Club Quarters

When I hear about a new business concept, I generally have one of three reactions. Sometimes I am surprised by how novel an idea is, especially in this world that often feels like every good idea has already been thought. Most often, I turn the concept around in my head a couple times and put it back down, hopeful that it succeeds but glad that I do not have my money involved. Then there are those times that I wonder who would ever think this concept could work.

The Club Quarters unfortunately falls into the latter category. Mix that with an economy in decline, and you have a formula for disaster. To step back for a minute, the Club Quarters is a hotel chain that operates on a membership model. Companies become members and thus are able to lodge employees in any of the thirteen prime locations. Generally, the hotels are located in prime business hubs including New York, London, and Chicago.

Club Quarters promises low rates in exchange for a lower level of service than you would typically find in a hotel. Usually there is no more than one person at the front desk and all routine transactions (check in and out) are done through computer terminals. Because the hotel is limited to business travelers, you do not have to cope with family travelers (kids screaming in the hallway, lollipops in the clothes drawers, the pool too full to fit one more person).

While in Houston, I ended up staying in the Club Quarters because it was the lowest rate I could find for a central location. Hexion, like most companies these days, has restricted travel budgets. I do not have high requirements and I take the budget limitations seriously, so I was able to find a low price at the Club Quarters on Yahoo Travel ($150 per night compared with $250 per night at other downtown hotels). Note that I did not need a Company membership, anyone who can type travel.yahoo.com can get full access.

In practice, Club Quarters falls short. Business travelers do not expect much, but demand clean, comfortable rooms in convenient locations. My room was very small and out of date. It was what I would expect from a low price European hotel. The first room I was given was right next to the elevator and the wall vibrated every time the elevator moved past. When I complained I was told that my only other choices were a room that faced a brick wall or a room that overlooked a construction site that started up a 5am. I took the brick wall. My TV did not work and the toiletries were low quality. The single towel in the room was clean, but had a big hole in the middle.

This hotel holds no attraction for business travelers unless they are looking for very low price in good locations and they are willing to sacrifice room comfort. Vacationers are better served staying at a cheap chain hotel that is a little more out of the way. I would expect that the new exciting business concept of Club Quarters will not survive long without a major rethink and a realistic reassessment of who their customer really is.

The Flying Saucer – Houston

Every once in a while I find a truly great beer bar. By this I mean a bar with unique, interesting beers on tap, some of which I have not tried before. It seems like every city has one, maybe two, of these places, though they can be hard to find. Here in Columbus I would put Bob’s Bar or The Bodega in that category. In Houston, I discovered The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium.

The Flying Saucer is a small chain with about twelve locations scattered through the US. The Saucer is built around serving a huge selection of beer, most on tap. I noted a nice selection of local Texas beers (Live Oak, Shiner, Real Ale, Saint Arnold, and Southern Pine), which gives them extra points. Of those five breweries, I have only seen Shiner as far north as Columbus.
I also noticed that they had Flensburger Pilsener by the bottle. I can still hardly believe it. This beer I tried for the first time in Dortmund Germany last summer. It is a good beer, but typical of a small local brew. It comes in old fashioned bottles with flip tops. How the Flying Saucer got their hands on it I will never know.

Most of the beer I had at the Flying Saucer was new to me, though I had heard of most before. I tried the tasty Ommegang Hennepin out of Cooperstown NY, which is a strong Belgian Saison beer that went straight to my head. A local brew on the fire sale was the Southern Star Pine Belt Pale from Conroe TX, which was good but nothing special. I located an old favorite on the menu which I used to wash down the veggie pizza, Old Speckled Hen out of Jolly Old England. I tried the Shiner 100 of Shiner TX with high expectations. Sad to say it was a beer I did not bother finishing.

On Mondays all pints are $2.75 and every night there is a fire sale special at that price. Wednesday is brewery glass night so when you order the special beer, you get to keep the glass.
The Flying Saucer was very close to my hotel, so I ate there nearly every night. The food is good, though typical of bar food. Nothing to satisfy the vegan and very little for a vegetarian. They have a veggie pizza which stood out for its outstanding flavor.

The walls of the flying saucer are covered in plates. Some of the plates are china similar to what you see in flea markers. The rest are gold plates with names and dates on them. These are the plates belonging to the UFO club members who have had 200 beers (and paid $18 bucks). Seems like a small price for the semi-permanent fame of having your name on the wall.

High Five for the Flying Saucer!

