Kind of an Ikea Expert...

Yes, it's true, I'm a bit of an expert when it comes to dining at Ikea. Well, the lower cafe anyway. Maybe I'll master the domain of the upper cafe someday. Okay, enough dreaming...so here's the thing:

- The ketchup dispenser and the mustard dispenser are side-by-side.
- The relish dispenser shows up intermittently beside them, but is near useless - like all relish dispensers.
- There's always a bowl of those relish packets.

The most efficient way to top your dogs is to start with the relish packets and wait for a gap at the mustard & ketchup area. When there's a gap, swoop in and do dog 1 with both mustard and ketchup, keeping the dog moving by like it's on a conveyor belt. That's the key. And use nice smooth pushes on the levers to avoid too much or efficiency-sapping re-waving of the hot dog under the dispenser. Then dog 2 and 3. Then, if necessary, finish the relish application. You'll be done in no time and will earn the respect of any efficiency expert within sight. Don't worry - they're watching.

Obviously, don't fall for the false-lead that applying the relish at your table will get you, which will also mess up your tray with the empty relish packets. The cleaner your tray, the easier it is to clean for the Ikea staff, and the cheaper your food will stay. And hey, who doesn't want to be known for their neatness? It goes almost without saying that one folds the paper hot dog holders back to their original state, doesn't it? Everything needs to be in its place.

Not taking too much pop and ice will save you time from emptying your cup into the draining tray under the fountain drink taps before you throw your tray contents into the rubbish. Two steps there and two steps back...just saying.



FAQ:  Paul, why three hot dogs?
Answer:  Because that's the most you can logically get. Combo 2 is two hot dogs and a fountain drink for $2. With an extra hot dog for $0.75, plus GST, it's $2.90...so you get a dime back.  Later, on the way home, when you get the $4 box of cinnamon buns and a $1.05 yogurt cone, the subtotal is $5.05. Now you use your previous dime and avoid all that change. Also, since there's more money in 'grocery' ($4) than 'dining out' ($3.95), your budget item gets put into 'grocery' and you're closer to hitting your new year's resolution of eating out 10% fewer times in 2014 than 2013.



FAQ:  But you're not eating out less often.  That's just budgetary trickery, isn't it? 
Answer:  Technically yes, and thanks for recognizing my accounting genius, however I have to be out of cinnamon buns before I can get the hot dogs under my 'grocery' column, so that reduces the frequency of my hot dogging. Also sometimes increases the frequency of my cinnabunning.

FAQ:  Paul, are there other restaurants where efficiency applies?
Answer:  Why yes, there are.  I was behind a guy at a Subway and he ordered his sub in this order:

- whole wheat
- foot long
- spicy Italian

Why is the order of these three things important? Because as soon as he said "whole wheat", the Subway artist could start heading to the comparatively large whole wheat section of the oven thing. By that time, it's now an easy grab of the foot-long bun, which is a sub-section of the whole wheat section. Only after turning back around do they need to know the fillings.

And of course, order the condiments as they appear from your right to left to keep the sub flowing along efficiently.  This is critical if it's busy and there are two artists making subs.

Me:  "That's some nice efficiency there: bun type first, bun size next, then fillings."
Efficient Dude:  "Thanks, I always order it that way."
Me:  "It's the only way."

Field of Dreams

Here's why the internet is a big waste of time:

1) It's not as comprehensive as you think
2) Hack writers express opinions like they're fact
3) It's circular, so it just leads you back to the start


PROOF:






- Field of ImPOSSEable Dreams was a sign at the CFL Las Vegas Posse's training site
- On the Posse's roster was running back Jon Volpe
- Volpe was a Rhodes Scholar candidate


- Rhodes Scholar winners include Myron Rolle
- Rolle was a running back in college
- Rolle graduated Princeton Prep school early, got a 4-year degree in 2.5 years with a 3.75 GPA, had 83 athletic scholarships from div 1-A schools, went to FSU for their combo of football and medical opportunities, and got his MSc in medical anthropology from Oxford on his Rhodes Scholarship


- Rolle signed a 4-year contract with the NFL Titans, then Steelers
- Rolle never played a regular season professional game, then chose medical school over football
- Archibald Doc/Moonlight Graham was a baseball player who was signed by Major League baseball but never got up to bat, then chose medicine over baseball in the movie Field of Dreams






See? It's like an ant climbing around a globe - he thinks it goes on forever.


link to Myron Rolle Profile



Bonus 1: The real Archibald Graham also played halfback on his collegiate football team while earning his medical degree.


