Dave Terry's Starbucks Tumbler Sketches

Today I stopped off at Starbucks, my favorite place for coffee, and saw their Create Your Own Tumbler thermal mug.

Dave Terry's Starbucks Tumbler Sketches
Originally uploaded by daveterry

So I said to myself: "Self" (because that's what I call myself) "You need one of these to carry your sketches in."

And I replied: "Yeah, yeah I think I do."

So I plunked down 11 frog skins and bought one. Took it home and began crafting an insert. Here's the result.

Feeling left out? Do you want one? Well, you can get a Dave Terry Sketches Insert for your tumbler too! Absolutely free.

Just click on the link, print, cut, and insert.

What could be easier?

Way cool.

...dave
In Seattle you haven’t had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it’s running. ~ Jeff Bezos

Japanese Coffee

You've all heard me go on about the coffee snob I try NOT to be. But sometimes I'm in a jam and need a cup. I can't always brew up 12 cups of coffee so I use these cute Japanese coffee packets.

Now the coffees in the packets are fine and all. It's just that the coffee isn't ground fresh. Here's a picture of the coffee filter, coffee, my thermal glass mug, and method of drip that the clever Japanese have come up with.

And here's the best part, you don't have to make an entire pot of coffee. You just hand your guest a packet and boil some hot water and let him loose. It's that simple.

The bad part is you can't get these clever one-cup brewing kits except IN Japan. Which could impact your budget for sure.

Whatever the cost, the coffee is good. It ain't Peets or Starbucks but it's very good. I end up squeezing the bag before dumping it into the trash, atempting to get every last bit of oil from the bag.

It makes a great substitute.

...dave
Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat. -Johann Sebastian Bach

A View From The Top

I sit now at the top floor of our Enterprise Buildings. I'm at the 19th floor now. I've moved from a lower floor and to a better cube. The cube is next to the glass wall of windows that overlook Atlanta. It's a heady move. I also have a bigger cube with wrap around work surface. Which would have been fine in and of itself. The work surface I mean. But the view is grand.

I'm poised with my feet up on the window sill and glass coffee mug just a clutch away. This is the best part of the day. It's just 7:20. Few people have arrived. I've eaten my breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and a single strip of bacon. I have allocated another 20 minutes of writing before I start my day. It's a long day of meetings right through lunch and on into the afternoon. But for now, this is my time just before the craziness starts.

I glance up from my keyboard just past the notebook's screen and look north-eastward. I can see the orange circle raise from the horizon. The morning mist settles in the valleys like fluffy white cotton candy. It glistens in the morning sun.

The traffic below is a hum of bees streaming to work the city hives.

My coffee filters through the Sumatra grounds inside the brewing station. It's perched atop the small refrigerator that holds a small fortune of Peets coffee. (I'm a Peetnic. I get regular premium shipments of Peets coffee every other month. I stash them in my office fridge for fresh keeping.)

The phone is ringing. Time to start the day.

...dave
You can't leave footprints in the sands of time if you're sitting on your butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?

Mugnum

A Mugnum for those impossible mornings? I wonder what repercussions there might be if someone really carried this around at work?

...dave
Whistling is passive agressive. - Paul Madonna

A Glass Mug

I bought a new glass mug for my coffee. It's fantastic because it keeps the liquid hot. It's thermal. I bought a set of two so I also keep one at home for beer. I bought them from
Peets Coffee & Tea.

I like everything about these glasses. I can microwave them and stick them in the dishwasher. No problem. The lip is thick so the coffee aerates as I sip it across the mug edge. The coffee tastes better.

But there is another reason I like to use these glasses for coffee and beer. They don't sweat! Now I don't have to search around the house looking for a coaster. I can set them anywhere, including the wood tables. They will never leave a ring.

Peet's actually makes a smaller 2 oz espresso glass but I like the large 12 oz size.

People often do a double take when they see this cup at work. They've never seen a coffee mug like this one. It's all the rage.

I'm giving autographs.

...dave
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Morning Coffee

When I get to work it's about 6:45 or so. The building lights are off. It's dark outside and there are a few elevator lights on.

