Visitors to TabletUML.com shouldn't notice any difference (I hope); but as I predicted, I have abandoned my former Web host, Webstrike Solutions, in favor of Server Intellect. SI had loads of favorable feedback, particularly from fellow Microsoft MVPs in the ASP.NET group. Those are the people I would turn to with a really hard ASP.NET problem, and many of them just love SI.

I honestly had no problem with Webstrike's ASP.NET support; but lost emails were costing me time and money, and I just couldn't tolerate that.

Along with TabletUML.com, I moved over my other domain (MartinLShoemaker.com), along with my buddy Tom's site, L & M Precision. And so far, I couldn't be happier.

So in preparation for my trip to Montreal, I asked my sister-in-law Lynette for help with a simple French apology, since she had taken French in college. She refused to help, based on one really important fact: in French, it's all about the accent. In this simple phrase...

Je ne comprends pas le français. (I don't understand French.)

...at least 7 out of 26 letters are either barely spoken or else completely silent. (At least to American ears. Linguists have demonstrated that before a certain age, children can hear and recognize phonemes from every human language; but as they start to develop language skills, they lose the ability to discern phonemes that aren't in their native language. Weird, huh?) That's over 25% of the letters that aren't pronounced. A written French phrase pronounced as an American would sound out the letters is almost completely unintelligible to a French speaker. Here is, as best I can transliterate, how that phrase should be properly spoken in French:

Zh' n' compra pah-l fra'say.

Even that is too fully voiced: the r's in comprends and français are so softly voiced as to be almost w-like or h-like. When I hear a native pronounce those words, I can tell I'm getting them wrong; but I can't quite make my mouth get them right.

And here is how an unknowing American might pronounce that phrase, based on its written form:

Gee nee comprends pass lee frankaze.

So Lynette was right: it's all about the accent. Well, not all, but quite a lot. She recommended that I go to Barnes and Noble and pick up some of their French language CDs. She said that she had some good luck with their Russian tapes; and she further said that the audience wouldn't expect too much out of me, but would appreciate me making the effort. (And she was right.)

But I'm kind of picky when it comes to language instruction. I've heard from many sources I trust a lot that Pimsleur is the way to go when you want to get functional in a language quickly. And having tried some Pimsleur in the past, I found it to be pretty good at conversational fluency. It works on a few core principles. One is brevity. Their research says that more than 30 minutes of study per day won't do you any good, because your brain saturates. Another principle is anticipation: where some language instruction methods work by having you repeat phrases, Pimsleur introduces the phrases and then later asks you questions, where the phrases are the answers. There is some repetition, but there's a lot more anticipation. And they like to blindside you: you'll be in the middle of lesson 3, and they'll ask you a question from lesson 2 or 1. And what's surprising to me is how often I'll know the answer when the question is asked out of the blue like that.

So imagine my delight when I learned that the Barnes and Noble disks are Pimsleur disks. I had no reservations after I saw that, and I bought them immediately.

I've been listening to these disks and working the lessons for about a week now; and though they didn't keep me from embarrassing myself in Montreal (a speaker who won't embarrass himself for the audience's amusement just doesn't understand the power of cheap laughs), I honestly feel like I understand more French today than I do Russian — and I spent two long, miserable, interminably frustrating years studying Russian in college. In fact, my Russian experience convinced me that I have almost no aptitude for languages; and yet now thanks to Pimsleur Instant Conversation French, I'm actually having fun learning a language. That's a new experience for me.

Now there is a downside to Pimsleur: it's based exclusively on spoken language, not written. The emphasis is on conversation first, just like children learn their native tongue. The problem with that, though, is that I honestly think I can already comprehend a lot of written French better than I can understand spoken French. Why? Because again: it's all about the accent with spoken French; but there's no accent in written French. When I look at that phrase...

Je ne comprends pas le français.

...I can see a lot in it. The "ne" implies negative (though I would never have guessed that "pas" also implies negative, and I would never have guessed that a language would commonly use two negative indicators in a single phrase). "Comprends" all but screams "comprehends". "Le" is "the", even I know that. And similarly, I've heard "français", but I probably could have figured it out regardless.

But when I hear the phrase...

Zh' n' compra pah-l fra'say.

...there's almost nothing there that I can recognize. "Fra'say" is about it.

