Month: September 2008

The Downtown safety patrol has had some big successes in the past 5 months.  Most recently they found out the name of the panhandler who has been asking for money claiming it’s a donation for St. Jude.  During their first 12 weeks on the job, they responded to 476 requests from Downtown residents and visitors, mostly panhandling requests.

Downtown is statistically the safest neighborhood in Memphis, but like many urban areas, it sees its share of quality of life crimes like panhandling, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct.  This can cause visitors to conclude that Downtown is not safe, and keep them from wanting to come back and spend money at Downtown businesses.

The Downtown safety patrol runs from 8 AM-9 PM Sunday-Wednesday and 8 AM-11 PM Thursday-Saturday.  There are two officers on bike on duty during these hours.  They have received 36 hours of training from private security firm CDA, Inc., and 28 additional hours of training by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department.  (One of those hours of training was provided by myself and Handling-Panhandling co-founder Mike King.  We educated them on common panhandling gimmicks and gave them color printouts with photos and MO’s of some of Downtown’s most active aggressive panhandlers.)  They stay in regular communication with the Memphis Police and can call them in if a situation warrants it.  Also, by being on the streets 13-15 hours a day, they have learned where the true hotspots are for panhandling and other crimes, and they have passed this data onto MPD so officers can be utilized more effectively.

The program costs $200,000 to operate, and will not be able to continue if funding is not provided by stakeholders and business owners.  Suggested donations for businesses include

• $250/year for businesses with less than 5 employees
• $500/year for 6-25 employees
• $1000/year for 25-50 employees
• $2500/year for 50-100 employees
• $5000/year for more than 1000 employees

Contributions are tax deductible.  You can contact Larry Bloom at bloom@downtownmemphis.com or at 901-575-0562 if you would like to contribute.

Please forward this post to Downtown business owners.  If you remember how things were before April 1 – when the panhandlers and thugs had free run of the streets – then you understand how vital it is to keep the Downtown safety patrol in place.

Major success in the fight against the panhandlers… this morning, I learned the identity of the guy who has been going around selling the Downtown Merchant Guide and other free magazines, claiming the money is for donations for St. Jude.  The information came from the CCC so it appears that the Downtown Safety Patrol were the ones responsible for uncovering his identity.  Great work!

I’m not going to post his name here, but his name, picture, date of birth, and a summary of his extensive criminal record (including felonies such as assault, drug charges, aggravated robbery, and grand larceny) are on the Handling-Panhandling online forum.  If you’re fed up with criminal panhandlers like this guy, click the link to join the forum and help us clean up the streets of Downtown Memphis.

By the way, for his last two arrests (the most recent being August 8) he had a listed address in the Highland-Park area.  So much for the mistaken belief that homeless and panhandlers are one and the same.

Working together as a community, we’re making life tough for the criminal panhandlers down here.  We’ve all but run Jumper Cable Guy out of Downtown.  Hopefully we can do the same for St. Jude Guy.  As I’ve said before, only the absolute scum of the earth would lie about representing a children’s charity to get money.

The team of St. Jude scientists (two of whom are pictured above), after a lot of trash talking, again lost to the Rapscallions at trivia last night.  That makes three weeks in a row they’ve lost to us, and three weeks in a row they’ve finished out of the prize money.  Their team name is “Finding Cures and Drinking Beers.”  Maybe it should be “Finding Cures, Drinking Beers, and Sucking at Trivia.”

The bad news is, two teams beat us, so we finished third with a $10 prize.  Still, not bad – in three weeks we’ve earned $110 in prize money.  The St. Jude scientists earned $0 over the same period, but I felt bad and gave them a quarter so they could say their time spent at trivia wasn’t a total waste.

There’s a bum on the streets who claims to be taking donations for St. Jude…  maybe the St. Jude team should invite him to join.  I’m sure he’d raise the collective IQ of the group, and I bet he’d be willing to do it if the team bought him beer for the duration of the trivia match.  They would probably want to hide their purses, cell phones, and other valuables while he’s around though.

Or, perhaps the St. Jude team should think about re-locating to the East Bumblefuck Saucer for Tuesday trivia… I’ve heard they have to dumb down the questions out there because it’s Cordova.  Or they could go to Tug’s on the Island for Tuesday trivia – no idea about the difficulty of that one, but the fact that the Rapscallions aren’t there would greatly their chances of winning a prize.

Time to head to work… apologies to all my readers who pulled up the blog this morning looking for useful information, and found this instead.

According to this website, the inventory of Platinum Plus is to be auctioned off “Saturday, September 11” (don’t ask me if they mean Thursday the 11th or Saturday the 13th, I don’t know).  Platinum Plus aka the Mt. Moriah Center for the Performing Arts was shut down by the feds a couple of years ago, and the government, who now owns the inventory, is now auctioning it off.  Items you can bid on include

• Cash registers that once held money from (allegedly) illegal transactions
• 3-year old bottles of Corona
• Outfits once worn by some of the nastiest whores in town
• Furniture that said whores have rubbed their private parts all over

Sounds like a winner, huh?  Check the site for more details.

