Very often, Susan and I will make Christmas cookies.  We don’t do it every year but we do it most years.  Sue is spectacular with Sugar Cookies and five or ten other types of holiday offerings.  I am pretty good at making two classic German cookies.    

You truly have to be in the Christmas spirit to jump in to this project.  This year we felt the rapture.  We were chatting about making cookies with our good friends, Ruth and Steve and John and Mary.  We asked if they would like to join us.  We could double or triple our recipes and make a pile of cookies for everyone.  “Great idea! We’re In!” 

This always seems like a simple, idyllic exercise.  We will drink egg nog and listen to an array of Christmas carols.  Maybe, a little Schnapps.  Perhaps the temperature will drop and we will see a few snow flurries in Florida.  We forget all of the challenges we have had making cookies in the past.  For example, last year we used self rising flour instead of all purpose flour and baked up a bunch of tennis balls. The revisionist memory may happen because there is always a twelve month interval between cookie making sessions or perhaps our cognitive skills are trending in the same direction as Joe Biden’s.  

Not with standing, we move boldly forward with a lot of positive energy.  We are planning on making three types of cookies: classic Sugar Cookies and two German favorites, Springerles and Lebkuchens.  We will start the process at 2:00 PM, finish 450 cookies by 6:00 PM, have a few drinks and nice dinner around 6:30 or 7:00.  Maybe we will end the evening watching White Christmas.

Reality starts to set in when we review the recipes.  The Springerle and Lebkuchens are truly family heirlooms.  They have been passed on to me by mother.  She actually got them from her great grandmother.  A lot of unusual ingredients: anise seed, anise extract, almond extract, candied lemon peel, candied citron and Baker’s Ammonia.  A lot of steps for each cookie.  In fact, when you lay the recipes side by side, this cannot be completed in less than three days.  I am convinced that Einstein and Fermi decided to split atoms because it was easier than making their grandmothers’ Christmas cookies.

What the hell!  We all are retired.  It’s Christmas.  This will be fun!

So the day before the big bake session, I whip up two batches of dough for the Lebkuchens and Sue makes a big batch of Sugar Cookie dough.  We stick them in the refrigerator. The plan for bake day is to bake all of the Sugar Cookies and set them aside to cool.  Change the oven settings and bake all of the Lebkuchens.  Sometime during the Lebkuchen process we will break up in to two teams.  Team one will frost and decorate the sugar cookies and team two will finish baking the Lebs.  Finally, we will roll, mold and cut the Springerles after totally completing the baking process for the Sugar Cookies and Lebkuchens.  We can’t actually complete the baking process for the Springerles on bake day.  The nifty thing about Springerles is that they have pictures of different Bavarian symbols on each cookie.  You accomplish this by pressing a Springerle board on the dough after it is rolled out.  The reason we use the weird baker’s ammonia is to freeze the pictures in place.  This can only be accomplished if you let the unbaked cookies rest in a cool place for twenty four hours.

Well the bake day plan seems pretty simple!  I don’t see a problem banging this out in four hours.  Do you?        

Good news.  During the split Leb and Sugar session, the drinking lamp will be illuminated.  The process is sure to go more smoothly after one or two martinis or a few glasses of white wine.

What went wrong?  We completed the Sugar Cookies and Lebkuchens as planned. The Sugar Cookie prep was flawless.  The Lebkuchen prep had problems.  John, Steve and I took turns rolling and cutting these beauties.  I explained that the cookies were simple rectangles ¼ inch thick, 1 ½ inches wide and 2 ½ inches long.  In essence, a CPA, a cardiologist, and tax attorney were conceptualizing the best methods for high volume baking.  We had several rulers and a spiffy tool to measure the rolled dough thickness.  We thought that using a ravioli cutter would add a nice beveled edge to the final products.  Surprisingly, the methods we developed were not the best.  In spite of excessive measuring, there was a great deal of variance in cookie sizes.  The ravioli cutter was hard to use.  It would get completely gunked up after a few cookies. The spiffy beveled edge did not hold through the baking process.  It took a very long time crank out a full sheet of cookies.  We completed the Sugar Cookies and Lebakukens around 6:00 PM and broke for dinner without even starting the Springerles.

In addition to the baking process, an inordinate amount of time is required to buy all of the ingredients and assemble the baking tools.  We have more than seventy five cookie cutters.  Sorting them is an effort. For Christmas you probably want to exclude the alligators, grizzly bears, and Darth Vader cutters.  Sue and I spent at least forty five minutes trying to find our one and only Springerle Board.  The baker’s ammonia had to be ordered from Amazon.  

Starting the Springerles after dinner did not work well. I sensed that some of the World Class bakers were starting to lose their zeal.  Even the Carpenter’s Christmas album playing on the sound system could not retain the Christmas spirit.  Others, especially those who had lubricated themselves with a few martinis, had plenty of spirit.  They were definitely fired up to finish the project.

Because of the volume of dough, the Springerle recipe cannot be doubled.  We made two batches and each batch requires at least twenty five minutes of mixer time.  In addition, they are supposed to cool in the refrigerator for at least an hour per batch before rolling out the dough. We tried to shorten the total time by putting the dough in the freezer for fifteen minutes instead of in the refrigerator for an hour.  We finally finished getting the Springerles to the baking sheets at 10:30.  After baking the next day, the pictures on the Springerles started to fade. 

So we banged out about 450 Christmas cookies.  Our four hour estimate turned in to eight and a half.  The participants fell in to two camps.  One group, mostly comprised of minimalist drinkers, thought “Thank God it’s over.  All’s well that ends!”  The other group, who had been pounding bourbon and martinis, thought we should do another batch or two of Lebkuchens.

Most importantly, all of the cookies tasted great.  The Sugar Cookies looked perfect.  The Lebkuchens always look ugly but the flavor and texture was right on.  In essence, they looked and tasted just the way they should have.  The Springerles looked funny but the taste was terrific.  

The process may be significantly improved by judicious use of alcohol.  We should break out the martinis a little sooner and all of the participants, who are not alcoholics, should be sufficiently lubricated no later than 5:00 PM.  Egg nog with rum, a lot of white wine, or several high balls may really promote the feeling of Christmas.  After dinner, we may spontaneously find ourselves caroling throughout the neighborhood. 

