The History of Daddy Claxton

Sonic Restaurants–The Grease Pits of Fast Food

Sonic Drive-In (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Long before I briefly took a job in Oklahoma City in 2007 did I have a disdain for the food served at Sonic restaurants. Getting to know their CEO, Cliff Hudson, didn’t help my image of the company either. But I’ve always thought the food their was greasy, nasty and if you enjoy it, you basically have numbed your tastebuds to the point of where you could enjoy eating poo.

My kids through the years have said they love the food. Fellow adults talk about how they like this drink or that.

One of my daughters had a thing for a drink called “A Purple O” and one night wanted me to order one for her, but I don’t order Os for my teen daughters, sorry.  (Sonic, you’ve really crossed the line on that one in my book.)

But I succumbed the other day to ordering a breakfast burrito so I could get back to work and move on with the day.

I’ve seen before how they have a guy come in and spray wash the sidewalks and wondered why they needed to be doing that.  And then from the angle I was sitting, it became disgustingly obvious.

The Grease Pit of Fast Food

I remember from my Wendy’s days in the mid-1980s about dealing with the grease trap out back. That had to be one of the nastiest jobs ever–taking hamburger and Henny Penny grease from the chicken frier out back to be dumped into a vat and later hauled off.

But after seeing this image, it’s clear to me that there is way too much frying going on inside a Sonic restaurant to be producing anything that could remotely be healthy for anyone.  It’s clearly time to stop stopping at Sonic until they do some things to change their menu.

The only way the image below becomes possible is if the grease they’re using is bubbling so badly that it’s wafting through the air and onto the floor and then getting picked up on the shoes of the young ladies who run food.  (By the way, Sonic screws their food runners over by not having a tip option on the pay with debit/credit card option. Most of the time I just pay for things on a card now and don’t carry cash so most of the time I have to stop at a Sonic, no one gets a tip. That bothers me because their food runners are working hard and no doubt making less than minimum per hour.)

So here’s the pic.  Look at the black trails out of the delivery door in this photo and then look how nasty they are in person the next time you’re at a Sonic.  Then think one step further about what your insides must look like from eating all that grease.  That thought alone is enough to convince me to never want to eat there again.  They won’t be adding this to their Website’s “See Yourself At Sonic” section.

I remember Hudson bragging about how they had just done a bunch of renovations to the drive in stores in the mid-2000s, “But we didn’t do anything to the menu,” he said one night.  I thought then and still do, “Maybe you should  de-grease.”

And that’s how you Sonic.

The Grease Track of a Sonic

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Facebook We Have A Problem–SNAZUed Once Again

There is a blog post coming about changes in my life that have been able to happen because of Facebook. But this is going to be a post about how Facebook is messing with me and not for good reason.

Image via CrunchBase

You see, eight weeks ago today I made a major break thru in reconnecting with many of my old classmates from Atwater, CA who I went to school with from seventh to the end of ninth grade at Mitchell Senior Elementary School and Atwater High School.

Through one connection, I’ve connected with about 15 people now who I knew at an earlier point in my life who because of the United States Air Force, I had to leave behind at age 15, presumably never to see again, or only to see if we were sent back to California. (We were stationed there thru my dad a total of four times before Castle AFB was BRACed in the 1990s. I lived there in 1969, 1972 and from 1978-81.)

So I found yesterday after getting hate mail from Facebook that I have been blocked from sending any new friend requests for the next seven days. (Six now.) Now for my amended military term–SNAZUed–Situation Normal, All Zucked Up.

I found that one can go up to the funky looking lock and piece of paper looking icon at the top right of Facebook and pull down to Who Can See My Stuff and then down to Activity Log and then down to MORE to expand the menu and then to Friends and you can see who all you’ve sent friend requests to that either have been approved or are still pending.

How to find friend requests. Start here.

At most, I found four that were still pending.  John Blitch who used to date Donna Minge in 7th and 8th grade and who most guys in school thought was a bad ass because hell, he was “going with Donna Minge,” Dawn Fuller, who I had in multiple classes throughout my three years there, Diana who was rumored to have had a crush on me in the day and maybe another person or two who had not yet okayed a request.

