Pay It Forward

Another botched post title. I thought this had to do with paying for an investment that will pay for itself in the future. Wikipedia tells me Ben Franklin described it as helping someone financially on the expectation you will not be repaid, but the person you helped will help someone else in the same fashion in the future. Well, considering this is an old post about a coffee machine, I suppose I should be embarrassed.

Seattle turned me into a coffee drinker, and not a tough-ass black coffee (known as "drip" coffee in Seattle) drinking truck driver type but a latte drinking one. What you may not know is the coffee stereotypes don't apply in Seattle, although they do apply to Seattle (compare this map to this map). For example, in Seattle, I may be the a "normal" sort of latte drinker because I only go for the non-fat latte (a.k.a. skim milk). My brother scoffs at me for drinking "non-fat", as he drinks 2% or whole or whatever they give when you ask for a tough-ass latte, but, since he still introduces me as his bigger little brother, I'll let it slide. Anyway, non-fat or not it's expensive. I bought a crappy home espresso machine and thought it was cool for a while. Then the high of saving money wore off, and I realized just how crappy my coffee was. So after a year or so of that, I stepped it up to a setup that would take ~250 lattes to break even, and I made it.


Say hello to Rocky (left) and Silvia (right). Apparently they are named after Giorgio's kids. I don't have any kids. I have a dog. A dog who, by the way, does not know how to make coffee or fetch beer.


Yeah, that's the one.