Paul Ryburn's Journal

This morning I’d like to use my blog to recommend a good friend of mine, an 11-year veteran of the printing industry, who was recently affected by a small company’s economic hard times and got laid off.  Here is a quick summary of his skills and qualifications:

• Worked his way up from plant worker to prepress specialist
• Has worked for printing companies, greeting card manufacturers and sign shops
• Specializes in prepress production and preflighting
• Has worked with all types of printers, from inkjets to wide-format thermal printers
• Assumed managerial duties at last company when owner was away
• Also designed layouts for brochures, business cards, and other documents needed by clients
• Familiar with industry standard software including Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDRAW, MS Publisher

This candidate has been a friend of mine for the past 4 years.  I greatly respect the fact that he is going back to college as an adult; he didn’t get to attend a university in his teens and 20s because he was busy serving our country for 9 years in the Air Force, earning an honorable discharge at the rank of sergeant (E-4).  He’s now a senior at the University of Memphis majoring in Marketing Management.  Last semester he balanced a full-time job and a full course load of 5 classes.

This is someone I respect and recommend highly.  If you are interested in talking with him, shoot me an e-mail (paul@paulryburn.com) and I’ll be happy to forward you his resume and make introductions.

I ended up in the Voodoo Room (aka Hoop’s new bar) last night.  Remembering that Saturday night is the night for half-price pork chop po-boys after 10, I ordered one.  Really good.  Here’s a tip:  Since you’re saving money on the Saturday night deal, take a $1.50 of that savings and spend it on Rotel as a dipping sauce for your fries.

While there, I watched the San Diego Chargers defeat the Indianapolis Colts 23-17 in overtime.  Buh bye Peyton!  I texted my favorite blogger/MILF, a huge Peyton fan, after the game.  She wasn’t in a very good mood.

They have the Wii installed and people were playing bowling on it last night, and they also have an electronic dart board in the back, and of course the beer pong table.  They tell me the pool table is on its way.  It was crowded down there last night, probably 40 people.  Good to see Hoop’s new place doing well.

Before I went to Voodoo Room, I drank beer at the Saucer and watched the Tigers stomp Lamar 108-75.  Okay, I have a complaint about CSS.  If the game were on CSTV, ESPN, or CBS, the score ticker at the bottom would read, “LAMAR vs. MEMPHIS.”  On CSS, it’s “LAM vs. MEM.”  MEM is pretty obvious, but if you were channel surfing and came across the game, would you know who LAM is?  Would it really be a huge expense for CSS to spend for those extra four letters?  Nitpicky, but it’s just another reason why CSS is a lesser college sports network than the others.

Everyone was wondering where Lamar is located.  I looked it up on my phone – Beaumont, Texas.

Looks like I’m going to see the Grizzlies play the Dallas Mavericks at 3.  A FedExForum employee e-mailed me yesterday and offered me his tickets.  Attn Sunday brunch crew:  There’s an extra, so if anyone wants to go, talk to me at brunch.

Back to work for an hour before I head to brunch (which is at Majestic this week, for brunch crew members who’ve lost track of the schedule).  I’m working feverishly to get stores built for all the Big 12 schools.  I’ve decided to do the Big 12, and then the Big 10, next ahead of the ACC, because those conferences contain nothing but big-name schools, whereas the ACC and Big East have some big-names and some no-names.

Outta here for now.  Go Grizzlies!

Last night I heard from people in the service industry that Cafe 61 is about to close and that Sunday would be its last day.  They said the owner is moving to Las Vegas.  However, I just walked by, and the restaurant isn’t open now.  It’s 5 PM, the beginning of dinner rush, so it’s definitely unusual for the doors to be locked.

Hate to see it go – they had some great food, the Cajun enchiladas and crawfish mac and cheese being my favorites.  Best of luck to the owner with his new plans in Vegas, though.

By the way, I haven’t confirmed this with anyone involved with Cafe 61, so it’s still a rumor… but after seeing the dark restaurant I suspect it’s true.