So what they HEY Facebook? I can tell you great stories about each of them. Like how Diana was going to sit next to me one day outside the Social Studies class and supposedly was going to ask me to an upcoming dance at AHS.  And on….

What’s the point in being able to make a friend request if you’re going to jack someone up for doing it?

I saw a notation from Facebook that said you might in the future also send a message to a potential friend BEFORE sending the friend request.  Okay. Well, I’ve pretty much done that, too, save with John Blitch and Dawn Fuller. Is that really a heinous enough infraction to shut me down for a week?  Seriously?  No, that’s actually Zucked up, if you ask me.

Facebook, I have a great story to write about how my reconnection has evolved. I’ve really been wanting to share the story of what a great thing that has happened because of what Mark Zuckerberg did through the creation of Facebook that couldn’t have happened any other way.  It’s going to have to wait a little longer though, but being told I can’t send friend requests to people for a week when I know every single one of them really is Zucked up.

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Eating Your Own Dog Food–American Airlines Doesn’t Need To Rush Merger With US Airways

A friend of mine tweeted a few hours ago about how she was on a US Airways plane somewhere on the Right Coast and having a miserable experience. I can relate. I’ve flown a good deal on US Airways, enough to know NOT to do it anymore. My preference remains to fly Southwest, one ‘cos it is closer to go to Love Field than to go to DFW.  My next preference is to fly American Airlines.  (Frontier is pretty cool, too, and Continental isn’t bad) but US Airways is just a whole ‘noter beast and one I prefer not bother to spend money on.

departing LAX (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why?

It’s the whole clientele it attracts–the fairs apparently are cheaper, and then so are the people who tend to fly it in coach. That also includes parents with kids who tend to not listen, don’t put on their seatbelts as instructed, try to fit bags into the overhead bins which are SMALLER than any other planes in the air, and who are bouncing up and down throughout push back and the whole seatbelt bit. “Please remain seated doesn’t compute.”

And as my friend noted, at least for her experience today, “has the rudest most unpleasant employee ever,” working for it. Whomever my friend encountered, generally isn’t alone.

“Merge With US Airways Now”

Yesterday as The Dallas Morning News began posting pics of the new painting style for American Airlines, I couldn’t help but notice the commentary, quoted below from the Allied Pilots Asssociation, per spokesman Dennis Tajer:

“A new paint job is fine but it does not fix American’s network deficiencies and toxic culture, so we continue our steadfast support of a merger with US Airways and not doubling down on the network strategy that brought us into bankruptcy.

“American’s network needs more than cosmetic changes to compete with Delta and United, simply put, it needs to merge with US Airways now.”

And so it is I suggest to American Airlines pilots who are encouraging a rapid merger with US Airways, when you’re already complaining about bad morale within AA, why in the HELL you would want to fold in the elements that are going to come with US Airways.  Two wrongs aren’t going to make things better here.

Perhaps AA pilots should take a few days and buy some tickets and ride in the coach section of US Airways flights. Maybe all pilots should spend a little more time in coach on all airlines, not in uniform, but looking like a normal Joe and see the world like the rest of us.  Eat your own dog food, they say in the PR business. Don’t ride in the jump seat or whatever. Sit in the back with the rest of us who have paid the cheaper rates and paid for it.

No, new paint on AA aircraft isn’t going to change the heart of what’s going on within AA. But my God, it’s a far better operation externally than I’ve had the misfortune of exploring in the back of a US Airways flight.

They say fools rush in.  Hopefully, someone at AA will see maybe they shouldn’t be moving so fast….

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Another Weather Forecast Error in Dallas–SNOW

It snowed here in the DFW area this morning. Twenty-four hours ago, indeed, even 16 or so hours ago, it wasn’t even in the forecast.

Unforecasted snow fell in Dallas today.

Now there were predictions that I noted on FB briefly that were for Saturday and Sunday that evaporated as soon as they were posted.  And on Weather.com last week there were predictions for snow here in DFW for Wednesday and Thursday, but over the weekend, those disappeared from that website, too.

Now maybe it is indeed difficult to predict the ever and rapidly changing weather conditions here in North Texas, but at some point we should all step back and look at how many times, particularly when it comes to winter weather forecasts, our local fokes just plain get it wrong.

