Your business successes were built upon having a solid practical knowledge of whatever it was you were working with. The multi layered sales scheme is a good example what I refer to. You may have been a terrible salesperson but you knew the difference between a pyramid and multi layered sales. This not only kept you out of legal trouble but allowed you to innovate and change practices quickly. Instead of giving up on it all being too complicated, you made it work because you had the acumen to do so. As they say, knowledge is power and I would say you were supercharged.
The gold foil stamping business is another example of how your mechanical skills and knowledge turned out to be an asset. In that business you also seemed to have benefited from the fact that you already had business relationships with some of your customers. In other words your work ethics and quality was already well known when you decided to take on the ribbon making business. You didn't need to solicit customers because your attention to quality sold itself. Nothing works better than word of mouth advertising, and the best part is that it's free. Advertising does indeed help as you describe with the Fred Astaire Dance Studios, but you already were producing superior products by that time. It was just a matter of letting the right people know.
The proof of how well your business was doing is in the fact that you had competition after you created a market. It may seem like a disaster for somebody to copy your product and sell it cheaper, but you already made your mark by that time. Establishing that success was the cue you needed to move on to something else.
Then, too, there is the element of good luck and having a positive attitude. The Giuliani Carnival Supply order reminded me of a Dennis The Menace cartoon I saw about 7 decades ago. He and his pal Joey were standing in front of their lemonade stand where the sign said Lemonade $1.00 a Glass (that might be the equivalent of $10 a glass in today's world). The caption was, "All we have to do is sell one glass."
Even in the flower and greenhouse business, we rewarded employees who brought in a new employee.
In the cut flower business, it is hard to find good designers, and often after we hired one who had experience, they might let a former fellow employee know about us. This is how we got a wonderful designer from Paducah Kentucky to move and join our team. Drivers are also very hard to find. Many don't want to be associated with delivering flowers, and a lot are not delicate enough to be handling flower arrangements. Perhaps this might be why most of our delivery staff for the cut flower shop were off-duty fire or policemen. Nobody gives a cop guff for delivering flowers, hi hi.
You wouldn't believe how many times uncle Clarence and the company got sued by applicants for the greenhouses. The aisles between our concrete flower benches was only 24 inches wide, so when someone who is grossly overweight we turned them down for a job, and if you knew uncle Clarence, he wasn't afraid to tell them they were too fat to do the job, hi hi.
Thankfully, we finally got him to quit telling them why he couldn't hire them, and use one of the legal reasons. Such as, they are not suited for the position we have open, or whatever it was he was allowed to tell them.
I once got an interesting gold stamping order from a company who made fur coats. On this job, no foils were used at all, just the eat and pressure of the machine to emboss their buff leather labels that were sewn into the furs they made. They provided the pre-cut leather blanks, and a special liquid solution which was basically water since water would do the same thing, except this liquid had a fast-dry component, as well as a sealant of some type. They never told me what was in it, but I learned a little later from a leather working shop what it was. It was used by companies who used plates to tool leather instead of making them by hand using individual tools.
I also did the same thing on velvet ribbons, but had to use a super high heat to virtually melt the velvet, but without turning it to plastic, hi hi. It was tricky at first, but once I learned the pressure, temperature, and duration, I ended up doing a lot of work on velvet ribbons. Many of them were for a bookstore who gave them away as book markers.
I also did ribbons for Bibles also for at least four different churches in the area. Who had me print the Church name on the covers, and the first ten bibles I made ribbon sets for so they could see what they looked like installed.
The amazing thing about my AZ-NO3 product was even a big aquarium pharmaceutical company could not reverse engineer it, and even knowing all the ingredients, they still couldn't duplicate it. They tried and put a product on the market that was snake oil, and this fiasco really hurt our business for about three years, because folks figured my product was like theirs. Fortunately, I had already been in business for like five years at that time, but didn't pick up any new customers for a long long time after that. Then finally it started growing again, and we managed to go worldwide. Pat on back!
Giuliani was a really big outfit, and sold wholesale to other carnival supply places too, which is why I got so many orders from them.
I was too picky to make money in my Saw and Sabre Shop. I spent way to much time to make each saw look like brand new, treated and packaged so it wouldn't rust in the clients storage. And when I was doing it for the hardware store, I had to coat the teeth in a rubberized compound that peeled off, so nobody got cut on the blades teeth.
