Dave Mancuso dot Com

Managing Denny’s means you can make beautiful, elaborate, colorful charts to track the cash register shortages and see who’s stealing from the till. You post it in a highly visual place, and it always narrows down to three or so people within a few days. Then the stealing magically stops before it narrows down to one lucky winner.

A true Denny’s moment: Going into the walk-in refrigerator to pull out your last case of Reddi-Wip spray dessert topping, only to find that all 24 cans are dead. Your busboys have been doing “whippits” with the nitrous oxide in the cans again (if only you could prove it) and you’re now completely out.

It seems like my mind wants to purge this stuff. The more I write about Denny’s, the more I think of. I’ll try to restrain myself somewhat.

In 1988 (if I remember the year properly), Denny’s closed for Christmas for the first time. I was back at Denny’s in Clifton Heights, and we began to be a bit worried. We didn’t know if we could actually lock up, since no one seemed to remember where a key to the front door might be. The restaurant had been continuously open, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, with someone always there since 8 years before on November 5, 1980.

Someone resolved the situation. Either they found the key or they brought in a locksmith (I can’t remember). We managed to close on Christmas Day, angering hundreds of people who for some reason wanted to go out to a restaurant for dinner that day.

Some Denny’s facts lodged in my head–location, unit number, model, and phone number (sad, isn’t it–I’ve been gone from there since 1989, so these brain cells are just wasted at this point):

I worked in every one of these restaurants except WestChester (Bensalem for only one week, and Langhorne for only two nights–I subbed for short-staffed management teams). The 109 and 149 refer to the number of people the unit was designed to seat at one time. The Series ’81 did really have a beautiful kitchen, and I wish today’s TJ Rockwell’s here in town had one with a tenth the capacity–their food is great but their kitchen runs at a snail’s pace sometimes.

At least I’m slowly forgetting the phone numbers.

Here’s a quick Denny’s story for you from 1986. When I was at City Line, I broke up a knife fight–an incredibly stupid thing to do. Two guys were getting into a fight (at Table 306, if I remember correctly). I came over to keep an eye on them, when they began to get violent. One guy took the knife and got up to apparently use it on the other guy. I ran over and talked him out of it. Actually, if I remember correctly, I asked him to take it out somewhere else if they were really that upset. But I said a couple of other things too, and they settled down and eventually left. I didn’t read about them in the papers, so I think things resolved without violence. Yep–it was pretty stupid of me.

But it was pretty stupid of the knife guy, too. The knife he picked up to use was a serrated Denny’s steak knife. What was he going to do, saw the other guy to death?

My brother Joe has come back to the states to visit from his home in Guam. He flew from Guam to Seattle on Thursday, and tonight is winging his way to Florida to visit with my mom and my sister.

Joe stayed in Seattle for a couple of days, renting a car and driving around to see some friends (he lived there for a bit before moving to Guam in 1991). I asked Joe what car he rented out of idle curiosity. “I’m driving a Ford Explorer” he replied.

“An Explorer? Wow–how’d you get that?”

“Well, I had an economy, but they upgraded me for free.”

Only my brother Joe could make these things happen. You know, maybe it’s just people named Joe who have all the luck (right, Joe Way?).      🙂

Here’s a pic of Joe from his trip to Europe with Mom two years ago, by the way:

My wife Denise isn’t always too keen on “this ‘blogging’ thing” of mine (I tend to spend a lot of time on the computer), and she’s not super-enthusiastic about my dragging her into “print” on this site very often.

Having said that, it was really cool to go down with the kids and see her playing saxophone with a local concert band tonight. Good music.

On Friday, we went to the drive-in to see Finding Nemo. It was good–not as good as say, Toy Story, but not bad. After all, how many times in one movie can you see fish threatened with being almost eaten?

Alyssa watched the entire movie until 11:00pm (and then stayed up past 1:00am to see Daddy Day Care–pretty amazing for her age). On the way home, Alyssa was quiet but alert. She seemed deep in thought. We asked her how she liked the movie. She remained silent, deep in reflection.

Several minutes later, she announced her sum and total reaction to Finding Nemo with all the thoughtful analysis of a five year old.

“You mean my wee-wee goes down into the ocean?!?”

From Dave Winer on his Harvard Blog site: What Makes a Weblog a Weblog? Dave is a Harvard Fellow teaching weblogs. He was also a prime mover and shaker behind various weblog technologies and major products like Manila and Radio.

To me, a weblog is a simple way to publish words to a worldwide audience. Publishing was always the fifth part of the Writing Process, and now it’s attainable without having to enter Scholastic writing competitions or submit your stuff to the school literary magazine. For adults (or anyone), it gives you a way to express yourself, and even if no one reads it, a way to help you organize your thoughts. Weblogs rock.

No post until later–The Columbia Drive-in calls with Finding Nemo and Daddy Day Care!