Have you ever noticed how one small idea can create an avalanche? For instance, the famous potato chip. Remember, you can't have just one. That's the Lay's Potato Chip motto and it is undeniably true. So, as I sit here in my comfy recliner, snacking on the entire bag of potato chips, here is the story of one little idea that created an avalanche.
Thomas Jefferson, to Whom We Owe So Much
Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, was an undeniably great man. He wrote the Declaration of Independence after all (with a little bit of help from some other famour founding fathers), a document which has stood the test of time and the treatment of Hollywood (*hack* National Treasure *cough*). What not a great many people know about him, however, is the extent of his involvement in the creation of the equally famous potato chip.
Jefferson was a minister to France between 1785 and 1789. Whatever else he did there, much to the advancement of the cause of liberty, Jefferson discovered a fantastic dish which he described in this way "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches." Translation: Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings. Ta-Da! French Fries!
When Jefferson returned to America from France, he brought the recipe for these deep-fried potato cuttings with him. French fries were a hit with Americans, who as we know love anything novel, and by the next century they were everywhere. Thank you, Mr. President.
Ultimate Revenge?
In the 1800s, french fries were considered classy enough to be part of many elegant restaraunts' menu. One such restaraunt was the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York. Here, in the kitchen, George Speck, who often called himself George Crum, was working as a chef. He knew how to make french fries, of course, so he probably thought nothing of it one day as he sent an order of french fries out to be devoured by one of the restaraunt patrons.
The patron sent the fries back.
The fries, according to the guest, were too thick. Crum, obligingly, made a new, thinner batch of fries for the man. These, too, were sent back. Not a little annoyed by this, Crum decided to have his revenge. He decided to make some fries so thin that they could not be eaten with a fork. He carefully crafted and fried his revenge and sent it out, just sure that this would be enough to infuriate the customer. Unfortunately for Crum, the idiot loved them!
It turned out that other people loved them, too, and soon the resaraunt had them listed on the menu as a house specialty with the name of Saratoga Chips. Thus, the first potato chips were born.
THE Bag
Remember how I said that one good idea can create an avalanche of good ideas? Well, the potato chip has made its share of avalanches.
In 1926, in Monterey Park, California (all good things come from Cali), the Scudders Company was making potato chips. Just imagine all those wonderful, crispy chips coming out of the oven, getting all salted up, just asking you to take a handful and gobble them up on the spot. At this point in time, you would probably be buying your chips in bulk from big barrels or salivating all over a glass case in which they were displayed. There were no bags of potato chips on store shelves just waiting to be snatched up by hungry people.
Laura Scudder was dissatisfied with this system, because it left so many chip crumbs in the bottom of the barrel. With some good old fashioned capitalist ingenuity, she thought up the idea of bags for the chips. Originally made from wax paper, the bags kept the chips fresher longer and prevented all that hateful smashing. This, with some help from our good friend cellophane, allowed potato chips to become a mass produced product, much to the delight of the rest of us.
Laura Scudder was very successful with her chip making factory. When she sold her company in 1987, she had made 126 million dollars the year before, just from the sale of potato chips.
Cashing In One at a Time
Today, there are hundreds of brands of potato chips. There are Cape Cod potato chips, Jones potato chips, Zapp's potato chips, Martin's potato chips, Dirty's All-Natural potato chips, Frito-Lay, Charles Chips, every Tom, Dick and Harry has potato chips! But the most famous of them all are Lay's potato chips. These are the chips you can't eat just one of.
There are nearly as many flavors of Lays chips as there are chip making companies. Everyone knows the original, the chosen variety of 81% of chip lovers. My mother prefers the BBQ flavor for unfathomable reasons of her own. I really like sour cream and onion. Lately, Lays has gotten on the natural band wagon with flavors like Lays Natural and Sea Salt and Pepper. Lays is the undisputed king of potato chips.
Lays was started in 1932 by traveling salesman Herman Lay. Mr. Lay put his sales skills to good use by peddling the crunchy snacks invented by George Crum in the bags that Laura Scudder invented from the trunk of his car. All through the Southern part of America and then through the rest of America, on to the entire world, the name of Lays became synonymous with potato chips making Lays potato chips the first successfully marketed national brand.
Today and Tomorrow
Today, potato chips is a multi-billion dollar industry. It is even classified as its own industry, employed 65,000 people every year.