Most of the time, when they even think it’s remotely possible, the local TV weather forecast announcers are all over the TV and now Twitter and Facebook predicting “snowmagedon.”

Numerous times while I have lived here in DFW, we’ve had surprise snow events. The tornado outbreak from last year also happened without it being in the forecast.

So my question is, how do our forecasters keep their jobs being so wrong, so many, many, many times?

The only two people who can screw up as much or MORE as the people who set the weather forecast here in North Texas are Tony Romo and Jerry Jones.

It’s just baffling. Anywhere else if you got so much wrong so often, you’d be out of a job.

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Over on Facebook, I’m part of “I Survived KI Sawyer AFB,” and having lots of fun reconnecting with old friends and hearing stories about a place that our government has closed now that the Cold War is over.

But in the day, KI Sawyer AFB was an amazing place. And it’s where I feel like I had an amazingly rich childhood.

There were photos posted on the group page recently of the front of the ski hill.  Well, the back side of it, and an opposing hill almost dropped straight down it seems.

Here, take a look.

UPDATE: April 9, 2012, 10:00 a.m. CDT: From @StateFarm on Twitter: “Sorry you received a misdirected phone call. We do not use Twitter as a lead generator.”

Prank Call from State Farm Insurance After Tweet During Final Four

During the final days of the Final Four 2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, I tweeted to State Farm insurance that I hope during the 2013 tournament they’ll invest a little more in developing more than two spots–like this year’s Fan Cam and then the Bobby Knight spot–because quite frankly, they ran them into the ground and a rotation of one or two more spots would have been much less nauseating.  Well, last week I received two calls from a local State Farm office.  I didn’t take the first one.  The second one was a nice lady who said she was following up on a lead that I’d inquired about insuring a $400,000 car–that I do not own, I assure you–and that they had received a lead notification that I needed a policy for it.

State Farm Insurance (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What a horrible use of social media by a company.  The only way that State Farm would have received such an inquiry was either because someone else read my tweet and thought they’d take the time to then go to the State Farm website and fill out an inquiry form with my home office phone number on it, or someone at State Farm who handles their social media put my name on a list and then made up the fictitious car bit.

I have a hard time believing some random person is going to do that.

That leaves the conclusion that someone at State Farm in their social media department took this action to be spiteful.

Well, it mainly wasted the time of your agent who called me twice.  And now there’s a blog post on a fairly well-read blog letting people know that if they say something ugly about State Farm in a Tweet on Twitter, they, too, might get a spiteful, malicious and potentially insulting phone call from a local office agent. Not to mention it might also put local office agents on notice that if they get word from Corporate that someone has a $400,000 car (I didn’t even catch the name of the brand, and the agent said she had to look it up) that they should just ignore it.  And then what good does that do your lead management system?

I may never know who pulled this prank, and now that I’ve written about it, I’m going to move past it.  But I hope someone at Corporate State Farm does take a look at this and send the person responsible out to a field office to do some real work instead of making field agents, who no doubt work hard enough as it is, work even harder just because someone said they were tired of watching two adult men do a fan cam dance for the 200th time in March.

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I’ve done a lot of things in my professional career, but I have to tell you, running a Kickstarter.com campaign is fast becoming a daily agonizing process but I know in my heart, we’re going to meet our goal and make something very big happen around the world–begin producing a series of Interactive Books for the iPad that will be enjoyed, read and used by generations around the world for years to come.

The tipsters say to start a campaign on Monday.  We started on Thursday and in that time, we’ve been able to pick up $700-plus so far in pledges.

Kickstarter.com Update

Kickstarer.com, if you don’t know, is a crowd-source fund-raising site where you post specifics about a project you want to work on, and then ask people to help back your idea with pledges.  For their support, you commit to provide them with cool rewards–in our case, often a copy of the forth coming Interactive Book for the iPad on Machu Picchu in Peru, and a bunch of other cool things, like a person giving $25 or more scoring their name in the back of the book as a supporter of the project.

But I have to tell you, it is a grueling process.  Already I’ve sent more than a 100 emails and messages to people. At this writing, the Facebook LIKEs for our project is at 72.  That’s pretty inspiring.

