Milwaukee Specialty Food and Coffee

Snapshots: Alterra Costa Rica Herbazu Honey

I'm at Alterra on Prospect, having just enjoyed a double shot of the espresso of the week, the Costa Rica Herbazu Honey.  I was in the neighborhood for a dentist appointment (no cavities--thanks for asking!  But as you can surely imagine, I do need that whitening, so do tell him Mike Miller sent you if you go).  The doppio was on a par with any of the best espressi I've had here, a high level indeed.  As attentive readers will know, I have a strong preference for Costa Rican coffee, so I can't wait to try it as drip, also.

Snapshots: The Business of Awkward

WiFi is awkward.  It generates the need to say "Hey, thanks for your business.  We want you here, but then again, maybe we don't."  Mixed messages are awkward.  If you read the above agreement, you will notice some hallmarks of awkward communication.  The first is the need to not assume common sense on the part of the reader.  That's very much based in reality, I'm afraid.  Common sense is context, and the increasingly context-free nature of our communication lives (digesting random bits of unrelated information) wars against common sense.  Another is the need to veil the message in layer upon layer of pleasantries to avoid giving offense.   This isn't the best example; actually, it's rather straightforward.  In fact, it must work so well that the verbiage has been used in similar Wi-Fi agreements from other companies, notably George Webb. 

So much of our communication in the United States is fear-based.  Fear of pissing off a customer or colleague.  Fear of someone going off and breaking the thin, fragile veneer of civility that remains, at least in our urban areas.  Fear of litigation.  In the most extreme (but all too frequent) case, fear of gun violence.

I consider awkwardness to be a real human problem.  It's not cancer, but neither is it unworthy of the attention of the best minds--maybe Google can tackle it next.  It takes a toll in health and wealth; just think of the amount of alcohol and tobacco consumed to "take the edge off."  On the farm, people worked 50 hours a week or more of hard manual labor.  Some of us still have that kind of workload, but how many?  Where is all this stress and awkwardness coming from?  I'd argue that it's friction in the machine of modern life. 

Like any machine, modern life requires good engineering.  When I go into a chain coffeehouse for a cup of coffee, I'm part of a system.  It's not a little mini-drama about my worth and dignity as a human being.  I'm entirely confident of my worth and dignity as a human being, and become more so as I grow older and wiser.  If the coffeehouse experience--to offer only one example--could only be a little more efficient, life would be easier and happier for those on both sides of the counter.

This is something I'll explore in greater depth later, but it seems like we program our computers to do everything except that which would make our lives easier.  Program your POS system to store loyalty program information?  In most cases, no way.  A kid comes up with the idea of putting an RFID chip in a plastic cup.  Fantastic idea.  He can barely get a meeting with coffeehouse owners.  And then I notice that sometimes, employees use the POS for Facebooking.  YGBFKM.  The point is drawing near where I say, y'know what?  Make this more efficient, or I'm gone; if you haven't noticed, McDonald's, Panera and even Open Pantry have raised their coffee game.  

Snapshots: What is Awkward?

Tonight, I did a little research for my series of posts on awkwardness.  OK, I admit it: I do research every day.  Indeed, some days seem almost non-stop awkward, from the time the elevator of my apartment building hits the ground floor to when my key once again finds its way into my door many hours later.  Coffeehouses--the nominal subject of this blog--are often awkward.  One reason is that coffeehouse operators, be they chains or independents, configure the coffeehouse experience to be transaction-heavy.  It's not only the countless drink options, it's the punch card, and what not.  (In this blog, I often criticize the fact that they sometimes fail to ask whether the order is for here or to go, but you can probably imagine why!)  Plunk down a buck and get a cup of coffee in return?  Forget it--and not only because of pricing, even at Open Pantry.

In the fascinating world--well, at least to me--of market segmentation, the most obvious segment to which coffeehouses are designed to appeal is women.  I mean, punch cards?  Come on.  No man wants Costanza wallet.  So, on an obvious level, there's a mismatch or at least a misfit. 

For whatever reason, especially on Milwaukee County's North Shore, coffeehouses are very small in terms of the space provided for customers to stand and sit.  In some cases, absurdly small.  I always kind of chuckle and wonder why upscale folks tolerate such cramped conditions.  (Classic example: Sendik's in Whitefish Bay, which I otherwise like but which has become a ridiculous slam dancing pit.)  I'm over six feet tall--and that's not counting the platform shoes--so a cramped coffeehouse such as the Caribou or Stone Creek on Silver Spring is inherently awkward for me.  I like space, and attentive readers of this blog have surely noticed the kind of places to which I've been gravitating lately, which provide this space.