My happy hour search engine got a mention on the AltSearchEngines blog yesterday.  Great site… that one’s going on my bookmarks list, so I can learn about new specialized search engines that come online.

Several times in the past month, I’ve received e-mails asking if I’m interested in contract web design work.  Right now I can’t do it… between a 40-hour-a-week job and my own websites I’m building on the side, I’m just too busy to take outside work right now.  I don’t want to put my own sites (like the happy hour search) on hold right now, because I see those as assets I’m building that will pay off in the long run.  The good news, however, is that I now have someone I can refer web projects to, a friend of mine I ran into last night at the Saucer who has a very good freelance web design business going.  If you have a project you need done, shoot me an e-mail (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll put you in touch with him.

It’s official, Dunkin’ Donuts has signed the lease for their store at Main and Union.  Details here.

Also, another new business… took a walk this morning to get my eyes off the computer for a few minutes, and noticed there’s a new sign in 51 S. Main (formerly Renee’s Sandwich Shop).  It reads, “ON THE RIVER Seafood & More.”  I look forward to seeing the menu… wonder if it will continue to be a lunch-only place… that would be most unusual for a seafood restaurant.

Tonight is our weekly trivia night, where once again the mighty Rapscallions will hand a beating to the team full of St. Jude people.  One of them was up at the Saucer last night doing some trash-talking every time I passed by.  Except, it’s hard to talk trash when you’ve lost every time.  “Weeeellll…. yeah maybe you beat us last week and the week before, but THIS WEEK is gonna be different.  And last week we only lost by TWO POINTS.”  Hmmm yeah whatever. 

All right.  Time to grab a sandwich from Court House Deli and head back to work.

I had a reader respond to my post announcing my new Rat Race store with an article about a new concept about co-working.  Co-working is for people who have already escaped the corporate world, work for themselves, and then realize they are lonely because they don’t have any coworkers to talk to all day.  So entrepreneurs are starting to set up co-working arrangements, where you can share space with other self-employed people, to have someone to socialize with as you get your work done.  Here’s a Chicago Tribune article with more info on co-working.

For me personally, in the past when I’ve been self-employed I never had any trouble working from home… when I got lonely I’d just toss my laptop in the car and head to a coffee shop.  Or the Saucer, if it was work I could do while drinking beer.  However, I’ve talked to other self-employed people and they’ve said exactly the things in the article above, that it’s lonely working alone at times.  Maybe Memphis should set up a co-working community… according to wiki.coworking.info, Little Rock and Nashville have co-working communities, but not yet Memphis.

Whew… looks like a busy week shaping up.  Tonight I plan to work on yet another website, then hit either Pint Nite or some of the NFL specials around Downtown later in the evening.  Tomorrow is trivia night.  Wenesday my health guru AL and I are having our latest food adventure – Pa Pa Pia’s this time.  Thursday Big Foot Lodge has its Back to School party, and The Dempseys play the Saucer at 9:30.  Friday I’m taking the night off to rest up for Saturday, because I’ll be on my feet all day long at the Cooper-Young Fest.  Looks like if we get rain from Hurricane Ike, it won’t be here until a couple days after Cooper-Young.

Time to get back to a fun afternoon of Cascading Style Sheets.

This weekend I was sitting at the bar at Calhoun’s, watching football.  Two people not far down the bar from me were having a conversation about a friend of one of theirs who was Indian.

“Wait,” the other person said.  “Do you mean ‘Indian’ [making gesture to indicate feathers on top of head], or ‘Indian’ [making dot-on-forehead gesture]”?

Not very politically correct.  Damn funny though.

Another guest speaker has been added to tomorrow night’s South Main Association meeting at the Westin Hotel: Coach Marc Iavaroni of the Memphis Grizzlies.  Should be good to hear his plans for the coming year.  Meeting starts at 6 PM, free for SMA members, $5 for non-members.

Yet another restaurant is running specials to try and attract Monday Night Football business.  Big Foot Lodge is offering $2 34 oz. Super Cold Coors Light drafts during the game, as well as $3 Blue Kamikazes, $4 100 proof 1800 Tequila, and 24 wings for $9.99 (dine-in only).  Plus Meghan’s wonderful personality as a free bonus if you sit at the bar.

In the news this morning:  City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash wants to hire a couple thousand college tutors at $10 an hour to help MCS students get up to grade level in various subjects.  Dr. Cash sees it as not only a way to help students catch up on their studies, but to provide them with older role models who are committed to education.  Great idea.  I like this guy.

Time to head to work.  I like my job, but if you don’t like yours I rolled out a new website over the weekend called The Rat Race which can help.

