Bill's Notes

You know here on Industrial Blog I like to expose various rhetorical techniques people use to confound and confuse their opponents. One technique that needs regular debunking is the use of scare quotes.

Back in grad school, scare quotes were frequently used by professors as a way of implying that anything within the quotes was open to question. It did occasionally force me to call into questions my own assumptions. But just as often it was used as a mechanism of control.

Me: I'd like to discuss "theory."
They: No, Bill. It's, 'I'd like to "discuss" theory.'
[Theory isn't opening to question, you see, but the possbility of discussion is.]

What started this: Steve Den Beste* has fun with the rhetorical technique of scare quotes by taking some prominent misusers to task.

* SDB's surname means "The Best" in Dutch.

*****

Let's try this entry again. This time with scare quotes.

Begin/

You "know" here on Industrial "Blog" I like to "expose" various rhetorical techniques people use to "confound" and confuse their "opponents". One technique that needs regular "debunking" is the use of scare quotes.

Back in "grad school," scare quotes were frequently used by "professors" as a way of implying that "anything" within the quotes was open to question. It did occasionally "force" me to call into "question" my own "assumptions". But just as often it was used as a mechanism of "control".

Me: I'd like to discuss "theory."
They: No, Bill. It's, 'I'd like to "discuss" theory.'
[Theory isn't opening to question, you see, but the "possbility" of discussion is.]

What started this: Steve "Den Beste"* has "fun" with the rhetorical technique of scare quotes by taking some prominent "misusers" to task.

* SDB's surname means "The Best" in Dutch.

As I wrote back in January, any movie producers that would demonstrate the lack of judgment to cast Brad Pitt as Achilles have on their hands a doomed project. Salon agrees. (You may have to watch an ad first to read the article.)

Odysseus had an entire epic poem written about him by Homer, that is, along with Achilles and Aeneas, Odysseus is one of the great epic heroes. And yet here is what Odysseus (according to Tennyson) says about Achilles.

Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

In other words, the honor was Odysseus'.

I don't know who could play Achilles these days. I'm open to suggestions. It would have to be a larger than life character.

Business is not what non-business folks think. I've worked in: (1) newspapers (2) the church (3) academia [overseas, college, high school) (4) the government (5) volunteer work (non-profits), and (6) business. By far, and not even close, the best opportunities I had to succeed and to grow were in business.

Business people are more empowered to make decisions than in other organizations. A personal example: I screwed around for a year trying to get hired for the Philadelphia public school system. After about a year, one day, while reflecting on the process, I hit myself in the forehead and said, what kind of organization cannot hire someone with a bachelors and masters in his subject area, has done a year of preparatory work on a second masters [including an internship], has already been trained extensively in the job by another government entity, and has two years of [pretty cool] on the job experience? It just hit me — only an organization that is screwed up beyond repair, that's what. I had a perfect score on that National Teacher's Exam in my subject area [and pretty high on the sections] and had done the background checks and all that. Still, I had to get certified by the state [which I was completing] and then by the district itself, which had its own arcane process. All to get the privilege of teaching in a school with a police precinct in it (not kidding, eight of Philly's finest every day in the high school where I interned).

So, on the heels of this discovery, I faxed from my university office a hastily scrawled together resume and letter to a local publishing house. They called me back within two days. Asked me to come in the next week. Gave me a test or two. And hired me within a week after that. And guess what — I wasn't a tenth as qualified for that job. I told them that. I can't write about business, I said in the interview, I don't know anything about business. You're right, my soon-to-be boss said. You don't know anything about business. Don't worry, we'll teach you. Within four years I had doubled my salary and was managing people, and though I've made only modest gains since then, the point was I was given an opportunity and the tools to succeed by people who were prepared to make immediate decisions. And all this was done in the name of the soi-disant* Evil Profit Motive.

And not long after that, the following idea hit me .. that the profit motive allowed me to compete on equal footing with everyone else. Results mattered, so I didn't have to compete with busybodies and well-meaning drudges. Someone who was a better ass-kisser wouldn't get a job or a promotion (although I've seen sycophants get promotions when all other things are equal). Nor would someone who was better at political power games get the job. None of that. You either brought in the money and you were a wonderful person, or you didn't, at which point you may be a wonderful person, but you would take the wonderfulness of yourself, if all other efforts failed, elsewhere.