The real magic of Christmas is not that God presented himself to mankind or that Santa can reach six billion households in one evening. The real magic of Christmas is that you will forget the debacle it was to bake Christmas cookies when Christmas arrives next year. After Thanksgiving, whipping up a few family cookie recipes will seem to be one of the most romantic and enjoyable activities anyone could ever perform.

I was very disappointed to see four different college football games end with brawls on Thanksgiving weekend.  In each case, the winning visitors tried to plant their University’s flag in the home team’s midfield logo.  How did this become a ritual?  This is both wrong and stupid.

In 1995, Gary Barnett took over the reins of Northwestern’s football program.  He handed out hats to all the players that said “Expect Victory”.  Since Northwestern had not had a winning season in modern history and was considered by all to be the worst college football team in the country, the hat was very humorous.  The opening game was in Southbend against the highly touted “Fighting Irish”.  ND was at least a 30 point favorite.  In his pregame speech Barnett said: “Look, when we beat these guys, don’t put me on your shoulders and carry me off the field.  That will tell everyone that we did not expect to win the game.  Just walk out to midfield and shake the losers’ hands.”  Gary was truly expecting victory.  He got the fantastic upset and his team followed his instructions.  When the winning team runs out on the field after the game is over with some ridiculous exuberance or stupid ritual, they tell everyone that they are totally surprised that they won the game.

And it still is a game.  One team wins and one team loses every time.  It isn’t life and death.  It’s a game within the structure of a sport.  My Michigan team prides themselves in good sportsmanship.  How does planting a flag at Ohio Stadium show sportsmanship?  You pulled off an incredible upset.  The results speak for themselves.  Shake hands or calmly walk to your locker room. The “Game” is over, end of story.  In game seven of the 1965 World Series, Curt Flood slipped while trying to field a line drive in center field.  As a result, the Tigers took the lead and beat the Cardinals.  Curt felt bad about the physical error but his post game comment put it in perspective.  “I am truly sorry that this happened but its not my life and not my wife so I’m not going to worry about it.”  Curt recognized that even the seventh game of the World Series is still just a game.

I know, you’re thinking that college football has always been emotional.  Fans have been tearing down goal posts after big victories since Knute Rockne was a head coach.  In fact, I took part in this festivity when we beat Ohio State in Bo Schembechler’s inaugural season.  For several hours, I had been warming myself with a flask or two of schnapps.  Storming the field and attacking the goal posts seemed like the right thing to do when the Wolverines won.  The celebration for me was one sided.  I didn’t harass any Buckeye fans and I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to confront any of the OSU players.  I was just over joyed with the victory.  The fans stormed the field and the fans tore down the goal posts.  The football team was certainly celebrating but they were not going after anyone from Ohio or helping with the disassembly of the goal posts.  No poor sports here.

When we won the game.  The competition and confrontation was over.  For me, then and now, if we win a game, I am happy.  If we lose, even to the Useless Nuts from Ohio, I am sad.  I am sad all the way back to the tailgate.  Then I am happy again.  Hey, it’s just a game.  

So winning or losing, even if we are not the actual competitors, has been distorted.  

This perverse view of the consummate importance of winning is spilling over to other aspects of our lives.  We were playing what I thought was a friendly game of euchre while the Turkey was roasting for Thanksgiving.  After edging us out ten to nine, one of our opponents jumped up on the table and mooned us.  It took the edge off my appetite.  Missing a backhand on the pickle ball court could be grounds for divorce.  Not happy with your quarterback?  You have to go out and buy another one.  Any spending level is justified by winning ball games.  

No doubt, a number of Ohio State fans will be miserable until next November.  If we beat them again it could be dark for another year.  In fact, none of the fans are even participating in the competition that is causing all of the angst.  Sportsmanship is not part of the equation.  Winning is all that matters.

Michigan fans are no better. Going into the 2023 football season, I heard a lot of “Jim Harbaugh owes us a National Championship!  If he can’t deliver, we need to dump him”.  Jim didn’t owe us anything.  No one is entitled to winning, especially if they are not actually playing the game. Far more important than winning, Jim ran a clean program and he acted in the best interest of his players.  The really great irony is that Jim did deliver a championship and he dumped us.    

So I believe that flag planting and brawls are wrong and stupid.  I miss the days when I could watch a game and feel good when my team gave it their best shot, played by the rules and showed good sportsmanship.  Win or lose, the competition ended when the clock ran out.  Now, winning itself is not enough.  You have to plant your flag in your opponent’s logo.  A loss is truly one of the worst things that could happen to a bunch of people who are not even playing the game.   

I hope that when the NIL and Portal dust settles, I can find a place to watch some amateur sporting events.  After all, it’s still a game.

For more than forty years, I owned and managed a systems consulting firm.  Most of our business was salvaging huge automation projects that were failing. We would get a call from a client saying: “We are really in trouble here.  We have $30 million in this project and it isn’t working.  If the new system isn’t up by Christmas, we will all be fired.  You need to bring your guys in and make this work.  If it doesn’t, at least we can blame you and maybe save our jobs.”

So, we got to be pretty good at organizing and managing huge projects that were really in bad shape. We had incredibly skilled professionals and a very long record of never letting an implementation fail.  We were the IT version of the company that caps oil well fires. 

If you do this for a living, it changes your lifestyle.  When you agree to take on the engagement you drop everything, become incredibly detailed and focused, and stay that way until you hammer out the new system implementation.

When I retired, my friends said you are really going to have difficulty adjusting to retired life.  You’re going to immediately switch from laser focus and extreme pressure to dead calm.  That will be challenging.

In fact, I never really changed my lifestyle when I retired.  I simply changed the projects I worked on.  As a consultant, I had to find out why a client lost 60,000 healthcare claims, recover the claims, and fix the system failure that caused the breach.  As a retired person, I had to organize my spice rack.  They were equally complex undertakings.

Let me take you through spice rack optimization.