This is why I hired my first employee for that business, he was fast, five times faster than I was, and didn't waste too much time trying to get them looking like brand spanking new, hi hi. After him we hired three others, and eventually I sold the business to the first one, who was always the fastest and the best, he also got a little more picky which I liked too.
What I did make good money at was making what are called crown saws. None of the other folks who sharpen saws could make or sharpen crown saws, because they all had automated equipment. I had some automated too, but still had the manual machines that allowed doing that kind of work. Right before I sold the business, I bought a special punch to cut the teeth out of a blank edge saw first, then I could set and sharpen the teeth. Save burning up a lot of expensive files too.
That machine plus a couple of others I added was the key to my best employee agreeing to buy the place from me.
Even in the flower and greenhouse business, we rewarded employees who brought in a new employee.
That is how I got hired, but Motorola lost millions of dollars doing exactly that. It seems that shortly after I was hired, and got my mom a job, some folks on the outside felt they were being discriminated against. There was lots of legal warfare for a few years and Motorola lost the battle. Referrals were still allowed, but they had to walk in the front door and go through the HR screening just like any walk-in off the street. Plus, Motorola had to agree to hire a fair share of those previously discriminated against folks, which kind of turned the tables the other way. It was just a different class of people who were preferred after the law suits were settled. Just because nepotism was ended didn't stop the discrimination, however. It took several years after that first suit. By that time women and certain minorities noticed that none, or exceptionally few, of them were in (high paying) technical jobs or in management. Needless to say more lawsuits ensued and more millions were lost by the company, who agreed to a settlement without admitting any wrong doing. LOL
Part of the settlement was to provide training to the females and minorities who wanted to pursue those high paying jobs. Likewise performance reviews were modified to be more inclusive. A funny thing came out of all that. For all the brew-ha-ha made in the courts, only a few women signed up for the tech classes, very few. All three of them (I think that was the number) did get technician jobs after the free training, but the bottom line is that females didn't really have much of an interest. Minorities did a little better and showed up for class in bigger numbers, but even then the numbers were low. I got to work side by side with an NAACP sponsored dude who was part of the lawsuit. He turned out to be a right decent fellow and most of my other fellow employees distanced themselves from me after that. Well, I moved on to another department eventually plus I didn't care what anybody else thought about my friends.
You mentioned once before that some big chemistry labs tried to reverse engineer AZ-NO3 but failed. I'm certain they had no problem determining the elements and their proportions. What they didn't know was how to combine them and apparently you never told them your secret. This brings to focus one of your most admirable attributes. The high priced chemists told you that you could not do what you wanted to do. That was your cue to go ahead and find a way to do it, which you did. You obviously did not use conventional techniques and were not prejudiced by any laws of physics. You just knew what had to be done and found a way to do it. I think that ability is built into your genes. It would not be easy to teach anybody how to think like that and certainly impossible to simulate the determination you possessed. Kudos to you, my friend.
Wow, big companies always seem to get the piles of lawsuits heaped upon their shoulders!
I didn't have an engineering degree, but ended up with engineering jobs at two different companies I worked for.
This did irk some of the existing engineers big time, but when I took the jobs they really didn't want to get stuck with, then they didn't mind me working with them so much. Not a one of them wanted to have anything to do with the gates for the floodwall, nor did they want anything to do with preventing damage to the gates on the Alton Lock n Dam project.
After I came up with an unconventional way of doing it, they all guffawed at me for months, until the big bosses came down and chose my Eddy Current Brake as the way to protect those gates from slamming shut too fast. It was still in use when I moved south, and probably still is.
Tell me something can't be done, and if I'm interested enough in it, I will find a way.
There was a company who made a disposable water deionization system for reef aquarists.
They were not cheap to replace each time one was spent.
To prevent recharging, they used a mixed bed resin system, which also caused them to self-wear-out faster.
In other words, it wasn't a good design to start with. Plus resins last virtually forever, so they were wasteful.
I came up with a simple and cheap way to separate the resins, while recharging them at the same time.
I also suggest to those who did, once they have the resins separated, to keep them that way by either using a divider in a single cylinder, or by using two separate cylinders and running them back to back. This way they could charge them up faster and without going through the separation process.
I guess the company who made them didn't like this, and I was selling the kits to do so rapidly. So to try and stop my sales, they added to their advertising that they were not rechargeable, and no attempt to do so would work.