I can see the commuter traffic outside going at a steady pace. I can hear the HVAC fans kick in as I type this. I hear emergency vehicles screaming outside. I can't see the accident from where I sit. But I see them injecting themselves into the commuter traffic like a needle into a vein. The emergency people that rush to the scene of the accident are like the white corpuscles going after a virus in the blood stream. They rush to the location, treat and bundle the victim and rush off while the clean up crews sweep up the mess. The highways are infected with all kinds of accidents each morning. The emergency crews return the highways back to health. I watch from my eighth floor window while I make my morning coffee.

I have a ritual using Peets coffee. I rinse the pot of the stale brew from the day before. I grind the fresh beans from the fridge, one and a half fills in the grinder. I like it strong. I dump the fine dust from the grinder of Italian Roast into the filter and push the start button. I wait. I listen in expectation of the gurgling noise that comes a few minutes later. It tells me all is right with the morning. The coffee fragrance wafts over the cube walls and entices me to come for a taste. Just one taste. But it always results in more. I can't just have one cup. I need more. More than one. The chocolate colored, thick palpable hot liquid courses through my veins and invigorates my soul. Euphoria has arrived.

And so my stash stays secret, undetected, and undetectable. No one can discover my fridge of flavors, my coffee stash, my euphoria. It remains ensconced somewhere in the Enterprise.

...dave
“Sometimes I stay up so late that I have my morning coffee before I go to bed.”

I have a stash

I have a secret stash. Not too many people know about it. It's the best kept secret in the Enterprise. It's maintained by myself only. I keep it quiet. The Enterprise is so large I could hide anything inside these walls. I think I could hide an elephant in the place if I could just get it through security.

But Security is fairly heavy here. You have to thread yourself through narrow isles that resemble cattle guides before a slaughter house. (Hey, now there's an interesting parallel.) They are located at every entry. Alarms will sound if you try to get past without your ID card.

There's some chip in the card that allows passage without alarm. As you scan your ID the computers fetch your mug shot from a database and display it on a monitor for the guard to gaze at. I call my picture a "mug shot" because my ID picture looks like prison photo. (Not that I've been in one.) If you try to get through without your card, alarms will sound and men in dark suits and sunglasses will come out of hidden doors, slap your butt to the ground, handcuff you and put you in the "holding bin." I've never been there but rumor has it that you never leave once inside. Don't believe me though. Some say I have a very active imagination.

Where was I. Oh yeah, elephants. My stash is something less than an elephant. It's a refrigerator with coffee supplies. I've got 6-8 pounds of Peet's coffee stashed inside, and a Brewmaster coffee maker and Starbucks grinder on top. I've also got sugar and cream but I don't make it public. I don't want anyone to think that I sometimes make a wimpy cup. Wimpy cups are black and pure cups that have not been adulterated with creams, sugars, and all those flavored syrups. I drink black coffee. Straight up. Strong and thick. I drink coffee like the old men of the sea. The Old Salts could bring nothing extra aboard their ships. There was no room for sugars and creams. That was back in the old days when men drank black coffee, when men were men and, women were men. Nowadays people are drinking all kinds of stuff. You got all these Starbuck sweet drinks with cream and frilly whipping and swirled chocolate. It ain't coffee anymore. It's dessert!

(written by dave edited by rusty)

...dave
"If this is coffee, bring me tea. If this is tea, bring me coffee." - Abraham Lincoln

Coffee Cup Stamp Mug

Here's what I need. A coffee cup stamp mug. I'm always leaving coffee rings on my desk. Now you'd believe the marks were part of the desk design. Why didn't I think of this?

What a great idea.

It IS a bit girly though. It's not a manly pattern. Maybe I could just get a rubber stamp and glue it to the bottom of my morning coffee mug?

...dave
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. -Albert Einstein

Favorite Work Time

This time of year is a favoriate. Most folks leave early for vacations for the holidays. So this morning I came in, got the coffee going, and caught up on the email. It's my regular routine.

We've got a small refrigerator with our special coffee brewing station that I bought from Walmart sitting on top. I'll see if I can post a picture of it here. It's fairly handy. The part that holds the water has a handle on it. I just carry it to the faucet, rinse out the previous day's coffee, filler 'er up with fresh water and dump it in the brewing station. (It's a brewing station, okay?! It's not a coffee pot!) Next, I grind the beans from Peets, dump those in, and press the start button. The coffee drips through the filter and into a reservoir that is heated. Just under the reservoir there is enough room for a big mug. I simply press the mug up against the silver button and I get hot coffee dispensed into the cup. The reservoir stays hot for about two hours then shuts off. Of course, by then we've drank it down. It's a Hamilton Beach BrewStation 12-Cup Thermal Coffeemaker.

