The Mind of TCHO

Sleep

I was never very good at sleeping late, even as a teenager (lo, two long years ago). I would try my hardest to stay in bed until two or three in the afternoon, but when I cracked my eyes open, ready to see the LED dot firmly in the PM position, I would see that it was still only 10:30 in the morning, and realize I’d wasted another Saturday morning waking up at a reasonable hour (though one’s definition of reasonable is entirely dependent on age).

Now, that’s not to say I ever enjoy waking up before noon. No indeed, waking up every morning for high school was constant tug of war between looking presentable and squeezing every possible minute of sleep out of the morning. The advantage of college is scheduling your own classes (for the most part), and after three years of college and more than twenty-four college courses, I’ve only had two start before 10AM.

When I think about the prospect of (a year from now) waking up at seven in the morning five days a week for forty years plus, a look of disgust firmly plants itself on my face. But this summer (knock on wood) I may be getting over this fear of endless identical days.

Depending on how old you are, you were probably an intern once upon a time. I have been an intern going on four summers now, for various companies and in various capacities. It’s hard to tell whether my increasing age or increasing interest in the places I work makes working more and more enjoyable, but either way I increasingly love these experiences.

I don’t claim to have a huge breadth of experience being an intern, having only worked in San Francisco for a few companies, but I have performed tasks as intern-y as they get: data entry, alphabetization, and errand running (though surprisingly, never coffee-getting until this week, and even then it was for fellow-intern Kaileen). I do know one thing with absolute certainty: if you love your job, you could be literally counting beans, and you’d still be having fun.

I’ll go ahead and shamelessly plug my previous employer, Electric Works Art Gallery, here in San Francisco. Yes, I was only working a few days a week, and maybe the long weekends made the job even more fun, but I was old enough (and my employers were young enough) that I actually connected with them, and even when setting up a new catalogue system for the artwork or getting through afternoons so hot the power went out, I had fun.

Other than loving your job, the most valuable thing you can hope to have as an intern is respect. It makes a world of difference when your boss(es) treat you like a person, as opposed to a student. Lately I’ve been very lucky in this aspect as well, though perhaps it’s less luck and more working for companies that are young themselves. The freedom I had last summer to write and this summer to innovate have allowed me to feel like a full employee of my respective employers.

As an intern here, in a given day I may be doing anything from engineering gift box design to writing stories about TCHO to tasting new batches of chocolate. Or I might do all of those things, or none of them. As a twenty-one year old who naturally still hates waking up early, knowing that every day at TCHO is pretty much completely different gives me energy to get up in the morning.

That said, I now operate on what I think of as an “old person’s schedule,” waking up at seven and going to bed at eleven. And my lingering threads of teenager sneer at me and say something snotty. But I can take that.

The only thing I can’t take is my newfound inability to sleep past nine in the morning on weekends. But soon enough I’ll be back at school, sleeping my weekends away when I should be doing homework. When I wake up then and see the clock firmly in the PM position, I’ll probably complain about how, once again, I’m wasting my Saturdays.

A Trip to Las Vegas!

This month my wife and I went to Las Vegas for an Elvis wedding. It was quite a spectacle, as Vegas tends to be. First off, we flew Virgin America, which has to be, hands down, THE best airline in the US. Talk about a model of the relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction. Here we see the first-class cabin, which is like a nightclub, or, as someone else has pointed out, like being inside a lava lamp.

Of course, we checked out the sights, of which the Bellagio has many:

We also ate the "Rossini" at Burger Bar (Kobe beef topped with seared fois gras and truffles)

Which, magnanimously, automatically came with the famed dessert "Chocolate Burger," which is a donut with chocolate ganache, strawberries, and a thin slice of mango made to resemble american cheese:

Artsy shot of Paris:

Blurry shot of Elvis (or is it just an apparition??)

Elvis' pink caddy:

It's like your Birthday!