Most people have a small section of their kitchen cupboard with a collection of all the spices they use.   So did I.  Okay, the pumpkin pie spice may have been eighteen years old, and I may have had four jars of anise seed.  Once every other year I would use two tablespoons of anise to bake up a batch of Aunt Flossie’s Christmas cookies. When I bought supplies at Publix, I would forget that I already had anise seeds in the cupboard.  So I would buy a fifth jar.  Most of the seasonings I used were in the cupboard somewhere. When I whipped up a pot of jambalaya, the most time consuming effort was searching for spices in the spice cupboard. 

I really started to hammer spices when I became a barbecuist.  Being someone who is paid to streamline processes, I quickly realized that my prep time was at least four times longer than it should be because I can’t easily find the spices I need. 

The first step in the great spice optimization project was to identify all of the spices I use.  Most were tied to barbecue but not all of them.  I reviewed all of my recipes and charted all of the spices required for every one of them.  I created a list of 36 spices that I use for everything I cook.  Nobody’s world is perfect but easily 95 times out of a 100, all the spices I need for anything are included in the list of 36.

When I started the indexing process, I could be cooking or barbecuing in three different places.  The ranch, the beach house, or the condo in Ann Arbor.   I never wanted to start a meal and have to stop to run to the store for any spice.  So I tailor made three identical spice racks with all 36 spices.  In fact, I bought three, 36 bottle, sets of unlabeled glass spice jars and created computer generated labels for each spice.  Included on the jars was the logo for the American Smoking Society – Hickory Only.  For easy identification, the spice name was both on the side of the jar and on the round top. The spice rack could rest on a counter or in a cupboard.  The spices were indexed alphabetically.  Anytime I cook, I can pull the desired spice instantly from the indexed racks. 

Of course, an effective spice management system is not as simple as three spice racks. 

Over time, spices start to fade.  Some, like black pepper, last a very long time.  Others, such as dehydrated bell pepper, go flat in six months.  Why would anyone spend a day and a half trying to make the best ribs and brisket in the world using dead spices?  The goal is perfect, explosive flavor.  You want to see your guests do an eye pop when they bite into one of your ribs.  Flat spices won’t get that done.  You are investing a lot of hours in the smoking process.  The spices need to be fresh. 

A second complicating factor is volume.  When you are making sixty pounds of four different varieties of sausage, those nice little spice jars are not going to get the job done.  You may need ¾ cup of sage for the twenty four pounds of breakfast sausage you are grinding.  In addition to the volume challenges, I am stocking three complete kitchens in different locations.  I don’t want to run out of anything, anywhere.

The final challenge was to minimize the cash required to obtain high quality seasonings.

So I set the following strategy.  I would buy the spices in volume from wholesalers, hoping for volume discounts.  I would set up a fourth spice rack of the 36 spices but the fourth rack would be quart jars of each seasoning.  The quart jars would work well for high volume projects, like sausage making, and barbecue sauce. In addition, when the regulation size spice jars ran low, I could replenish them with spices from the quart jars.  To avoid the “dead spice” pitfall, I would toss everything after eighteen months and start with a new batch of seasonings.

I identified several spice wholesalers and called them.  One of my favorites is Planters in Kansas City.  “Hello, this is Mike Sinelli, I am the Exalted Hind Quarter of a renowned barbecue society.  I am sure you have heard of the American Smoking Society – Hickory Only or ASS-HO.  The Society runs through a lot of spices and I am wondering what volume we need to purchase from your fine establishment to take advantage of wholesale pricing?  Minimum weights of one pound lots will give us the reduced prices?  Excellent!  I am looking at 36 spices and I see you have 30 of them listed on your website….”   

As it turns out, a pound of spices is typically a lot of spice.  Heavier spices, such as granulated garlic, might not quite fill a quart jar.  But a pound of Thyme would require three or four quart containers.  Importantly, when I ordered a pound of all 36 spices, I would easily accommodate all of my needs for eighteen months and I could replenish four or five racks for my fellow ASS-HOs.  

Wholesale pricing is greatly reduced from retail.  In fact, I could buy bulk, one pound lots cheaper than buying the regular size bottles from Publix.  I typically spend $325 to $400 every eighteen months when I restock my spices.     

Maximizing the benefit of any project requires fairly constant review and revision.  I change some of my “go to” spices when I tweak recipes or try new recipes.  So I may add new spices to the rack.  Changes require getting new jars and revising the computerized labeling system. 

In addition, I had to rework the storage system.  My quart storage stash is at the Beach House in Florida.  When we spend three months in Michigan, I would burn through a lot of the spices in the small bottle rack on the counter.  It’s a long drive to Jacksonville to replenish the sage jar.  So I added a backup rack of half quart jars to the Michigan Condo.  This rack travels to and from Florida with us.  In essence, I have a 36 quart jar rack in Florida for back up in the sunshine state and a 36 half quart jar rack for backup in Michigan.  I have all of the bulk spices delivered to Florida and I replenish the half quarters from the Florida stash when I travel to and from Ann Arbor.  For now, this system is working very nicely.     

So the great spice optimization engagement kept me fully focused for a long time.  Nobody’s job was on the line, the remuneration wasn’t very good but it had all of the other aspects of a Sinelli and Associates consulting engagement.  You would think that there are only a few spectacular potential missions, like spice optimization, for a retired person.  However, it appears that the list of possible engagements is limitless.  I can find ten or twenty on my own and my wife can easily add another hundred. 

Here are a few. 

Downsizing.  Moving from a big house to a small house can consume a few man years of effort and test all of your planning expertise.  I believe that you touch every item that you own at least three times during the procedure.

Organizing the 5,000 square foot storage locker.  This is really a bi product of the downsizing engagement.  Even though you tossed 80% of everything you own in the downsizing effort, you still have a few thousand things that you can never get rid of.  If you don’t try to organize the storage locker, most of it will end up like the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie.

Digitalizing family photos.  I know it seems difficult to believe but my wife’s family and my family identified us as patsy’s to store all of the old family credentials and photo graphs.  I sorted through 23 boxes of old family photos.  I bought a scanner and digitalized more than 17,000 photographs.  My indexing capabilities were heavily taxed but I can go to the file and find a picture of Sue’s dad having a beer at Wall Drug on our great west vacation in 1973.  I can start from scratch and pop up the photo in less than ten seconds.  This was a great retired person’s consulting engagement!