Funny thing, I was nearly fired. Things didn't start out well on the job at all. I was struggling and had been told by my direct superior that if it were up to him, he'd fire me. I was just wasn't getting the job done. (He had a point.) I was ready to pack it in and quit, saying it was apparent the company had given up on me. But a friend from outside the company gave me an intervening piece of advice. He said don't quit, but not for any sentimental or personal-growth reasons. He said, "The thing about business is this: If you're there, you're still there." When businesses give up, they let you go. Sometimes with a couple of weeks of pay. But if you are still on the payroll, they are still holding out hope that you will get it. They want you to succeed, because if you succeed, they succeed.

So I continued to try and continued to flounder. The business shifted me to a different boss, just to see if maybe hearing if being by someone else would help. In the meantime, another intervening thing happened. I was a smoker, and one of the senior guys was a heavy smoker. I began to go outside and ask his suggestions. Now, let me tell you, this guy loved to explain things and to give advice. So I'd get my assignments from one boss, and I'd go to this other guy on a smoke break and ask him the answers. I'd get on the phones and talk to customers and sources, and I'd go have a cigarette and this guy would tell me what the angle of the story was. Within a month, things were picking up, and within six months, I was doing pretty well. The company still wasn't thrilled with my work habits, but at the end of the day, no matter what my personal failings, I had a place at the table because I delivered business results.

* So-called.

Here is an interesting piece under the nom de plume Publius.

Publius believes progressives are on the side of truth and light, and that conservatives have a "flawed vision," but are winning on the level of rhetoric. Oh, those tricky conservative :) Here's how he puts it:

The Left's problem isn't that they lack good policies. We're right on the issues. Our problem is one of narrative and rhetoric. All we need is a new way to sell these ideas. Many people are simply scared that the Left is going to undermine what they hold most dear - God, America, and traditional family. Instead of destroying these concepts, we can use those concepts to persuade. In short, we can construct a new progressivism using these very concepts. Obviously, my ideas will need to be worked out, but we've got to start somewhere. And what better place than the blogosphere - the printing press of the 21st century. [Emphasis mine.]

Hmm...OK, let's use the sales analogy. Sales is about two things: Understanding customer needs and knowing your product/service. There's more to it, but that's the two basics. Progressivism has declined because of 30-40 years of failures in both these areas (and partly because of big victories previous to that). After years of victory of the labor, suffrage, Civil Rights, feminist rights, and early environmental movements, progressives lost touch with the people they purport to protect; they have become at odds with people's real needs. Because of this, they have difficulty presenting reasons why people want their particular product or service. And when confronted with this knowledge, they blame the customer, or the other sales person (those evil conservatives bewitching customers with their slick sales talk), or go down other such unproductive avenues to assign blame.

Look at what Publius is saying. He seems to think that if progressives can just get the sales pitch right, that is progressives can speak in terms of God, America and traditional family, they can "sell" their progressive agenda, just like the conservatives do. Ain't how politics works. And it ain't how sales works.

What progressives should do more of is studying people's real needs — and determine, what, if anything, will create a more just society. That is, they'd need to adjust their solutions to the customer's problems, not seek to find ways to adjust customer's problems to their solutions.

One reason I no longer consider myself a progressive is their product/service almost always involves state control. Maybe, just maybe, the state doesn't do many things well. My experience in a city school system, for example, demonstrated to me that organizations which have monopolies can sometimes get into situations where they are incapable of reforming themselves. The only answer in a situation like that is to force the organization to compete with another organization to survive. Hence, school choice, which to me is a progressive idea because it empowers local communities to take charge of their children's educations, and gives the children the best possible opportunity to get an education.

But progressives often deride school choice. Why? Is it because they love their product/service more than they care about the customers' needs? I don't know. It seems like that to me. And as any sales person will tell you, when you place your product above the customer's need, more often than not you don't get the sale. And even if you do, you don't get a happy repeat customer who gives you referrals.

I'd suggest that a thorough and honest accounting of people's needs is more likely to make Publius a conservative than make progressives out of most people. FWIW.

I cannot believe the number of times I've seen the word embarrass misspelled on blogs. It's astonishing. Look at the google searches. Nearly 135,000 hits for misuse of the spelling of this root. Not to be a nitpicker, but the bloody word has two Rs.

One R is not optional spelling. Recently, I've seen the error on almost every blog I visit.

SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS: EMBARRASS HAS TWO R's.

It is harass and harassment that have one R.

What is the world coming to?

A friend e-mailed and, commenting on the both the Iraqi prison scandal and the beheading of Nick Berg, asked me, "What is going on in the world?"

I sent him this:

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered....And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. [Italics mine, duh.]