Bonus 2: The Las Vegas Posse used to send hot cheerleaders behind the bench of visiting teams to distract them.

Just Remembering a Vet...

I sometimes take my neighbour's dog Sophie for walks in Mill Creek Ravine.  If you walk enough there, or anywhere, stuff happens and you meet people.  Here's one:


On a beautiful sunny winter day, I was walking in Mill Creek Ravine by the Velodrome with Sophie, and we passed by an older gent wearing a hat with a "Lancaster" logo. A Lancaster is a WW2 Allied bomber. This is my favourite era for airplanes, so I had to chat him up. Turns out that his name was Ken Taylor, an airman on a Lancaster bomber on a raid who bailed out over occupied Holland a couple weeks before D-Day. He was captured and put into Stalag Luft VII Prisoner Of War camp. He mentioned something about a long march from the camp - not to complain, but to maybe trigger a historical fact in my head. Didn't work. Apparently, he and a few friends now meet at that Argyll McDonald's on the same day each week.

At the time of his evacuation from the POW camp, the Germans knew that the war was unwinnable and were basically fleeing the Soviets and taking prisoners with them. The Germans were positioning themselves with the prisoners to be captured by anyone other than the Soviets, because of the horrible things that Hitler ordered against them (somewhere in the range of 20-30,000,000 Russian people were killed). Somehow or other, one of the Germans, maybe one of his guards, became a friend of his and they now live in the same condo complex overlooking Mill Creek Ravine. Ken now considers his former enemy to be his best friend. Unfortunately, Sophie was getting anxious so that's all I got from him.

I tried, off and on, for years to get some info about him, but wasn't at all successful. It doesn't help that the name "Ken Taylor" is also shared by that Canadian diplomat that helped get Americans out of Iran (as in the movie "Argo" by Ben Affleck). Somehow or other though, I found some info today. Here it is:

I couldn't remember if it was Stalag 3 or 7. Stalag 3 was "The Great Escape" one.  It turns out that he was in Stalag 7, and it was the last Luftwaffe (German air force) POW camp.  Later he was moved to one of the Stalag 3 camps...so that's close to the movie.

He was a Nav II Warrant Officer and bomb aimer/observer aboard an Avro Lancaster bomber.

On May 21/22, 1944 their plane was hit by flak and the starboard outer engine caught fire. He and a Sergeant bailed out. The crew, despite injuries to the pilot and flight engineer, were able to limp the plane back to Manston RAF base in England, where their lack of brakes caused them to run into a gas tank used for filling airplane tanks. No-one was further injured, but the pilot and engineer were kept in hospital.



It turns out that The March was quite a thing. There were three main marches with several POW camps. He was in the 'central' route.

19 January, 1945 – evacuation from Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau, near Kreuzberg, Poland, begins in blizzard conditions – 1,500 prisoners were force marched then loaded onto cattle trucks and taken to Stalag III-A at Luckenwalde, south of Berlin.

27 January, 1945 – Red Army liberates Auschwitz.

27 January, 1945 to February 1945 – evacuation from Stalag III-A at Luckenwalde, 30 km south of Berlin, then onto Stalag VII-A near Moosburg, Bavaria.

29 April, 1945 – Stalag VII-A at Moosburg was liberated by Patton's Third United States Army.

30 April, 1945 – Berlin falls to the Red Army and Hitler commits suicide.



Today I ordered The Long Road - a book about the liberation of Stalag 7. Ken was mentioned in it a couple of times and it seems full of interesting stories.  411.ca indicates that he's still alive and living where he said.  After I read the book I think that I'll do some snooping at the McDonald's and 'happen' to drop by when they meet. If nothing else, I want to tease him about bailing out while most of the rest of his crew flew home - which wouldn't compare to the teasing his old crew would've given him after they met up after the war.

"Ken, why are you leaving early?  It's not like you to bail. Hahahahahahaha!"

Or maybe I'll be there to apologize for not knowing much about the history of my neighbours and to listen to old war stories that are new to me. I hope I get the chance to get him to sign my book.


It may not mean anything to anyone else, but here are some links on this:

Link to The Long Road (pdf book)

link to The_March_(1945) [wiki]

link to Stalag 13  As you can see, Hogan's Heroes wasn't historically accurate, as Stalag 13 was actually two camps, which were both in factories.  You know you were thinking about the show, so don't even pretend to take the high road.



So anyway...that's why I chat to people who I don't know.