Tag Archives: Wickenburg

Fine Dining — Not!

Posted on by
Comment

Or how not to serve wine in a restaurant.

My husband and I tried a new local restaurant last night. We’d asked a few friends who had tried it and they gave me the impression it was worth a shot. One of them said, “Well, the food is good.” That should have warned me.

The place is in a brand new building that’s quite attractive, although not quite the right fit for the Sonoran desert. It features big wood beams overhead and a stone fireplace. The kind of place that would work really well in Northern Arizona, in the mountains surrounded by tall pine trees. Or in Colorado. Not quite right when the biggest thing outside is a cactus. Still, open and very pleasant and quite a nice change from the usual places around town.

But it was a disappointment.

The biggest disappointment was with the wine. The restaurant, which is very new, has a small, unimaginative wine list. There were about a dozen offerings on the list and one of them was Sutter Home White Zinfandel. While I’m sure some people like that — my mother appears to be one of them — I can’t remember the last time I actually saw it on a wine list. A real wine list — one that’s in its own little hardcovered folder, like it has something of value in it.

The menu was kind of disappointing, too. A lot of beef, a single chicken dish, and two fish dishes. Some salads for the dieting or veggie crowd. The special was halibut, although how it was prepared was not something we were made privy to. Actually, very few items on the menu included a description of how they were prepared. The menu was a simple list of entrees; you picked two accompaniments to go with your meal.

So that’s the setup.

When we were seated, the waiter asked us almost immediately if we wanted to order a bottle of wine. Not having had a chance to look at the wine list or the menu, we told him we needed a few minutes. We then took our time with both small lists. About three minutes had passed when he returned. “Chardonay is good with halibut,” he said.

Okay, I though to myself.

Now keep in mind that the last two restaurants Mike and I had dined in where we ordered a bottle of wine had wine stewards. These are guys who know wine. Their entire job is to make recommendations on wine, take orders on wine, and serve wine. A statement like, “Chardonay is good with halibut,” would be ridiculous to one of these guys. They would be recommending a specific chardonay or other wine. And maybe it wouldn’t even be a white wine. But it would be a perfect match for the halibut, based on how the halibut was prepared, what it was served with, and what wines were available.

And, by the way, neither Mike and I had shown any interest in halibut.

Mike sent him away again. This time he stayed away. We had to flag him over when we were ready to order. Not a problem. Mike ordered steak and I ordered prime rib.

“And we’d like a bottle of wine,” Mike added. He looked at me.

“The Clos du Bois cabernet,” I said, reading it off the wine list.

The wine list offered wines by the glass, but the only red wines were the house wines, which I’d never heard of. So we’d stuck with a familiar mid-priced label that I knew would be fine with our meal.

Keep in mind that I am not a wine connoisseur. I love restaurants with wine stewards because I can learn from them. They always recommend something truly spectacular. But when you’re faced with limited options and no one to give good advice, it’s sometimes best to go with what you know. And I do like to drink wine — especially red wines.

He went away with our order. A few moments later, we were treated to the worst wine service I have ever witnessed in my life.

Now I don’t want to get our waiter in trouble because he’s a nice guy and I’m sure he was doing he best he could. The only problem is, it’s quite obvious that he was never trained to do his job. And I don’t think he’s had enough meals in nice restaurants to catch on to what’s expected.

Our waiter returned with a tray that had two glasses and our bottle of wine. He put the tray on one of those tray stands that he’d set up behind Mike’s seat. He then took a corkscrew — you know, the kind with the wings that anyone can use — and inserted the pointy part through the foil at the top of the bottle and into the cork. He struggled for a few minutes to twist the corkscrew in, then used the wings to lift the cork out, right through the torn foil. He put a glass in front of Mike, poured a small amount of wine through the foil, and waited for Mike to drink. While he waited, he used his fingers to tear all the foil off the top of the bottle. Mike tasted and told him it was fine. The waiter put the cork back in the bottle and put the bottle on the table, then put my glass in front of me and departed, leaving Mike to pour the wine for both of us.

Whew!

Call me a snob, but I could serve wine better than that — and I’ve never worked in a restaurant!