The last line is what I was trying to say in all my words in the last post.

I've heard many, many bloggers and online columnists talk about the severe over-exposure of the abusive photos from Abu Ghraib.

Not having my cable television hooked up, I was unaware of this overexposure. Just as I was only vaguely aware of other famous overexposures of our time.

It's important to be a well-informed citizen. But you can easily become an info-glutted citizen instead. One thing I experienced living in sub-Saharan Africa — I was never as well-informed about both U.S. news events and international affairs as then. Reason: I had no access to television, and pretty much my only source of news was the International Herald-Tribune, which I read twice a week.

The key was not just the newspaper (which was outstanding). It was the pace of receiving the information, which was nearly perfect. Rarely did I miss anything, and I could always follow what was going on, and usually the story had only progressed a little bit.

News stories unfold in real life much more slowly than our technology allows — and thus all that extra dead air (and newsprint) is filled with speculation, opinion, predictions, asides, excess detail, and repetition. Reading a daily newspaper like the IHT cover-to-cover once or twice a week gave the stories an organic feel that you don't get in today's news cycles because much of the filler wasn't there to confuse the issues.

Not only that, but the news cycles themselves have twisted our culture. Our government and news media end up collaborating with each other merely by trying to control and manipulate the images of the story during those rapid news cycles. But usually after two or three days all the BS washes out and you have a better idea of what happened.

Does that make sense?

I guess what I'm saying is the real news of the day usually is fairly light — it could be absorbed fairly quickly, and a longer reading (or viewing) cycle makes clear what is new and what isn't.

With a longer news cycle, you also don't find yourself reacting to every little thing as if it's more important than it really is. I guess what I'm saying, news can sometimes be better if it's a few days old.

Just a suggestion.

Many folks have unhappy components to their jobs. That's why it's called work, and that's why they pay you to do it. But sometimes in corporate America things go too far, you have a situation where the work is changing you in a bad way.

Three particularly negative changes: You become a victim, a survivor or a minion. Has it gone that far? Probably not. But test to see if you need to get out of your current position sooner rather than later here.

Wow. What a difference a day can make. I feel back to normal. Thank God. And thanks for the prayers. Pax, all.

Don't assume it's in the bag, though if you look at the Kerry campaign, it's in disarray. Not time to get cocky, even if you've got a lot of reasons to. You have periodically appeared very concerned and such in the media. Good. The press will pound the hell out of you from now to November, but in the end few people listen to the press anyway, and the rest hate them more than anyone else. Stay the course. Stay upbeat. Look like you're running the country. It would help if you took care of Bin Laden before the election, too.

That's all. Your friend, IB Bill

You no doubt want to win the presidential election. One question: Why? That's what I'd like to know. There are a variety of reasons, good and bad, for wanting to be president.

If it were me, I know exactly why I'd want to be president: unlimited expense account. People forget that the presidency is, at its core, a gig. And not just a gig, it's free food and housing, a six figure salary, but here's the kicker — you have an unlimited travel and entertainment budget. You can eat, drink and be merry with whoever you want whenever you want, and nobody can do anything about it for FOUR years!

I'd spend half my weekends in Camp David, flying in famous artists, writers, scientists and adventurers, and then have William F. Buckley, wreaking of gin, have them get into arguments with each other. The other half of the weekends I'd probably spend out of the country — probably skiing in the Alps, or scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, or canoeing the Amazon. I'd take no fewer than 20 weeks off a year — just like college professors, and the same time. January would be a long winter break in Belize or sub-Saharan Africa, maybe Kenya. The summers would be spent fishing in Canada and maybe some cool places in Russia. I'd take with me whoever was really busy.

What about the work? Ha! That's what the vice-president is for. I'd just delegate it all. What about diplomatic relations? Ha! That would be conducted on vacations. Tossing a few cold ones back with the Prime Minister of Norway, going curling with the Prime Minister of Canada — these would build up enough good will and let the professional diplomats handle the rest.

Oh, but this about you, John Kerry. Here's the thing: I cannot figure out why you want to be president. Bill Clinton was fairly obvious: He was compelled to be president by deep psychological needs, compulsions that also manifested themselves in self-destructive sexual behavior that almost brought down his presidency. Clinton needed to be president for validation. Ok, cool, I understand that. George W. Bush was less obvious; he seemed more drafted into it because it's the family business. George H.W. Bush seemed to want to be president to cap off his resume. Ronald Reagan wanted to change the tone of America, restore its optimism, rein in the excesses of governmental growth, and kick the Commies' asses back to Mars. Jimmy Carter was an idealist who wanted to impose those ideals on an unwilling world. Richard Nixon had the deep psychological need thing. LBJ wanted to create a better world while stealing as much money as he could....ok, you get the idea.