That was a mistake, because nearly everyone who bought one of my kits, chimed in on the usenet newsgroups that my kit works fast and easy. Which angered them even more. I got a cease and desist letter from their attorney, not because of my product, but for using THEIR NAME in my advertising. NO PROBLEM, I just changed it to AP Cylinders Recharge Kit. They didn't like this either, so I changed it again to DI and TWP Recharge Kit. Never heard from them again.
Then my own lawyer told me the type liability insurance I'm carrying might not be enough to cover someone getting injured from using the chemicals in my kit, which are readily available at most hardware and grocery stores.
So rather than pay the high cost of better insurance, I just posted the directions on my website, but to get to the formula to make the recharge kit, they had to click on a disclaimer. My lawyer said it is not worded very well, but clearly understandable. Also, they are buying the products themselves and they come with their own warnings on usage.
I can't say anything about the AZ-NO3 product, because even a slight slip of what needs to be said, could disclose why mine works and those made by others don't.
You are right about big successful companies being a favored target of lawsuits. The assumption, from what I have observed, is that because the companies are big and successful they did something illegal to achieve that status. The other assumption is that those big boys have more cash than they are justified to keep in their coffers, thus suing them helps even things out. Sometimes it appears to be just a game to see who has the most clever lawyers and the suit serves no other useful purpose. The fallout from those lawsuits, unfortunately, trickles down to the small business level too. Any laws or precedents set must be followed by everybody, not just the big guys.
I've worked side by side with engineers for most of my career, and I've carefully read what you write here about your experiences in what I would call mechanical engineering. There is a difference in how you and the degreed engineers go about solving problems. Most engineers are decent and friendly people with a fair degree of intelligence, but at the end of the day that degree does not solve any more practical problems than you have. I happen to know you put at least as much effort into what you have learned as anybody with a graduate degree in engineering. You didn't learn the same things, obviously, but the effort to hone your skills was no less than a person with a sheepskin. Sadly, that sheepskin is the proof of capability more often than is performance. You are lacking in one characteristic I've noted in many engineering types; arrogance seems to be missing from your credentials. All too often I've seen perceived self-importance preferred over actual performance. It's a shame to say the least.
You got that right!
I'm glad I was out of the restaurant business, before we had to supply nutrition information on every product.
It would have bankrupted us to have to do so.
Wow, thanks for the compliments Yogi, much appreciated.
You are about the only person I talk to about the things I've done over the years.
I think it is because you understand the complexities of most things, and can see how thinking outside the box can often do more than staying on the narrow road.
On an interesting note, I have about 18 years of college under my belt, but no degree in anything.
Part of the reason is, I always took classes as an auditor, and many of the classes I took were specialized for the flower industry.
By going as an auditor, I didn't have to have the pre-requisite classes, although sometimes I took them in order to understand the class I was going to take.
The big benefit is for every $1,300.00 a class cost, I only had to pay $13.00 as an auditor.
And at some schools where the classes were already sparse, I didn't even have to pay that, just sit in.
At one point the doctors thought I had diabetes; type 2 was the suspect. I learned a lot about nutrition during the evaluation period but the most helpful information I got was on the food packages with those nutrition labels. Most people ignore the labels or just look at the calories, which isn't much use to a diabetic. I can see how it would be a burden to compile that information and ship it with every item you sell. But, that is one case I can thank of where government regulations benefited a (small) group of people.
As you might know, I too never earned a degree from any college or university. It's not that I didn't try. I failed miserably in the Liberal Arts Curriculum. Reflecting back I should have gone the business administration route, but that's all history now. I worked well with the engineers at Motorola. I earned top money as a technician. I could not be promoted to engineering nor could I take on any management position. Although I did fill in as department manager a time or two. The reason for my lack of progress was directly related to not having a degree of any kind. I could have earned five times more than I did in my career if I had that sheepskin. So, I know all about it and why it's important.
