Adventures of one who is totally floored.

After my previous entry about not tieing ties. I received some comments. One from a man who enjoys dressing up so much so it is a integral part of his vocation and the other is a close friend of the first and just attempting to gang up on poor old chops. But Lads I feel the love and appreciate the comments it makes me feel like someone has read the blog and cared enough to write a comment. Even if the comment is making fun of me I just like the attention. Lets be honest.

Last time the Curate was in town he dined with myself and the police state at one of my favourite places to graze. We dined at the House of Ribs (not it’s real name). It is a very small restaurant which serves ribs, pizza and pasta and (if you would be prepared to waste precious stomach space) salad all of these till your ill for under 20 bucks. A most wonderful time had by all and those people were hurt by three men who love a feed. Actually if I do recall we ate like two men and one of us ate like a small scared not eating very much furry animal It had been since last October that I had dined there till this week with the Lovely One. People are amazed that I would take one as beautiful and precious as the Lovely One to such a establishment. Let me evaporate any doubts. As trim and terrific as she is the Lovely One loves a chew. She matched me bite for bite the whole night. She has come to the same level of love for the House of Ribs as myself. It is truly a beautiful thing. I know this is a random thought but I could never date a vegetarian. Not that I don’t like vego’s but it would just not work really. Ok it’s your job to eat 20 bucks of salad while I eat the ribs of pigs. It just wouldn’t work.

Till Next Time Make Mine Ribs Thanks,

Chops

One thing i love Gentle Reader about the House of Chops is dressing like a schlubb and then getting my suit handed to me. Whilst I can dress up and make a good impression there is still a small inkling of rebel in me. For instance I have never learned to tie a tie!! That’s right five yrs of private school education and five yrs at the HOC and no tie tieing for me. My tie does not go back to the uniform room at the end of the day like the rest of my uniform. It stays in the office so I can slip it back over my neck with no need to retie it. As the evil uniform lady would untie it so it is now kept in the office for it’s own safety. Adter several embarrassed mornings of asking the other uniform ladies to tie my tie it was decided by all involved to keep it in the office for safety.

Yesterday the young uniform lady grabbed my suit and said “So Mr Clumsy Fingers your tie is in the office isn’t it?” I retorted with my fingers are not clumsy just too special to tie a tie and stormed off. Mr Clumsy Fingers!!! The rudeness of it all. In my warped view of the world the fact that I have managed to get to my age and not be able to tie the tie is awesome. Which shows I am not the slave of the Man! That I am not controlled by his corporate dog collar. I think i need to get some chocolate and settle down. Forgive me please.

Till Next Time My Fingers Aren’t Clumsy,

Chops

Greetings on this here ANZAC day. Today is a special day in my nation and all the flags are at half mast. Here is a question I am sure none of you have pondered. How do people know when to raise the flag at half mast? In these modern times there is a email. That’s right you subscribe to a email from the federal government about when to fly the flag at half mast and when it goes back to normal. Because the guys who normally look after the flag are off today due to the public holiday. The floorie on duty became the flag marshall (yes that is the real title). So at the start of the day the flag went to half mast till midday and then back to normal. The email also states other etiquette such as it is not ok to lower the flag the night before if it flies 24/7. I am not sure how much in trouble you could get for that. But they notify you by email for all sorts of occassions. Such as late last year when the former president of the Czech Republic died all flags in my country were to be at half mast in sympathy. So next time you see a flag at half mast there was a email behind it. Check it out at flag people
Till Next Time Check your Email,

Chops

The House of Chops rises and falls on communication. Sometimes clients can confuse things by asking anyone who walks by in a uniform and then it is directed to us and we may have already asked for it but it is more than clicking my fingers for things to appear. I am sure clients believe we have three or four guys who sit in a room waiting for me to call so they can instantly bring up three chairs and flashing lights go off and the storm into action. Unfortunately does not happen they are usually down the other end of the building or in the middle of a job that also needs to be done.

