The SoapBoxers

To the KFC on Highway 1 in Iowa City

I love your food.  My favorite is probably the mashed potato bowl.  Mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, and little nuggets of chicken, all combined into one bowl.  What’s not to like?  I’m also a fan of the original chicken.  My wife also likes your food.

Unfortunately, I will never darken your door (or drive thru) again.  Why?  Because your service is absolutely dreadful.  Let me count the ways.

First, on multiple visits (months apart) I have come across a situation where the drive thru speaker is broken.  This isn’t apparent until you actually wait in line for a while.  It is frustrating to arrive at the ordering station and realize that you’re not going to be able to order your food until you get to the final window.  This creates an additional delay.  Getting this permanently fixed would be a high priority if I owned the KFC.

Second, the service is too slow.  It is common for me to wait 15-20 minutes in the drive thru when there are only a handful (3-4) cars ahead of me.  This is not the exception, this is the rule.  I’m not exaggerating, either.  Since this starting become an issue, I keep track of what time it is when I pull into the line.  I can actually put my car in “park” a couple of times while I am waiting.  One time, while waiting in line,  I was approached by an older gentleman (apparently from out of town) who wanted directions.  I was able to give him detailed directions and send him on his way – and the line had not moved forward even an inch during this time.  From what I can see of the inside of the restaurant, the service doesn’t seem much quicker there, either.  This is supposed to be fast food, but it’s really not fast.  I can get a pizza from my favorite restaurant as quickly as I can get a potato bowl from KFC.

Finally, your employees simply make too many mistakes.  There are frequently problems with the order.  A recent order had the wrong variety of chicken (extra crispy instead of original recipe) and didn’t have any gravy on the mashed potatoes.  The order was taken correctly, as the correct items are on the receipt – the order was simply fulfilled incorrectly.  We complained about that incident and received a postcard for a free meal.  I redeemed that a couple of night ago.  After a very long wait, I finally pulled up to the window and ordered (since the speaker was broken).  As the lady was putting things into the bag, I asked for honey and butter.  She tossed something in the bag, and I assumed she gave us both, instead of checking.  Nope, she didn’t include any butter.

Quite honestly, you’re no longer worth the hassle.  There are a lot of other restaurants in town, and most of them provide a much better experience for the customer.

Note that I do not believe that this is indicative of all KFC restaurants.  Over the years, I have eaten at many KFCs and have had a lot of positive experiences.

Traffic

Another month is in the books.  We surpassed 100 all-time posts, and there were 35 articles during the month of April.  We’re not getting a ton of traffic, but we do have a handful of regular visitors and a few others who drop by after seeing my comments in other folks’ blogs (notably LazyManAndMoney, ManVsDebt, FinancialNut, MasterYourCard, Purple Row, and SheInChina).  If you’re  a regular reader, leave a comment to introduce yourself.  I know who some of you are (howdy, Mandy and Mary), but I have no idea as to the indentity of others.  I’m intrigued by some of the regulars from other countries.  If you’re multi-lingual, it would be cool to see you introduce yourself in your first language and then provide a translation in English.

If you’re someone who dropped by from another blog, try us out for a week.  We don’t scratch a niche like most blogs, but have a mixture of topics during the week.  Be sure to check out Fiction Friday – I will post an original short story (written by me for this sole purpose) on Fridays.

Finances

It’s a good thing that I write for the pleasure of writing, instead of money.  Ad revenue for the month was $11.50 – or about 30 cents for each article we posted.  I won’t bother to calculate the hourly rate on that – needless to say, it’s rather low.  Hopefully traffic will pick up a bit in the coming months and cause upward movement on the financial side as well.  It would be nice to be able to buy a Pepsi or two with the ad revenue 🙂

Guest writers

I’ve had the pleasure of having a few guest writers during the month.  One of the guests became a staff writer for us (more about that later) and another is likely to have other articles appear on the site in the future.  I have actively pursued a few other people to write articles for the “a day in the life” series, which I personally enjoy reading.  I have received positive responses from several people, although I do not yet have any new segments in my hand.  I believe we’ll see a few of them in May, though.  I’m looking forward to a guest article that a fellow blogger is going to write.

The future

So, what does the future hold?  Well, it is likely that we will have at least one article on every single day from this point forward!  When I was the sole writer, it was sometimes difficult to write 7+ articles while balancing the blog with work and family life.  However, I am getting some help in this regard.  Johnny Goodman will be joining us as the weekly sports writer and Bob Inferapels will be writing a weekly entertainment column.  Note – although these are pen names, they do correspond to actual real people – they are not simply other factions of my mind.  The article’s byline will identify the author.

RSS and Twitter

Some of you have no doubt seen the  “subscribe via RSS” at the top left of the screen and wondered what on earth it is.  I won’t go into the technical details of RSS.  From a user perspective, RSS gives you a “one stop shop” to get updates for sites that are updated periodically (blogs, news sites, etc).  Think of this as a bulletin board – you tell people you want to know that they are doing (by subscribing to their RSS feed).  The next time you go to the bulletin board (RSS reader) you see all of the new articles.  Click on the subscribe via RSS link to get more information.  I’m not an RSS expert, but Google’s reader seem to do a good job.  If you follow several blogs, RSS is a great way to keep on top of them.

You can also get blog notifications on Twitter.  The Twitter updates will simply contain the title of the new article and a link to the article.  That is all.  No tweets about what I ate for breakfast or mini-rants about the moron who cut me off in traffic 🙁  Honestly, RSS is probably a better option for most people, but I decide to set up Twitter in case anyone wanted it.