And today, we received a backing from a man in South Africa!  Now that’s just about the coolest thing ever to me, because, well, we received a commitment from a person in South Africa on a project I came up with back in July.  The idea, literally is spreading around the world.  And just a few minutes ago, I also came across a Twitter post from a woman in Round Rock, Texas who was retweeting the link to our Kickstarter.com URL.   The best thing about both of these two people is I’d never heard of them before a few hours ago.  And now, we’re joined in this big project.  A GLOBAL project, and that’s just as rewarding to me personally as the fact that an idea I have is gaining momentum worldwide.

I had breakfast this morning with my long-time friend, Ron Rose, and we discussed several strategies we’re going to come with Monday, so make sure you check back to TheWondersExpedition.com and here for the latest!

My advice about starting a Kickstater.com campaign?  Be ready for a 24/7 project for the entire length of your project.  We set ours for 34 days that way we could start promoting it just before a pay period, catch the mid-month pay period, and also still be live for a second when the countdown is on and the pressure to meet the goal will be excruciating if we’re not close or have exceeded the goal by then.

My other advice, when you start seeing blurry eyed at about 11:29 p.m. on a Saturday night, remember, you still have 31 minutes to campaign left in the day!

Onward!

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I am proud to announce that on Kickstarter.com, my @Archeoastronomy project, The Wonders Expedition, has launched a project to raise $57,766 in the next 34 days to help fund an exciting expedition to Machu Picchu in Peru so that we can gather HD video and hi-resolution photographs and anecdotal stories and create one of the best Interactive Books for the iPad yet to be made. And we are launching this campaign in the footsteps of American Archeologist Hiram Bingham, who in 1912 was doing the exact same thing so that he could go to what’s now regarded as one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World” and bring back the story that has intrigued millions around the world for the past 100 years.

Here’s the Link to The Wonders Expedition’s Kickstarter.com Campaign!

WE NEED YOUR HELP WITH THIS CAMPAIGN

For the past eight months, I have worked to assemble a great team of photographers, writers, editors, graphic artists, marketers and organizers to create The Wonders Expedition.  We’ve gone through a few “pivots” along the way, but we have come down solid on embracing the technology for creating Interactive Books for the iPad.  We will also be putting our products on other mobile devices, but since there is a market of 52 million iPads already sold, we think we’re in a sweet spot.

As you will see on the Kickstarter.com page, we have developed a series of fun and interactive rewards for your support of our endeavor.  Kickstarter.com is an all or nothing deal so we also are encouraging you to tell your friends and loved ones, even members of your family (That’s a joke from one of my counseling clients) and encourage them to be a part of this historic project as well.

A Big Deal

This is the single most important and biggest project I’ve ever worked on in my entire life and hopefully will have lasting implications far after the day comes when I’m gone.  As you know, the past couple of years have been a rocky time personally and yet I have persevered, kept my eyes focused as former Gov. Guy Hunt of Alabama would say on “Yonder pine tree” (You can’t plow a straight line if you’re looking at the ground or the row you just plowed–you have to keep an eye on the horizon to plow straight) and finally, I think the seeds of progress have been properly planted in my field of life.

Thank you to each of you who will consider contributing to our effort.  We cannot do this without you and the rewards for it will far out weigh the benefits to any one person.  With these interactive books we’re in the process of writing–this is just one of two we already have under way–we are going to help bring parts of the world to those who may never have the chance to visit them in person.

Here’s how to contribute and be a part of our program: Just follow the link to KICKSTARTER.com.  (Oh, and thanks to the fokes at Kickstarter.com for approving our project.  We are totally pumped!)

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Ever since he was on The Grammy’s last week, Glen Campbell‘s Gentle On My Mindhas been on mine.

Cover of Gentle on My Mind

Who would have thought the irony would come to play when he found this song so many years ago and made it his forever?  He has Alzheimer’s and is on a farewell tour.

I can’t tell you how sad that makes me feel on the inside to know that he’s going through that.  There’s so many people who have this disease and I think it’s got to be one of the worst ways we’ve found yet to go–slowly and with anything but gentle on our minds.

This song’s melancholy easiness and gentle rift like water flowing down a mountain stream has always captured me.

And now I forever have the images of him on that stage with Sir Paul McCartney standing out in the crowd singing along.  What a great honor, Glenn!