Houston Downtown Tunnel System

One of my favorite things about Houston is the underground pedestrian tunnel system. It is about 6 miles long and connects 95 city blocks. Many of the big buildings downtown have stairs leading down to the tunnels, so it is easy to pop up to street level right where you need to be. The tunnels are great when the weather is simply too wet or hot to wander outside. I do not understand why more cities did not have the foresight to include this sort of public work in the master plan.

The tunnels were clearly built in many stages over the years as they change as you walk along. Sometimes they pop up above street level, but mostly they seem to go from one building basement to another. There are maps around so you do not get lost in the maze.

The tunnels are open every day from 6am to 6pm. Since many parking garages are connected to the tunnels, it is entirely possible that some people never need to go outside.

In the tunnels you can find a variety of stores, including banks, barbers, convenience stores, wireless phones, and coffee shops. Most of the buildings that are connected to the tunnels have some sort of food court that is down in the tunnels, so many food options are available.

H-Town

I traveled to Houston last week for work. Houston is generally a goodplace to go because it is a direct flight, the food is good, and it is a fairly lively place. Houston is chock full of large corporations and is a much larger city than I expected. The last census shows a population of 5.7 million, the sixth largest metropolitan area in the US. There is a strong Mexican influence which is reflected in the food and it is ordinary to hear Spanish being spoken on the street. Houston is a very international city and you can hear that in the accents that surround you. 21 percent of the population was born outside the US. The city is arranged in a grid pattern that is relatively easy to navigate. It is a classic American city as it has sprawling suburbs and bad traffic.

I did not have much time to look around much but I did compile a quick list of the things I like and dislike about Houston. On the plus side:

- The weather this time of year is fantastic. Tropical, moist, and warm.

- Houston has a positive energy about it, it makes you feel like something exciting is about to happen.

- Many great restaurants and food choices. Fantastic sushi, regional cuisines, creole, and BBQ.

- Houston is clean and the suburbs are full of interesting places to go. Being such a big city means that Houston has many distinct neighborhoods.

A few of the downsides of Houston are that:

- After 5pm, downtown empties out. There is not much life downtown at night.

- Hotel rates are very high downtown.

- Urban sprawl and mega-highways detract from the charm.

- The people are generally stand-offish. When I am there I know I am no longer in the midwest.

- The airport is boring, named after a president not worth remembering, and has few good places to eat.

- The weather in the summer would melt a Pennsylvania boy like me.

The former Enron building. You can see hurricane damage on the building on the left still evident from the storm during the summer of 2008.

Saturday Night at the Monster Truck Show

Lately I have been volunteering with the American Red Cross. I attend large public events (sports games, races, fairs, etc) and provide first aid services to those who need it. We usually have a room or table or other such base and a pile of equipment. Essentially we serve as the buffer between the public and a full-out EMT crew, though many of us do have EMT training. This has been especially interesting due to the variety of events I have volunteered for.

Last night I attended the Monster Truck Show on the Ohio State Campus. This is the first time I have gone to one of these shows, though I have seem a million television advertisements for them while growing up. Who wouldn't be a bit excited about seeing Big Foot roll over a bunch of cars. The reality was a bit less exciting. It basically consisted of six trucks driving around a very small space trying to figure out how to make driving in circles and driving over cars interesting for two and a half hours. The kids in attendance seemed to have a good time though and they clearly were the target audience. The audience made great material for "You might be a redneck if..." jokes. Never have I seen so many NASCAR shirts and camo in one place.

One highlight was Megasaurus, which is this 35 foot tall mechanical dinosaur. It breathes fire. It can pick up cars and chew them in half. And it can stare into the crowd and give kids nightmares. I want one to drive around my neighborhood to stir things up a little bit. The pictures in this post are from the internet as I forgot my camera.

From a first aid perspective it was a fairly quiet night. A bunch of people looking for ear plugs, bandaids, and one call for an irregular heartbeat.

A Sure Sign of Spring

One of the first signs of spring each year is my garlic pushing up from beneath a deep layer of fall leaves. It is a cause of celebration and a good indication that this will be a good year for eating. I use a lot of garlic in my cooking, so great garlic has a big impact on the dish. I am to the point where my home-grown garlic supplies about six months of consumption. At the current cost of garlic, this saves me quite a bit of money not to mention that the garlic tastes better than what you can buy in the store.

