ehowton ◾ ◾ Untitled

Last night, I remembered omelette's. I was at one client site on and off for something like six years across two accounts. And there was this man, Richard. He was the short-order cook. Came in every morning early, and hand chopped all the vegetables and meats, and hand broke and whipped the eggs. He was a great man. Every morning, on and off for something like six years, he would make me an omelette for breakfast. He would put a little oil on the griddle and spread it out. While it was heating he would grab a styrofoam plate and pile upon it diced green peppers, crumbled bacon & sausage, sliced black olives, chopped tomato, diced onion & ham, and of course, sliced jalepenos. Once these ingredients were gathered, he'd put it on the oil, mix it up a bit, and move it to the side. With this a little more oil he'd spread out with his spatula and a ladlefull of whipped eggs atop it. As the egg bubbled, he'd gather up a nice portion of shredded cheese and cover the egg while turning the other ingredients on the grill. The smell alone...wow. I used to wait with gleeful anticipation of it all coming together. He'd fill the egg with three-quarters of the mixture and deftly fold it over itself before placing it on a plate and then topping the creation with the last quarter of ingredients from the grill, and topping that again with cheese. Now, this wasn't my favorite part. My favorite part was topping the omelette with the fresh cream gravy made every morning. This would melt the cheese atop the omelette, and I would lastly pour a healthy portion of Cholula on the gravy. These are my fondest memories of Richard, the short-order cook. Nowadays, I go to IHOP for a ham & cheese and an order of gravy on the side. It's not Richard's omelette, and I've tried to make them myself the way he could, and have failed. At least IHOP keeps Cholula on the table. Richard retired six months ago. You will be missed sir.

In concluding the first segment of this missive, and understanding that some of my readers may not have been familiar with Cholula, I chose to provide a link to my hot-sauce of choice. This isn't your boring Louisiana cayenne & vinegar hot sauce. This is the real-deal. Anyway, in linking it, I found myself on their web page and realized that I'd never been there before. This in and of itself wasn't exciting, but the discovery of new Cholula seasonings in three flavors was VERY exciting. I immeditely tried to purchase a case online, but couldn't find the 'sample pack' of them, that is, two of each of the flavors. All they sell is a case of six of any one flavor. Spying the contact number on the sidebar (a damn rare thing these days) I reached for the batphone and made the call. A very pleasent-sounding lady answered and after explaining my dilemna, she said, "What's your name?" I told her. "Are you going to put in an online order right now?" YES! YES! YES! "Ok, I'll flag the order when it comes in and make you a sample pack to ship out." Woo-hoo! Now, shipping is fully one-third the cost of the case, but hey, it's Cholula!

Couple years ago some doctors came onto the Oprah show to talk about their new breakout book, YOU: The Owners Manual. They said some radical things and explained things with their enthusiam and visual aids that really stuck a chord with America and made a personal difference in my life. Yesterday, they were on Oprah again, and once again, another breakthrough book which my wife had purchased yesterday, the day it was released, YOU: On A Diet (Waist Management) and Oprah couldn't say enough fascinating things about it, and the doctors. "They have unlocked the secret to weight-loss and a healthy lifestyle," she said. I then heard her say, "America needs to know this!" Everyone was very excited. I was very excited. The show begins. It had the same amount of enthusiam and visual aids as the last time. A lot of information, a lot of excitement. The show concludes. Now, I want to save you a little money, as I have the book, will read it, and I did watch the show (there's a follow-up on Discovery Health tonight at 2200). I will tell you what the secret is, according to these two outstanding doctors:

Eat a healthy diet.

Exercise.

I made an appointment to get an oil change this morning, as they were too busy last night. They promised me it wouldn't take more than half an hour. It took an hour. I perused the selection of magazines and finally settled on 'Ebony' as it was the most interesting magazine there. There was a lot of talk of politics, and a special on Jesse Jackson. There was a quote in there I agreed with (by none other than Al Sharpton believe it or not) who suggested that the young don't see it, but those who are older can appreciate what he's done. Now I'm under no illusions that they weren't expecting a white Texan to be reading their magazine, but I found myself in that catagory. And I know my father would tell me that if you do enough stuff, you're bound to do something right every now and again on accident, and that a couple of good acts don't erase a lifetime of liberalism, but I used to despise the man. That is, until he started bringing our captured soldiers back from all over the world. I really respect that.

Bill gave me his SGI Octane. I'm pretty excited, though I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with it yet. In fact, I shudder to think of doing something with it before I get my SPARC box back up. Had a nice chat with