Archiving recipes.  Everything I like to cook is in my computer.  I have hundreds of recipes.  The first segmentation isolates Barbecue Recipes, Tailgating Recipes, InstantPot Recipes, Christmas Recipes, and General Recipes.  I’m kind of weird, even with recipes.  When I make something, I will go back and add notes for things that I am not likely to remember the next time I whip something up.  So, I’ll have the recipe and four or five notes of things I may want to change each time I prepare the dish.  If I want to get the Pasta Faggioli right, I need to find the recipe and read the notes.

Instructions for barbecues.  I save all of the processes I follow when I smoke barbecue.  These include rubs, marinades, smoker used (even after downsizing, I still have eleven different grills and smokers), other equipment employed and timelines.

Instructions for tailgates.  If you want to know what the World’s Greatest Tailgaters put together for the 2012 Michigan State (Moo U) tailgate on October 20, 2012, I can tell you.  In addition to chronicling the menus, I have detailed lists of required equipment and timelines.

Sue has chipped in with a vast number of projects that she has prioritized.  We work them into the mix as well. 

If we don’t want to do anything constructive for a month or two, that’s fine.  One of my consulting engagements has been to organize The Retired Person’s List of Potential Consulting Projects.  That’s right.  I successfully completed a project to list, track and manage all of the potential, ongoing and completed projects. If I ever hit “dead calm”, I pick something off the list and I am back to work. 

I get all of the enjoyment and satisfaction of reworking a broken process with none of the downsides.

At Sinelli and Associates, I was updating the CEO of one of the largest health insurance companies in the country on the status of our financial system restructuring.  I pointed out the challenges that we needed to overcome in order to “go live” by January 1st.  We intended to deliver but there were real perils and he needed a complete and honest appraisal of the possible outcomes. The CEO stopped me and said “I don’t like you Sinelli.  You are saying “if this” and “if that”.  The “if” you need to focus on is: “If you don’t have these systems in place by January 1^st, you are going to F****** DIE!”

Key differences with Retired Persons Consulting are: Nobody is getting fired, no one is threatening my life, I’m not working 70 hour weeks, and there is not a lot of pressure from the people paying our fees.  However, I am still doing complex and interesting work. 

Bottom line: I really enjoy Retired Persons Consulting.         

A great comedian, Norm Crosby, was reflecting on the perils of being tried for a criminal offense.  “The scariest thing is having your fate decided by twelve people who are too stupid to get out of jury duty.”

Most of us recognize the importance of this civic duty but really hope that we are not called. It is a sudden event in our highly planned lives that is always inconvenient.  

I have been selected for Jury Duty a few times.  The odds are very long that anyone will actually be selected.  First you have to be summoned.  I was randomly chosen as a potential juror four times.  Most of my friends have never even received an initial notice.  I was instructed to call the Court on Friday afternoon to see if my services may be needed the following week.  Three of the four times they cancelled any requirement for my services. 

Once, however, I was asked put on a suit and report to the Court House.  I was given a number and tossed in to a pool of potential jurors for a civil trial in the State of Florida judicial system.  Somebody was badly injured at work and they were suing a large multinational employer and the employer’s insurance company for damages. Tens of millions of dollars were at stake.  All morning, they kept pulling other people’s numbers out of the hat.  Both lawyers were sorting through potential jurors with a lot of detailed personal and professional questions.  One person was eliminated because she had been employed, as an administrative assistant, by an insurance company.  Another was an accountant for a local bank. One of the lawyers did not want any accountants on the jury.

I’ll be out of here in no time.  I was a CPA who primarily audited insurance companies. In fact, I was Controller of a public insurance company for several years.  I now ran a consulting practice and all my clients were insurance companies.  We were down to just one open slot.  There were twenty prospective jurors sitting with me.  I will be home for lunch.  The judge called both lawyers to the bench.  He seemed unhappy about how long this process was taking. 

The bailiff pulled my number out of the hat. I was ready.  I would be completely truthful in all of my answers.  However, I would clearly show that my life experiences may not make me the best jury candidate for this trial. I would dazzle them with my CPA/auditing experience reviewing a lot of bogus injury claims.  As Controller of the insurance company, we were required to safeguard the reserves for our policy holders by culling out claims that clearly did not meet policy requirements.  I had grown to naturally dislike injury attorneys.  Frivolous lawsuits are the primary reason for excessive insurance costs in our state. 

I sat down for the inquisition.  The attorney opened with a softball.  “Is there any reason you cannot be fair if we seat you on the jury?”  My one word response was “No”.  “Okay, we accept this juror.  Let’s go to trial.” 

Wait! Wait! Wait!  You asked everyone else all kinds of questions about their personal life and employment history.  “Did an attorney ever make you cry?”  Are you happy when you write a check for your insurance premiums? Did an insurance agent ever cut in front of you in a concession stand line. Do you like creamy or chunky peanut butter?  Boxers or briefs?”  What?? I only get this one simple question??

One thing you learn about the judicial system is that jurors don’t get to ask any questions.  You get to answer some in the selection process and that is it.  I only got to answer one.  After a one word, two letter response, I am a juror.

Now I was in Norm Crosby’s cultural category of someone being too stupid to avoid jury duty. 

This was not how I intended to spend the next few days.  I had some challenges at work that needed attention.  However, Jury Duty is clearly an important civic duty.  I was legitimately selected and I will work with my fellow jurors to make the fairest possible decision.  As it turns out, this was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

The trial ran for five days.  The six jurors were from very diverse backgrounds.  There was a nurse, a school teacher, a homemaker, a student, a government employee and a business man.  We all followed the judge’s instructions not to discuss the case until it was turned over to us for deliberation. The first few days, I swung back and forth as the attorneys unfurled their cases.  After about three days, it appeared to me that one party was clearly right and the other was not.  I listened carefully until early Friday afternoon and became even more solidified in my position.  I thought, this could be bad.  I am not going to change my mind and it is very likely that some of my fellow jurors are equally entrenched on the other side.  We were a diverse group.  I have consistently found in life that most people don’t think as weirdly as I do.  Deliberations were going to be interesting.

