June 26, 2003
Via Obscure Store, I found an article in Fortune Magazine about Krispy Kreme: The Hole Story, how Krispy Kreme became the hottest brand in America. It's a great read because it is such an unusual success story. It's growing by leaps and bounds, and has people in northern cities lining up for blocks to get the first hot doughnuts from new store locations. Yet they do no national advertising.
To this day the company has no traditional media advertising budget. It's simply much cheaper and more effective to give away doughnuts. Before entering a new market, such as Boston at the end of June, Krispy Kreme inundates TV and radio stations and newspapers with free doughnuts.There's also a great bit of local history in the Krispy Kreme legend:
"A l!A hot doughnut sounds pretty great right about now. If only Krispy Kreme !
ot of people think that all our traditions go way, way back, but not all of them do," says company marketing chief Stan Parker. Take the famous hot doughnuts now sign. Everybody knows that when a Krispy Kreme store flips on its neon hot doughnuts now sign, the doughnuts are coming right off the line. Around 1980 the folks in Winston noticed sales at the Chattanooga store were going through the roof. HQ decided to send a man up to Chattanooga for a look-see. Turns out the store manager, Bob Glidden, had printed up an ordinary block sign that read hot doughnuts now. But his customers complained that he kept the sign up all the time, even when his doughnuts weren't hot. So Glidden went down to J.C. Penney and bought a window shade. When he wasn't making doughnuts he pulled the shade closed; when he was cooking, he pulled open the blind and customers streamed in. Bingo, a sales tactic was born!
would give us a store on South Broad!
June 19, 2003
It's been long reported on U2 fansites such as @U2 and U2Log, as well as in more traditional news outlets, that the guys are in the studio working on the follow up to 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind. The past week has seen several new tidbits and rumors popping up. U2Log reported that an employee of a touring logistics company leaked news of a contract with U2 for May 2004 and onward. The same day, U2Log received an email regarding a promotional poster for the new album, to be titled Solar and due in stores March 8, 2004. This email was taken with a high dose of skepticism, but was backed up days later by photographs of the poster. The fan community on U2Log is fairly convinced that the poster is an elaborate hoax, but the tour date rumor is generally accepted as it fits well with very recent comments made by manager Paul McGuiness as well as earlier comments from Bono, Edge, and Larry. One exciting and reliable bit of information about the sound of the new album came from a conversation between a fan and Steve Averill, one of U2's graphic designers, at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Esplodere Web Design has just completed the website for Mia Cucina, the place for cooks, a new gourmet cookware store and cooking school opening up in North Chattanooga on July 24th. Honestly, I can't wait for the store to open. It's going to be amazing, and if you're in the Chattanooga area, I definitely recommend checking it out. They're going to be carrying a lot of the top brands in cookware and offering cooking classes, from beginner to expert levels, in a variety of cooking styles. This project was an absolute pleasure to work on, and I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. Take a look at the website for yourself and let me know what you think.
June 16, 2003
This is me, acting like I'm some sort of musical elite, speaking from on high, telling you what you need to listen to that you don't already. Pay me as much or as little attention as you deem appropriate. Click on the artist's name to go to their website. Click on the song title to go to a download page where you can grab the songs for free and without the objection of the RIAA.
Damien Jurado - "Abilene"
Far Star - "Open Apology"
Damien Rice - "Volcano"
Ellipsis - "Miles" (Over the Rhine cover)
Luxury - "To Conquer and Destroy"
June 14, 2003
Our doctor visit yesterday afternoon was disappointing. Apparently the sonographer is out on an unexpected leave of absence, so we were not able to get an ultrasound. Obviously without an ultrasound we don't know the gender of our baby yet. Our next appointment is July 9th, and we will definitely be finding out then, unless baby decides to be modest. I've already been discussing that with the baby though. Okay, so I've just been talking at Genia's belly button, but that's as close as I can get right now. The books say that in the fifth month, the baby can hear sounds originating from outside the womb, so by my count, I've got about four or five weeks to get an iPod so I can start introducing the baby to music. You know, Mozart, Bach, U2. All the good stuff.
June 12, 2003
Via Graphic Evidence on U2log.com I found out about a limited-edition book called Stealing Hearts at a Traveling Show about the graphic design of U2. The book is written by the geniuses of Four5one who have handled the graphic design work for U2's albums, singles, and tours since U2 3, their first EP. Check out the post on U2log.com for some sample pages, and then head over to the book's website to pre-order a copy (for me!).