Why do I understand so much of the written phrase? Well, I first learned the answer in a fascinating old PBS documentary, The Story of English, that first aired when I was in high school. (And boy, I'm thrilled to learn that's available on DVD! When crap like this makes it to DVD, it makes me worry about the future of a society that actually wants to dredge up such programs; but then when I learn that this amazing PBS documentary is also available, it gives me new hope.) Hosted by Robert MacNeil, this series provides an overview of the history of the English language. As much as I jumped on the Cosmos bandwagon with the rest of the geeks, The Story of English was actually a more significant PBS series in my life. Cosmos just told me more about the scientific world view that I already held; but The Story of English opened up a whole new world view for me, the world of linguistics, of language as history. One of the many things that had fascinated me about The Lord of the Rings was how Professor Tolkien had invented all of his own languages, and how he had in fact written his "histories" (in part) as a way to explain how the languages became what they were. Suddenly, The Story of English made me see that that was exactly how real world languages work: the language is what the history led it to be.

And then I learned the answer again from Professor Thomas E. Toon, one of the two best professors I ever had at the University of Michigan. (The other was Professor George Piranian, who I'm delighted to see is still listed on the Emeritus faculty of the Math department. Some day, I have to write down my George stories...) Professor Toon roped me in with a class on Tolkien. I mean, come on! Tolkien! I read Tolkien's books over a dozen times before college. It had to be an easy A, right? Well, it wasn't easy, but it was a lot of fun; and that was due in equal parts to Professor Toon's knowledge and to his wit. (When his son was born, he posted a notice in the English department for a "Name That Toon" contest.) And so when I saw the listing for his English 301 class, The Power of Words, I couldn't resist. Here was a class on one of my favorite subjects (the history of English) taught by one of my favorite professors. I had to take it. And I enjoyed every minute of it, despite the fact that my papers were graded by a rather humorless TA who just didn't appreciate my style. (For an assignment on humorous language, I wrote the whole thing in a format that consisted of block-quoted jokes, each followed by a one-paragraph essay inspired by the joke; and then the jokes and paragraphs were arranged in such a way as to form a larger rhetorical point. It would've made a brilliant magazine article, I'm telling you, with the jokes as call-outs and the text as responses. But the TA felt that the jokes should've appeared in-line within the paragraphs, and the paper should've been structured in a more traditional, more academic style. Terminally stuffy, I swear. No imagination, no sense of style at all!) I just kept writing my papers my way, regardless. And I felt vindicated when Professor Toon returned my final paper to me, said some very kind words about it, and gave me a retroactive A for four papers. That final paper — a rather prescient essay (if I do say so myself) on how the evolution of computer terminology and its expansion into general use is a microcosm of the evolution of the English language itself — is still kicking around my office somewhere. After Professor Toon's praise, I just can't let that essay go. (And after all that, I still went into computer programming instead of English. It's a disease, I tell you!)

So after those two rather lengthy digressions (if you don't want digressions, you've come to the wrong blog), what's the answer? For that matter, you may have forgotten what the question was by now, so I'll reiterate. Why can I more easily understand written French than spoken French? The accent is what makes the spoken French harder for me, of course; but what makes the written French easier than, say, written Russian? No, it's not the alphabet, though that's a good guess: Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which

Stop, Martin, stop! Please, please stop! Just get to the answer!

All right, all right, I'll stop digressing (yeah, right). The answer is the Norman invasion of 1066, in which William the Conqueror led a Norman force to conquer and occupy England. And when the Normans became the central government, the Anglo-Norman language became the official language of government. And since the English upper class wanted to curry favor with their new rulers, it became the language of the upper class as well.

And since Anglo-Norman is closely tied to French, that means that the English language gained some very strong French influences. In fact, English became something of a bifurcated language, with two words often standing for one concept: a word for the elite, and a word for the commoners. Professor Toon liked to point out examples from food, since food was one thing the two strata of society had in common: the commoners raised it, and the commoners and the elite both ate it. Thus...

• We raise cows, but we eat beef (from boeuf).


• We raise pigs, but we eat pork (from porc).


• We raise chickens, but we eat poultry (from poulet — though "chicken" is used on American menus a lot more often than is "cow" or "pig").