What became very clear, when we were able to discuss the case, was that every single juror had carefully paid attention for the entire trial. There was some confusion about a few key facts. But not many.  We spent some time making sure we all understood them correctly.  Now we had to decide.  Everybody was serious.  We all wanted to get this right. 

We then decided to vote.  There were about five issues to rule on.  In reality, the only issue was “Is the employer liable for injuries suffered by the employee?” Instead of raising hands, we went around the table and asked every juror what their decision was and also asked them to explain why they made that decision.  I was the last person to vote.  At this point the count was 5-0.  Going in to the vote, I was confident enough with my decision to spend a few days in deliberation and hang the jury if others disagreed. My turn. I simply said that I agreed with everyone else.  I don’t need to tell you why because you more than included all of my reasons in yours.    

How did we get a unanimous decision so quickly?  It was not because the case was simple or clear cut.  The jurors were all very different individuals.  Different backgrounds, different political beliefs, different cultures.  What we had in common was a great sense of right and wrong and a very strong desire to reach a responsible verdict. 

This was very encouraging to me.  All six of us paid attention for a full week and made our decisions based on the facts that were presented to us.  No one simply went along with the crowd.  A random group of six people made a terrific effort to ensure that the State of Florida court system was fair and impartial.    

So I have to disagree with Norm Crosby.  There were no stupid people on this jury.  Very likely, all of us would have preferred to not be selected.  But once we were chosen, we did a great job.  I have the sense that this is the way most juries work in America and it is a real tribute to our country.    

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I have always been confused by units of measure.  Much of the confusion is centered around cooking or barbecue.  I’ll be reading one of my grandmother’s Springerle cookie recipes and it will call for a Smidgen of Almond Oil.  I actually have Almond Oil but what is a Smidgen?  I thought many of these ancient terms were really descriptions, not measurements.  I would splash in a little Almond Oil.  Predictably, no two batches of these Christmas cookies ever tasted the same.  As it turns out, my grandma’s frequently used expressions (Dash, Pinch and Smidgen) are real measurements.  A Dash is 1/8 of a teaspoon, a Pinch is 1/16 and a Smidgen is 1/32.  Through the wonders of Amazon, I now have measuring spoons for these volumes.  I actually use them frequently when I whip up some of the old Italian and German recipes passed down to me by my mom.

When I moved to the south, I found several southern expressions that are quasi units of measure.  Passal is a good example.  Passal means a large amount.  When it is applied to a specific item, it may mean a lot and a specific number.  I invite my friend Bubba over for ribs.  “Bring the family.  We will eat all day.”  Bubba responds “Shooey! With my crowd you’re gonna need a passal of those great ribs.”  In this case, both Bubba and I know we need one passal or four racks of ribs.  In Jacksonville, a passal is exactly half of a whole passal.  So if Bubba says “My sister Billie Jo and her family are staying with us. Can we include them?”  “Sure!”  Now we need a whole passal.  A whole passal of ribs is actually twice as many as a passal. So we need eight racks of ribs. Similarly a passal of hamburgers is twelve and a whole passal is twenty four.      

Much of my experience with units of measure is pretty short on science. To bring clarity to some of these vagaries, I called the National Bureau of Measures.  I had a delightful conversation with Professor Melvin Cowznofski, Chief Regulator for the Encyclopedia of Measurements.  Dr. Cowznofski provided a lot of definition and insight to popular terms that I thought were simply descriptions. In addition, Melvin offered a number of measures that few of us have ever heard. For example:

New York Second.  This is the measure of time between a traffic light turning green and the time a New York cabbie, directly behind you, starts honking.

Microcentury.  A microcentury is the maximum period of time that is allowed for a long, boring explanation of anything.  Officially, it is one millionth of a century or 52 minutes and 35.7 seconds.

Potrzebie.  In a 1960’s issue of Mad magazine, the publication established the “Potrzebie Systems of Weights and Measures”. The base unit is a Potrzebie which equals the exact thickness of the 26^th issue of Mad magazine.  It converts to 2.263348 mm.  Unfortunately, it failed to become the world’s standard for distance measurement.  Many years ago, anticipating the change, I invested 20 bucks in a Potrzebie based slide rule.  I still have this fine instrument manufactured by Axolotl, Inc.

Sagan.  A single Sagan is 4 billion of anything.  It is a base number equaling the smallest combination of multiple billions (billions and billions).  i.e. 2 billion plus 2 billion.      

Beard Second.  A measure of very short distances usually used in the production of microchips.  It is the distance an average beard grows in one second.

Portal Potty.  Time wasted inputting redundant information into every health care provider’s patient portal. An average of 76 minutes per portal.  “I just peed away 2 ½ hours signing up for two new Doctors.”

In Australia, a very small distance is called a Bee’s Dick.  Similarly in Germany, it is called Muggeseggele which translates to “a housefly’s scrotum”.

Software engineers have developed a rating system for newly developed technology.  According to their standards, there are no perfect systems. The Lovelace Scale, however, measures how significantly any particular program “sucks”.

An impressive IT term is a Mickey.  A Mickey is the smallest resolvable unit of distance that a pointing device (Mouse) can travel on your computer.  A typical distance is 500 Mickeys per inch.

Beer.  For many of us, it is convenient to measure elapsed time in beer.  If you’re smoking a pork shoulder for dinner, the elapsed time could be seven beers.  If your spouse’s boss is dropping in for the feast, you may be better off smoking pork tenderloins with an elapsed time of 1.3 beers.  In Buffalo, they gauge snowstorms in beer. Wisely, they only recommend six beers for a two foot blizzard.  Everything is set to scale based on one beer per four inches.  

Standard Giraffe Unit.  This measure is actually used to categorize Near-Earth objects by the European Space Agency.  In essence, they are tracking big rocks that are traveling close to our planet.  An object the size of a Giraffe is rated 1.0 and called a Giraffe.  An object that is .14 Giraffe Size is called a Canada Goose.  If the rock is 1.25 the size of a Giraffe, it is labeled an elephant.  There are seven animals on the SGU scale.    