By the time it's finished brewing, the first guy gets in (say about 7:30 a.m.) and we talk about what's planned for the day. It's great because it's usually quiet at that time and I get so much accomplished. (Although, I must confess, I was online looking at digital cameras this morning after finishing the mail.)

By 8:00 a.m. crazy things started happening. Email flying around to directors and VPs. Finally, by 10:00 a.m. I started my day of meetings that lasted until 2:30. Thing is, in view of the holiday, most of my associates had left by 11:30 a.m.

When I walked out at 3:00 p.m. the parking garage was empty.

...dave
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Making Coffee

How hard can it be to make coffee? Making coffee should be easy. Right? Not if you don't have the right help.

First off, we delegated the grinding to Chiu (Chew). Tim told him to grind it until there is a high pitched sound. He told him something like: "A free-wheeling sound from the grinder tells you that the beans have been pulverized and ground to a fine powder consistency." I didn't know this. I usually just look through the plastic window. If I don't see any partial beans, I know I'm done.

The grinder at my work is stainless steel. I'm not sure it makes this sound. One thing is certain, I grind up the beans until the coffee rises in small chocolate brown puffs of fine powder.

Meanwhile Tim prepared the coffee machine. It's a Bunn machine. A very fine machine indeed. Did I mention that we are over someone's house for dinner and we offered to make the coffee. This place it VERY nice. Oak cabinets, granite countertops, all new appliances, including this coffee maker. Lynn gave us the go-ahead but she didn't know what she was exposing her kitchen to.

Anyway, after grinding, Tim loaded the coffee into the top filter affair. He's over there measuring exact spoons of the black gold.

"Tim" I yelled over the grinder's second batch, "Just dump it all in."

He gave me various objections but in the end I convinced him to abandon his careful measurements and dump that batch and the next one coming. This stuff is a finely ground Kona blend. He consented.

All was going well, and it smelled great from where I sat, which was by the grinder. The pot was around and behind the fridge.

We turned to the others now engrossed in deep conversations of Mice and Men. But suddenly I saw Lynn blurring past me diving in the general direction of the black liquid-making machine. She was screaming something unintelligible. I'd never seen anyone get so excited about a Kona blend before.

But alas, it wasn't the blend she was excited about. It was her counter and cabinets. It seems, and we aren't clear who's at fault, that someone overfilled the filter with finely ground beans. The drip funnel couldn't keep up and so overflowed an oozing oil-black coffee. The wonderfully fragrant beverage began to pool on her granite counter. A reflection of her new oak cabinets above shown in the liquid's mercury mirror surface.

We stemmed the tide of oozing oil from reaching the back-splash and side cabinets using Costco pallets of paper towels. My hands still smell of wonderful Kona coffee.

We loaded up the pot for a second round. The finished hot oil-black coffee was wonderful with the homemade flan and New York cheese cake with strawberries.

At least now the new kitchen has been christened. But, of course, we may never be invited over again.

...dave
“No coffee can be good in the mouth that does not first send a sweet offering of odor to the nostrils.” -Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

Coffee Friends

We were talking the other day about the types of friends we have. Some are coffee friends, others are dinner friends, and still others are day friends. Now you may be wondering: What kind of people are these? Believe me when I tell you, you have them too.

A Coffee friend is a friend that is good to visit with over a cup - but no longer. For whatever reason, you can't take much more than about 15 minutes with them.

A Dinner friend is different. Being with them is a little less stressful so you can last through a meal and it's no big deal. After that though, the ear membrane grows thin.

Now a Day friend is someone you can spend an entire 12 hours with. There is no problem being with them. Their laugh, their smile, their honest appraisal of themselves and of you, all make them appealing, even soothing, to be with.

Of course, Day friends rarely, if ever, get to spend an entire day with you. Why? Because they are in high demand. Everyone wants to be with them (whether they know about the coffee, dinner or day friends we speak of here).

So the key here is, be a Day friend. Oh, and please give me a call if you are. I'm always looking for more Day friends.

...dave
A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway. -- Fr. Jerome Cummings