I’m upgrading the blog to the new version of WordPress this weekend, so if you hit this page it’s possible it may not look right or appear not to exist for a short while.  Don’t worry, it’ll be back up quickly.  I hope.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Liberty Bowl parade on Beale Street.  That was the most boring parade I have witnessed in my 7 years Downtown.  Bands, bands, bands, more bands, underage beauty queens, still more bands, the AutoZone tractor-trailer, even more bands, and one or two interesting floats.  Ptolemy Kat saw me from the float she was riding on and threw me several strands of beads, but did not respond to my request for her to flash me.

The street was loaded with East Carolina fans.  I didn’t realize what a big school ECU was – I looked it up when I got home, and it has an enrollment of 27,000 students.  ECU fans outnumbered Kentucky fans about 10 to 1 on the street.  My natural tendency was to root for Kentucky because they’re an SEC team and because I like Lexington, but at the parade I decided to switch sides to avoid getting my ass kicked.

Upon a blog reader’s request, I’ve added a shopping site for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to my College Logo Shopping family of websites.  That makes 14 schools I’ve built sites for, having already done Memphis and the SEC schools.  I’m planning to do the Conference USA schools next, then ACC, but if there are particular schools you’d like me to bump to the top of the priority list, shoot me an e-mail at paul@paulryburn.com.

Restaurant.com has a new promotional coupon code, REWARD, which you can enter at checkout for 50% off through Monday, January 5.

Liberty Bowl is at 4 PM today.  I’m undecided where to go watch it.  About 50/50 between the Saucer and Calhoun’s.  Calhoun’s has cheap PBR and is more likely to have the sound on, but the Saucer has waitresses in miniskirts.  I guess it’ll depend on what the Fire Sale is today.  ‘Til then, I’ll be working on the personal finance software project.  No plans for tonight, but I’m sure I’ll be out somewhere.

A few quick notes about New Year’s Eve:

– We had the back room at the Majestic Grille for dinner, and they once again hit the ball out of the park.  Dinner was superb.  I had the veal, an item from the special New Year’s Eve menu, and it was delicious, as was the lobster biqsue I had as my starter.  Others at the table had the beef short ribs, another special menu item, and complimented them highly.  We projected a slide show of group pictures onto the big screen in the back room as we ate and mingled.  We had reservations for 30 and had more than 30 people who wanted to come… which caused some minor hassles, but we accommodated everyone, and having too many people who want to spend New Year’s Eve with you is a high-class problem to have.

– The Nuh-Uh Girl came over a dozen times to eat off our plates.  I’m not using “dozen” as a figure of speech to mean “a lot”… she literally came over that many times.  “Are you going to eat that bite of veal, Paul?”  “I’m stealing a potato.”  “Frank, I’m taking another bite of your short ribs.”  “If anyone has any leftovers, I’m sitting over there.”

– After that I continued on to my friends’ party at Central Station.  Soon as I got there, I had two reactions:  1) “Plenty of beer and liquor, this is good.”  2) “Some of my friends, the girls in particular, are not going to be happy with the keg situation at all.”  (I won’t go into details here.)  Sure enough, they weren’t, but other people in my group were smart enough to have planned a backup party at Frank’s apartment down the street.  That was a good move and I tip my hat to them for seeing the need to plan an alternative.  We rang in the new year there and I stayed until about 1:15.

– There were cameras, cameras everywhere.  It seemed like every time I turned around, someone was asking me to pose for a pic or take a pic of them with their camera.  I gave up taking pics about 10.  There was no need – the evening was well documented by others.  Right before midnight, the Nuh-Uh Girl did a smart thing when she said, “All right.  We’re going to take ONE picture with ONE camera.  ONE.  I’m not going to take everyone’s camera and re-take the picture.  I’ll take ONE pic and e-mail it to everyone.”  Great idea, because otherwise, we would’ve been posing until 2 AM.

– I went back to the Central Station party and stayed until 3:30 when it started to wind down.  Drank some Boscos beer and a 40 of Miller High Life.  Much thanks to party hosts Patrick, Randy, and Marci for inviting my friends and me.  It was great meeting them and their group of friends in 2008 and I look forward to more good times with them in 2009.