A final unit of measurement offered by Professor Cowznofski is the Minutes Per Big Mac metric.  This economic yardstick measures how many minutes a worker, earning minimum wage, needs to work to afford a Big Mac.  Obviously, both sides of the equation will vary based on regional differences.  

So I thank Dr. Melvin Cowznofski and Wikipedia for all of this great information.  I may only use Sagans when evaluating government spending and Minutes Per Big Mac will be very helpful in assessing when I need to find a job in my retirement.  I am already measuring elapsed time in Beer and I certainly hope that no Whale objects will be an imminent threat to our planet.

If Potrzebies make a comeback as a distance metric, I have the slide rule.

Now I am trying to figure out how many people are in the Russian Army.  My wife often reminds me that I have enough barbecue to feed them.  I know it is way more than a Smidgen but I can’t get my mind around how many people are really in that group.

The highlight of my preteen summer vacations was a trip to Indianapolis to visit with the Donnelly family.  My uncle Bill, Aunt Florence and cousin Dave were larger than life people.  Flossie was empathetic and kind.  She believed that my parents needed a break from Mikey, Lucretia and Mad Madam Mim (my sisters, Barb and Jo).  She would drive from Indianapolis to Ann Arbor Michigan to pick us up and take us back to Indiana. We played penny ante poker, went to the stock car races, county fairs and toured the Indianapolis racing facility.  My cousin Dave would pile us in his 1940 Ford for a tour of the local Drive Ins, bowling, or even a fishing trip.  After a week or so of fun and frolic, my Aunt would load us back into her Ford Fairlane and drive us back to Michigan.  The trip was about 280 miles, on two lane roads, through midwest farming communities. 

Usually, I could snag a window view in the back seat.  Flossie would dial in a great rock and roll station and we would listen to Chuck Barry, The Coasters, The Platters, Johnny Mathis, The Everly Brothers and many other pop artists of the fifties all the way home.       

A fascinating side light to the trip were Burma Shave signs.  Burma Shave was a brushless shaving cream that came in a tube.  Their ingenious marketing campaign was to post simple jingles on a series of four or five signs.  They spaced out the signs along farm fields so that you could read them in sequence as you drove past.  They had hundreds of humorous statements posted all over the midwest.   The signs were simply narrow red rectangles with white writing and the last sign always said Burma Shave.  I loved them.  Here is an example:

Said farmer Brown      who’s bald on top      I wish I could       rotate the crop     

Burma Shave

The signs were spaced far apart so you could typically only read one at a time.  We would easily pass twenty or thirty postings between Indy and Ann Arbor.  Only a few repeats.  I’m sure a set of five signs cost Burma Shave less than a hundred bucks.  I don’t know how much they paid the farmers but suffice to say this was very reasonable advertising.  As you cruised the two lane highways, you were always looking for the next set of Burma Shave signs.     

A few years ago, knowing my affection for Burma Shave sayings, a great friend of mine gave me a set of five that she found in an antiques store.   At this time, we lived in the country, on a small two lane highway.  Our property sported a white horse fence, 1/3 of a mile in length, along the road.  I thought it would be spectacular to set up the signs and every few weeks, change the poems.  In fact, I thought I would post an original Burma Shave jingle for those traveling East and, on the back of the signs, a modern rhyme for people travelling West.  An aggressive undertaking but well worth the effort.

The real Burma Shave poems I selected were as follows.  To get the original effect, pause for a moment after reading each sign.  That’s how it worked when you passed them on the highway.  You could only read one at a time and it really heightened your anticipation.  

He lit a match          to check his tank         now they call him         skinless frank

Don’t try passing        on a slope                    unless you have           a periscope

A guy who drives        his car wide open        is not thinkin’             he’s just hopin”

Her chariot             raced 80 per             they hauled away        what had Ben Hur

Altho insured    remember kiddo     they don’t pay you    they pay the widow

My modern sayings included:

4 bucks a gallon       makes me cry        I wish I could       sprout wings and fly

It’s okay                      to text and drive          unless you want          to stay alive

Siri said                       turn right now             I did and nearly           hit a cow

Cannabis         is a legal drug          but smoke and drive         you’re in the jug

My EV Truck              can really fly               but only for                 three hours a try

The GPS         says fastest course      I just was passed       by a guy on a horse

I know, it’s hard to believe that someone would consider a running Burma Shave exhibit.  Before long, they could be committing to a weekly humor post. 

For the new sayings, I thought about naming the final signs after my consulting firm.  Instead of Burma Shave, the last sign would say:  Sinelli and Associates, Inc.   If the test market in Keystone Heights Florida was successful, I could take the marketing campaign back to the midwest farm country.  It worked for Burma Shave for nearly forty years.  They sold a lot of shaving cream. Some little guy could drive past with his Mom and say “Hey look at that.”  If she was CEO of a major insurance company and had trouble with her IT systems, she might give me a call.          

Alas, we sold the ranch before I was able to implement the Burma Shave exhibit.  I still have the signs, however.  They are squirreled away somewhere in my 5,000 square foot storage unit.  So the possibility of displaying authentic Burma Shave ditties and new rhymes is not dead.  Don’t be surprised if you are driving through rural Indiana and see:

On curves ahead    remember Sonny     that rabbits foot     didn’t save the bunny  

Burma Shave   

We have been making sausage for personal consumption for more than thirty years.  Breakfast sausage, Italian sausage, Bratwurst, and Kielbasa.  It is a carryover from my competitive barbecue days.  Sausage is one of the five major categories in a barbecue competition.  After experimenting with different commercial products, most barbecuists believe they can create something better.  Over time we tweaked the spice recipes to develop the perfect flavors for us.

We did improve our Sausage scores in the barbecue contests.  More importantly, we made the terrific sausage that we love to eat.

Why is our sausage better?  We grind a great cut of pork for the base.  All of our sausage is made from quality ground pork shoulder. No scraps or spare parts.  No additives or preservatives.  When you order pulled pork, you are feasting on smoked pork shoulder.  All we add are spices.