For those of you who don’t know what he did wrong, he’s a summary of how the wine should have been served.

  1. The waiter brings glasses to the table. He sets the glasses out in front of each person.
  2. The waiter brings the bottle to the table. (He could do this with step 1 to save time.) He shows the bottle’s label to the person who ordered the wine or asks, “Who would like to taste the wine?” The idea is for someone to make sure he’s brought the right wine.
  3. The waiter uses a knife or foil cutter to neatly cut and remove the foil from the top of the bottle, leaving the rest of the foil on the bottle’s neck.
  4. The waiter inserts the cork screw or other cork removal device into the bottle while holding it (not leaning it on the table), then removes the cork.
  5. The waiter places the cork in front of the designated wine taster. (The wine taster may want to check it to make sure it is wet; a dry cork indicates a bottle that has been stored standing up and air may have gotten in.)
  6. The waiter pours a small amount of wine into the designated taster’s glass.
  7. When the taster has confirmed that the wine is satisfactory, the waiter pours for the rest of the table, finishing up with the designated taster.
  8. The waiter leaves the bottle on the table (for unchilled wines — usually reds) or in an ice bucket within reach (for chilled wines — usually whites).

I also like when the waiter ties a rolled-up napkin (cloth, of course) around the bottle’s neck to catch drips when the wine is poured.

Does this sound like a ritual? It is. And it’s one that I personally enjoy, perhaps because it’s an indication that wine is an important part of the meal, one that deserves its own special ritual.

Now I really can’t blame the waiter. But I certainly can blame the manager of the restaurant. It’s obvious that he or she doesn’t care (or know) about what good service is.

Dinner last night, with tip, cost over $100 — and we didn’t have appetizers, coffee, or desert. The food was average — although I admit I really liked my sweet potato fries. My prime rib, which was supposed to be medium, was medium well on one half and medium rare on the other. (I’m still trying to figure out how they did that.) The horseradish sauce was just right. The bread was from Sysco — the big food purveyor company — the same stuff they use for sandwiches at one of the local coffee shops, but cut into quarters so each piece goes a little further.

To say we were disappointed is an understatement. A new restaurant in town, a nice looking, brand new building. We had our hopes up. But they were dashed by mediocre food, unprofessional service, and prices that are too high for what you’re getting.

But the place is new. We’ll give it a chance to learn some things. In a few months, we’ll try again.

And if my wine is served the same way, I’m going to get up and show him how to do it right.

R44 Pilot Finds Missing Family

Posted on by
Comment

Another example of how private helicopter pilots can help their communities.

A friend of mine e-mailed me this story from the San Francisco Chronicle last night: “PILOT HAD HUNCH: It led him to wife, kids.”

The short version: James Kim and his wife and two children went missing in the mountains. John Rachor, a private helicopter pilot and owner of an R44 helicopter (like mine), decided to follow up on a hunch he had about where they may have made a wrong turn. He found the wife and kids alive and safe. Sadly the husband was later found dead, having died while trying to walk for help.

Wickenburg is lucky to have not one but three privately owned helicopters. The three pilots — Ray, Dave, and I — know the immediate area better than 95% of Wickenburg’s population. We know about canyons and trails and hidden ruins that most people couldn’t imagine. Certainly better than the APS or Sheriff’s office helicopter pilots — after all, we fly around here all the time.

Although I hope we’re never needed to help out with a search, I also hope that the local authorities wouldn’t hesitate to ask us to help out if they needed a few more eyes in the sky. After all, since we can each take four pairs, that’s twelve more people that can help save a life.

Question the Media!

Posted on by
Comment

“Critical thinking” is the antidote for “truthiness” in our public life.

As the quality of our local newspaper here in Wickenburg declines to the point that it’s not worth spending the ten minutes it takes to read each week, I found “Skepticism: The antidote to ‘truthiness’ in American government and media” by Roy Peter Clark on Poytner Online a very interesting read. In preparing for an appearance on Oprah, he made a few notes, including this one:

4. Join with others in your community to analyze how you are being served or disserved by your local news media. As famed editor Gene Roberts said about one newspaper: “You can throw it up in the air and read it before it hits the ground.” What does your community need in the form of coverage that it is not getting? Who owns the news companies in your community? Are they in the news business to serve the public or to maximize their profits?

