Candwich?

"Mark Kirkland, of Salt Lake City, Utah, has dedicated more than a decade of his life to a single concept: The sandwich in a can."

Yes, there is someone making pb & j that fits in a can. I don't know how I feel about this, it's super convenient, could be used in many situations, but it sounds a little sketchy. It comes out in August if you want to try!

Check out the full article here! (Yes, another "Today Show" find)

Tips at Tucanos

I work at Tucanos. I have been a server here for a couple of years and it's a really good job. It's hard work, I run around a lot, and I buy hideously ugly Walmart shoes because they always get ruined. (My current pair looks like old lady dance shoes with little studded rhinestone thingys on the sides - no one, and I repeat, NO ONE, should ever have to wear these shoes for any function other than knowing they will be trashed and it's not worth spending more than $7.99 on a pair of "will get spilled on soon" shoes). I have worked in Provo since I was hired, but when I came home from Tonga and didn't want to drive all 40 miles to work every day, I started working in Salt Lake at the Gateway. At first I wasn't too sure how I felt about it. The people were different (anything is different from Happy Valley) and I didn't feel like I fit in very well. However, I have come to love it. My co-workers are great and I really enjoy working with them, the people aren't as needy as they are in Provo, but they drink a lot more, and the server station is HUGE! (Ginormous! Gigantic! Spacious! Wonderful!)

When I was working in Provo, I learned how to maximize my "tip potential", or TP for short. People usually come in with all 26 of their children (under the age of 12, of course), order waters all around, make a mess, and have 4 birthday cards. If they could get paid to eat here, rather than paying to eat at the Tucan, they would. If you keep tons of water on the table, bring over extra napkins, and comment on how cute their boogery children are, they are happy and will leave you a generous $5 in the check. Oh, and don't bother with the dessert tray, the children will just stick their hands into whatever is closest and the parents will glare at you for letting their children know that there is sugar here, you just have to pay extra for it - something they will not be doing.

In Salt Lake, people like to feel like they are being taken care of and that you actually care about them. Their tip reflects your hard work and offering any kind of alcoholic beverage is appreciated. After my first day in Salt Lake, I didn't do as well as I wanted to, so I turned to some of my more successful fellow servers and asked for tips to increase my TP. Here are some of their suggestions:

• Offer to put alcohol in anything - even lemonade
• Ask them about themselves and their lives
• Always make sure they have available refills for their drinks
• Keep the table clear
• Play off of the meat server, they like to feel like they are involved in some kind of witty insider Tucanos club banter
• Flirt - shamelessly (Thank you, Kate, although I struggle with this - maybe someday!)

So far things are looking up! Tips are increasing, I know way too much about people who sit at my tables, and the shoes are holding up! Any other tips for things you like at restaurants, please let me know! I'm always looking for ways to do better!

Oh, and PLEASE don't ask for the birthday song, I'm terrible at drumming.

Pick City

One of my guilty pleasures is the "Today Show". I love it. I have a minor crush on Matt Lauer and hope that when I get married, my husband is like him (including his awesome taste in shoes). I usually watch it when I work out, unless, of course, I'm there so ridiculously early that it's not even on yet. Every day Al has the "Pick City" of the day, where they chose a city from around the country and tell what their weather is like that day. I've always thought it was so cool and hoped that they would pick Salt Lake City someday. I realized that the chances of Al choosing Salt Lake, having that 2 second weather update on, and me being there to witness it, were slim. Well, today is my day. The "Pick City" was Salt Lake City and I was on the stair climber watching it! I was unusually excited and I think I frightened the very sweaty onion-smelling man next to me, but it was great! Thank you Al! And thank you "Today Show", you never disappoint me. (I am also looking forward to "Today Throws a Wedding", if I didn't plan on getting married in the temple I would be all over applying for that, maybe I could ask Matt to be my maid of honor . . . )

iWin

I'm being good.

Goal: No sugar for 12 weeks. So far, week 5 = perfectly sugar-free. I know, amazing. (Especially considering we have celebrated Father's Day, my mom's birthday - happy 29th!, the 4th of July, and other sugar-inviting occasions, I'm impressed - if I do say so myself.)

Problem: Need to make cookies for various reasons (one of which includes making cookies for my boss who gave me a weekend off when I, along with everyone else, asked for it off and I was definitely the last person to ask - oops! Thanks Chad!)

Tonight I made these.


Cookies. Perfect chocolate chip cookies. They were moist, chewy, smelled amazing, baked flawlessly, and everyone who tried them loved them. I was not one of those who tried one . . . or two or three . . . I tried none. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Did I miss them? Yes. Do I know that I can make them some other time and they will be just as great? Yes. However, this was not an easy feat. I have come off conqueror, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Well, for tonight at least.


I'm good.

I Bleed Blue

I love BYU. The campus is beautiful, the boys are cute, and it's a unique educational experience. There was an article in the Deseret News about how valuable this particular education is, enjoy!

BYU Ranks 77th in Country for Degree Value

PROVO — Only 76 schools in the country offer a degree worth more than one from BYU, according to a report compiled by Bloomberg Businessweek.

The University of Utah ranks 281st.

A BYU graduate can expect an almost $800,000 return on his or her college investment over 30 years, the report said. The return for a graduate of the U. is estimated at $434,000.

A degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the most valuable, with a return of $1.7 million. According to the report, a typical college graduate grosses $1.95 million over 30 years (or $65,000 a year), which is $670,000 more than a high school graduate.

Utah State University ranks 333rd in the list of 554 schools, and Weber State University is 449th. To see the list, visit businessweek.com

— Paul Koepp

This is also another reason I love BYU:

The Newspaper

I don't enjoy reading the newspaper. The pages make your fingers black and they feel weird, most of it is full of things I don't need to know, the obituaries are no fun, and no, I don't need a refrigerator. Basically, I usually have no clue about what is going on in the world, and I'm ok with it! During school I have enough to worry about and Provo is a bubble anyways, besides who wants to read after staring at textbooks all day? Not I. When I go to the gym in the mornings it's too early for the Today Show (I love the Today Show), so I think I have watched most of all of the episodes of "Saved By the Bell", and there is no way I'm going to watch CNN.

However, yesterday I was eating breakfast and my mom had the newspaper opened to the back side of some section and the front page of the sports section (both of which I would usually disregard completely), but there was an opinion column about the Jake and Vienna spat from The Bachelor on Monday night, which of course I watched. I read the entire column and thought "ya, you're totally right! That's exactly what I thought!" and had a bit of a connection with the world and this particular author and the newspaper-pretty cool! Then I thought "I might actually like reading other columns like this" and to my right was the column on the whole "where is everyone going in the NBA?" thing. That writer also had some very insightful points (I think now I know why these people get paid to write and why people read it). The best part came at work when people were actually talking about the things I had read - and I actually knew a little bit about what they were saying!! I know, it sounds ridiculous but I thought it was great. Remember when Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped? I had no idea she was even gone until the day they found her and everyone was making such a big deal and I had noooo idea what was going on. When I asked my mom she looked at me like I had been in a hole for the last year, which, I basically had been.

This morning on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and the Early Show, they were talking about all the things I had read about. And to think, I only spent about 10 minutes reading while I was eating breakfast, and now I'm part of the world! This just might have to happen again . . .

P.S. LeBron James is going to play for the Miami Heat - on Good Morning America this morning he said he picked it because it "felt right", good answer.