June 10, 2003
Via Wired Mesh I found a list of the 100 most popular baby names in 2002. As expected, Madison was high on the girls list, no. 2 actually. We like the name, but it is just too trendy right now. There would be five other girls in her kindergarden class with the same name. How could a mother with a unique name like Genia (hint: pronounced like "Kenya" except with a "G") do that? Trinity was on the list at no. 77, and I'm sure The Matrix had nothing to do with it. Just like Emma being at no. 11 had nothing to do with Ross and Rachel's baby on Friends. Riiiiiggghhht. (Update: Josiah weighs in that Emma has been increasingly popular since Gwenyth Paltrow's performance in the adaptation of the Jane Austen novel a few years back.)
We should find out Friday at our sixteen week visit whether we're having a boy or a girl. We're obviously pretty excited about that, and we've been thinking about names since before we even found out Genia was pregnant. If it's a boy, his name will be Aidan. It actually came in at no. 41 on the boy's list, so it won't be unheard of, but it shouldn't feel worn out. We chose it because we like the way it sounds, and according to the book we have, it has Irish origins and means "fiery." I love that. One thing I would love for my child to have is passion. Passion for God, for life, love, friends, art, music, and everything good. We may go with a Hawbaker tradition and make his first name John, but even if we do, we'll call him by Aidan. Choosing a middle name if we don't go with "John Aidan" has been tough, though. I keep telling Genia that we should make the middle name Edge, but she keeps shooting me down. We thought the idea of using Danger was funny for a couple weeks, but w!
e dropped that too. Can't you see our little boy out there on the playground pulling some girl's ponytail and telling her "Danger's my middle name" with a sly grin and an arched eyebrow? It would rule! On a more serious note, I like Paul (an Apostle and the Pontiff!), but she doesn't. And I've started thinking Matthew would be a nice compliment to Aidan. If it's a girl, which would be pretty surprising since everyone keeps telling us it will be a boy, we like the name Bailey Elisabeth. Bailey wasn't even on the list, but it also isn't something that people will mispronounce and misspell all the days of her life. A nice comprimise, I think. Elizabeth runs in my family, and we think it sounds good after Bailey.
June 07, 2003
Through a post on MetaFilter I found an essay called The Abolition of Work by Bob Black. It turns out it was originally written and published in 1985, but it seems very fresh and relevant. It is extremely interesting, but long and pretty dense in places. His thesis statement is as follows:
Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.So we see immediately that the author is building on a different foundation than we as Christians do. Our foundation, of course, is Jesus Christ, and the Bible tells us that the source of all misery is our fall, our separation from God. However, Jesus also said that "the love of money is the root of all manner of evils" and money is, after all, why most of us work. It can also be said that work was ordained as part of the curse after the fall, so in a sense he isn't miles away from reality. The following quote is also pretty wild:
Discipline is what the factory and the office and the store share with the prison and the school and the mental hospital. It is something historically original and horrible. It was beyond the capacities of such demonic dictators of yore as Nero and Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible. For all their bad intentions, they just didn't have the machinery to control their subjects as thoroughly as modern despots do. Discipline is the distinctively diabolical modern mode of control, it is an innovative intrusion which must be interdicted at the earliest opportunity.I'm sure any of us that aren't in their "dream job" can relate to the sentiment of work being like a prison, but to compare it to Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible is off the charts! For all his interesting points, the author cannot overcome the simple fact that what he is proposing is not practical.
Another interesting thing to note is that Black lays a measure of blame on the "Protestant work ethic" and Calvinism. He even goes so far as to say that if Calvinism were being introduced today instead of being a centuries old theology that it would be labelled a cult. Pretty harsh words. On the subject of the protestant work ethic, I found via Josh Claybourn an article in the New York Times discussing how that work ethic is the reason America Outpaces Europe in industrial measures.
June 05, 2003
The Internet Monk has another solid new article out called In Love With Jesus?, wherein he tackles the subject of romanticism in Christian worship and theology. The Monk examines how romanticism has crept into every facet of modern Evanglicalism, and at every turn shows how it is an inadequate paradigm compared to a scriptural view of Christianity and worship. Ultimately, he comes to the following conclusion:
Romanticism cannot express the essence of the Christian life accurately or Biblically. It's usefulness as a way of describing the Christian life has been greatly exaggerated, and based mostly on a wrong reading of the Song of Solomon. The theme of the Bride of Christ is important in the New Testament, but it never resulted in expressions of romanticism in the life and worship of the church. Instead, images like the bride resulted in higher esteem for the church as a redeemed community, not a more personalized and emotional individual experience for the believer. Romanticism is not a significant Biblical expression of praise, certainly not worthy of becoming a regular part of our worship, prayer and communication of the Gospel. As understood and experienced today, romanticism is a flawed metaphor for delighting in and loving God. It is vastly inferior to scripture's own description of love for God as seeking our joy in obedience to the Lord. "Come fall in love wit!
h Jesus," is not an invitation to faith that we should endorse or repeat.