– Speaking of “super”… funny how even when I’m at one party, I’m already looking ahead to the next.  Our group’s Super Bowl party, one of my absolute favorite events of the year, is only one month away.  Can’t wait.

– Also, only five more months until Tube Top Month.

– Plans for today:  The Liberty Bowl parade on Beale at 3.  I’ll probably get down there about 2 and make my usual drink purchase, a large Call-a-Cab from Wet Willie’s.  Guess I’ll have to take my gloves so my hands won’t freeze carrying a frozen daiquiri.

A few notes to end 2008…

The Hard Rock Cafe on Beale e-mailed me and asked me to inform everyone that they are among the Downtown businesses offering free Wi-Fi to customers.

The Liberty Bowl parade is on Beale Street tomorrow at 3 PM.

I had someone e-mail me and ask if I know of any place serving the traditional New Year’s meal of blackeyed peas and greens tomorrow.  I don’t know of any specific restaurant doing it, but my guess would be to try the restaurants on Beale, many of which specialize in Southern dishes like ribs and chicken anyway.  Probably the first place I’d try would be Miss Polly’s next to Club 152.

There aren’t any cab companies offering free rides home tonight.  The cops will be out in extra force, so be careful.  Take some extra $ to get a ride back home if you come Downtown without a designated driver.  Leaving your car Downtown and coming to get it the next day is a better bet than a DUI charge.

French Broad Brewing Company, based in Asheville, NC, will have a fresh keg of cask-conditioned ESB (Extra Special Bitter beer) Friday night at the Flying Saucer.  The Saucer will start carrying several of their products at that time.

Heading to dinner at the Majestic in a little while.  I had someone ask if they need to wear a tie to tonight’s dinner.  General rule of thumb here, events I have a hand in planning will never have dress codes, with the exception of TubeTopalooza.  It’s the Nirvana dress code – “come as you are.”

Looking forward to a few surprises at dinner tonight, and then a blast of a party on South Main.  I have all three camera batteries fully charged.  There will surely be a photo album posted in the days ahead.  Happy New Year everyone!

Tomorrow will be the 9th anniversary of “the Y2K bug,” when people believed that computers wouldn’t be programmed correctly to understand that it was 2000, and due to two-digit years would reset to 1900.  It turned out to be much less of a problem than people thought.

However, today I’ve been revising some code for a personal finance program I’m working with, and I see something that will eventually become a problem:  The Y2.1K problem.  Here’s the thing:  Years that are multiples of 4 are leap years.  However, years that are multiples of 100 are not, unless they’re also multiples of 400.  That system is in place to make years correspond to almost exactly one complete Earth orbit around the Sun, over the long haul.  It means that 2000 was a leap year (since it was a multiple of 400) but 2100 won’t be.

Problem is, programmers writing code rarely account for that case.  They take the attitude, “Well, I won’t be around in 2100, so I’ll just test for a multiple of 4 and call it a leap year if it is.”  That means March 1, 2100 will be incorrectly registered as February 29, 2100 by many computers.

Is it a big deal now, in 2008-2009?  Probably not, since none of us will be around in 2100 (except my health guru AL, who claims her diet will allow her to live to 150), and code programmers write today will almost certainly not be in use.  But, will programmers still take the shortcut when coding leap years in 2080, 2085, 2087?  You betcha.  I think the Y2.1K problem will be a bigger mess to straighten out than the Y2K problem.

Getting ready for tonight… I let myself sleep until 10 this morning so I’d be well-rested and able to stay out late.  The party in South Main I’m attending after dinner has a pimp theme.  I’m not fully dressing up, but I have a ’70s two-tone denim cap that would probably work well at the party.  I’ll go with that and a matching fleece pullover and jeans… the predicted low is 22 tonight, so I’m more concerned with staying warm than being fashionable.

Oooo… I just realized I can stick my pimp glasses and my fake pimp teetheses in my coat pocket, and pull them out at the party… maybe my “Big Paul” pimp persona will make an appearance.  Looking forward to tonight!