Auditing classes is not the same as being tested for what you might have learned. Earning a degree involves more than good grades and you missed all those totally useless classes that were designed to teach you how to think properly. In a way it's brainwashing, but it does guarantee the quality of the product. Once you get past the gatekeepers and on the job for a few years, then you can start thinking out of the box on a much higher level. Most people were not raised in a business oriented environment and did not learn all the practical skills you have, which is why it's important that some evidence of their capability be demonstrable before they are hired. It costs companies a lot of money to train new hires even at the top management level. That degree you have tells them they aren't going to waste their efforts training you to be a company man. More than that it helps you think in terms you could not do without all that extraneous education. You and I are proof that you don't need a degree to be successful. But without the degree you are doing it the hard way. Unless your dad owns the business. Then a degree doesn't matter. LOL
My doctor gave me Chantix to help me quit smoking and it turned me into a full-blown diabetic in under 30 days.
About the only thing a diabetic needs to keep track of is Carbohydrates, which of course includes sugars of all types.
My late wife had it down pat, 1 pint of ice cream equals 3 units of R (insulin), hi hi. Perhaps that is whys she's my late wife?
The only two things I keep track of is Sodium and Carbs. If I'm good, I can have a snack size candy bar or something sweet.
Just so you know, it costs over 800 bucks, and sometimes over 1,000 bucks for a food product analyses.
And if you have more than X number of ingredients, they tack on another 100 bucks for each ingredient.
Also, if you change the recipe one iota, you have to have the item tested all over again.
So, if you are a restaurant with a large selection of items to choose from, it can cost you 10 to 50 grand before you can sell a single food item.
The only break a restaurant gets is if they do not alter a canned food item one iota, serve it unchanged from the can, provided the can has the nutrient label on it existing already, and you don't dish out more or less than what the can says is a serving size.
We served green beans, but with an 8th tsp of mild sweet onion cooked with the green beans. So, since it was not straight out of the can, we would have had to have a nutrient test done on the item we served. It would take a long time to recoup the cost of a test on that food item, when we only made about 6 cents per serving.
But it gives you an idea of why so many restaurants serve foods as they get them already tested without modification.
Well, my years working away from the florist, they were not all that picky about a degree or not, as long as you could do the job and do it well. When I worked at MRTC and got promoted to the engineering department, the higher boss told me never to mention I'm don't hold a degree. And I know that is not what held me back from becoming the department head of the drafting department, because the person who got the job did not have a degree in anything either.
Naturally, the florist didn't require one, and we cringed also when a person with a degree did apply for a job, unless it was a horticultural degree and the job opening was in our lab. We had developed enough varieties of plants by the mid-70s we decided to shut down the lab around 1978, but it took another couple of years for the ongoing projects already started to finally come to an end. The only two employees in that department with degrees, both went to work at Monsanto in their greenhouse labs. Some of the things they did in the Monsanto labs almost sounded like science fiction. Raising plants who's pods were highly flammable, and some could be used as a projectile propellant. But that was not their goal, they were trying to come up with a fuel to replace oil, that did not need the huge refinery processes. To the best of my knowledge, they never achieved that goal, but did come up with a product that could be used like diesel fuel with higher octane and lower emissions that diesel from crude. Who knows, it's been another 20+ years so maybe they finally did it?
Way back in the mid-60s when I started working outside the flower shop, not a whole lot of companies asked if you had a degree at that time. And by the mid-70s, I held both an electricians license and a plumbers license, plus I was working toward my general contractors license throughout the '80s and finally got it. Part of getting it was also teaching classes. I chose to teach at VOTEC in Tempe, Arizona. Talk about a dry heat! I actually learned a lot while teaching those classes myself, but now I don't remember much of anything anymore. I know how, but not all the fancy names they called everything. Hard to believe, but making the diagrams and lessons for each day for two semesters, I amassed a book of over 100 pages, so should I teach another class, I would have all the materials necessary. I almost chose to do that after I moved back home, but by then I was already in hot demand for renovating historical homes, and buying up houses for renovation myself. When I think back though, I might have made more money for less work by just teaching carpentry, and possibly electric and plumbing, but didn't want to have to buck against all the unions.
When I was trying to convince the doctor and the nutritionist I was not diabetic, all I kept track of was carbs. I learned a few things about them that I didn't realize was true. Some are good and some are not good depending on how long they are retained in the system. Fiber intake counteracts the effects of carbs so that too was a dietary consideration. As I cut down on the carbohydrates it just so happened that the calorie count dropped dramatically as well. I lost 50 pounds of blubber in under two years time. My healthy weight was supposed to be around 180 lbs but I looked emaciated when I got close to that level. Family members were freaking out and telling me to eat more. I could have, but that would have blown the carb count. When I asked the doctor what could be done to control the weight and stay inside the preferred carb zone he more or less laughed and told me to eat more bacon. It so happened also at that visit he declared me not to be diabetic after two years of normal A1C tests. He might, and I emphasize the word MIGHT, have been a good doctor, but he knew nothing about nutrition.