And so on. There are countless examples where English has two words for one concept, and the more "elite" word is derived very clearly from French. I know it might offend the pride of some Brits; but the language of their aristocracy has an awful lot of French in it to this day. And since American English derives from British English, the same is true here.

See? Language as history. Exactly what Mr. MacNeil and Professor Toon (and even Professor Tolkien) were trying to teach: language is never static (unless it's dead: nobody's inventing any new words or grammatical structures in Latin these days); and as a language changes and grows, it reflects the history and changes of the people who speak it. That, my friends, is very fascinating to me. It is a fundamental insight that changed my view of so much of the world, and still colors my approach to all sorts of topics. It made me, like Professor Tolkien and Professor Toon, a philologist: a lover of words, as Professor Toon explained. (Though the etymology is a little confusing: "philo" = lover + "logos" = knowledge leads to "lover of words"? But apparently "logos" also has a secondary connotation of "speech" or "words".) Oh, I'm strictly amateur in the subject. I have more of a Trivial Pursuit level of linguistics knowledge than any real academic knowledge. But still, the ideas fascinate me, and stick with me, and matter a lot to me. (Witness the length of this post!)

And as an amateur philologist and something of an avid reader, I like to think I have both a sizable English vocabulary and at least some familiarity with the sources for many words. I can recognize some degree of French roots, and Latin roots, and Germanic roots. (I can even sometimes recognize Slavic roots, thanks to those two years of Russian; but those are pretty uncommon in English.) But as those roots have been adopted, they have changed. As English has grown, it has modified in one direction; and meanwhile, despite the best efforts of l'Académie (hehehe), French has grown as well, but often in different directions. From my outsider's view, it sounds like the French language has evolved toward efficiency, toward saying more with fewer sounds by deemphasizing and even eliminating extraneous sounds in the words. The result sounds somewhat liquid or even melodious to me.

So when I see written French, it strikes a chord: I recognize a lot that's there, even though I'm still just beginning my study. But when I hear spoken French, that liquid efficiency undercuts all my knowledge. Sometimes when I hear a sentence on the Pimsleur disks, I have this strange feeling that if I just saw it written down, I would puzzle out the meaning. Practically the first sentence Pimsleur teaches is "Je comprends le français." (I understand French.) Three out of the four words there I can puzzle out with little effort when they're written down: "comprends", "le", and "français". That leaves only one word, "je"; and it's short, and I remember that short words are usually simple, fundamental concepts. In this place, I would guess a pronoun: he, she, you, or I. From movies and books, I know that you is "vous", so I would be left with three choices. I'm betting that I would guess I from context.

But "Zh' compra-l fra'say"? When I hear that, there's nothing I can easily pick out, especially when the speaker speaks at a normal conversational speed — and especially with those softly voiced r's. The first time I heard it, it sounded like "Zhucompal fra'say." All the English vocabulary in the world doesn't help me to recognize that.

So while I'm enjoying the Pimsleur disks, I'm supplementing them a lot. In particular, Babel Fish is my friend: it has done most of the heavy lifting of translating for my Ink in 60 Seconds talk, and for this post. I usually listen to the Pimsleur lessons while I'm driving; but when there's something I just can't get, I translate it on Babel Fish later, and it often clears up the confusion.

I think when I get a little farther along, I'll try to pick up some French books (or maybe comic books). I'll say it again: for the first time, I'm actually having fun learning a language. I know I'll get busy with a lot of things, and it will be hard to stay with this; but I hope I can manage it. It would be nice to say that I finally learned another language.

Hehehehehehehehehehehehe! (Warning! The movie in that link may be loud, and may also cause embarrassment if your coworkers hear it.) Oh, if living well is the best revenge, then Mr. Shatner is truly enjoying a dish best served cold (to mix some metaphors and throw in an obscure Star Trek reference).

And yet I suspect he's not. Seriously. Under the comic, self-effacing front, I suspect that he's a restless, insecure man who's never satisfied. Or at least that's the impression I get from these lyrics (some of the more somber lyrics from his latest album):

When is the mountain scaled?
When do I feel I haven't failed?
I have to get it together, man.
It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened.
People come and say hello.
OK, I can get to the front of the line,
But you have to ignore the looks.
And yet --
I'm waiting for that feeling of contentment
That ease at night when you put your head down and the rhythm slow to sleep.
My heads sways and eyes start awake.
I'm there not halfway between sleep and death.
But looking into,
Eyes wide open,
Trying to remember
What I might have done,
Should've done.
At my age, I need serenity.
I need peace.
It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened yet.
It hasn't happened.

