May 10 - 16

So my darling daughter goes around all day and talks to her friends on her phone by using the internet. That way she can talk to as many friends as is humanly possible. So I hear all the conversations and they can hear whatever I say. So when my daughter comes into the kitchen so do all her friends. It is like having a bunch of people over all the time and sometimes on rare occasions it drives me nuts. However, it is not like I can tell the party to go anywhere else because they can hear whenever I speak. So I will hint, "look how nice it is outside” or “wouldn’t you like to have some private time?” This doesn’t work because I am not allowed to speak. This is when I start chopping lots of onions.

Oh and thank you to Cathy Stricklin for writing that nice piece about the Sam’s Big Top Building. I am so glad people appreciate what we have in Mid Century Architecture at FlapJacks.

May 3 - 9

Forty years ago Saturday I purchased Walt’s Restaurant (currently Flapjacks) with the help of my father. At the time I was an area supervisor for Perko’s and was working at the Sunrise Perko’s (Country Waffles). At that time oddly enough, both restaurants were in front of Jumbo Markets. Anyways, I left Sunrise to go to El Camino and now have both. Funny how the world turns. There are a few customers still left from 1981, and if I had still had brain cells I would call them by name.

Now my main concern is trying to find the missing pineapple cans.

Apr 26 - May 2

The other day I had a conversation about an old movie with another movie buff. I was asking him about a song in this movie, the problem was I couldn’t remember the name of the song and couldn’t remember the name of the movie.

So I was saying remember that song in the movie we both liked? You know that movie about that crazy family. “Yours,“ he asks? No, this was about a famous family, and the movie was about 20 years old and it had a great cast. He asks “Who was in it?” You know that great actor from the 70’s and 80’s, and it was narrated by the actor from the submarine movie. Ok, he says, “What was it about?” Well, it was about a lot of things, but mainly about a crazy family. “You sure it wasn’t yours?” he asks again. No, anyway I am trying to find this song so I can look it up, but I can’t remember the name of the movie or the names of the cast members. Wait a minute, one of the characters was in another movie about a guy stuck in an airport. If I can remember that movie I can look it up on that database. Ok, do you remember the name of that movie or the database? “ Internet Movie Data Base” he says. Great, now what was the name of the second movie because if we can look that up we can find the actor and then find the other movie and then look up the song. “I have no idea what any of these movies are” he says. You don’t remember the great submarine movie with the great Scottish actor playing a Russian submarine captain. “Wait a minute” he says. “If he was Scottish, why was he in a Russian submarine”? Never mind, I frustratingly respond.

Oh, by the way, my wife found the last pineapple can, empty in my son’s room.

Apr 19 - 25

Ok, so if you saw the interview this week with Mark S. Allen, please know that we do not sell 40 million banana caramel waffles in a year. I was on live TV and thought I should embellish just a little, but hey, now I

might as well go into politics. By the way Mr. Allen is the nicest personality you will ever meet, after Stan Atkinson. I have met some celebrities who let you know they are celebrities, but not with him. Now I feel bad though that I embellished a little too much with such a nice guy. Oh well, politics should fit me well. Watch a part of Mr. Allen's visit here.

Oh, and I found an empty can of pineapple behind the outside AC unit.

The mystery continues…