I find it hard to believe all those food tests are necessary in order to operate a restaurant. I can't see how any small businessman could afford $50,000 in food testing up front before any other costs. That is insane. I know a lot of the food in the restaurants I patronize comes out of the can, but just as much is prepared fresh in the kitchen. Then, too, if that food analysis is important for many people to stay healthy, it should be a necessary part of doing business.
You are basically from the same workforce era that I am. When I started out a high school diploma was not always necessary, much less a college degree. Then, too, many of the jobs available to me involved labor skills and not design or management. It was also pretty standard for a person to be hired for life. Switching jobs midstream was considered a shortcoming in many instances. By the time I separated from Motorola a graduate degree was needed for any non-factory job. If you stayed in the same job for more than a few years, there was something wrong with you. If you stayed with the same company for more than five years, you better have a good reason or the next guy isn't likely to hire you. The job market and work ethics changed dramatically over the 36 years I spent at Motorola. Even to my last day I was treated with respect for my time served. Yes, I was bitter about what they had to do with me, but us old timers did get special consideration. Not all companies did that.
Do you know I've weighed 145 pounds my entire adult life.
I actually lost a little weight sitting all day at my desk, and I'm not a really big eater, so I eat things normally associated with putting on weight.
I had a doctor tell me there is nothing wrong with bacon, as long as you don't overdo it. How much overdo I asked, he said more than four strips of thin cut bacon, or two thick cut bacon. I don't like normal or thick cut, we buy the 20 slices to the pound kind for ourselves. Hard to find too.
Our little diner we eat at often, he uses what is called a compiled nutrition page that covers most of the items on his menu.
Even then, it still cost him like 5 grand to have it certified as correct, without paying for the sampling of the foods.
But they don't have a lot of things on the menu they had 20 years ago now either. Basically no made from scratch items like they used to make.
When I was working on pinballs and video games, and of course the gaming machines. After Williams and Bally merged, they really wanted to hire me, but I didn't meet their minimum hiring specs. Yet they still called me to see if I worked out the bugs in some of their machines and what I did to correct the problem. Sometimes I got a nice check from them for letting them know also, but only if they put my fix into the next run of products. Usually a check was over 500 bucks, but under a grand, so I was more than surprised the two times they paid me 3 grand and 3,500 bucks. Both of those higher dollar payments was strictly for a unique repair on a hi-dollar gaming machine that had dealt them fits for years. And the cost to implement my repair was less costly than their original design. And all I did on one was replace a tab with a cam roller. This meant to them, instead of welding the tabs to the cylinder, they just formed the cylinder like a cam. No more broken tabs.
The other repair was to the electronics board itself. But it was so many years ago, I don't remember what I did that they liked so much.
I actually got the most enjoyment out of life by working for myself, and slowly found easier and easier ways of working, which is how I wound up to becoming a manufacturer. One customer to deal with, the mfgr. rep. and he had to handle everything.
According to The Zone Diet, which is basically a way to control your insulin levels, 10% of your daily food input should be fat. I don't recall why the body actually needs fat, but apparently the brain has a lot of it. Bacon is a favorite food of mine and I do like the thick cut version from the butcher. The processed kind isn't the same stuff and isn't as thick either. Back at the old house I could buy a slab of bacon and slice it to any thickness I wanted. The blocks were not as wide as the processed bacon and about half the length of the butcher shop bacon. Then, too, I'm sure the store's meat supplier had something to do with the size. Limiting the number of slices isn't an accurate measure. I don't know how to measure 10% fat per portion either. LOL But, after a while you get pretty good at eyeballing things.
There are books that list menu items from the most popular chain food service shops. Those menus are broken down to their nutritional components. I discovered that eating bagels is lethal as far as carbs go. The amount of gluten can put you into a comma and it stays in your blood for an extended period of time. This was very bad news for a guy like me who loved to eat lox and bagels on a regular basis. I've not seen nor heard of a compiled nutrition chart but I have no doubt they exist. It would be a very useful bit of information if you are counting carbs.