Garlic is fairly easy to grow. Each year in late October I plant about 60 garlic cloves and then cover them with a deep layer of grass clippings and leaves. This layer of vegetation protects the garlic over the long winter. During the bitterly cold months the garlic establishes a root system and waits for the combination of heat and water that signal spring is here. In late February the garlic starts sending up shoots that push skyward slowly. Come May the rate of growth increases rapidly until the plants are around three feet high. Garlic requires very little ongoing maintenance other than an occassional watering. I cut off the flowers that start to appear at the top of the stalks, though there is debate as to whether this is even important. Once the plants have died back about 2/3 down the stalk, it is time to dig up the bulbs (usually in late July).

Usually for every 60 cloves I plant I get about 55 bulbs with 6 to 10 cloves each. I save the big bulbs in good condition for planting that October and put all of the smaller and damaged bulbs in the refrigerator for use that year.

Saturday with Sammy

I tend to keep pretty busy with a variety of hobbies, learning, and home maintenance over the weekend. One of my favorite activities is teasing Sammy, my ever tolerant dog. She is willing to put up with all of my games in return for the attention. Sammy is my best bud and we have had many good times together. She briefly forgot me when I was away in Uruguay, but after a couple days she remembered. In the picture below Sammy is reenacting the closet scene from the movie "ET".

Anthony Thomas Candy Factory Tour

My brother John flew from Philly to spend a couple days here to visit and to assist with adding a bunch of lighting to my kitchen. I have always been a bit upset with how little light there is in my kitchen, doubly bad because I do a lot of cooking. John and I spent two days on the kitchen and now there are tons of lights. I will show them off in a future post.

I am between jobs this week, so I have more free time than usual to do interesting things. I have watched more movies than normal, done some cooking, and worked on cleaning the house. Today John and I headed over to the Anthony-Thomas Candy Company for a factory tour. The factory is about 10 miles from my house and they are the source of many of the buckeye candies we eat during college football season. The company has been around since 1952.

The factory tour lasts about an hour and largely consists of walking on a high catwalk over the production floor. Today was a bit of a slow day in the factory, but we did see the making of peanut butter easter eggs from the mixing of the peanut butter dough to the final packaging. The factory is clean and packed with big machines. Lots of chocolate is around on various pallets waiting to be packaged. They do not allow photos inside the factory, so unfortunately I can not post any action shots.

Me with what may be the worlds largest buckeye candy. It is 235 pounds and can be yours for only $3,500.

From the website, "Walk along our comfortable, glass-enclosed suspended "Cat-Walk" and observe eight lines producing 25,000 pounds of chocolates per shift. Our experienced tour guides explain each process step-by-step, from our kitchens to the final packaging. View interesting sights such as our huge copper kettles where the centers are created, and our unique silver wrapped pipes that carry liquid chocolate throughout the factory. The tour finishes in our beautiful 2,500 square-foot retail shoppe. Our free Open House Factory Tours are every Tuesday and Thursday from 9:30 am. to 2:30 pm. "

Onwards and Upwards

I have recently decided to leave my job with Ernst & Young. It has been a difficult process, but it feels like the right move for me right now. The economic crisis changed my job along with just about everything else, and I did not like all of the changes. I have accepted a position with Hexion Specialty Chemical as an Internal Audit Manager. This is a good job with a great company and I feel lucky to have landed on my feet.

I never took my job with Ernst & Young for granted, I worked hard every day and I always tried to give more than I received. They treated me very well and there are many people I will miss working with. I made a lot of friends and I benefited from being around some really smart, focused people. I saw my career and capabilities blossom with Ernst & Young. It has been a great place to work and I am certainly leaving on good terms.

When I think over the last five years, I have a few favorite memories and events that come to mind:

- Participating in interviewing college students in the same little rooms at the University of Pittsburgh that I had interviewed in eight years before, in some ways I felt like I had come full circle

- Realizing I had just worked an 18 hour day (fully billable)

- Leading my first training that I developed from beginning to end

- Watching people I mentor grow and develop and get promoted

- Chili competition at my house

- Big carrot cookies and 50 cent every day at 3pm with the Federated audit team

- Walking through Brussels Belgium, living a dream I never thought I would achieve

- Achieving American Express Platinum, Sheraton Platinum, Hilton Gold, and Marriott Gold all in one year (how can you do this? Live in hotels for a year!)