Recently I had a client who did not like the way the room was set. Even thought we have the pre event process for that sort of thing and they sign off on the floor plan to say that is what they want. This guy rocks up and decides he does not like the ‘vibe’of the room so he proceeds to move everything and this includes the power that was installed for the tables. Very Very Frustrating. I call the chair guy supervisor just as one of his guys walks through the servery where I was. I said you may want to hear this. I asked the super to remove the chairs and tables. No worries Chops he says. I stay on the channel cause the guy with me did not have a radio. The super than calls him and tells the guy to remove the chairs and tables. The guy says yeah no worries I don’t have a radio this is chops and he is standing next to me no worries. The super very sheepishly says copy. But the moral of the story is everyone was happy as the right chain of communication was taken.

Til Next Time Don’t Talk to me Directly It has to go Through my Supervisor,

Chops

I just want to say Mucho Congrats to Cardinal Ratzinger on being voted the New Il Papa. Long may he reign over us. Well for those of the Roman Catholic persuasion. I did actually think he would get it. I just thought that not all the cardinals would be able to spell his name so that would make him loose numbers. I also thought the African kiddie would go well but the name was also difficult.

I have a question if anyone can help me does he automatically get the bullet proof popemobile? JPII only had it after he got shot and for his declinging years they removed the bullet proof bits prompting me to think they may secretly have wanted him shot to end his misery. So fellow Pope watchers keep an eye out for that exciting tidbit of news.

So Benedict XVI God Bless and I hope all goes well for you in the new job.

Till Next Time Make My Zinger With Plenty of Rat thanks,

Chops

Well it’s that time of the month for another Steak Club. This month was at the Rowing Race Hotel. One of the classic pubs in my city. It has been around for many years and has seen a few floods in it’s times and has welcomed many people to it’s wide verandahs. It even was the scene of a famous political protest in the 60’s as well. My intrests in the place are a lot more focused on it’s bovine endeavours. It was refurbished not that long ago and has wizz bang toilets that are minimalist. For example the toilets look like they are straight out of a prison and have no seat. The also have just one metal button that looks like it is part of the wall. The mens urinal is a piece of one way glass you can see out but not in. The local ladies heard about this and would walk by and point and giggle as if the could see what was happening.

On rare occassions I can come across a little pompous or as we would say up myself. As our diligent waiter did his speal about soups of the day and fish of the day. I dismissed him with "no no no need my good friend as this is steak club and all we eat is steak". Our collegaue Robin had invited a girl he is interested in. I was a little embarrassed to see she had the fish. I realised that sometimes deep down I am really just a simple old boofhead.

My steak was good, a little small for my liking but was the cheapest we have had so far. The sauce and spud was good as was the salad and coleslaw. The Lovely One remarked it was the best steak she had so far in the steak club journey. The rest of the crew were also suitably impressed. So to the crew of the Rowing Boat thank you for a good night.

Til Next Time Make Mine Steak,

Chops

Tonight I returned to where it all began for me at the House of Chops. I had a go at ushering. It is where I started 5 yrs ago. It was a bit weird and the last time i had put on my custom made vest was close on two yrs ago. It was quite tight on me then and was a bit looser tonight which is good news. I also don’t have a normal name badge anymore. My current one has my job title on it. So tonight I was Charles. I was very tempted to use my not so bad cockney accent and just be so snotty to everyone and when people complained they would complain about that horrible cockney chap Charles. That would allow me to get away scott free or in this case Charles free. But it wasn’t bad but it would drive me crazy if I did this too often. It was good to stand on a door and chat to people and take their tickets and be responsible for nothing but that.

Till Next Time Charles Did It,

Chops

I started to look after a conference for people who work with people who have special needs. They use various parts of the arts and social work to achieve this. It has brought out a lot of the usual suspects. But it happens with conferences. A week before I could give you a pretty good run down of what the majority of guests will look like and how they would prefer directions. For instance when giving a engineer directions they want clear scientific directions go 150 metres turn right etc. But for the more social work deal it is walk along and you’ll see a brown building with a vine with purple flowers and turn right. I had to learn in my former job that different types of people need the same information in different ways. But I digress.