Or push the agendas of certain special interests?

Okay, so I added that last bit. But the point is, a newspaper should provide the news. All the news that matters to the public. Every side of every issue.

The current situation in Wickenburg’s local newspaper affects me directly: for the past three weeks, I’ve been mentioned in articles in the paper, but I have yet to be interviewed by a “reporter.” Tell me: how can a serious journalist write about a topic without speaking to the people who are making it newsworthy?

I’ll tell you how. When it isn’t in their best interest or the interest of their publication to objectively report all sides of an issue.

(A side note here: Lately, a large number of people in Wickenburg are outraged by the one-sidedness of the local newspaper. It’s gotten to the point that many people have cancelled their subscriptions. (Bravo! My husband and I did this well over a year ago and the only thing I miss is the regular supply of newsprint for the bottom of my parrot’s cage. I especially miss seeing his random bird droppings on photos of particular people here in town.) Some of them have even gone so far as to write letters to the publisher explaining why they are canceling. (I doubt that those letters will appear in the Letters to the Editor pages, which are the most popular pages in the paper.) Others have pledged to let their subscriptions lapse or simply stop picking it up on newsstands. Will this revolt by the people help? Probably not. If their finances begin to feel the pain of lost subscriptions, I’m sure one of the special interests they support will step up with a bailout. Quietly, of course. That’s how most Good Old Boy transactions are handled in this town.)

Mr. Clark adds this little bit of wisdom:

5. Look for role models of candor and accountability, people in public life who have proven to be reliable over time. Look for folks within a movement or political party who have the courage to speak, on occasion, against the interests of their own party.

Or against their government or town?

Frankly, Mr. Clark’s article has a lot of good advice — especially these days, when the media is spending more time manipulating public opinion than objectively reporting what’s important in the world around us. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Doing Gigs

Posted on by
Comment

It has its ups and downs.

By “gig,” I mean a helicopter rides job. You know — like at a carnival or air show.

At Robson's Mining WorldFlying M Air makes approximately 20% of its money doing helicopter rides at outdoor events. These events, which range from small-town celebrations (Robson’s Mining World (see photo), Yarnell Daze, Old Congress Days) to county fairs (Mohave County Fair) to full-blown air shows (Thunderbird Balloon Classic and Air Show) are probably the hardest work I have to do. Not only do I have to arrange the event with its management and ensure that I have a safe landing zone nearby, but I have to get together a ground crew of reliable, amiable people to handle money collection, passenger briefings, and loading/unloading. And then I have to do the ups and downs.

I’ve been fortunate in the past to find two good local teams to help out. Darlene and Dave live in Wickenburg and have helped out on two events so far. John and Lorna live in Maine but spend their winters here in Wickenburg and have helped out on winter events for the past two or three years. And of course, I always have Mike, who oversees the whole ground operation.

The ground crew is just about as important as the pilot in this kind of work. They need to be responsible, alert individuals who pay attention to what’s going on around them. We do “hot loading” at these events — that means the engine is running while people are getting on and off the helicopter. That means the rotors are spinning. While the main rotor isn’t much of a concern — it’s spinning 10-12 feet above the ground where it’s not likely to hit anyone walking nearby — the tail rotor is a major concern. It’s spinning back there at head level and even though there’s a guard and warning signs on the helicopter, it’s still possible for someone to walk into it. I need my ground crew to make sure no one walks behind the helicopter at any time. I want my ground crew to use physical force if necessary — grab the guy! — to keep a person from walking back there. Not everyone is prepared to do that.

(A side note here: one of the ways I help protect people from the tail rotor is to park with the tail rotor away from where people might be. In other words, I park facing the crowd. Then there’s no reason to go around the back of the helicopter. This may seem like common sense, but it’s amazing how few helicopter pilots don’t stick to this rule. They’ll park facing into the wind (because it’s easier for them) or park facing a runway (for reasons I don’t begin to understand). Having attended the Robinson Factory Safety Course twice, I clearly remember the story of a Long Beach mishap that occurred primarily because the pilot parked with his tail rotor facing his passengers. I’d rather learn from other people’s mistakes than my own.)