- Getting the chance to live in Uruguay for three months and making the most of every second

- The cafeteria at Washington Hospital

- Living it up at the Skihut in Rotterdam

- Being promoted to Audit Manager, something I never really expected I would accomplish

Lessons From my Experience in Uruguay

On the plane flight back from Uruguay I jotted down a few of the larger lessons that I learned in my time out of country. I have added a few items to that list in the subsequent month. They are as follows:

1. Do work I am interested in and can be passionate about.
2. I have so much in common with people I have nothing in common with.
3. Teamwork is so important - both professionally and personally
4. Everyone matters. The importance of valuing each person can not be overstated.
5. Value an employer that gives you opportunities to try new things.
6. Pack light and remain flexible.
7. A positive attitude is everything.
8. Wear and be proud of the "T Shirt". The T Shirt can represent your employer, organizations you are part of, etc.
9. You have to put the hook into the water to catch the fish.
10. When you are unsure how to proceed, talk to people.
11. A solid relationship on the home front is the foundation for all else.
12. Take care of yourself, do not be a burden on others.
13. Develop the capacity to self-manage yourself
14. Creativity is very important, learn how to lead brainstorming.

A New Toy for the New Year

Elly surprised me this Christmas with a Soy Milk Maker. This is simply a machine that makes soy milk in the comfort of your home. These machines are relatively unheard of in much of the world, though in Asia are much more common.

I have been a loyal soy milk drinker ever since an allergy developed in my teens forced me to find an alternative to cow milk. I love soy milk and it is one of the mainstays of my being. One of the biggest hardships for me of travel for work is the lack of soy milk for my cereal. While my allergy has largely gone away, I have continued drinking soy milk because I consider it much healthier

I have tried many different products over the years, though recently I have been buying the generic soy milk at Trader Joe's and the unsweetened Silk variety available everywhere. The new soy milk maker has meant that I have not purchased soy milk since December. All you need for the soy milk machine is water and soybeans. Soybeans are readily available in the asian market near my home at a price of $0.69 per pound. One pound of beans is enough to make approximately five to ten gallons of soy milk. You start by soaking a cup of the beans overnight in water. The water gets drained from the beans and they are now ready to use.

The beans are then dumped into a small metal basket.

This basket locks onto the bottom of the machine, where there are small blender blades.

The next step is to fill the bottom section with clean water up to a designated line.

The top half containing the beans in the metal basketis then placed on the bottom section containing the water. A simple push of a button gets the whole process going. It takes about 15 minutes to make two quarts of soy milk.

What does it taste like? It is an acquired taste, being more bitter and beany than Silk and nothing at all like cows milk. I think it makes great soy milk with none of the nasty additives at a fraction of the price you pay in the store, so it is a hit with me. For those of you not used to soy milk, I would encourage you to buy a carton at a local store to see if you like it before committing to the large cost of a machine. For those of you who already know you like soy milk and have some extra space in you cabinet, this is probably a very good investment. I recommend the Veg Gourmet Soymilk Maker http://www.healthytraders.com/gourmet-automatic-milk-maker-p-3222.html

Columbus Area Boardgaming Society

I was never the athletic, cool type in elementary school. I didn't play any sports and at recess my main sport was being invisible so as not to be beaten up. I am older and wiser now, I know how to stand up for myself and I like to think that I have been more successful than most of those schoolyard bullies. But there are holdover interests of mine that make it clear I was/am a geek. I did well in school, I like to read, I am an accountant. Perhaps most significant of all is my active involvement in the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS).

From the CABS website "The Columbus Area Boardgaming Society is a club of boardgamers dedicated to bringing the gamers of Central Ohio together to increase their gaming pleasure. We meet on the odd Fridays of the month and many last Saturdays on the month as well at the MOSSL office on Lakewood Plaza Blvd in Worthington, Columbus Ohio (USA). In 2009 we have OVER 200 paid members already signed up."

"The games we play range from the abstract boardgames, traditional boardgames, the new Eurogames, the historical wargames to the whimsical fast play fun card/board games. Some of us have been gaming for decades, others only for a short time. The majority type of game played are ones called "Euro Games" - these are family strategy games. If you view the website photo section then you have looked at the pictures of us playing games and you have seen the typical games we play. Anyone who loves playing games will love Euro Games ... Many people are not really interested in "playing" games but are more interested in the social aspects in that, that is what they perceive what game playing is about. In other words, Party type games and Trivia Games are more social occasions than game occasions. For us the game play is the focus and the social interaction with our friends is the reward."

On a good Friday night over 100 people show up for gaming. There are large closets full of hundreds of games. Anyone can pick any game that looks interesting and usually can find someone else to play. It is a great way to be introduced to new games without making a big time or money commitment. After a short while you usually find a stable of favorite games that you can gravitate towards. Some people like to play the same games each week and some people like to constantly try new games. This is a great way to meet likeminded people. If you are ever interested in coming, drop me a line and I will be happy to meet you there.