We can only imagine how much farther the potato chip is going to go in the future. There will be new flavors, new brands, new styles, organic, VEGAN, a potato chip diet (if we're lucky), CHIPS IN SPACE! The possibilities are practically limitless and they all center around one, tiny little deep fried potato product.
Good, old fashioned American, capitalist ingenuity, along with the added spice of revenge, brought us these tasty snack wonders; and that same ingenuity will continue the tradition for many, many years to come.
Sources: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm, wikipedia articles on Thomas Jefferson, Lays, Laura Scudder, and Cellophane, http://www.helium.com/items/1431389-how-do-astronauts-eat-in-space.
Note: The author was indulging in Lays Kettle Cooked Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper Extra Crunchy Potato Chips while writing this post for your enjoyment.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Scheduling (Yes! An Actual Schedule)
Well, after about two successful weeks of blogging, the joint blog expedition of Pure Planet (via myspace http://www.myspace.com/ta_athas_orm) and the Failed Attempt are coming out with a concrete posting schedule. Ta-da!! The blogs will be updated simultaneously on Tuesday and Friday.
Tuesday will be random post days when I, your intrepid author, can post whatever I feel like posting. Probably just tidbits about my life, or a thought that burst its way out of my consciousness. You can expect Friday's posts to be infinitely more coherent and, in some cases, sequential. Hopefully, this allows the blog to grow nicely and myself to stay organized. I will admit to, ahem, scheduling difficulties in the past.
If there is anything particular you'd like to see on the blog, maybe a topic or idea you have, you can email me at animus421@gmail.com or leave me a message on myspace!
Thanks!
The Management
p.s. All employees must wash hands after going to the bathroom. Its the law, people...
Tuesday will be random post days when I, your intrepid author, can post whatever I feel like posting. Probably just tidbits about my life, or a thought that burst its way out of my consciousness. You can expect Friday's posts to be infinitely more coherent and, in some cases, sequential. Hopefully, this allows the blog to grow nicely and myself to stay organized. I will admit to, ahem, scheduling difficulties in the past.
If there is anything particular you'd like to see on the blog, maybe a topic or idea you have, you can email me at animus421@gmail.com or leave me a message on myspace!
Thanks!
The Management
p.s. All employees must wash hands after going to the bathroom. Its the law, people...
Friday, May 15, 2009
Support Your Local Library
From the Daily Journal of San Mateo, the city/town I am currently blogging from; in a letter to the editor, concerned citizen Joseph Vause had this to say:
City needs to properly manage its funds
Editor,
San Mateo City Librarian Ben Ocon and his staff need to rethink their plan to implement budget reductions in response to expected budget shortfalls. Topping their list of recommendations is to reduce library hours by 28 percent system wide over the next year, and in particular a 46 percent reduction in hours for the Hillsdale and Marina branches. Keeping our library doors open must be a top priority.
Mr. Ocon and his staff (57 full-time positions) don’t seem to agree. It is interesting to note that staff savings is less than 3 percent of the current total operating budget. How can they suggest reducing library hours so drastically without a corresponding reduction in staff expense? What will library staff be doing while library doors are shut?
In a meeting held on a recent Saturday at the library, Mr. Ocon expressed that avoiding staff reductions was of great importance to the city of San Mateo — apparently more important than keeping library doors open.
If this is how the city library manages our tax dollars, I will not vote for any new proposed tax increases to avoid further budget reductions — since they are proving they can’t properly manage the funding they already have.
Well, its a bit more complicated than all that. As a volunteer for the library, I have seen the inner workings of the place. I can personally attest to the back up of unshelved books, the mountain of work needing to be done to make sure lost books and holds are found, the asinine things that get sent through the book drop, and all those wonderful little inanities that bog up the works. Many of these problems are only made worse by the fact that there is so much to do and few enough people to do it. So, in answer to one of Mr. Vause's questions, library staff will be shelving books while the doors are closed, as they always do. That is why Mr. Ocon wants to avoid staff reductions.
Of course, one may always allow for the motivating factor of greed. Many of those 57 full-time positions who don't want to cut staff merely don't want to be the ones who are cut. We may also allow for those insipid employees who simply want to keep doing nothing and getting paid. But I think having a little faith in humanity might be a good thing here. For whatever selfish reasons people may have, they still want their library to work and it cannot work without employees.
