My Starbucks Obsession

I don't feel loyalty to too many corporations. I like driving my 2004 Lexus sedan with 164,000 miles on it.

Food is important. I buy healthy food at the Whole Foods Market. As far as beer and tortilla chips-- no preference really.

As far as fashion, I find most of the great brands get the job done-- Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger make quality clothes. I came across a French company that makes shirts-- Marithe and Francois Girbaud-- by finding fantastic used shirts at Thrift Shops. Just went to the girbaud.com website and see the new clothes cost 200 Euros and more!

I've had good luck with Rockport shoes. I worked as a waiter for many years and the Rockports provided good foot support. Never buy second hand shoes!

And, like almost everybody else, I'm a fan of Apple products. I'm typing on a MacBook laptop. My phone is a Samsung.

Guess I have more brand loyalty than I realized. Nobody  really functions in this world without turning to corporations for survival-- food, clothes and entertainment. That's the West anyway.

We have everything at our fingertips. Just admit it. Life is good even with Trump in office.

But Starbucks stands out for me-- my coffee shop of choice, even with all the excellent cafes in my neighborhood.

The reasons I like Starbucks:

1) Good coffee
2) Made precisely so almost always perfect on the espresso drinks
3) Comfortable setting-- high ceilings and naturally well-lit with big windows always part of the architecture.
4) Starbucks Gold Card. My adding cash to my gold card I somehow don't notice the cost of my coffee drinks. It's a poor man's Gold Card but you do earn some free coffee drinks along the way.
5) Like the mermaid logo-- not sure why this adds to the experience?
6) Like the lingo-- tall, grande, vente for small, medium and large drinks.
7) Rest, read, restore, recuperate-- Starbucks is a corporation that will provide you a comfortable place to sit and read or to converse with a friend.

The key to my Starbucks loyalty has to be #7--

Despite their large volume of business, Starbucks customers move in-and-out, and room exists for people to sit down, read the newspaper, study the contents of their cellphone, or share conversation and conviviality with a friend.

The Super Bowl ads will use all manner of cleverness to attract me to their product.  Maybe Starbucks will have an ad? I hear they cost $7 million dollars for a 30 second spot.

Sure I'm set in my ways. And Starbucks is at the top of my list.

The Talented Mr Manafort

Paul Manafort has been on the political scene for decades. His early work on behalf of the Republican Party can be traced back to President Gerald Ford in 1976. Manafort, so the story goes, found himself in other occupations during at the lean times.

Mr Manafort’s job history below cannot be confirmed. The occupations, like so much about the man, have been the subject of innuendo, rumors, gossip and outright lies.

Review the following with a degree of skepticism. Manafort did them all— or did none of them….we will never know:

1)  Junkyard Operator—owned a scrap metal business in Secaucus, New Jersey, a sprawling 30 acres of rusted out automobiles.

2)  Doo Wop band singer—a part-time job as a high school student in Connecticut brought some success on the supper club circuit. Manafort and his buddies fashioned themselves after Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and experienced

3)  Wedding Singer—years later the singing experience proved valuable. Manafort got through several lean singing solo at weddings in Columbus, Ohio. He sang under the stage name Robbie Hart. Adam Sandler referenced the name in his film “The Wedding Singer” (1968).

4)  Game show host in Eastern Europe.  Hosted the show “America is Big Country” in the 1980s. The show earned great ratings in many former Iron Curtain countries. Participants were challenged to answer questions about American popular culture.

5) Real Estate Mogul—Paul Manafort’s is rumored to have  developed Drive Through Home Loans in the state of Kentucky. The plan worked like a McDonalds or Starbucks drive-up window, complete with an outdoor microphone. Speedy Home Loan got completed in the time it took a customer to drive from the microphone to the "full-service" window to complete the transaction.

Other rumored occupations—Valet Parker at Beverly Hills restaurant, Stevedore operating a fork-lift in Seattle, Certified Financial Planner in Tuscon, Arizona, Hawaiian lifeguard on Wakiki Beach.