I started at 6 so the porter could bring all their freight up to the rooms where they were. The clients arrived at 7 and all was going well when I was aksed to go with one of the presenters to her room. The young lady was in a wheel chair. I could not keep up. I am sure she was trying to make the fat guy in the suit sweat big time. I tell you those electric wheel chairs can get pretty quick speeds and going up inclines like ramps does nothing to slow it down. The problem was she was presenting in the smallest room we have. It is the size of the average lounge room. To make it easier we had 15 seats, two tables for the presenters, a computer on a small table and a screen. She could not even wheel into the room because of the chairs placement. I called the AV guy and the chair guy and totally changed the room so it would work. Sometimes you just wish to turn to the client and say "You’ve seen this room and the plans how did you think it was all going to fit?". But it was their first day so we go a bit soft and as always it worked out.

Just after nine I was walking through the hallway and the client was quite frantic. They had lost a presenter!! He had arrived and checked in but was now missing. To make matters worse he has a medical condition and they were afraid he was passed out somewhere. I checked the toilets and called security with his description. After 10 minutes of 4-5 people franticaly looking for him he was found. He was found in the room he was presenting in and was …. presenting!!! I just wanted to give the client a hug and say next time before we start freaking out looking for someone lets make sure they really are missing!!

It was very quiet apart from that so I wished something like that happened in the afternoon to liven things up a bit. The highlight of my arvo was a mini caramel macadamia tart mmmm. It had been a few months since my last one and it was very good. By the time I called a code ate and my colleagues arrived another department came in massive numbers and wiped out the tarts. In my time of doing this blog I never really thought I would write wipe out the tarts. But there you have it.

Till Next Time Try Not to Wipe Out the Tarts,

Chops

The House of Chops is famous for it’s uniformity. It is only when you repeatedly look closely like I do to make sure all is perfect do you see the extent of the uniformity. If you walk into a room with about a 110 tables you can look at them from various angles and sisdes and everything lines up perfectly. It is amazing how geometric it is. When you look at a Seminar room set for 500 people the pads and pens are all set identically with the pen on the angle from the corner of the pad. But when you step back and look diagonally at the room all the pads are set in the same line. I have come to the conclusion the reason it has to be so strict is so you don’t notice it. But if it was not uniform you would notice it the second you walked into the room. Because all would see the room was set higgly piggly.

I thought I had seen the extremes of uniformity till today. I was waiting for a client and checked on a room that is being set for breakfast tomorrow. Once again all the chairs and tables lines up and the glasses and other things on the table looked identical to every table in the room. But what blew my mind apart was the preset mini boxes of cereal. Each table was absolutely the same. For example the corned flakes were at 12 o’clock and the pops coco were at 6 o’clock and as you looked in a line across the room all you could see was the pops coco in a straight line and then when you changed position the sugar lumps were also in a line. It was absolute Poetry in Motion. A beautiful site to behold.

Till Next Time Display your Cereals Uniformly Cause it Counts for Something,

Chops

I have somehow become a expert. I’m not exactly sure how I one Chops got to expert Status but I have. With the sad demise of Il Papa. I have become the residential House of Chops expert on Papal Election. I have people walk across the canteen asking me a) who I think the next pope will be? b) And the complexities of how they elect a new pope. I was talking about how cool it is that they brick them into the building where they are so messages can’y get in or out and what does JPII do but change the rules. They are now allowed out of the building and they don’t have to use bed pans like they did when he was elected. This college of Cardinals have got it way too soft these days. By the way I really have no idea and am a Protestant. But to the House of Chops crew I am the residential Expert on World Faiths. So I have been trying not to say anything too stoopid. Hopefully my tip will possibly win so I do have some credibility.

Till Next Time I am Tipping The Italian Guy,

Chops