It is odd that the pinball people could not hire you as a full time employee but had no trouble paying you consultant fees. You apparently weren't aggressive enough to sell your services to them as an independent contractor, but it is to their credit that they did pay you when they used your ideas. They could have been forced to pay you just for talking to them.
And here I trim away every spot of fat from everything I eat, except bacon, hi hi.
My doctor gave me this cardboard flip-book about food and nutrition for diabetics, interesting, never followed it though.
I only eat about 1/3 of what the recommended diet is, which is probably why I've never been overweight.
My body seems to know what it want, and will give me a craving for something I should be eating when it wants it.
I was on the phone with Williams, Gotleib, Bally, and several others nearly every day asking questions about how to fix a certain machine, and they never charged me for all those calls. But by the same token, when I figured out a fix on something, I would call them and let them know what I did.
It wasn't until after Williams and Bally merged that they gave us something when we came up with a fix their engineers couldn't.
Their was a much faster and nicer team of engineers when I called, after they merged.
You must be related to the "Jack Spratt who ate no fat"
When they talk about fat in the diet I am sure there are different kinds just as is the case with carbohydrates. My guess would be that you could trim all the fat off your food but not avoid it altogether. A lot of the flavor of food is in that fat, but I agree with you that I don't want to chew the fat literally. I suppose the body needs it for a reserve supply of calories. I must have about a 25 year reserve built into my body. LOL
Your body does have memory when it comes to food and nutrition. That is why some people cannot lose weight when following a diet for that purpose. The body compensates for the change in food intake but retains the reserve fat. Even on a diabetic diet one day a month is allowed for pigging out. This excessive eating day not only makes you feel good but also disturbs the body's learning curve. It forgets to keep that belly fat if you over indulge from time to time. Insulin and blood sugar need to be monitored more carefully, but even so some variation in diet is good to keep the body in shape.
The skills you acquired troubleshooting and repairing pinball machines were extremely valuable in spite of the limited need for them. Obviously the people at Williams and Bally recognized your talent even if they could not capture you for their own team. It just made sense all around to keep in touch with an expert and compensate him fairly. Apparently there is a lot of fraternal activity among business people which is called good will on a balance sheet. It has a value that can't be explicitly calculated, but would be missed dearly if absent.
Well, gravy is made from the drippings from cooking a roast, and I LOVE beef gravy.
Especially if it is around 50% onions, hi hi.
There are some foods I don't particularly care for as part of a regular diet, but on occasion, I will crave one of those items.
When I check what their primary nutrients are, I'm sure it was something my body was low on for some reason.
It's just a shame I lost all that knowledge after one of my attacks. I always did love working with building radios and ham gear, especially Heathkit items. I learned quite a bit while doing them too! But those were in the days before even transistors in some cases, but the later kits all had transistors and other components. And the super late items I built, like the GR2000 TV set was a lot of mechanical, but did have some circuit boards in it. Large crude circuit boards you installed all the components on yourself, following the carefully outlined assembly manuals of course.
You know, the Pinball machine industry actually killed itself. Each company trying to outdo the other with Movie Themed pinball machines and lots of computer generated videos on the display. They changed many of the skill items to easy to hit targets that generated super high scores. There was still some skill involved, BUT, only a couple of features scored crazy high, so that is what every player made shots for until they literally burned themselves out on that game. This is because there wasn't much else to do, even though it looked like there was.
This naturally drove the cost of the machines up like crazy too. And for the companies buying them, they were not earning their keep before yet another game came out based on another movie. And you know how fast movies were coming out.
Pretty soon, nobody wanted to play last years movie themed pinballs.
They did much better when they used TV serial themes for long running shows. Like Hollywood Heat was a pinball that raked in the money by players for many years. While the new movie themed ones died the minute a new movie came out.
Nearly the same thing happened with video games as well. And of course the advent of computer games as good as the video arcade games.
But the old tried and true Gambling type pinballs, although illegal nearly everywhere, were still selling like hotcakes. Nothing much ever changed on them. A different decal on the board and back glass, but the holes were all still in the same place. The same playing board was used in over 30 different games, and they didn't have flippers either, hi hi.
On the bright side of the coin. I was right there in the middle of it all, repairing machines and getting to play them all I wanted to test them out to make sure they were ready to go back out in the arcades, taverns and game rooms. I really enjoyed taking care of the pinball machines. Also things like slot-machines when they came in for servicing. Although most of those were repaired on-site.
