundane existence in my hometown. The strings of events from two, three years ago moved me into throwing all of that out and moving away. It was not the right thing to do. As we all know, there’s no reset button for life, so I can’t take it back now. Maybe those times would have gotten stale if I had stayed there and tried to stretch them out. Life... is just much more pale right now than it was back then. All the bad things made me burn bright in defiance to the things I didn’t like. The things that have occurred since I moved away... they make my light fade out. December into January and February required me to be very quiet, move very little, and plan every reaction, every sentence, in order to stop the damage that was being done. I have secured my relationship, I am getting my finances back together, and I’m ready to keep moving forward. I have that, and for that I am grateful. I could have lost more. Anyhow, as far as this blog is concerned, I am not done traveling, so I see no reason to let it just sit here. While my initial plan to purchase a camera may have to take a backseat for now, I’ve been throwing around several different themes for ‘articles’ I can run on this blog. It’ll provide me some focus and give me weekly/monthly goals to work towards. I definitely want to have some ‘classes’ where certain posts will cover specifics on food/wine/beer/liquor and information that can assist FOH people in applicable knowledge. South By Southwest had me working endless doubles, but my hectic schedule should slow down in a week or two. Just hired a few people, I can quit working 12 hour Sundays :D Austin also deserves attention, this time much more than I afforded it during my vacation here back in October. The good, the bad, all of it. It’s strange, but there were small things.... a picture of a poster from my owner’s old establishment, the radio station the kitchen played over iHeartRadio back in Cincinnati, little bits of Austin have been peppering my life the past year or two, and only now do I have the framework to see that, perhaps, I’ve been pushed by the universe in general to come to this place. Maybe not. Time will tell. Lots more to come... I hope you all have a blessed day today. I’ll talk to you all soon :)