Year: 2008

Wow! (more to come)

Until I get my review up, visitors may want to read this post that led up to the haircut.

As someone who works remotely, I know it is important to show progress. I basically have three regular clients: my family and two people for whom I write software. This week all three clients had critical deadlines. To be frank, this week I was not the example telecommuter. Working for yourself requires discipline and a fair degree of perfection. This week was the opposite of that. One, I overloaded myself. Two, all three clients had really important stuff that needed 100% of my attention (that’s 300%). And three, stress makes things worse. The stress reaction must be fine if you are a zebra on the savanna encountering a lion but when it comes to computer programming, stress just makes one distracted, flighty and generally unable to think/perform well. That’s why I want a Tibetan singing bowl! And a Mulligan. I want a do-over! Mostly I want to stay up for the next 40 hours straight and make-up for the lost productivity of this past week.

On a side note, I did actually make a lot of progress for all three clients but just didn’t cross the finish line for any of them. sigh

A blogger has a mindset. It’s akin to Cathy’s t-shirt design. A blogger sees something, even mundane, raises an eyebrow, and declares, "I’ve got to blog that!" I have 268 drafts of things that I hafta blog which I started and never completed. Seems like a year a ago I was in West Town Mall and saw an advertisement announcing a new barber shop that was coming to Knoxville. I immediately declared, "I have to blog that!" but for the life of me, I cannot find a post in my archives.

Gentlemen’s Top Cuts is doing for hair what Hooter’s did for food. They have combined lovely ladies with something men need…haircuts. Actually it looks to be a little bit of a bastard child of Hooter’s and a day spa. I’ll reserve my happy ending jokes for a year or so because I bet they’ll be under scrutiny (Knoxville..lighten up!).

As seen in the Andy Griffin show, the barber shop has always been a sanctuary for men. I grew up using barber shops (and getting lousy haircuts) but I use a stylist now. As a child, I always thought it funny to walk into a barber shop and see a man pickup a magazine and sit down in the chair. Then from behind the chair the first thing the barber would do is hand the gentleman the current issue of Playboy which was then concealed by Popular Mechanics or whatever magazine he had picked up. Of course, not all men were as discreet. And this was not unique to small town Cary, North Carolina. I witnessed similar behaviors in New Orleans as well. I always wondered why we didn’t just have topless women cutting the hair. Now that would be a haircut!

So I failed to post upon the first announcement. Then Gentlemen’s Top Cuts announced they are almost ready to open and even have a blog yet I still fail to post about it. Say Uncle does announce it and gets rewarded! I took it as a lesson in not procrastinating and thought, "what a lucky guy!" but since I was on a deadline I still did not post. When Katie asked, "would women let their husbands go and would men want to go" I was going to respond with a hell yes but couldn’t find my round tuit. As it turns out, many of the bloggers who posted about Gentlemen’s Top Cuts are being rewarded this weekend including the famed Katie Allison Granju who initially seemed appalled by the business. (Similarly, many mommy bloggers are being rewarded.) One day I’ll catch onto how this blogging thing works.

To those in Knoxville who are going to condemn this brilliant business idea, don’t. This is not a house of ill repute (but I bet the poor girls get some heavily solicitations). This is not a strip club. This is a barber shop with pretty women. And they’ll be wearing more clothing than the girls on the beach this summer and be revealing less than the teenagers in West Town Mall. Ladies, wouldn’t you enjoy a Chippendales beauty parlor? Be honest!

Oh, will I use their services? I’ll probably check it out but I’ve used the same stylist for a decade and I am a pretty loyal customer. It takes either screwing up customer service really bad or some serious enticement for me to move away from the places I do business.

Evan, 2.5 years: "Play dada. Play."
Oh the guilt!