Monthly Archives: August 2006

Bucket O' Ribs

Smoker

So I came up with an idea (amplified by Matt) to open a barbecue stand on the sidewalks of downtown Springfield. It would be open during lunches and during weekend nights, selling smoked spareribs like it was fair food.

Imagine in my best carney barker voice:

“2 for 3! 4 for 6! Bucket O’ Ribs!”

I’m pushing a cart with a smoker on the front and a warmer/cooler on the back. Matt says it should be shaped like a pig but I’m not sure I could push that around and keep a straight face.

Here’s the plan:

Smoke racks of pork ribs. Cut the ribs into single pieces with the bone like a stick on a corn dog. Sell 2 ribs for $3.00 and 4 ribs for $6.00 tax included, cash only. Partner up with Hickok’s Steakhouse to get the ribs and have a backup smoker. If you figure 14 ribs per rack and smoke 8 racks at once, that gives you 132 ribs–maybe 125 after “waste” or such.

Money? A rack of ribs might be $15 each, $4 in charcoal for each batch and maybe $2 a batch in spices. A full load would be $125. That means my cost is a buck a rib. Can you make any money when you get 50 cents a rib? So a full load of smoked ribs might net $62.50 in profit for say 5 hours of real work selling and tending the ribs.

A weeks worth of lunch–$50 x 5 lunch days = $250 + 2 nights (Fri, Sat) at $65 each so $300 net profit each week. Seems like a lot of work for very little gain.

Pump up the profit with soda? Maybe. You could make 50 cents a soda just like the profit on each rib with a lot less work.

More about this later. Time to think it through more.

The Zen of Costco

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From the best of craigslist:

First, be sure that you are prepared. Do you have The Card? What do you Need?

Next, consider the day and time. This is simply an exercise. There is no time that you can go to Costco when it will not be crowded. Accept this.

Stage one of your journey is the parking lot. The people are not looking. Do not hit them. Drive very very slowly. First gear. Slow, deep breaths. This will prepare you for the deeper stages. Patience is key in finding a parking spot. And if you are willing to back up an entire row length at 2 mph, a spot near the door can be yours.

I've finally unsubscribed from Scripting News

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I took the final step in my journey away from UserLand products: I unsubscribed from Dave Winer’s Scripting News weblog. It had certainly degraded over the last two years from being about software and programming to a focus on Dave’s life and his senior years. That’s fine with me. Reading it was no longer interesting to me and I found very little that I couldn’t find somewhere else.

Friends and bloggers I read told me I should have done this months ago but I wasn’t ready to do it. After the switch to WordPress, it’s been much easier, mainly because I could stop thinking about how to tinker with my weblog software and instead think about writing.

More knitting stuff for Zarah

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No, I don’t have any interest in knitting anything. I find things that friends and family would like and post them here–Zarah’s a knitter…

MAKE Magazine: “Flickr user tofuttibreak scanned in an old out of print knitting booklet that has more clear and concise knitting instructions. The simple illustrations are great. It’s a handy reference to bookmark when you just can’t remember how to cast on or do a slip stitch.”

Matt's First Stoker Smoke Underway

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Kerner on Food: “My favorite feature so far has been the telnet interface. I’m hoping that it’s possible to control every function via telnet. There’s also a web interface that lets you monitor temperatures, set alarms, and targets. My setup right now is that I’ve got an alarm on my meat for 150° and the target for the smoker is 230° at the bottom grate.”

Writing a Mac app – for me or for you?

Programming, Software

So I want to write a Mac application. Do I write something you readers want or do I write something I want?

For you:

Pros–I’m forced to narrow your choices, work with you to clearly define goals, must meet deadlines.

Cons–I’m writing for you and not me, must meet deadlines, I might hate what you want me to do.

For me:

Pros–I make me happy and can ship with whatever quality that will make me happy.

Cons–I’ll suffer along and not learn and probably stay within my knowledge boundaries.

9 out of 10 Dentists Recommend The Atari Jaguar

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Kotaku: “The guys over at AtariAge discovered that Imagin Systems, a manufacturer of dental imaging equipment, is, in fact, an old Jaguar, painted white and with a camera attached. It’s called ‘The Hotrod’; apparently, Imagin purchased the molds of the Jaguar and used it to make their $5000 dental camera. It even has the expansion slot for the Jaguar’s CD-Rom slot!”