But why do you, John Kerry, want to be president? Is it just because that's what's next on your resume? Is it because as a boy you wanted to be president and you haven't changed? Or is it because you have a vision for America?

If you want to win, the best formula is to follow the general concepts of Ronald Reagan. Reagan wanted to accomplish specific things, and we all knew what they were. Do you know what specific things you want to accomplish? Do we?

Here are some friendly suggestions by a Reagan Democrat:

1. Smile. You already look more presidential than Dubya, but you look too dour. You are obviously a much more secure person than Al Gore, so you can smile safely without looking like Frankenstein is smiling at you. Presidential contests are absurd. Smiling shows that you know that, too. It takes some of the craziness out of it. And it leaves a lasting positive image.

2. Be optimistic about America. This is a tough one, because you're running against the tide in your own party, which has the perception of anti-Americanism. Don't feed into it. Be positive. Voters were left with a positive attitude toward John Edwards because he was optimistic and smiling. If you let the "blame America first" crowd take over, or the "All Republicans are Bigots" crowd take over, you're toast. You're running for the presidency of the country now, not the presidency of the Democratic Party. If your convention booes the Boy Scouts like in 2000, you're toast. In 1992, Al Gore and Bill Clinton threw bones to their opponents "safe legal and rare" and things of this nature, which showed respect for opponents. Be optimistic and respectful, and you'll glean off votes.

3. Get off the defense. Don't complain or even kvetch about someone questioning your patriotism, or the GOP attack machine, or Bush's evil campaigning. This just feeds the news cycle. Here's what you do instead: You set the tone for your campaign. Clinton answered every accusation before the next deadline by policy in the 1992 campaign, but he also opened up new fronts and did something more important: He talked about America to Americans in a way where they felt included. He'd didn't govern that way, but he did campaign that way.

4. Touch on the grand themes of America. Don't harp on them, but don't get too wonkish or too detailed. Americans are suckers for speakers who mention the hopes for our nation, touch on our failures, but especially how we've overcome them. Don't leave those themes to the GOP. Talk about freedom. Talk about opportunity. Talk in optimistic terms about helping the United States live up to its ideals. Use the word "Gettysburg" at least once in your acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention.

5. Steal. Don't think there are Republican issues you can't steal. There are a ton of them. You can go after the GOP on the budget, you can talk about strengthening the War on Terror, heck, grab school choice and tort reform. You're running for president. Just because your party is hostage to school unions and trial lawyers doesn't mean you can't relentlessly steal issues and relabel them. (Aside: I thought the stupidest thing the United States did during the Cold War was not coming out with a competing brand of communism to directly compete with the Soviets: New American Communism! Twice as effective, at half the price! Of course it would be basically capitalism with a few crooks thrown in jail first, but who cares? It's the label that matters.)

Good luck. If you lose on a positive and optimistic note, you'll be known as a "class act" for the rest of your life. If you win, governing will be that much easier. People like happy people. Being nominated must be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Treat is as an honor, not an entitlement, and you'll have a better shot.

I know you're a bit of a European at heart. That's part of the problem. You still have too much Swiss boarding school, Yale, yachting with the Kennedys kind of thing going. Jeez, you were dressed up like Joop Zoetemelk the other day while biking; you looked like you could've been in the Alps. I'm not saying fake it — you're always better off just going with who you are. But you may want to try to look athletic without looking like you're running for the Italian parliament.

Oh, yeah, you've got another month and a half before the serious campaigning. Have yourself a nice bender. You'll feel better.

One last thing: Remember to play to win, don't play not to lose.

I could use some prayers right now. Specifically, that my faith in God may be strengthened right now and that I accept a painful loss. It turns out I was in denial about something, but didn't realize that until just last weekend. So this week things are a bit squirrelly as I jump between anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. As we all know by now, those stages aren't quite a straight line: I for one jump all over the place, sometimes in the same hour. Heh.

Don't worry. I'll be OK. Already I've learned an important lesson -- faith sometimes needs to be put in mental italics, then bolded, and underlined ... that is, sometimes faith needs to be an action verb, in the same sense as "To Punch" is an action verb. Faith is believing exactly when you don't believe ... it means pushing through exactly when you want to give up ... it means moving forward even as everything appears totally hopeless. That's what's getting me through right now.