Gravy is a challenge for me almost every time. It took a long time for me to discover the secret about thickeners, any thickener. The liquid being thickened for gravy must be lacking in fat and oil content. If there is even a small amount of fat floating in the liquid it will not thicken properly if at all. The drippings from a roast have to contain a lot of fat which needs to be separated from the liquid. There are special cups with spouts coming out of the bottom just for that purpose. The reason the drippings taste so good is that the Flavonoids from the meat and fat are mixed in with the liquid. From what I read that is where the good taste is. When it comes to making gravy I get it right only about half the time. It's very frustrating because there is no fix or second chance.
Pinball machines are last century entertainment. I think the focus on electronics and mobile devices, including game boxes and augmented reality, is what killed the pinball entertainment market. They are fun machines to be sure, but you can't carry them around with you and none of your friends have one. It all has to do with what is trendy, which explains why last year's movie themes are passé.
We never used thickeners in our gravies. It's more like what they called Red Eye gravy.
There is a cup made with a spout, or you could basically use anything with a spout.
You can pour off the gravy and leave the oil behind.
You can also do this with a measuring cup by pouring off the oils first leaving just the gravy.
But as I said, most of the so called gravy is water and the caramelized onions from making the roast.
My mom always made the best gravy until later years when she OVER Caramelized the onions.
So your breath and everything you ate after that for a day or two tasted like burnt onions, hi hi.
I actually prefer eating the whole onions cooked with a roast over the roast itself, hi hi.
And here's one for you. I used to take the cheap cubed meat for stew, boil it in water until there wasn't much water left in the pan, toss in about 4 onions and let it boil for another half hour or so. Take out the onions and gravy, and give the meat that's left in the pan to the pooches.
A pinball machines is a physical item. You can't get the same thrill or pleasure playing pinball on a video game.
Although I have played some really good video pinball games, it's just not the same.
Now perhaps some day as the gloves that let you sense feelings get popular, then they might have something.
Plus you get some exercise trying to play a pinball machine, and not tilting it, hi hi.
You certainly have a lot of experience I am lacking because you were in the food service business at one time. I think your experiences in the field is what gave you the appreciation for Red Eye Gravy. I would call that stuff sauce because it is so thin. It can be poured over foods to enhance the flavor of the meal, but the thick textured sauce is the only thing I consider to be gravy. If it's not thick, it's sauce, or in my case failed gravy. LOL Red Eye Gravy over mashed potatoes, for example, is a whole different experience than grandma's brown mushroom gravy that sticks to the spoon because it is so thick. Yes it has flour, corn starch, or arrowroot mixed in, but I have yet to find a way to get that thick gravy without using thickeners.
I've seen some lovely recipes for baked whole onions. Never made them because wife doesn't like them. She will eat Mirepoix because it's basic to many types of dishes, but cooked onions by themselves get a frown from her. I love onions and have no problems with most versions of onion soup, which I suppose you would consider to be gravy. There is a trick to making good onion soup, but I don't have enough experience to know what it is. Only certain restaurants can make a good version of it. I think part of the appeal is the cheese. I must be the right kind of cheese or it just doesn't pass.
You are absolutely correct to say pinball machines do not feel like their video game equivalents. Kids playing games today don't care about that. It's only us old timers who remember such things and miss them.
Well, I did use a little corn starch in the gravy, but not much.
It depended on what we were using it with.
After the roast and vegies were gone, I added little bit more corn starch, then cooked egg noodles in it.
Which I often like better than having a roast, hi hi.
If you put cheese in it it is no longer onion soup, but French Onion, which is something I hate with a passion.
The key to making great onion soup is to slightly caramelize a couple slices of onion, then add a ton of onions and lots of water and let it cook for like four hours. Cooking for four hours gives it a deeper flavor that only cooking for two hours.
But keep an eye on that water level, hi hi.
Now here is something you've probably never seen, and possibly never even heard of.
A high-vacuum blender! And I'll tell you why we invested in it at the restaurant.
But before I do, I'm going to say one of my favorite salad dressings was Miracle French.
Which was the only French I liked, and they quit making it, and went to creamy French.
I think you will agree with me here, that oil and water do not mix.
Now you can add a surfactant to get oil to mix with water, but nobody wants to eat soap, hi hi.