Following a key barbecuing philosophy (never accomplish with mere words something that can be achieved equally well with a flame thrower),  I purchased a small commercial meat grinder capable of grinding 600 pounds of pork in an hour.

So for many years, every two months or so, I would grind up some pork shoulders, make a variety of sausages, vacuum seal them and put them in the freezer.  Friends would join us for a spaghetti dinner with a fine Italian sausage sauce or we might serve smoked kielbasa and bratwurst as an appetizer for a barbecuing feast.     

Over time, I would get requests for sausage from my friends.  “The next time you fire up the behemoth grinder, could you make a couple extra pounds of breakfast sausage for me?”  “Absolutely” I would respond. 

After a half year I was getting requests from more friends and the demands were less polite.  “Hey! I need six pounds of Italian in three pound lots and six pounds of breakfast in ¾ pound lots.  Can you get them to me by Saturday?  I’m having a brunch for twenty friends.”  Now my response was “Bad news!  I’m not making sausage for anyone anymore.  We are going to make sausage.  If you want any, be at my house at 7:00 PM next Thursday and we will make all the sausage you care to eat.  If you can’t be there, you don’t get any sausage.”        

Surprisingly, three friends showed up on Thursday for the first sausage production session.  We ground, seasoned and vacuum sealed forty five pounds of sausage.  Everyone helped with all aspects of the process, including cleaning and sanitizing all of the equipment and pressure washing the kitchen.  It was a great social gathering and we were all rewarded with a cooler full of made to order sausage.  Start to finish it was less than a three hour effort. We rekindled a couple hundred thousand years of hunter-gathering instincts and it felt great. We planned to hold another session when the larder dwindled in six to eight weeks.

About five weeks later, as supplies ran low, everyone was ready for another production run.  The team found that it really was not difficult to make sausage.  It’s always fun to get together with your buds.  But the real bottom line was we all enjoyed eating really great stuff. 

After a few months, we were getting a little blowback from health conscious spouses.  “Sausage is one of the worst forms of protein you can consume!  You are killing yourselves with all of this fat laden, ground pork!” 

We mounted a defense that would make the National Institute of Health proud.  One of the team members is a cardiologist, another is a world class tax attorney who has argued 100 million dollar cases in the highest courts.  We noted that this was not ordinary, commercial sausage.  We were not grinding up leftovers from slaughtered pigs.  There were no udders, snouts, or pork bellies in our sausage.  It was all pure pork shoulder.  Pork shoulders have a fat content of 25% which is far less than the average 35% of commercial sausage.  Because we had perfected the quick freezing process, we were able to ensure a very fresh product without any preservatives.  Absolutely no additives.  The cardiologist said that moderate consumption of this form of protein was actually helpful to all of our muscle masses, including the heart.  The third team member was an ex-navy fighter pilot and a 747 jockey.  He pointed out that his blood tests had improved significantly after he replaced his frequent consumption of commercial Polish sausage with the fine cuisine we were creating.  Finally, I pointed out that, after years of consuming all of the home made sausage I desired, my total cholesterol level, with no medication, was 131. Of course, the talented lawyer baked all of this information into a brief that would have stunned F Lee Bailey.    

Needless to say, the spouses were non plussed.  “The sausages are going to kill you all.” 

The four of us averaged more than forty five years of marriage.  We know what hills we should die on.  This one was worth the fight. 

So we have continued to make sausage every six or eight weeks.  The group has expanded to seven or eight master chefs.  It is not uncommon to produce 60 or 90 pounds of output in a single session.  All of our friends and family, including most of the health conscious spouses, enjoy eating the sausage in spaghetti sauces, pasta Faggioli, greens and beans, and a spectrum of smoked barbecue formats.  Breakfast sausage is a staple.

Early on, I warned the team that this was not an activity that should be performed in a white dinner jacket.  “Wear a shirt that you may have to toss after each session.”  After some thought, I provided Tee Shirts that captured the spirit of our endeavor.  We all have black shirts that say “Death Bomb Sausage Company” on the front and “Eat what you want.  Die happy.” On the back.

So thirty years after we decided that we could make better sausage than we could buy in the meat market, the Death Bomb Sausage Company is alive and well.  So are all of the brave team members who grind them out every six weeks.        

---

 

Initial Public Offering

Based on the popularity of the Death Bomb Sausages, I am researching the possibility of taking the company public.  I see the entire production team becoming equal owners after the IPO.  Although it has been a while, I have some experience with the public offering process.  I led the effort for three or four clients during my CPA days with Coopers and Lybrand and I reviewed potential acquisitions for Fiserv.

So I know that the venture capitalists will want detailed financial information that clearly shows a robust profit potential for the enterprise.  The first part of the effort is identifying the cost of producing a high quality product.  Based on the cost, we will establish a price that will generate an attractive return for the company.  The resulting corporate profits will then increase the share value, ultimately, rewarding all of the stockholders.  I’d like to think that Death Bomb is on the same path of the original McDonalds.  The book keeper who accepted stock in lieu of $2,000 of back pay is now a multi billionaire.

What does it cost to produce a pound of world class sausage?

We have fixed costs related to the plant and equipment we need to make sausage.  Equipment includes the world class sausage grinder, vacuum sealing machine, scales, cutting boards, knives, and stainless steel pans for different processing stations.  To date we have made more than 1,000 pounds of sausage with little “wear and tear” on the equipment.  I will, conservatively, assume that we will need to replace our equipment after making every 5,000 pounds of sausage.  With these assumptions, what is the real fixed equipment cost needed to prepare a pound of sausage?

Equipment Cost:

            Sausage Grinder                     $ 450

            Vacuum Sealer                          150

            Scales                                         100

            Cutting Boards                              75

            Stainless Steel Pans               150

            Miscellaneous                               50

            Total Fixed Asset Cost        $ 875

If the total outlay for Fixed Assets to produce 5.000 pounds of sausage is $875, the cost per pound is $.18. 

Okay, we nailed that.  What are the variable costs?  Variable cost includes the cost of pork, the cost of spices and the cost of packaging for the final product.  They are variable because we don’t incur any of these expenses until we actually produce some sausage and they are directly related to each pound we produce.