A few prayers could help. Thanks. Pax Christi.

One thing I've noted among people with whom I deal is this: There are people who answer questions, and people who don't. That is, you ask a question that requires some thought, and some people say, "Well, with all the normal disclaimers, the answer is somewhere between here and there." And other people refuse to answer until they actually do all the work — perhaps they've been held to previous guesses and simply refuse now.

I understand the second type, but I really prefer to work with the first. People who answer questions fall into two types: bullshitters and experts at guessing. Either way it's win for me: It's usually easy to tell if they're bullshitters or not.

For a house I'm building, I like one contractor a lot, but he's not the type of guy who likes to give out a non-exact answer. I asked him to make an estimate, and he refused to give me any numbers at all. Instead, he went through an intelligent period of information-gathering. But then he went too far.

He knows the answer, but he snail-mailed me my price quotes — and then e-mailed me to tell me about both price quotes and that they are on their way. Lovely. I sent him an e-mail back suggesting that he may want to simply e-mail me the prices, and gave a short communication on how I prefer someone who answers questions to someone who hedges, hems and haws.

After all, any builder with experience would have a pretty good idea how much a house would cost to build after I answered his questions, but he still refused to guess. I've met many people who could give me a range at that time. So if I get this guy to understand that I understand the idea of ranges, and caveats, and changeable situations, that's fine. A good builder needs to be able to tolerate ambiguity, and I'd rather have a guess now. But he's try to close the deal on an estimate, and while I appreciate the drive behind it, I still would've preferred the original estimate.

FWIW.

In the meantime I wait to hear.

UPDATE: He got back to me. Close to my estimates, just a little higher. Oh well. Probably back to the drawing board.

I was pleased to join some friends Sunday morning in a church of theirs. It was a Moravian Church, some place I'd never been before. I was interviewed at Moravian Academy, a high school in Nazareth, Pa., but I didn't get the job. So this was my second experience.

First up, the church building itself was just about as stripped-down Protestant as they come. The building walls were white, the floor was green, the pews were wood. There was some raised panel on the ends of the pews; raised panel being as Baroque as Moravians get, apparently.

The service seemed very much like the Methodism of my youth — songs, readings, some preaching. And I enjoyed it very much on its own terms. I'm very much of a fire-and-brimstone, sin-conscious type — the Church is under siege by the world, the devil and the flesh, and perhaps I needed to be reminded of a more positive, comforting side of God, and the powerful, stripped-down faith that many of those who built this country held. It was very welcoming, and people started with an enthusiatic greeting of all in the church. Another nice touch was the pastor's asking of the congregation for prayers. A young woman stood up and named someone who had died; the prayers were thus offered by the congregation for her, and for the few others who spoke up to ask for public prayers.

Overall, the church was estrogen heavy. Two pastors, both women. The choir had three rows, two rows of women, and three men in the back. The music was provided by women. Thus, looking to the front, you had all women on the left and center and right — except three men in the last row of the choir. The message spoken of by the pastors was almost exclusively the rhetoric of therapy and social justice. The message was about not fulfilling potential, or making mistakes. The Biblical passages were relentlessly upbeat: God the comforting, God the loving, God the creating. I noticed the passages always stopped right at the fire and brimstone. In the entire service, there was no mention of sin and death, unless you could a mention of "transgressions" in a hymn into a mention of sin; in that case, there was one. There was no confession, no absolution, no profession of faith, and no real talk about Jesus. Jesus was mentioned in hymns and in prayers, but otherwise the talk was of God.

All in all, I was delighted to be asked by friends. While it wouldn't be a weekly choice, it was helpful to me in a therapeutic way — particularly during the service the pastor made a prayer for single people. In my own church and on the right, it's all families, families, families ... and while I believe that families come first in our community without exception, it was nice to have someone acknowledge those of us who don't quite fit the norm. It was something Christ would've done.

One phrase that caught on (until there was a lot of turnover) in a place that I once worked was, "Thinking the Big Thoughts." I've received some puzzlement lately about what this means.

Well, "Thinking the Big Thoughts" is both a joke and a serious concept, and both stem from its source. usually "Thinking the big thoughts" means you are not immersed in the immediate details of the situation; you have taken a step back and are looking at how things all fit together in the big picture.