Working at a chocolate company and being the Director of Sourcing and Farmer Relations can make some days really fun with packages arriving from all over the world! From a Wholesome Sweeteners News Letter, I played along with a contest to guess "Where in the World is Joo Hee", a member of their QC Team. I was close enough and won and received a really fantastic box of retail organic and fair trade sugar, molasses and honey, even a raw white honey, top quality baseball caps and even a wholesome sweeteners 'fairtradesugars.biz' Yo-Yo!. This was great customer outreach and great customer service.

The day just kept getting better with some really nice cacao beans arriving from some great sources.

I can hear them grinding away in the lab and can't wait to taste them! - subect for a coming blog...

Out of many, one

What excites me about our time is the ascendancy of personal, direct action to make a better world - as opposed to trying to seize the instruments of (top down) political power to effect abstract electoral "change." We don't need faraway hierarchical organizations, we have the self-organizing Net empowering individuals and groups to change attitudes and/or work directly on a problem or create new solutions. Which is why I love this ad (thanks and a tip of our hat to Shane Vella):

Person, Place or Thing (Utah)

How happy I was to get off the plane and find myself somewhere warm (it's about 63 degrees in SF right now). It was 1 A.M. and I was in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was in town for the Chandler family reunion (my grandmother's side) and I hadn't been to any of the reunions for about 10 years. This year it was going to be held in the small town of Huntsville, about an hour and a half north of SLC and over the Wasatch Range.

This is about one quarter of my family on my Mom's side (the Garbett's). My Mom, Beau, to my right.

My cousin David, me, and my Aunt Ann.

The competiton was stiff in the " sweet- things-in-a-pan " category. My Aunt Jan clearly had a winning recipe for something chocolatey AND peanut buttery:

Peanut Butter Fingers

Makes one large cookie sheet

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cookie
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup peanut butter
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tea. salt
1 tea. baking soda

Cream butter, peanut butter and sugars together. Add eggs, salt, baking soda, and beat until fluffy. Mix in flour and oats. Spread over large greased cookie sheet (I use the butter wrapper to grease the cookie sheet).

Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 min. until golden brown.

Frosting
chocolate chips (or TCHO chocolate)
3 TB. butter
1 tea vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk/or less to spreading consistency

Immediately after removing the cookie from the oven, sprinkle chocolate chips (or chopped up TCHO chocolate) on top to your liking.

Cream together butter, vanilla, and peanut butter. Add powdered sugar and enough milk for easy spreading consistency.Then spread frosting on top of the warm chocolate chips to marble.

Let cool before cutting into squares.

My cousin Sam enjoying his mom's tasty treat.

My Uncle Bryson (I'm linking to him just to embarrass him) and Aunt Ann.

Pineview Resevoir

It was really great to meet relatives I'd never met before. Collin Chandler's family in Ogden, UT, fed us delicious things from the grill and their garden.

Eat Dessert First

While in New York for the Fancy Food Show (more on that soon), I met up with some friends at Pastry Art and Design Magazine. Waiting to head out for lunch, I flipped through their latest issue - a feature article caught my attention…it talked of a new phenomenon trolling the streets of New York: Dessert Trucks. A new, updated take on an old favorite: the ice cream truck. Instead of Good Humor, these new fangled “sweetmobiles” were said to offer up gourmet desserts the likes of crème brûlée, goat cheese cheesecake and coconut tapioca. I had to learn, and taste, more.

Later that night, in the name of research, I struck out in search of one of these mysterious vehicles that promised to relieve my aching sweet tooth. At St. Mark’s place, I found one - the Dessert Truck. There it was… parked and ready to serve up a little something sweet. 11PM, standing on a New York City corner, serenaded by the din of traffic, illuminated by streetlights and traffic signals, I indulged in a small dish of warm chocolate bread pudding. Heaven.

The very next week - back home in theBay Area - I saw this headline in the New York Times: “Save Room for the Truck.” Now the secret is really out. Hopefully it means dessert trucks (maybe even TCHO chocolate trucks…?!) are coming soon to a street corner near you.