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe! Oh, that is just perfect! I tell you, the man knows how to milk his own reputation.

Oh, and I finally got a chance to watch this show (i.e., the History Channel special linked above) yesterday. And I have to tell you, it's pretty close to on target. Oh, it stretches the point a bit; but really, Star Trek has been a big influence now on two to three generations of geeks who became engineers, doctors, astronauts, and scientists. It helped ignite and maintain that sense of wonder that makes us believe we can do things if we try hard enough, and we'll do them through our brains and our creativity. Oh, the world will still laugh at us; but they'll do so while paying big bucks for the technologies we produce. And the grim-and-gritty crowd will still complain how technology never really solved anything and only makes things worse; but whereas in the past, they would have scribbled their Luddite fantasies on papyrus with crude ink, today they'll post those fantasies on blog sites — and never once appreciate the irony of that.

Oh, and Mr. Shatner is very amusing throughout the whole special. He has developed ironic self-effacement into a high art.

And while I was in Montreal, I was in fact presenting right on the very edge of McGill University. The Microsoft office there is in fact only a block away from the University on Avenue McGill College. So I was rather amused to be presenting there.

What's that? You mean you've never heard of McGill University? What sort of a geek are you? Don't you recognize the alma mater of one of the icons of the geek world? Doesn't everyone know where he went to school? Well, OK, I didn't until the Biography Channel ran an episode on him, which included a cross-country bus ride to McGill. That was shortly after he won his first Emmy. First, meaning he won another one. Some people say, "I don't mind. They're not laughing at me, they're laughing with me." Other people say, "You're a fool. They're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you." He seems to be saying, "Let them laugh, as long as I get to work. And I'll have the last laugh, all the way to the bank." He has made a third (or is it fourth? or fifth?) career out of mocking himself the way his critics have mocked him in the past; and he's still working, while many of them are still going nowhere. Or as the man himself says:

I've heard of you
The ready-made connecting with the ever-ready
Yeah
The never was talking about still trying
I got it
Forever bitter gossiping about never say die
May I inquire what you've been doing mister?
Jack
Never done Jack
And you partner, what's the News of the World, Dick?
I don't say dick
Don, of all the people you must be the Tattler
Two thumbs up
What are you afraid of?
Failure?
So am I
Has been implies failure
Not so
Has been is history
Has been was
Has been might again

I can only hope that at his age I can still be working in my field and having a ball doing it. And if people laugh at me, I hope I have the grace to laugh along and the wits to turn it into an opportunity.

Unfortunately, my pilgrimage wasn't quite complete. I didn't make it to this place. Oh, well. The name's not official, anyway. McGill just calls it the University Centre. But I have to believe he finds it more amusing this way.

Spam is an annoyance. Lost email costs me business. — Josh Holmes

I'm now predicting that spam-blocking will be the death of email. Not spam, spam-blocking. This "service" is already making email less useful, and it gets worse every week.

Email was never truly guaranteed delivery, of course, but it was pretty close. And that made it a decent substitute for the telephone. In fact, it has some advantages over the telephone: it lets you compose and refine before you deliver your message, it leaves a written record for reference, and it lets both sender and recipient process at their leisure. And it has an advantage over postal mail in that it's a whole lot faster and more convenient.

But all of those advantages are worth nothing if delivery goes from "not quite guaranteed" to "it's anybody's guess whether some server in the chain is going to reject it as 'spam'". Spam-blocking is sometimes based on content filtering: if the message contains the right combination of bad words, it's blocked. But that just leads spammers to speel thoze badd wurds craetievly, in an effort to slip past the content filters.

So the blockers have adopted a broader interdiction strategy: block based on where the message comes from. But if you block based on email address, there's a problem: spammers lie. The internet protocols allow pretty much anyone who knows them to fake the sending email address, or to be anonymous in other ways. (This is just wrong, but I'm too tired for that debate right now.) And spammers are also known to create and dispose of email addresses using automated tools, so that blocking individual addresses is even harder.