One solution may be for concerned people like Mr. Vause to volunteer at the library. Volunteers do much valuable work throughout the day. School aged kids over the age of sixteen can gain community service hours as well as a valuable glimpse at the inner workings and job conditions of their library. As a high schooler interested in library science, I can personally attest to the quality of my hours spent volunteering at the library. Adults can facilitate the life of their library. If they want to keep it open, they can help run it. Older adults, especially those of retirement age, are invaluable to the library. They are part of the backbone that keeps libraries working. One cannot praise them enough for their service, not only to the library itself, but to humanity in general.
Libraries are a great part of cultured life in any society. The availability of books to the masses is key to education, lifestyle, and culture. Books are what hold our history, our past, much of our present and nearly all of future. Furthermore, libraries offer literacy programs that help children and adults. These are so important that it cannot be overstated. Reducing the number of staff in a library will only hamper these public services. Reducing hours will ensure that they do not suffer as much and that the libraries will still be salvageable machines after this budget crisis has ended. In fact, the case can be made that reducing hours and not staff will be a good thing in the long run. Staff will be able to get a lot of behind the scenes work done. Maybe, just perhaps, the back up of unshelved books can be eliminated.
While Mr. Vause's concern is well-meaning and well-voiced, the fact that perhaps not very many people are as concerned as he is about the issue is worth looking at. From the same Daily Journal: "Less than 10 people visited the San Mateo Main Library Saturday morning to hear exactly how budget cuts will reduce library assistants, hours and some services." This shows no great interest and it certainly doesn't indicate any great outcry over the issue.
But what can be done about it? Certainly not very much if all we’re doing is complaining. One letter to the editor and one itty-bitty blog post aren’t enough to affect a radical change in this arena. Maybe Mr. Vause communication talents would be better used if he wrote to his government representative instead of whining to the Daily Journal. As for me, well, I have a lot of shelving to do.
City needs to properly manage its funds
Editor,
San Mateo City Librarian Ben Ocon and his staff need to rethink their plan to implement budget reductions in response to expected budget shortfalls. Topping their list of recommendations is to reduce library hours by 28 percent system wide over the next year, and in particular a 46 percent reduction in hours for the Hillsdale and Marina branches. Keeping our library doors open must be a top priority.
Mr. Ocon and his staff (57 full-time positions) don’t seem to agree. It is interesting to note that staff savings is less than 3 percent of the current total operating budget. How can they suggest reducing library hours so drastically without a corresponding reduction in staff expense? What will library staff be doing while library doors are shut?
In a meeting held on a recent Saturday at the library, Mr. Ocon expressed that avoiding staff reductions was of great importance to the city of San Mateo — apparently more important than keeping library doors open.
If this is how the city library manages our tax dollars, I will not vote for any new proposed tax increases to avoid further budget reductions — since they are proving they can’t properly manage the funding they already have.
Well, its a bit more complicated than all that. As a volunteer for the library, I have seen the inner workings of the place. I can personally attest to the back up of unshelved books, the mountain of work needing to be done to make sure lost books and holds are found, the asinine things that get sent through the book drop, and all those wonderful little inanities that bog up the works. Many of these problems are only made worse by the fact that there is so much to do and few enough people to do it. So, in answer to one of Mr. Vause's questions, library staff will be shelving books while the doors are closed, as they always do. That is why Mr. Ocon wants to avoid staff reductions.
Of course, one may always allow for the motivating factor of greed. Many of those 57 full-time positions who don't want to cut staff merely don't want to be the ones who are cut. We may also allow for those insipid employees who simply want to keep doing nothing and getting paid. But I think having a little faith in humanity might be a good thing here. For whatever selfish reasons people may have, they still want their library to work and it cannot work without employees.
One solution may be for concerned people like Mr. Vause to volunteer at the library. Volunteers do much valuable work throughout the day. School aged kids over the age of sixteen can gain community service hours as well as a valuable glimpse at the inner workings and job conditions of their library. As a high schooler interested in library science, I can personally attest to the quality of my hours spent volunteering at the library. Adults can facilitate the life of their library. If they want to keep it open, they can help run it. Older adults, especially those of retirement age, are invaluable to the library. They are part of the backbone that keeps libraries working. One cannot praise them enough for their service, not only to the library itself, but to humanity in general.
Libraries are a great part of cultured life in any society. The availability of books to the masses is key to education, lifestyle, and culture. Books are what hold our history, our past, much of our present and nearly all of future. Furthermore, libraries offer literacy programs that help children and adults. These are so important that it cannot be overstated. Reducing the number of staff in a library will only hamper these public services. Reducing hours will ensure that they do not suffer as much and that the libraries will still be salvageable machines after this budget crisis has ended. In fact, the case can be made that reducing hours and not staff will be a good thing in the long run. Staff will be able to get a lot of behind the scenes work done. Maybe, just perhaps, the back up of unshelved books can be eliminated.