The Wall: For An Amazing Man

One of the most amazing men—ever—Todd Blair—was in an accident last September that has changed his life and the lives of the people who love him ... forever. Todd was production manager for SRL at a performance in Amsterdam at Robodock and was struck by a prop while loading out.

For the past 10 months his wife Alex has been at his side as he makes his way on his journey to recovery. She blogs as she can to keep their community of friends and loved ones up to speed on their progress.

The vast community, of which I am apart, has been doing all we can. Yesterday we unveiled our latest effort—The Wall.

The Wall is a 7'x9' steel structure with 25 1/2" aluminum gears. Designed by Greg Jones and built by Kevin Binkert and Mark Pauline

25 people and organizations modified 25 gears. Each raised money for their efforts which has resulted in an extraordinary physical manifestation of love and respect for Todd. And... some much need financial assistance.

300 or so people came to The Wall:Unveiled and much money was raised. More fun to come.

and .. TCHO was a hit.

Wall of Gears from Scott Beale on Vimeo

For more info on Todd, The Wall and ongoing fundraising efforts:

http://www.ToddNow.org

Bees

I worry about bees. If you haven’t heard about it, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is happening all over. Bees are just leaving their hives. There are plenty of guesses as to the bees’ motivation, but no one really knows why it’s happening so much lately.

There are almost no feral hives left.

But we have one in my backyard. What is now my dad’s office (nicknamed “The Cottage”) used to be a garage. There’s a steep, winding path that connects it to my house. Leaning over almost the whole backyard (and possibly tall enough to hit my room were it ever to topple) is a Monterey Cypress tree. And in the tree is a hive.

It appeared about ten years ago, when my brother and I were in elementary school. The bees never really hung out around our house, and didn’t bother us.

The first time I felt true compassion for the bees was when our neighbor across the street from the Cottage asked us to get rid of them. We asked her why. “Because someone might be allergic,” she told us. We asked her if she was. She said no. We kept the bees.

When I started hearing more about CCD recently, I felt warm affection for our bees rising in me again. (Like the opposite of bile. Honey?) This affection is not entirely free of self-interest. Honeybees are not native to North America, so no native plants rely on pollination for food-production. However, many of the food crops we eat today are non-native, and would be devastated if the bees all disappeared.

No more almonds, peaches, soybeans, cucumbers, apples, or pears (to name a few). If we think food prices are high now, imagine if we had to import most produce from other continents.

But our bees give me hope. A lot of us are counting on the ever-rising popularity of environmentally friendly practices to save us from the myriad looming disasters we’re facing. I hope that people will stop planting one crop (looking at you, almonds), so that bees stop starving ten months out of the year. I hope people are motivated enough to do something out of their everyday routines. I hope people start planting bee-friendly plants to attract them.

In fact, maybe that’s why the bees came to our yard. My mom has always loved roses, and we have a ton of them in our front yard. And the bees seem to love the ivy that covers our house. And I know lots of people are scared of bees, but if you’ve actually looked at a bee up close, they are incredibly cute. But maybe that’s just me. Or my bees.

I worry that in some Douglas Adams-y move, the bees will all just take off someday, buzzing a “So long, and thanks for all the pollen,” before heading back to the moon. But hopefully, my bees will stay behind, not just because I am a particular fan of non-native fruits, but also because I care about them. And if my worrying about bees will help secure their survival and/or existence on this planet, I’m just going to keep on worrying. Care to join me?

(Pictures by my dad, Stephen Linden)

Open-source phone system rocks: asterisk, freePBX, and PBXinaFlash

phones.

we all need them. they are the way communicate apart from IM, email, etc, and the other techology gadgets we employ. In the early days of this company, everyone used their cell phones. "Do we really need a phone system?" some users asked. But isn't it nice, instead of walking downstairs from your desk, getting distracted by a thousand shiny things (ooooh chocolate!), to just dial someone's extension and ask them the question you needed to ask? All in the name of productivity my friends.