Preview: What is Awkward?

This post-Thanksgiving weekend, I'll probably be posting more than I have of late.  I've decided on a theme for my posts: awkwardness.  What is awkward?  If you have thoughts on the subject, get ready to chime in!

Ristretto: Random Thoughts: Help, I'm Stitting and I Can't Get Up!

Lately, it seems like every time I go to a restaurant or coffeehouse, I sit with my right leg crossed over my left and before long (OK, maybe after about 30-45 minutes or longer), my right leg falls asleep.  Sometimes, when I then attempt to stand, it's as if I were handicapped.  Would it help if I were sitting on a cushion or something to make me sit higher off the ground?  Or maybe it's useful negative reinforcement to prevent me from messing around on the Internet for hours on end as in days of yore...

Ristretto: Whitefish Bay/Shorewood Doings

During my impromptu sabbatical, much news has transpired on the "thank goodness we had a recession so the Baby Boomers can't retire yet" circuit.  (Just kidding about that--I don't actually know any Boomers well enough to know whether or not that's true.)  A City Market will open in Whitefish Bay in Spring 2010.  An Alterra will open on the border between Shorewood and Whitefish Bay, also sometime in the next year.

You Write The Songs

Time is short and energy is even shorter, so for tonight's post, I'll let Internet searchers "write the songs", as it were, by posting their search queries that lead them to this blog.

does fiddleheads mequon have internet?

Do you mean Mequon (N. Port Washington Rd.) or Thiensville (S. Main St.)?  If Mequon, the answer is emphatically yes--and what fine Internet it is!  If Thiensville, I've been told they do, though I always take these things with a grain of salt until I've brought my laptop there and made sure that it and the system get along.  I don't know if I have finicky laptops or what, but on recent visits to Borders and Barnes & Noble--both of which have now converted to free Wi-Fi--I wasn't able to connect succesfully after several minutes, so I gave up.

Ristretto: Brrrrr!

Remembering one reason why coffeehouses are, counterintuitively, often far less comfortable in winter than in summer: big windows radiating cold into the interior!  Pizza Shuttle's been seeing a lot of me lately...

Blog News: Spirituality Forum

A new article has been posted to the Spirituality Forum.

Editorial: Too Much Information, Too Little Truth

I'm amazed at the power of Internet-based communication tools to be both value-neutral (indeed, possibly content-neutral) and self-perpetuating.  I'm amused at how perfectly natural it is considered for us all, it seems, to build our personal brand using Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.  I know whereof I speak--after all, that's why you're reading this!  I watched the TV news Friday night (a relatively rare event) and noted with interest that a fellow blogger was quoted as the source for a story about the selection of Milwaukee's new Roman Catholic Archbishop.  What a crazy collision of the ultimate top-down organization--which has, amazingly, been able to entrench its centralized authority and reassert its command-and-control nature since the 1960s--with the bottom-up world of blogs. 

For the good of humanity, I hope we will be able to discover (or rediscover) a middle way.  Let's not abandon the idea of authority, but let's also not accept everything that's handed down from above and lose the gains made since the 1960s towards participatory democracy.  Please don't interpret this as a religiously bigoted statement, but in my view, the Vatican is a human government that is no more or less morally valid than any others.  I admire many, many things about the Roman Catholic church--a fact I've been meaning to blog about for some time--but also think she has lost the thread since Jesus' day, to put it mildly.  I would level the same criticism at most Christian churches.

This must all seem a bit far afield, but I think a basic problem is that we've allowed ourselves to become way too dumbed down, particularly in our reading and writing level and ability to communicate.  Language is power, and no one understands that better than the Vatican.  Big words are power.  The powers that be--big brother, little brothers, and lots of people who just want to sell us useless junk--use language to confuse, contort and connive.  If we can't analyze and scrutinize the information we take in, we become defenseless against it.

These days, getting up every morning and seeking to impose a stamp of order and meaning on life is the very definition of an uphill battle.  The goal of trying to turn one's information intake from meaningless bits of disconnected information into a coherent narrative seems almost impossible.  However, I believe that it's a worthwhile and necessary pursuit.  After all, if we don't do it for ourselves, someone else will--someone who is likely to be as far away from our wants, needs and best interests as Rome is from Milwaukee.