It's a serious concept because "Thinking the Big Thoughts" is very simply strategic thinking. You need good strategic thinkers if you hope to achieve your goals; you can't achieve your goals unless you figure out what they are. In my current work environment, the managers are pretty good detail people, but they're not much in the way of strategic thinkers. They could use to spend a little more time thinking Big Thoughts, but unfortunately every time they try to do this, they formulize the process so much that not much comes of it. You think Big Thoughts by habit ... not on demand. You simply ask, "What if ..." during your regular work day. Think about what could replace your products. Think about what your customer needs your product to do, and if those needs could be met another way. The classic example of a non-strategic thinker is the horse Boxer from Animal Farm. His answer to everything was, "I will work harder." Boxer worked very hard all his life, and then he was sold to a glue factory so the pigs could enjoin cable porn and salmon steaks. Showing up every day and working hard isn't enough; you need to understand the big picture, and how you fit in, and where to go if you don't fit, or if the Big Picture is going to get a channel change. That's the Big Thoughts.


And it's a joke because thinking Big Thoughts can be a convenient thought for simply not having anything on your workplate at the current moment. Thinking the Big Thoughts means reflecting ... that may mean you need to let your mind wander around for a while, you may need to take a walk, or bounce around the Web just to spur some creativity and let the Big Thoughts come. To the outsider, this really doesn't look like work. To the outsider, it's not noticeably different from goofing off. So the joke is ... that you don't know. The person could've been thinking Big Thoughts. Or maybe not. All purpose excuse.

From FoxNews comes this update on the Great Milwaukee Brewers Weiner Race Scandal of 2003: The Italian Sausage attacked by a later-contrite Pittsburgh Pirates ballplayer has now retired. No more sausage races for her.

What's really weird is that the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council awarded her a Certificate of Bravery for her withstanding of the assault.

And yes, there's a Hot Dog Council. Read all about it here.

Can't imagine an executive doing introductions at a picnic:

"What did you say you do, Bob?"
"I'm a publicist."
"Oh, really. Where?"
"The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council."
"Oh. Hmm..."
"Yes, I hear that a lot. Think of it like CAIR. But, you know, for hot dogs. You wouldn't believe the hostility sometimes. Just last year we had to defend a ballpark worker who was attacked for nothing more than dressing up as an Italian sausage and racing other costumed weiners. Fortunately, the attacker later apologized and agreed to purchase Italian sausages for an entire section of the ballpark. But we've really got to stay on top of things. Sausage-related attacks could be on this rise."
"Well, Bob, it seems to me most people like hot dogs just fine. No one I know hates sausages."
"Oh, yes, the old some-of-my-best friends are sausages. See, there's still a lot of work to be done."
"I'm sorry."
"It's OK. Here's my business card. Just send a donation and we'll call it even. OK?"
"Uh ..."

*****

Regarding the title, there is an association of assocations here.

Upgraded the knives in my kitchen fairly recently. Man, does good stuff make a difference. I learned in this book here (which I read in the book store) that you should start off with three knives: a cook's knife, a paring knife and a bread knife. I picked Wusthof as a brand on a friend's recommendation.

So here's what I got (in the past few weeks): a 10-inch cook's knife & a 7-inch Santoku knife, a 3-inch paring knife, a deli slicer / bread knife & a 10-inch slicing knife and a sharpening steel. With the steel, I was able to get the edge back on a 6-inch utility knife I had from the Pampered Chef; I already had a pretty cool bread knife that was a gift. So there, all set on the cutting side of things, except maybe some specialty stuff like a cleaver.

Then to protect these things in a drawer (knife blocks have always grossed me out a bit, plus, where do you put the damned thing if you don't have a lot of counter space?), I got some of these cool plastic sleeves called KnifeSafes. The sleeves snap open and shut and you can put them the dishwasher if they get dirty.

So now I'm all set on the knife side of things. One recommendation I'd add to all this: Get some crappy knifes, the $4 kind you see in the stores. These are for cutting open things you don't want to risk / bother your good knifes for. Like cutting open a package of meat, things of this nature. I use some of the garbage knives as much as the good ones.

First couple of cooking jobs went amazing. I was able to slice celery and onions thinner than potato chips — not that I had any reason to, but I did it anyway. I used to over-work that utility knife like crazy and consequently the cutting used to take a lot of time. Now it takes about a zillionth the time. And the Santoku knife is so cool it defies description. It's really best all-around knife I got. If I were to get just one, that would be it.

Next up: A butcher's block.

* Frequent commenter and honored guest MarcV gave me a hard time the last time I wrote about kitchen stuff, calling me a pot snob. So I thought I'd preempt the accusation :)