I also need a money person who is friendly and a good sales person. I once did a gig with a real wimp taking the money. She just stood there, waiting for people to come up. She spoke in a whisper and did nothing to convince the people who walked up to her table that what they really wanted that day was a helicopter ride. I think that if I had Darlene or Lorna at the table that weekend, I would have taken at least 30 more people for flights. That’s more money for the business and less time sitting on the ground, spinning, waiting for passengers.

The ups and downs are my part. I generally do 6-8 minute rides, but we’ve recently had some success with 3-4 minute rides. That’s a lot of takeoffs (ups) and landings (downs). The challenge here is that I’m usually working in a relatively small space and often have only one way in and out. Obstacles include other activities (I won’t fly over a fair or gathering of people), buildings, wires, fences, and trees. So every takeoff is a maximum performance takeoff and every landing is a confined space landing. And one of the two may be with a tailwind. While I don’t mind taking off with a tailwind (up to 10 knots seems to be okay, depending on my load), I don’t like landing with one. And cross-wind operations are always tricky, especially if the winds are gusting. My goal is to make it look easy no matter what the conditions are, to assure my passengers, through experience alone, that they are in good hands.

With all this comes huge responsibility. Not only do I need to make the ride fun for my passengers, but I need to make it safe. A mishap — even a small one — would be a very bad thing. I think of myself as an ambassador for the helicopter industry. What I do might be the only helicopter operation some of my passengers ever witness. I want them to tell others how good it was, how safe they felt, how much confidence they had in their pilot. And — oh, yes — how much they want to do it again.

I know it’s my experience at the Grand Canyon back in the summer of 2004 that made me pretty darn good at doing ups and downs. At the GC, we operated in very challenging conditions — high winds in the early season, hot temperatures in the mid season, and low visibility in the late season. Although we never operated in unsafe conditions, we certainly operated in many conditions that the average pilot would not normally fly in. The flying was highly restricted, requiring certain takeoff, flight, and landing paths. You couldn’t for example, change your approach to landing just because the wind had shifted; you needed to wait for the tower to change that path. And when you’re operating at high altitude (the airport was 6300 feet) with full loads (I often was within 100 pounds of max gross weight), you learn how to handle power and milk the system for what you need. My goal on every flight was to make every single landing perfect. Of course, I wasn’t able to do that, but by aiming for perfection every single time, I got very good at it. I took that experience away with me and use it on every flight I do.

Now compare this kind of work to a Sedona day trip, like the ones I do from Wickenburg and the Phoenix area. I meet the passengers myself, give them a safety briefing, and load them on the helicopter with the engine off. I then start up, warm up, and take off. The flight is about an hour and neither flying nor navigation require much skill. I point out places of interest and enjoy the scenery with my passengers. Then I land at the airport, cool down, shut down, and escort my passengers to the terminal for whatever activities they have planned. A few hours later, I do the same thing to return to our starting point. As far as real “work” is concerned, a charter has very little. And the revenue is based on flight time, so I’m guaranteed a certain amount of profit for each flight.

Gigs, on the other hand, have a ton of work and a very unreliable revenue stream. When things are going well, I can indeed make more per hour than I can with a charter. But I should, shouldn’t I? I have a lot more work to do (all those ups and downs!) and need to cover the expenses of my ground crew and the gig itself. And there’s always the gig that goes bad — like the Spring Break gig in Lake Havasu I tried two years ago. I took a bath on that gig, losing over $1,600 in ferry time, permits, fees, and hotel costs. Live and learn — but ouch! That one hurt.

But hey — that’s what I signed up for when I started this business. And I still get a lot of pleasure out of taking passengers for their very first helicopter rides.

Treadmill vs. Walk in the Park

Posted on by
3

Pros and cons.

I joined a health club recently. Wickenburg has an excellent “exercise center” that’s part of the Physical Therapy department at the local hospital. It has weight training equipment, elliptical exercise machines (is that the right name for those things?), stationary bikes, and treadmills. Just about all of it is computerized, so you can set goals and quantify many activities. The place is clean, there’s good music playing at a volume that’s not too loud to override it with iPod earbuds, and there are even televisions with captioning so you can read what’s being said onscreen.