So the spam-blockers have yet another new strategy: blacklisting domains where spam has originated in the past. This has already cost me time and money; and today, it's biting me again. Only last time, it was Richard Hale Shaw's server that chose to block email from a public server; today, it was my own host, Webstrike Solutions, blocking my own email. They jumped on the blacklist bandwagon in the past week; and not only do they try to "protect" me by blocking mail sent to me, but they also try to "protect" the world by blocking email from me if it seems to come through a "suspicious" domain. So I was sitting in my favorite WiFi hotspot, Panera Bread, and I sent an email message; and I got this response:



I followed the instructions provided, and got this message:

Displaying MXRate Results for Address:  64.241.37.140
Recommendation:	Suspicious - Probability that this is a spam source is 100%
Hostname:	Host name not found (0)
Organization:	SAVVIS Communications Corporation
Country of origin:	United States
First reported:	470 days, 7 hours ago.
Last reported:	0 days, 0 hours ago.
Last spam reported:	0 days, 0 hours ago.
Analysis:	Probablilty is greater than 80%

Now I'm sure that somewhere, some Panera customer did indeed send spam. I don't know if it involved forwarding messages, as in this "explanation" from MXRate:

Generally, the most common reason an IP address is falsely listed in the MXRate database is when one of your users forwards all their mail to an account on a server protected by Alligate. Unfortunately, this usually includes all the spam and viruses they receive, and your server may be identified as the sending server.

Or maybe it was a customer who had a spambot unknowingly installed on their machine. That happens sometimes with "free" software that you download, and also with viruses and such.

Or maybe even it was a deliberate spammer, using the Panera service as a way to get around some block somewhere.

But I don't care how it happened. What I care about is that this led MXRate to punish every single Panera customer for the actions of some unknown number of miscreants. Oh, the MXRate page gave me instructions for reporting an erroneous message block; but frankly, that's forcing me to do work for them because they did their job so sloppily. The simple fact is that their domain-based blocking failed, and somehow I'm supposed to fix their problem for them.

Now some will argue that this is Panera's fault: that somehow they're supposed to block the spam before it goes out. Oh, and how are they supposed to do that? Content filtering? No, we already know that doesn't work. Email address filtering? Ditto. In essence, blaming Panera is a way of trying to force them to provide — for free! — the service that MXRate is charging for providing, but is in fact failing to provide properly. It's only a matter of time before spammers send spam from every public WiFi spot, and thus public WiFi will become significantly less useful.

In statistics, they talk about Type I and Type II errors. I can never remember which is which; but one is falsely accepting a hypothesis that's untrue, and the other is falsely rejecting a hypothesis that's true. And one thing all statisticians learn is that you can never eliminate either Type I or Type II errors; and while you can make one of them less likely, you can only do so by making the other more likely. The design of experiments and sampling methods that reduces the probability of both Type I and Type II is exceedingly difficult.

Well, in the email world, the blockers have decided to "solve" the spam problem by making the "guaranteed delivery" problem worse. "Spam is an annoyance. Lost email costs me business," to quote Josh Holmes. When email stops being guaranteed, I'm going to have to conduct business by telephone. But before I go that far, I'm going to try a simpler approach: Webstrike is going to turn off this "service" on my account, or I'll find a host that will.

Update: Scarcely had I posted this when MXRate updated their list for Panera, and they started letting my messages out. Kudos to them for fast service! But I don't think that changes the fundamental problem. What happens next week, when I go to Beaners, or Espresso Royale, or McDonald's, or the Gerald R. Ford International Airport, or Comfort Inn, or Starbucks, or Barnes & Noble, or Borders, or MicroTel, or Exel Inn, or Hampton Inn, or Hawthorne Suites, or London Grill, or any of the other places where I rely on WiFi as part of the value of the business? Am I going to have to go through this rigamarole at every single hotspot I use? No, thank you! Webstrike and MXRate aren't providing me a service, they're giving me a job — and I'm paying them for the privilege. That's unacceptable.

Blacklists are not the solution to spam. Spam is an annoyance. Lost email costs me business.

Update II: Now Webstrike is blocking outgoing messages to anyone. I sent a complaint to Josh, who administers my site, and immediately got this bounce message:

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.