John Bragg just sent me details for his new happy hour specials at Circa which begin tomorrow, September 8:

4-7 PM Mon-Fri:
$4 well drinks
almost all beers $3
featured wines $5/glass or $20/bottle

9:30 PM-midnight Fri-Sat: Reverse happy hour
$4 well drinks
almost all beers $3
featured wines $5/glass or $20/bottle
specialty shots $4
appetizer menu available until midnight

I added those to the happy hour search engine as well.  I’ve added quick links to the happy hour search engine for cities where I’ve added a lot of specials, so you can quickly see all happy hour and drink specials available in that city.  My goal is to get significant data entered for at least 25 cities, so this thing will hopefully catch on as a nationwide site for up-to-date happy hour information.  I have 9 cities done so far, with Little Rock to become #10 in the next few days.  If you saw me banging away on my laptop at the Saucer last week, that’s probably what I was doing.

For Memphis, I have Downtown pretty well covered, but not so much Midtown.  If you know of specials I’m missing in other parts of Memphis, e-mail ’em to me and I’ll make sure they get into the search engine.

I’m learning a lot about other cities by entering their happy hours.  For example, “reverse happy hour” (a late-night happy hour) is extremely popular in Phoenix – nearly every bar has one.  I’ve also learned that the house liquors known as “wells” in Memphis are called “rail liquors” or “rails” in a few of the cities I’ve done, such as Washington, D.C. and Milwaukee.  Milwaukee, by the way, is apparently a great place to get wasted for practically nothing.  I found lots of stuff like 50 cent PBR specials and $15 open bar nights.

I have a favor to ask of anyone traveling out of town:  If you can bring me back an issue of the free arts & entertainment weekly (equivalent to the Memphis Flyer) for whatever city you travel to, I’d much appreciate it.  Those are the best source for happy hour information.  I use bars’ websites too, but I consider those less reliable.

I need a break from the computer, so for the first time in several weeks I’m actually going to attend Sunday brunch.  It’s at the Majestic this week (week 2 of 2, so next week it’ll be the Monkey).  After that it’ll be time to beat Pete at pool at the Saucer.  Again.  See you later!  Possibly another post later in the day.

It’s time to launch my latest website. This is one I’ve wanted to do for a while… actually registered the domain and started building it over a year ago.

Over the years people have asked me, “Paul, how do you always find such good jobs?” It’s true, over the years I’ve tended to have positions (including the current one) that have been more laid-back than most, more stress-free than most. I’ve also tended to have stuff I do on the side that brings in additional income, and enough free time to work on those projects.

On the other hand, I have friends who always seem to end up in the worse-than-usual jobs. They come home miserable every day after being berated by a cruel boss, or gossiped about by immature co-workers. They put up with unreasonable workplace rules that seem to be there only for the sake of having rules. They put in 60-70 hour weeks, not because they love being there or because there are true once-in-a-while emergencies that require it, but because they’re peer-pressured to do so and because there seems to be a new “emergency” that pops up every week. When they finally quit, they soon get another job that’s just as bad, as though they’re a magnet drawn to sucky jobs.

I also know people who seem to have every qualification to become entrepreneurs and start a business of their own, even if on the side for a while in addition to their day jobs. But they’ve never considered it, because they’ve been brought up to believe that you work 8 to 5 (or longer), Monday-Friday, 50-51 weeks a year, from the time you’re 22 until you’re 65 (or older). They see doing anything else as illegitimate and risky.

Therefore, for these people, I roll out my next site

The Rat Race:
Resources to help you cope,
help you escape,
or just help you laugh at the absurdity of it all

Here’s an overview of what you’ll find there:

First of all, fun stuff. Kits to help you decorate your cubicle; cubicle action figures; Office Space and The Office DVDs; Dilbert comic books.

Resources to help you cope with your current job and make it not suck so much.

Resources to help you find something you like better. A lot of my “luck” in finding the cool jobs is not luck at all; it’s that I learned what was out there, and I knew how to make myself visible. (My last three jobs have found me, as opposed to me finding them.)

Resources to help you escape. If you’ve thought about leaving the 8-to-5 and starting your own business, you’ll find tools to do it here. You’ll get encouragement to take the plunge, and you’ll learn questions you need to ask yourself to determine if it’s the right move.

I’ve also included resources on spacing “mini-retirements” throughout your career, rather than working like a dog until you’re 65 and never having more than a 2-week vacation to relax and enjoy being alive.

I almost did a blog on the Rat Race site, but I decided against it. A lot of my current co-workers read my personal blog, and if they clicked over to that one I worry they’d get the mistaken idea that I’m complaining about my job (which is not the point behind this site) rather than trying to help others get to a better place in life. There are a few posts I already typed up for it, and with the Rat Race blog on hold, I may post some of them here, in the weeks and months to come.

Hope you enjoy the new site, and remember, even if you win the Rat Race, you’re still a rat.

www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com