Friday, February 20, 2009

Job Number 3

My days of stressing out due to lack of work have abated for the time being. Since returning from a short trip to ID, I will have worked 10 out of 11 days. This turn in fortunes is due to Job Number 3: Coffee/sandwich shop dude (is the term barista exclusive to female coffee technicians?) Though this job is a temporary gig for the duration of a week, I feel like I have a corner on the town of G's addictive drink market. Days at the coffee shop, nights at the bar. As one astute patron asked, "Do you work everywhere in G, or just everywhere that I go?" Since the coffee shop also peddles sandwhiches I feel that I have had a glimpse into the food service industry. I have never worked in the food service industry so this short foray has proven interesting and enlightening. As with most things it has its ups and downs.

Ups:
1. A free meal or two
2. A free drink or two
3. Meeting lots of locals
4. Understanding more clearly the vast logistical system set up to support the food service industry.
5. Stainless steel counters, appliances, etc... that just demand being clean.


Downs:
1. Washing your hands constantly - I believe heartily in washing your hands a lot anyway, but the your skin can only take so much
2. Wearing latex exam gloves in addition to washing hands - as one guy said as I asked him if he was ready for his check "You bet I am, any time a guy wearing latex gloves approaches me I'm outta here."
3. Burning people's food.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Goodbye #6



The most famous resident of the Mammoth Hot Springs/Gardiner area has met an unfitting end - and the entire town is talking about it. This resident was of the four legged variety. He was known the world over as "Number Six" because of the numeral on his orange ear tag. Number Six was not just any elk. He was one of the biggest, most impressive, and most aggressive elk around. Every fall he would saunter into the town of Mammoth to gather a large harem of female elk with the intent of passing on his stellar genes to another generation of Yellowstone elk. And he did a good job of it to put it mildly. He also tolerated little from the throngs of tourists who leave thirty or forty points of their IQ's at home. Number Six was responsible for chasing people, hitting people, and most of all goring cars. He alone has been responsible for thousands of dollars of damage to both moving and stationary vehicles. I witnessed him take out the back window of a law enforcement Tahoe last fall. His reputation was well known, and he had a following of photographers that came to watch him compete with other bulls in the Mammoth area each fall. His death has thus created quite a stir. Number Six met his death in Gardiner, just outside the park. Apparently he was crossing a fence and got a foot snagged. He then fell on to his back, with his massive antlers trapped between two boulders. He slowly suffocated on his back. Not the way I hoped he would go out. The Gardiner weekly paper said it best. "He was loved, He was feared, but most of all he was a legend in his own time, A King of Ungulates."