Subject: FW: YOUR SPAM DIGEST FOR TODAY
Sent: 3/17/2006 6:09 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

'Josh Holmes' on 3/17/2006 6:10 PM

450 Try again later

And the subject of that complaint? Well, see, the new spam-blocker is supposed to send me a daily digest of blocked messages, so that I can unblock them. So far today, they have sent five "daily" digests to one account, and four to another. And they also sent one to Richard, letting him know that they have helpfully blocked a message from me, and giving him cryptic and tedious instructions for how to unblock it.

And since I can't email this complaint to Josh, I'm reduced to the telephone, as I predicted. Except Josh isn't answering his phone. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll read this post.

Oh, and just to show how completely incompetent the spam blocker is: the one thing that's definitely still getting through to my email boxes is lots and lots and lots of spam.

I like to think I'm a patient man, but my patience has reached its limit. Webstrike will immediately drop all spam "protection" from my domains, both incoming and outgoing, or I'll immediately switch to a new host. And if I find they have cost me anything more than lost time, I'll be holding them liable for the loss.

So I went back to the same restaurant. I ordered the delightful Chicken Bacon Dijon Pannini, substitute the small fruit cup; and of course, the Chai Tea Latte. The cashier priced the order right and handed me my fruit cup. Because I asked, she handed me a fork. Then when I got my sandwich, there were no chips (which was correct), but there was a fork. Bravo!

And now for a great meal while I get some work done.

...to this.

Dear Mr. Shoemaker,

Thank you very much for your insight and thoughts on our "process". I think you make some great points in observing this and other cafes. I have already forwarded your link and initial comments to Greg Collins, our District Manager. There are continuously ways to improve our products, service and environment and we are very open to Associate and customer suggestions. Like I said, your comments have been passed on and we appreciate your time in providing us with your insight.

Thanks,
Brian Campbell
Marketing Coordinator
Trigo Bread, a franchisee of Panera Bread

A little more than a form letter, but that's all. Still, it shows that they value customer relations, particularly since this came from a guy from the very store that I visited.

So there's this cafe chain, Panera Bread. My sister-in-law and I once agreed: they're sort of the counter-Starbucks. Starbucks has a wide range of coffee drinks, for which they're famed; and they also have some pastries and sandwiches, but hardly anyone actually goes there just for those. They go for the coffee. Panera has a wide range of pastries, breads, bagels, soups, and sandwiches, for which they're famed; and they also have some flavored coffee drinks, but hardly anyone actually goes there just for those. They go for the food. (Exhibit A in our theory is the shopping center near her house, where a Starbucks and a Panera Breads can both be found, and are literally a short walk across the parking lot from each other. Both are thriving. And that's not the only place I've seen them share a parking lot.)

I love Panera's food. I don't like their somewhat upscale pricing; but I don't dislike it enough not to go there. (And that was even before they put in free WiFi. In fact, I shouldn't say "there", I should say "here". I'm composing this post at Panera.)

But I worry about the mental state of whoever designed their stores.

The image below is more or less the standard layout for Panera Breads stores. Oh, I've seen minor variations; but this is pretty standard:



And here's a key:

Bakery Reg/Pickup. See, Panera tries to keep two separate customer streams for two separate kinds of customers: bakery and cafe. Bakery Customers are largely a takeout business: they ask for some bread or pastry, they take it, and they leave. They don't want to wait around. So the Bakery Reg/Pickup is the register where bakery orders are placed, and where coffee is ordered separately and picked up (whether ordered separately or as part of a meal).

BC: Bakery Customer. Someone who orders just pastries, breads, bagels, or coffee.

Cafe Reg. This is the register for placing food orders. But because food takes time and Panera wants to keep the stream moving, you don't pick it up here.

CC: Cafe Customer. Someone ordering sandwiches, salads, or soups.

Cafe Pick Up. Where the Cafe Customer picks up food. Note that this is always down the counter from the Cafe Register, with a wall defining a narrow corridor between register and pick up. (Customer seating is on the other side of that wall.)

BW: Bakery Worker. Someone who takes and fills bakery orders, including all coffee orders from either register.

CW: Cafe Worker. You get the idea.

Chef: Someone who prepares cafe orders.

Baker. Or this might also be Supervisor. Someone who, for whatever reason, needs to come out of the bakery in the back.