Best of all, the members are an incredible mix of people, from the 20-year-old, skinny as a rail (as I was at that age) to the 40-something-year-old-who has had about five hundred too many cream puffs in her lifetime to the 90-year-old who comes in on a walker. I fit in nicely with this group, since I’m middle aged, overweight but not dangerously obese, and just enough out of shape to have to really work at my exercise regime, which is still in its infancy.

The treadmill is part of that regime — the warmup part. I start with a 20-minute session on the treadmill, using one of its built-in programs and setting the speed to about 3 mph. The programs change the machine’s incline, so I could be walking on flat ground for part of the time and climbing a hill moments later. Not a big hill, mind you. But one that’s enough to get your heart beating, which the machine monitors for you. In fact, if I enter my age and weight into the machine, when it gives me my heart rate, it’ll also tell me whether my work out is for weight loss or cardiovascular. I try to keep it in the cardiovascular range. I want to break a sweat, but not get soaked.

When I first thought about treadmills, I thought they were pretty dumb. After all, why use a machine to go for a walk. Why not just go for a walk? But I realized, after using a treadmill for about a week, that it does have some benefits over just walking. I thought I’d summarize them for people who have never tried one and, like me, wonder why they should.

TreadmillWalk in the Park
You can set a speed and stick with it.You don’t really know how fast you’re walking or whether you’ve changed speed.
You can monitor exact distance, speed, incline, time walked, and calories burned.You can’t easily monitor exact distance, speed, incline, time walked, and calories burned
You can do other things while you walk: watch TV, listen to music or podcasts, read a book or newspaper (a bit tricky), or talk to a companion.There are a limited number of things you can do while you walk: listen to music or podcasts or talk to a companion.
You’re breathing “conditioned” air, which may or may not be of a good quality.You’re breathing “fresh” air, which may or may not be of a good quality.
While you’re walking, there’s nothing to look at but the room you’re in, the view out the window (if you face one), and the people around you.While you’re walking, you can see a wide variety of things as you walk past them.
You can do it in any weather, at any time of the day or night (dependent on access to machine).You can do it in any weather, at any time of the day or night (but you probably will avoid hot, cold, rainy, and dark).
There’s nothing to interrupt you while you’re walking.You can be interrupted by friends and acquaintances you pass along the way, traffic, or obstacles along the trail.

 

This is all I can think of right now. The conclusion I’ve reached from all this is that a treadmill offers an efficient way to walk for exercise. Efficient is good if you’re pressed for time and want to make the most of every minute. That’s me. Right now I’m walking at 3 mph (average) for 20 minutes as a warm up for other exercise, including weight training. During that time, I can burn about 75 calories (no Hostess Cupcakes in my immediate future) and get my heart rate up to 130+ beats per minute. But if I didn’t want to do weight training and wanted to base my workout around a good, long walk, I could easily choose a more difficult program at a faster speed and for a longer time, I can just push a couple of buttons, pick a good playlist on my iPod, and have at it. Nothing will interrupt me and I’ll get the workout I want.

If you live in Wickenburg and have been considering the hospital’s exercise facilities, I highly recommend it. It’s moderately priced — I paid $300 for 6 months, but that includes the “setup fee” to introduce me to the weight machines (and them to me via programming). A longer membership is cheaper per month; a shorter one costs more. But the way I see it, what’s more important: money or my health? I know I won’t walk or exercise regularly on my own. And I know I don’t walk as fast when I’m out with my walking buddies as I do on that machine. So I’m getting a lot of exercise each 90-minute session at the “health club.”

I must be. I slept 10-1/2 hours straight through last night.

And a side note here: I also started the Atkins/South Beach diet. I know they’re not the same, but they’re close enough for my purposes. I’ve lost 8 pounds in a week. Still very overweight, but starting to get back to the point where I can wear most of my jeans again.

And the way I see it, every pound I lose is one extra pound of passengers I can take flying. With some of my passengers so big they fully extend the seatbelt before fastening it around their midsections, somebody has to lose weight.