While Mr. Vause's concern is well-meaning and well-voiced, the fact that perhaps not very many people are as concerned as he is about the issue is worth looking at. From the same Daily Journal: "Less than 10 people visited the San Mateo Main Library Saturday morning to hear exactly how budget cuts will reduce library assistants, hours and some services." This shows no great interest and it certainly doesn't indicate any great outcry over the issue.
But what can be done about it? Certainly not very much if all we’re doing is complaining. One letter to the editor and one itty-bitty blog post aren’t enough to affect a radical change in this arena. Maybe Mr. Vause communication talents would be better used if he wrote to his government representative instead of whining to the Daily Journal. As for me, well, I have a lot of shelving to do.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Well... don't I feel silly. As a matter of course, life stinks. My life especially has had its ups and downs. The program set below for the progression of this blog will continue on, never fear, but with one difference: no new piece. Why? That is a funny story. Or, not funny, but ironic. I can't remember what the new piece was that I was going to put up. I have also deleted some files and so that I do not have most of my new pieces. Sorry.
Also (dun dun da da!!!!), there is an update on the whole, real life thing. I think I'm going to college in Nebraska. Creighton University in Omaha to be precise. I don't have an official confirmation just yet, but an inside source says, yeah, your pretty much in. Heh heh. Oh, I feel so good about this.
Alrighty, then. More of 2057 sometime soon. Maybe... probably... hopefully... God willing... hell don't freeze and the creek don't rise... barring the interference of fallen angels... through a miracle of St. Michael... etc. etc.
Also (dun dun da da!!!!), there is an update on the whole, real life thing. I think I'm going to college in Nebraska. Creighton University in Omaha to be precise. I don't have an official confirmation just yet, but an inside source says, yeah, your pretty much in. Heh heh. Oh, I feel so good about this.
Alrighty, then. More of 2057 sometime soon. Maybe... probably... hopefully... God willing... hell don't freeze and the creek don't rise... barring the interference of fallen angels... through a miracle of St. Michael... etc. etc.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A Little Update from the Writer at "The Failed Attempt"
Another day, another dollar I am not making running this hoblog (Get it? Its hobo+blog=hoblog?). Now, I don't have an actual post this time because I haven't written anything yet. The weekend was very long and very not conducive to writing anything. But, I do have a few things lined up for you and this sneak peek is to make you salivate for more of our gourmet Failed Attempts.
1) GRADES FOR THE ENGLISH HOMEWORK ARE IN!!!!! Understand now, that all three posts count as one essay to these people. It is a three part essay. So, the official grade for the three part essay is- B (range of 87-89% on the honors grading system). This is the best grade I have ever gotten from the people who grade my papers. Isn't that sad? Kudos to my little big brother for helping me with that assignment.
2) We have more from "2057" coming out in three days. I promise...
3) There will be a brand new piece coming out sometime next week and I promise there will be more of it than usual. However, I cannot promise any endings. There is this one thing that happens when writing fiction for a blog, you don't get any endings. Writers take a long time to round things out, so in another year, 2057 might actually be finished, but I am going to make you suffer from uncertainty for it.
4) We will have a true story told by a "Guest from Beyond the Grave." I'll give you a hint, he was from Tennessee and served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Okay, so salivate away! Must dash...
"Who was that masked writer?"
-Bradbury
1) GRADES FOR THE ENGLISH HOMEWORK ARE IN!!!!! Understand now, that all three posts count as one essay to these people. It is a three part essay. So, the official grade for the three part essay is- B (range of 87-89% on the honors grading system). This is the best grade I have ever gotten from the people who grade my papers. Isn't that sad? Kudos to my little big brother for helping me with that assignment.
2) We have more from "2057" coming out in three days. I promise...
3) There will be a brand new piece coming out sometime next week and I promise there will be more of it than usual. However, I cannot promise any endings. There is this one thing that happens when writing fiction for a blog, you don't get any endings. Writers take a long time to round things out, so in another year, 2057 might actually be finished, but I am going to make you suffer from uncertainty for it.
4) We will have a true story told by a "Guest from Beyond the Grave." I'll give you a hint, he was from Tennessee and served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Okay, so salivate away! Must dash...
"Who was that masked writer?"
-Bradbury
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