In life Mr. Campbell has fought his series of show biz demons.  Who can forget the stories just a few years ago of him being arrested for DUI or public intoxication one?

Like him, I’m going to let those memories disappear into the night and the rhythm of the wonder of the joy of something so pleasant that indeed, it’s gentle on my mind.

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Monday night at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST I’ve been asked to join with several other tweeps over on Twitter to join in a Twitter Party sponsored by TravelingMom.com and underwritten by the national vendor ParkWhiz, which is the number one online source to find and reserve a guaranteed parking space major sporting venues across the country, and more importantly, providing up to 7,000 spaces at the Super Bowl in Arlington, Texas on Feb. 6, 2011.

Things are wild here in the DFW area already in preparation for the upcoming game with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers. The news media has gone gaga about reporting the events related, and stretched a bit to cover things that aren’t.  Seems to get media attention in DFW right now you have to have two words included in the lead:  Super and Bowl.

But preparations have been ongoing for a good while.  One station aired a report about the preparations local law enforcement have been involved with for the past three years.  They’ve been working hard to keep the area safe, to be ready for all kinds of contingencies, and most importantly, to handle the incredible influx of traffic.

And all of those cars coming into the Arlington area playground of opportunities need somewhere to park.

ParkWhiz has had up to 7,000 parking spots for Super Bowl Sunday.   At this writing, on their site, they say they only have 44 left beginning at $33.  Trust me, that’s still a great price for parking over there, as 1) I can’t imagine those 44 spaces lasting long, and 2) after they are, you probably ought to start considering a form of public transportation and/or have some good walking shoes.  

Parking At Sporting Events

I’ve only been to one Dallas Cowboys game and it was at Texas Stadium.  I’ve been to multiple games at The Ball Park in Arlington, where the Texas Rangers play, Wrigley Field in Chicago, Legion Field in Birmingham, and then I’ve mostly been to football games  at Jordan Hare Stadium, the home of my Auburn Tigers.

When I was in the Governor’s Office in Alabama from 1988 until 1998, I also was able to attend numerous games at various collegiate football venues throughout the Southeast, including Tennessee in Knoxville, games in Oxford and Jackson, Mississippi, and The Swamp down in Gainseville, Florida.

Probably the worst experience was when another driver parked in a Frat lot on the Florida campus.  Auburn got beaten like a drum for that game and lost 48-27 or some horrible number.  When we got back to the parking lot where we’d left the car, it’d been towed and cost the guy about $200 to get his car back.

My Parking Preferences

When I go to a game, I like to park like I’m headed back out of the mix.  I’ve been fortunate to park right across the street at Wrigley next to the McDonald’s.  It was like $20, but that was in the late 1980s.

By far the easiest route to go is to have a parking pass or assigned parking.  You breeze in, you breeze out.  You don’t have the added stress of where you’re going to park.

And that leaves time for more important things…..

Tailgating

Having spent the past 30 years of my life as a fan of an SEC football team, (Did I remind you that Auburn was National Champs this year?) tailgating has become an inspired tradition in my life.  When I was on campus at Auburn, it was hysterical to see alumni arrive in their RVs on Wednesday for the game on Saturday.  They’d leave on Sunday and on Wednesday, they’d be back.

If you walked through their areas on Saturday mornings, you’d best be looking for people who you might know.  Just a “Hey” and a “War Eagle,” was the gateway to the serving line of BBQ, chips, and other Southern delicacies.  Oh yeah, and some sort of cooled beverage.

The smells of the cooking and the prepared food are enough to make anyone hungry.

Monday Night

So Monday night, I’m going to be a part of this group who talks about parking at sporting events.  We’ll talk about tailgating, favorite foods for such, and a discussion about your favorite Super Bowl treats and traditions. Go ahead and follow @KimOrlando, @CindyRichards, @TravelingMoms, @RoleMommy, @ParkWhiz, myself, and @DadaRocks so you can keep up with our party.  Like I said, it begins at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. Central and 7 p.m. Pacific.

We want to hear about your ideas for tailgating, and your recommendations about how to park at your sporting venues.   If you’ve got tickets to the Super Bowl you might really want to join in–There are $50 gift cards up for grabs.

Disclosure: I am being compensated for my time Monday and have been asked to write this post in support of Monday’s event.

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