Orleans on Front, the Cajun restaurant on Front that used to be Cayenne Moon, sent me an e-mail with lots of good info to post.

First of all, they’re having a New Year’s Eve dinner tomorrow.  $5 cover includes a strawberry mimosa and music.  Special entrees for the evening include shrimp and crab stuffed whole flounder, crawfish and asparagus stuffed redfish, pepper bacon wrapped filet, gulf coast ribeye, shrimp and grits, fried shrimp or oysters, and grilled gulf shrimp skewer.

Now, on to news about the Voodoo Room, the downstairs bar with separate entrance on Front, staffed by Hoop Tues-Sat and Lauren Sun-Mon.  They now have a Wii, and are being fitted for a pool table today.  They also plan on getting a “video crack” machine.

From 10 PM to 3 AM every day there will be a “bartender’s shot” $3 special.  Shot will vary from night to night.

From midnight to 3 AM daily they will have a single cheeseburger with fries for $5.

Mondays 10 PM to 3 AM – buy one Sicilian ribeye poboy, get the second for half price.

Thursdays 10 PM to 3 AM – buy one get one free apps.

Saturdays 10 PM to 3 AM – pork chop poboy half price.

The Voodoo Room is a lot of fun, and will be even more fun with Wii and a pool table.  It’s open from 8 PM to 3 AM every day.

Today was errand day.  I replaced a lost pass to my parking garage, made a run to West Memphis for groceries, and dropped off some liquor I’m donating to the New Year’s Eve party in South Main tomorrow night.  On the way back I stopped at BP Riverside for gas.  I came in and gave the deli selection a look.

“Let me give you a sample,” the guy at the counter said.  He gave me a homemade tamale covered in chili.  It was really good, good enough that I bought another one to take home.  They sell them for $1.99 each – beef, pork or chicken tamales covered in chili and cheese or salsa.  They also have a dinner with two tamales and two sides.

I think he knew I’d mention the tamales in my blog in exchange for a sample, but what the heck, I’m not above whoring out my blog for a free tamale.

Info about Orleans on Front still to come.

After posting yesterday that my friends and I plan on having dinner at the Majestic on New Year’s Eve and then head to a party in the South Main area, I had a couple of people approach me and ask, “The Majestic dinner – can I get in on that?”  The people who approached me were too good friends to say no… and they’re in, but we can’t add any more.  Our reservation is for 30 and we’ve had 31 RSVPs at this point.  Looking forward to it though.  GREAT group of people we’ve assembled to ring in the new year.

All right – on to my announcement.  After the success of some of my college-themed stores like College Logo Watches and College Logo Cornhole, I’ve decided to go vertical rather than horizontal.  Hence, I’m building sites that carry all logo items sold on Amazon for individual colleges, under the banner of College Logo Shopping.  This weekend I created sites for Memphis and the 12 SEC schools.  Here are the individual links.

Memphis Tigers store

Alabama Crimson Tide store

Arkansas Razorbacks store

Auburn Tigers store

Florida Gators store

Georgia Bulldogs store

Kentucky Wildcats store

LSU Tigers store

Mississippi State Bulldogs store

Ole Miss Rebels store

South Carolina Gamecocks store

Tennessee Vols store

Vanderbilt Commodores store

As with all my sites, Amazon handles secure checkout and shipping arrangements.  I never see your name or credit card number, just a notification that someone ordered items.  After I started building these, I realized that these are perfect niches to organize into storefronts – the individual items are all over the place on Amazon, often in the wrong category, and in some cases misspelled, and I can fix all that with my storefronts.  There may be a few empty categories here and there, as the SEC stores are all copies of each other and not every item may be carried for some of the smaller schools such as Vandy.  I’ll refine them when I get more time.  Overall though, I think these will be very useful for locating school merchandise.

More to come.  I plan on doing the ACC schools next, then probably the Big 12.  Eventually I hope to have a store for every major college.

I just received an e-mail about new developments at Orleans on Front and the Voodoo Room downstairs, so there will be a post on that later.  Right now I gotta run some errands.