Now here's where the problem comes in. (Use the red numbers on the drawing to follow along if you like.) What happens when a Cafe Customer (1) decides to order both food (like today's special, Chicken Olivada — I've had better chicken sandwiches here, but it's pretty good) and a coffee drink (or in this case, Chai Tea Latte, a great warm-up on a chilly day). Where do I go for step 2? And then step 3? Do I head toward Cafe Pick Up? Or do I head for Bakery Pick Up? Depending on the time of day and current customer demands, either one might get done first. There's no sure predictor. Usually I head for the Bakery Pick Up, but sometimes the food is done first. Either way I choose, though, I and my bulky computer backpack have to weave among both streams of customers and down the long, narrow hallway at least twice. And if I guess wrong and my order comes up at one pick up while I'm at the other, then I have to quickly work my way to the other pick up and back, likely ending in three cross-stream trips. So in other words, a design to reduce congestion at the registers results in an awful lot of cross-stream traffic. I'll bet they could improve traffic flow a lot if they swapped the Cafe Register and the Cafe Pick Up.

But often it's worse than that. Take a look at step 4. See, some of their coffee drinks (such as the wonderful I.C. Caramel, a great cool drink for the summer) require some shots of various syrups. And the first time I ordered one of those, I was shocked to see where they kept the syrups: behind the Cafe Register, and therefore across the traffic route from the Bakery out into the counter area. Worse than that, the only place to stand and dispense syrup was right in the Bakery entrance. This layout was almost guaranteed to lead to collisions between Bakery Workers and Bakers or Supervisors. This one they seem to have figured out, at least: almost every Panera I have visited lately has moved the syrups to a crowded area near the Bakery Register. It's cramped, but at least it doesn't lead to collisions.

And as long as I'm picking on Panera... With most of their food items, they offer a pickle and chips; but for $1.39 more, they'll substitute a small fresh fruit cup for the chips. Well, their chips are nothing special (Krunchers, usually), and their fruit cups are good. So that's how I usually order. But I swear, it's like not a single Panera cashier or chef has ever read their menu and knows about this option. Most times the cashier doesn't know where to find the cash register button for that. Some times they think I'm ordering a fruit cup separately, and charge me the full $1.99 for it. Most times they also don't know that, unlike all the rest of the food in the building, the fruit cup is the one item that they are supposed to deliver to me, rather than the Chef or the Bakery Worker. (Or some stores will have the fruit cups out front, and I'm supposed to serve myself.) Very often, the chef will add chips to my plate out of habit, so I have to explain that, while I appreciate their unintended generosity, I'm really not supposed to get the chips. And in almost every case (including today), they fail to provide me with a fork for the fruit. They need to educate their staff on this small matter.

Thank you, Panera, for letting me use your free WiFi to point out some of your failings. It puts me in the mood for another Chai Tea Latte (yummm...).

And speaking of WiFi and Chai Tea Latte... If I could use the WiFi to go to your site and place an order for new drinks and food to be delivered to my table while I keep working, you might never get me out of your store!

So for some reason, my backpack wouldn't scan at DFW, not even after they tried it a second time. I'm not sure why (though I suspect it was the extra Tablet battery — the thing's a monster), but it wouldn't. So the very polite, very large security guard with the thick southern black accent had to do a manual search. I could understand him, but that accent was thick. Couple that with his size, and he seemed to be just the sort of large, intimidating bruiser you want standing guard over trouble spots.

So he started searching the bag and swabbing everything. And as most of the TSA guards do, he made small talk to try to make the experience more pleasant. But that was before he saw the book I had brought for the trip. In that thick accent, he said, "C Sharp?"

"Yep. It's a programming language for .NET."

"Not for me. I'm cross platform, or not at all. Once Microsoft locks you in, you're stuck. Hey, you ever use Python? That's what I like. It's sweet, and doesn't have all those compatibility issues. I've used it for scripting, web pages, and stuff, and I've even seen it used for application programming."

Just over two decades ago, I helped pay my college expenses by working as a security guard. This was like coming back in time full circle and seeing the cycle repeat. Don't believe the media stereotypes about security guards. Some of them are very educated people, some are off-duty police, and some are former military personnel. You just never know, and they might surprise you.