June 04, 2003
After reading Grumblings From Fundamentalists over on Josh Claybourn's Blog I posted in the comments section regarding Bush's handling of the AIDS crisis in Africa and it quickly became an interesting debate. I'd like to post here my thoughts on that and how it relates to Christians and conservative politicians. Responses are more than welcome, of course.
I was stunned that a conservative would question Bush for signing the bill to send AIDS relief to Africa. I wondered if they realized how many people are dying there each year? How many children are born infected through no fault of their own and then end up orphans because their parents couldn't get the medications to stay alive? In my mind, Christians should absolutely be rallying around the initiatives to help out the AIDS crisis. "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these..." Some Christians, it seems, believe that someone who contracts AIDS through sexual behaviour is simply getting the natural consequence of their immorality. And while that is true in some cases, I think it is a much more complicated issue. I find it callous to write it off simply as the consequence of their sins and imply that we shouldn't do anything to help them because of the disease's correlation to sexual sin. I do not believe that Christ would refuse someone with AIDS who asked for healing if He!
were walking through Africa today. None of us are without sin. Just because we as American Christians tend to make a hierarchy of sins, with sex being at or near the top, is no excuse to ignore this tragedy. "If you have broken one point of the law, you have broken them all." Furthermore, because we are dealing with different cultures, they may not be taught the same things about sex and when it is or isn't morally right. I'm not advocating relativism, just making the point that we can't be too harsh in holding people to a standard they may not even be aware of. In fact, there are tribes in Africa that believe a man can be cured of AIDS by having sex with a virgin, which has led to many women and young girls being raped and infected.
For the political side of the issue, it is argued that conservatives hold as a base value that smaller government is better government. I agree with that - in general. I see this issue as a special case worthy of an exception. On a purely theoretical level, I can understand how $15 billion in tax dollars being spent on social programs isn't politically conservative, but I think it is simply to important to ignore. Also, in the grand scheme of the federal budget, $15 billion isn't even that much. I would be willing to speculate that if we investigated we could find more money being spent on less worthy causes overseas. I'm definitely more supportive of our tax dollars going to aid the African peoples than being spent on a war with Iraq. It is also argued that humanitarian causes are better handled by private charities. I also agree with that - in general. However, there has been no private charity that has been able to serve this need on the scale needed. Maybe if our governm!
ent was truly conservative -- much smaller and with much lower taxes -- there would be more support from private citizens and charities to address this great need. However, that is simply not the case, and a much smaller government and much lower taxes are not close enough to being a reality to justify putting off this crisis on those idealistic grounds.
For more information on the AIDS crisis in Africa, and why we should give our full support, visit www.datadata.org
June 01, 2003
I went to church today. We had family in town last week and couldn't make it, and the week before that I had to work, so it was nice to actually make it. I did have to go alone because Genia was working and that was a disappointment. It was a great service, though, especially since we celebrated communion, which is always special for me. We've been going to Rock Creek Fellowship (on Lookout Mountain) pretty much since we moved to Chattanooga in February, and I like it for the most part. I enjoy the worship and I really like the pastor, Eric Youngblood -- his zeal for Christ really encourages me, and he's just a really nice guy. The only downside is that we haven't found the people very welcoming. I can't think of anyone who has made an effort to speak to us or get to know us. There seem to be a lot of people there in our age range, and it just surprises me for a small church to not be more personally engaging. We're used to the idea of just going to church and leaving withou!
t speaking to anyone -- every Sunday was like that for us when we attended North Point in Atlanta. One thing we wanted in a church here was to be able to make some friends and have church feel like a family. It's really important to me now to get plugged in to a church and become active. It's one part of the Christian life that Genia and I have been very lax in, and it's something we need to change. Maybe we need to be proactive in trying to meet people in the church, but my personality just isn't outgoing in most situations. Genia has even told me that I sometimes come off to other people as rude or disinterested, but from my perspective I'm just shy and insecure, so I'm not sure what to do.
Genia is fourteen weeks into her pregnancy today. According to the little magazines, the baby is somewhere between 4.5 and 6 inches long at this point. She has her next doctor's appointment at sixteen weeks, and we will hopefully be able to find out if it's a boy or a girl. Pretty exciting! We're both hoping it will be a boy but we will of course be happy either way. So we have about twenty six weeks until we get to meet our little baby... and so much to prepare in that time. We have a lot of baby stuff already like a stroller and lots of gender-neutral infant clothing purchased by the excited grandmothers. We have to figure out if we're going to stay in our current apartment or try to find a bigger place. We have to save up enough money to cover Genia's salary during the unpaid portion of her maternity leave. And we have to figure out how to take care of the baby twenty four hours a day when we're both working. Our sister-in-law has graciously volunteered for some babysitti!
ng and our schedules are flexible enough that we shouldn't have to have it in day care every day -- hopefully not but a couple days a week. It would be great if Genia could quit work, but that's just not possible as far as we can tell right now.