Now I am not a big fan of voicemail. I pretty much hate it. Somehow, though, when it comes in to my email inbox as a .wav file, it's just that much less annoying, and I actually listen to it.

So I knew we needed phones, and I made sure I had money in the IT budget for them. I got quotes for $30k, 100k, and 15k, respectively for moderately-featured Avaya, Cisco, and way-stripped-down Avaya systems. And this is for 20 handsets, mind you! Ummmm, no. Then Louis reminded me, "can't you just turn a regular PC into a PBX and be done with it?" Oh yeah...Asterisk! So I got on the trusty interwebs and started researching open-source PBX alternatives.

What I found was PBX in a Flash, a product of Nerd Vittles. This is a brilliant solution in terms of a downloadable image that installs on any intel-based computer. Burn to CD, pop it in, reboot, and in 45 mins, voila! instant linux-based open-source PBX will all the functionality you could possibly want in systems that cost mega-buxxxx. I found the installation to be seamless and the instructions on the site to be very thorough and helpful. I bought a $700 Digium PRI card, plugged my Verizon line into it, made some configuration changes and there we have it. Some of the many features include: Visual Voicemail (a la iphone), Conference Bridges, the aforementioned voicemail to email inbox, fax capabilities, follow-me, digital receptionist (IVR), and what is called VmX, or a mini-IVR in your voicemail, where you can give callers options to, say, leave a message, find me on my cellphone or transfer back to an operator.

When I was first setting up the system (with a Pentium 3 933 MHz Dell box I had lying around in my garage), I spent some $$ for FreePBX setup support (www.freepbx.org), and found myself on the phone with Philippe Lindeheimer, the lead developer for the FreePBX project. And, well it just so happened, that that very day he was speaking at the DigiumWorld conference in San Jose. So I went down there and met him, and was impressed with the amount of information this guy knows! Anyway, he also steered me to Aastra phones as the best phones to go with Asterisk systems. I actually tried them out at Digium World and was impressed. Since the phones read XML, you can create an unlimited number of applications for the phones, and they can be had on the net for $200 each. Quite a far cry from the other quotes I was getting for systems that didn't do half as many functions!

Recently Nerd Vittles has posted blog entries declaring Aastra phones "The World's Best Asterisk Phone."

Anyway, I couldn't recommend this system more highly, and Philippe has proven to be a really great resource.

The Starting Line

It’s no secret - I am a rower and in many ways, it is my life. I have a t-shirt that says “I can’t, I row” and it’s true. I row in big boats—fours and eights—and often use my rowing experiences to help me in other parts of my life.

TEAM: There is no star on a rowing crew, no franchise player, no single person that makes the boat go fast or wins the race. In fact, the best boats are where everyone blends in and rows as one. The crew is responsible for the victory.

RHYTHM: It’s what drives a rower—the rhythm of the stroke, the rhythm of the water, the rhythm of your breathing, the rhythmic movement of your crew. Get in a rhythm—let it take you places.

RISK: Sometimes you have to take it, look over the edge, break out of the box, stretch yourself. Sometimes you fail but always your team is there to catch you, pick you up, help you understand the lesson you learned. Sometimes you succeed and again, your team is there to praise, applaud and remind you of the next hurdle.

We are currently in the midst of our sprint racing season, racing each other for seats in the best boats and racing other crews for positions on the medal stand. It’s the time of the year for high anxiety, excitement and that rush of adrenaline.

I have that same feeling about where we are with TCHO. So much happens behind the scenes in preparation for sitting on the starting line. Every day, we get closer and the anxiety builds. I could get anxious about being anxious. I could believe that everything is falling apart. I could stress about things not being finished, critical decisions being changed, and materials not being delivered. But, I believe that anxiety is really excitement disguised. I am incredibly excited to be at the starting line, the crew has done the work and now it's time to race.