Random factoid for the month

Baseball writer/analyst/god Bill James, who was largely responsible for a dramatic shift in the way that baseball players are analyzed, has a second passion – true crime.  This probably seems like an odd combination, but the weird thing is that I also have a deep interest in true crime.  If I am ever able to slip past Mr. James’ security staff (probably filled with ex Navy Seals and former CIA agents) and get a private chat with him, it will be nice to know that we can have a nice chat about serial killers if we run out of baseball topics.

Thanks, Luv, and Follow

I would like to thank everyone for their assistance with the blog.  This includes guest writers, staff writers, folks who write comments, the readers, folks who provide web hosting and technical assistance (Lazy Man), and people who have critiqued the blog for me (notably, Phil Ossifer).  We look forward to improving the reader experience in the future.  You can always email me at Kosmo@ObservingCasually.com with any questions or comments you might have.

In an effort to reward our commenters, we have implement the CommentLuv and Do-Follow plug-ins.  CommentLuv allows you to select a recent post from your own blog to be linked at the bottom of your comment.  This is why readers see link to the blogs of commenters such as Baker of ManVsDebt.

Do-Follow removes the “no-follow” tag that is typically affixed to links within the comment section of blogs.  The gist is that implementing “do-follow” will boost your your site’s Google ranking.  You don’t need to do anything to take advantage of this; it’s all under the hood, so to speak.

Neither of these plug-ins do anything for me (at least directly); I implemented them to reward the commenters who help make the blog more fun to read.

The intent of this post is to encourage people to share their thoughts on the swine flu.  I’ll start with my own.

Should we be afraid?

Sure, we should be somewhat afraid of a virus for which there is not currently a a vaccine.  There is, however, a fine line between preparedness and paranoia.  Just because a person has visited a location where there are verified cases does not mean that person will contract the swie flu. In fact, the odds are strongly against it.  Let’s take New York City, for example.  If there was one person with the swine flu in NYC and you traveled to NYC, what are the odds of you coming into contact with the person?  Not very good.

Mortality rate

People are dying from the swine flu; this is definitely true.  However, I really don’t think we are looking at the second coming of the black plague.  In fact, I seriously doubt that the death count will even be as high as the number of annual deaths from normal flu viruses (about 35,000 per year in the US.)

Pork products

The swine flu is an airborne virus.  You simply cannot get it from eating pork products.  There is no reason to avoid eating pork products (and, indeed, there are many good reasons to continue eating pork – the sensational taste of bacon being one great reason.)

How to avoid it

In general, people are being strongly encouraged to wash their hands frequently.  People who are sick – even if they do not have the swine flu – are being asked to stay home.  Doctors are being asked to test their patients if they have any reason to believe that the person might have the swine flu.  All of these are great suggestions, albeit simply a repitition of common sense. What is my point?  You should definitely be vigilant, but don’t go into panic mode.  This is not a disease that is going to wipe humanity from the face of the earth.

What are your thoughts?  I’d love to hear them – please leave a comment.

Andrew Olsen settled in for another night in his multi-million square foot home. He set a few motion detectors around the perimeter and secured his laptop. He settled in on the couch that daytime occupants used for informal meetings.  The motion detectors were connected to his cell phone via Bluetooth and would cause his phone to ring if anyone approached.  It was not unusual to see programmers crash at the office on occasion.  Aaron’s situation was slightly different.  Although he did put in some late night hours, it was mostly for show.  Aaron had decided to eschew the more private housing options preferred by his friends and spent each night in the comfort of the massive office building.

He was not completely free of lodging-related costs, of course.   Andrew rented a small storage facility where he could store his possessions.  As a recent college graduate, Andrew had not yet accumulated the large volume of personal possession that most people find themselves saddled with, so he was mainly storing clothes and books.  He visited the facility periodically to grab a different batch of clothes and a few new books to read.

Andrew also belonged to a local gym.  By most standards, it was a sub-par facility.  The weightlifting machines were obsolete, the basketball court was warped, and pieces of the running track had begun to come loose.  The gym, did, however, feature a first rate locker room.  The water was hot, the towels were fluffy, and the showers were clean.  Also, the gym was dirt cheap, even before considering the corporate discount.  Andrew began each day with a very light workout at the gym.  Andrew had no interest in exercise, of course.  This was just a ruse so that he could use the showers every day without attracting suspicion.

Andrew’s official residence, of course, was not the office,  the gym, or the storage facility.  It was PO Box 78655.  Andrew paid a visit to his mailbox once a week to pick up his rather small assortment of mail.  He had no mortgage, no electric bill, no landline phone bill, no cable television bill, not even a water bill.  Most often, Andrew found his box full of junk mail, with the occasional credit card bill.

After waking up, showering at the gym, and putting in a full day of work, Andrew typically escaped from the office for a few hours.  Occasionally, he would visit friends, although he never never asked them to visit him, of couse.  Sometimes he would eat out at a restaurant, although most nights he was happy to grab one of his frozen dinners from the break room freezer and toss it in the microwave.  Andrew did, however, enjoy the simple pleasures of life in the city.  He was a frequent visitor to the zoo, museums, and the library.

As late afternoon eventually gave way to evening, Andrew would return to the office.  The company had begun embracing a mobile concept, so it was very easy for him to move around without attracting attention.  Andrew spent much of his time surfing the internet, although he would often read while he pretended to wait for code to compile.  When the building finally dropped to a skeleton crew of zombied programmers – dead tired from incredibly long days – Andrew would find a couch in a deserted corner of the building and settle down to sleep for the night.  He moved around a lot, and while he was occasionally spotted by people, they just chalked it up to a programmer crashing after a hard day.  The next night, he would be in the opposite side of the complex, so nobody ever spotted a trend.

Andrew always had very pleasant dreams, as he counted the money that was was saving each month and counted down the days until he would be able to leverage this sacrifice into a down payment on his dream home.