Or you can add alcohol to get it to mix, but that is not a good way to make water and oil mix.
It wasn't until after I had the restaurant that I quit complaining about them discontinuing Miracle French.
The reason being is I now knew it was their same formula, it just looked light orange and creamy.
You can blend oil and water in a high-vacuum!
And this is where the high-vacuum blender comes into play.
If you mix just water and oil in the high-vacuum blender, the result is a snow white product.
However, it reflects whatever color lighting is around it, which is one of the things that made it so awesome.
And I came up with about five different salad dressing our customers simply raved over.
The first was a mild cucumber dressing, which took several tries to get just the right amount of each ingredient for the taste the customers raved over. Of the customers who did like cucumber dressing, and would participate in a taste test, they were given two different samples each time they were in, and their salads were divided into two smaller bowls. I had six different blends to test, and each time they ate there, they were given given a different pair to test. 1 & 2, 3 & 4, or 5 & 6, then they would jot down on the card which of the two they liked the best. On their fourth visit, they would get the two they liked best from 1 & 2, and 3 & 4, so lets say they got 2 & 3 for this test. Then on their next visit, they would get, for eg. 2 & 6, if they picked #2 as the best, and number 6 previously. At the end of all the testing, it turned out that the majority had chosen number 5, and by a wide enough margin with the rest, that is the recipe we used ever since for our cucumber dressing.
We did the same thing with an Italian, a Raspberry which everyone liked the one with the most vinegar and sugar in it.
Heck, I even made a Pineapple dressing, but it wasn't much of a hit.
Then when I made the French dressing, it came out light orange, just like Miracle French, and tasted just like it.
So, the only two bought dressing we served were French and Ranch. I hate Ranch myself so won't eat it.
I had a customer who new we made our own dressings request I try making a Plum salad dressing. He was the only Guinea Pig to test it, and he also knew what it needed a little more of also. It only took like three tries before we had it the way he wanted it. I couldn't turn him down since he was almost a daily customer. Now he didn't really want the same dressing every time he ate there, so he had a rotation schedule, Cucumber, Plum, Italian, Plum, Cucumber, Plum, Italian, Plum.
Of all our customers, right before we closed, I brought him to the back to show him how we made it. Ours cost around 1000 bucks back in the '70s, but then too, only a few were made and sold. Today you can get a restaurant grade vacuum blender for around 650 bucks, or a home use grade for around 200 bucks. And they are now used to make many dishes.
I simply loved pinball machines, but mostly those made based on TV series over the newer movie based.
Probably because they didn't have the quality in them that the older machines had.
When I braise meat and vegetables the main liquid is wine of some sort. The braising evaporates much of the liquid leaving behind what could pass as gravy. Letting it go too long would turn it into paste which is not desirable. What happens in that situation is the same thing that happens in the onion soup you describe. Caramelizing onions burns off much of the liquid content leaving behind a brown coating. That brown coating is where the flavor is concentrated. Thus it seems reasonable to use those caramelized onions to stew fresh onions and thereby intensify their flavor. It all makes sense to me. And, yes, I was talking about French Onion soup with the cheese. I've had plain onion soup but it was nothing like what you describe making. The French Onion adds the missing flavor by using cheese as a topping. I prefer that but you obviously are a purist. LOL
And you are correct to say I never heard of a vacuum blender. When liquids are blended the ambient air is mixed in with the liquid. That is what turns oil into mayonnaise. It's aerated oil. Adding water to that can't do anything positive because the surface tension of the liquids remains the same. Doing this mixing in a vacuum, however, changes the rules apparently. Instead of aerating the oil it must mix with whatever else is added, even water I would guess. I can only guess that the texture would be different as well.
Using live customers to beta test recipes is a brilliant idea. It makes the customer feel as if they are part of the operation. I like that. I can see in some cases at least that the customer might go away unhappy because the recipe being tested didn't meet their idea of a good meal. So, I guess there are pros and cons, but you carried it all out in such a way that you discovered a superior product that most people loved. I don't know what your plum loving customer was looking for, but I buy a plum sauce at Schnooks that I use with certain Asian food dishes. I can imagine a home brew version could be outstanding.
Double WOW, I just got knocked out TWICE back to the log-in screen, and I think I know what is finally doing it.
I'm going to post this so you know I'm here, and try it again in the next window.