Variable Cost Per Pound of Sausage:

            Pork Shoulders                                    $  2.50

            Spices                                                         .12

            Packaging for the Final Product        .05

            Total Variable Cost                           $  2.67

We have Fixed Cost per pound of $.18 and Variable Cost per pound of $2.67.  Other than labor, the total cost for Death Bomb to produce a pound of the best sausage in the world is $2.85.

What are the labor costs?  Actually, Larry Durbin has provided most of the insights regarding labor costs.  He noted that John Ball, Steve Nauman, Larry Durbin and Mike Sinelli required three hours of effort to produce 33 pounds of sausage at the last production session. They are all accustomed to a significant level of compensation.  We have an expert tax attorney, a heavily experienced 747 airline pilot, a cardiologist, and a CPA/Systems Engineer.  Without disclosing individual compensation structures, at the time of their respective retirements, the average hourly compensation for this group was $268.15 per hour.  So at the last session we required 12 man hours to produce 33 pounds of sausage.  Total labor cost was $3,217.80 (12 x $268.15).  Cost per pound is $97.51 ($3,217.80 divided by 33). 

Our aggregate cost of making one pound of sausage is as follows.

            Fixed Cost                   $     .18

            Variable Cost                  2.67

            Labor Cost                    97.51

            Total Cost per Pound  $100.36

If it costs a little more than $100 to make a pound of sausage, what should our selling price be?  The VC (impressive, insider designation for Venture Capitalists) would like to see 20% margins.  I believe that a 25% markup would be more appropriate.  Shortly after the public offering, I think we will need a corporate jet and our quarterly board meetings should all be in Paris.  25% will do a better job of covering the additional overhead.  So our selling price will be $125.

I like the concept.  Death Bomb sells 10 million pounds of sausage, every quarter, at $125 per pound.  We all earn $270 per hour when we decide to make sausage.  All of the initial shareholders earn at least $100 million profit on their initial shares.      

I’ll be back in touch when I have completed the business plan and had preliminary discussions with the money guys.  

Michael Jay Sinelli, EHQ

Exalted Hind Quarter

Update Number One

I knew if I circulated the preliminary business strategy to all of the Death Bomb Company participants that we would receive great suggestions and insights.

I would like to share the feedback I received from John Ball, Dennis Gray and Tom Blond, Predictably, their vision is in line with their previous occupations.  As a world class tax attorney, John has a legal and regulatory bend.  Dennis is focused on the engineering and production side.  Tom is pure sales.  He aims to maximize our payback in the shortest possible time frame.  His strategy is absolutely brilliant.

John Ball. 

With a keen eye on the numbers, John noticed that our selling price of $125 a pound is slightly higher than Jimmy Dean’s price of $6 per pound.  I replied that we were within $120 and that should not be a real problem.  John responded.

“Agree. And, they probably use underage, illegal, migrants in their processing plants. How else could they sell their product so cheap? Should we report them to the FDA and INS?”

Dennis Gray.

Hey Mike,

I loved the analysis.  I can now see why you went into accounting.  And all this time I thought it was because you liked the calculator to attach to your belt.

Upon review of your analysis, I wanted to point out that your garage refrigerator isn’t large enough to hold 10 million pounds of pork butt, or finished sausage, or combination thereof.  I tried converting pounds to kilos and got the same result.  Upon second review, I see that 10 million pounds is a quarterly number and realized that even Costco cannot supply that many pork butts all at once each quarter.

Based on Costco’s limitations, I worked this quarterly number down to a weekly basis (ya know 10,000,000 divided by 91 day (days in a quarter)  times 7 days (days in a week)).  This resulted in 769,231 pounds per week.  A much more duable number but one that is still too high for one refrigerator.

If we were to add two refrigerators to your garage, do you think Susan would mind leaving her car out every night?

Tom Blond.

“Sounds reasonable to me. Our first customers need to be Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg with the pitch that they, singlehandedly, can solve world hunger. One sale and we shut it down and fly off to Paris.”

It is easy to see why Tom was one of the most successful software sales professionals in the country.  Cut the chat.  Straight to the end game.  A clear simple strategy that achieves every objective.  The first workday of 2025 Tom and I will be setting up meetings with Jeff, Elon, and Mark.

I’d like to thank everyone for their incredible feedback.  More updates to follow.

Michael Jay Sinelli, EHQ

Exalted Hind Quarter

Update Number Two

Good news! Preliminary feedback from the Venture Capitalists is very positive. 

Everyone I talked with is well aware of the Death Bomb Brand and they are well aware of the exclusive nature of our products.  A common theme was “We have heard a lot about your sausages but we haven’t been able to wrap our mouths around anything.”  Apparently, the tee shirts have greatly enhanced visibility. The investment pros all tried to hit us up for a few pounds of Breakfast, Italian and Kielbasa.  I told them that this will be arranged after we ink a deal.          

The VC’s were very impressed with Tom Blond’s marketing strategy.  Appealing to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to ameliorate world hunger with Death Bomb sausages is brilliant. They anticipate at least two of the three billionaires will buy in to the “stop world hunger” slant.  

In addition, they offered a second marketing suggestion.  The investors recommend that we pursue a private deal with the US military.  Evidently, Secretary of Defense, Austin is anxious to try the Brats and the Italian.  The VC point out that the $125 per pound price is nothing for the armed forces.  These guys are accustomed to paying $5,000 for a toilet seat.  In fact, the money people said we should shoot for at least $140 per pound if we sell to the army.  If we grease the skids with 50 pounds of the next production cycle for the Secretary, he may jump at a multi year deal for all 650,000 troops under his command.   I have our accountant, Bryce Watermouse, crunching the numbers but the military deal could be twice as big as the 40 million pounds per year world hunger agreement.

Two simple sales could ring up more than $15 billion in annual revenue.

Meanwhile, Larry Durbin is in the process of looking for a well maintained Boeing 747.  In his opinion it is the best aircraft ever constructed and it should fit the needs of the sausage team very nicely.

More to follow.        

Michael Jay Sinelli, EHQ 

Exalted Hind Quarter