I know my reaction is a bit late for this one, but I think it’s high time I poured my thoughts out into a blog entry, otherwise my head might explode.

First of all, I sincerely tried to understand and empathize with the protesters. No, really, I did. Then, when I inevitably realized that their cause was retarded, I tried to ignore them. But now, since the media seems intent on continually feeding this mindless creature, I am just getting more and more pissed off.

I do not think I would be considered “well off”, certainly not “rich” and not even in the same galaxy as “the 1%”. So, if you work out the math (go ahead… I’ll wait), the implication here is that I am in “the 99%”. Before I cover the more salient points of my argument, let me bitch about this “we are the 99%” business.

Since I love math so much I want to share the joy of a simple calculation with you. It only requires two numbers too, so it’s easy enough for you to play along at home. First get an estimate of the number of “Occupy Wall Street” protesters; I checked and the latest number hovers around 5K. Next, get the latest Census data on the population of the United States; a quick search puts this at around 307M. Now… part over whole, times 100… (5K/307M)*100 = 0.0016%. So, maybe it should be modified to be “We are the insignificant percentage of loud-mouthed morons”? Yeah, you’re right, that wouldn’t fit on a sign very well.

What’s that you say? I’m a jerk and my calculation is bullshit because there are people “occupying” other cities the world around? Ok, lets multiply that by… what? 100? 1,000? Hell, let’s throw caution to the wind and just make shit up! Let’s say that there are similar protests of the SAME SIZE in 10,000 cities! ((10K*5K)/307M)*100. Congratulations… you are the 16%. Don’t even begin to tell me that, although there are only a small number of actual protesters, they represent us all. They do not. I vehemently resent the suggestion that this group of lazy asshats speaks for all of us “poor victimized people”.

To these so-called 99-percenters, I want to make this absolutely crystal clear: I am not one of you. Please remove me from the “99%” figure you have been throwing around and immediately update all of your marketing materials. You are completely within your rights to say “we are the 98.99999%” if you wish, but you do NOT have permissions to use the small percentage of the population that my corporeal form represents.

NOTE: While I am writing this the woman next to me on the train unceremoniously dumped her enormous bag of shit onto the seat between us, it’s bulk covering all the things I had next to me, breaking the unspoken rule that only 50% of the “buffer” seat is yours to consume. I am considering a protest wherein my fist briefly occupies her lower jaw.

Ok, let’s move onto the protest itself.

I do not like protests or protesters, in general, but I usually tolerate their existance without complaint. What has been fairly consistent about other protests I have seen is that there is a clear PURPOSE for the protest and ALL of the protesters agree on it.

In this case, there is absolutely no organization or leadership for this mob at all. It’s just a bunch of people hanging out in a park whilst whining about the bad hand life has dealt them. You could ask 100 different protesters what the point of their cattle-like occupation is and you would get 110 different answers (I am estimating that you will run into at least a handful of people with multiple personality disorder).

If I had to distill the arguments of the few protesters that have properly functioning neurons into a simple request I think it would be: “We want the rich people to pay their fair share!”. Sounds great. Ok, let’s run with that a bit.

Now, this is the part where I get into some pretty foreign territory for me because I am, by no means, an expert on financial matters. But I am going to try to take the arguments and apply LOGIC and not empirical knowledge of the financial domain. Let’s see how this goes.

Ok let’s say we have a “1-percenter” who is currently taking home (in the current income-tax model) $6.5M in income per year. Now, let’s say that the proposed change results in them taking home $5M instead, meaning that they have effectively lost $1.5M every year. Now, let’s just go out on a limb here and suggest that the REASON this person is a financially successful businessperson is that they are kinda good with that whole money-thing. Do you think that they will:

1. Meekly accept this giant loss in their net income

or

2. Do whatever it takes to increase their compensation back to where it was (if not higher) by, ultimately taking it out of the hides of those that work for them.

Let’s just say that I have my doubts that this group of pot-smoking hippies will have any noticeable impact on the lives of the rich. If I were a wealthy company owner and the government actually LISTENED to these idiots, I would start doing things like making my employees pay to get into the bathrooms. Just out of spite.

I have spent my entire parenting career trying to ensure that my children understand that they are NOT ONLY in control of their own fate, but they are RESPONSIBLE for it. I refuse to raise children that have the inflated sense of entitlement that these people have. My children will make mistakes, we all do. And when they do, they will NOT blame others for the hardships that befall them, they will pick themselves up and do what they can to make the situation better. And that will NOT involve sitting in a park smoking pot and playing guitar.

This whole thing is less like a protest and more like a Phish concert at an asylum if you asked me.

God’s latest move, in this ongoing chess game called life, was both interesting and unexpected; Karrie and I were recently blessed by the arrival of our third child, Gavan Tomas Coffey.

Well played sir.

Although, some might suggest that handing me another child wasn’t exactly wise, but still… well played.

In any case, having Gavan has made me reminisce about the whole child rearing process. I have been thinking back on my experiences with each of our children over the years, and analyzing my unique parenting approach. Honing it like a finely crafted weapon for use as I, once again make my way into the fray.

I’ll try to keep some sense of order to my ramblings…

To begin with, I would love to say that I was a doting husband, entertaining Karrie’s every whim during the long nine months of each pregnancy, but that would be a bold-faced lie. Karrie has never been a big fan of accepting help from others, and I am an inconsiderate lazy bastard (a pretty good match).

Aside from Karrie expanding by about a dress size every month until small objects began orbiting her, it was pretty-much business as usual around the Coffey household for each pregnancy, so let’s just skip to the birth.

My behavior during all three of my children’s deliveries fully supports my theory that men really have no useful role in the birthing process; our only relevant duty in the entire business ended about nine months earlier, and involved a grand total of 90 seconds of work (including 30 seconds of begging). Let’s face it guys, we are in the room to hold our wife’s hand so that she has something to squeeze when it hurts. She’d really be better off with a decent “stress ball”, if you asked me.

For example, with each delivery, Karrie was strapped to a machine that measured the intensity of her contractions. During each contraction, since only my left hand was busy at the time, and it was impossible to have a meaningful conversation with Karrie because she was fully focused on gently but firmly ripping the fingers off of that hand, I occupied my mind by studying this machine and discussing my observations with her when each contraction had passed…

Me: Did that one hurt?
Karrie, grunting in pain: Yeah, it hurt… a lot.
Me: Really? Because that only went to 20, and this machine goes up to 100.

Now, before you ladies get all “hear me roar” on me, you should be aware that Karrie spent less time in labor with all three children combined than most women spend with one. With that said, I fully understand that pushing a roasting chicken out of any orifice is not a pleasant experience, and one that would surely spell the end of life on earth if the males of the species had to do it.

There is a good reason that “in the old days”, midwives used to send the men to boil water that was never actually used. We are nothing but a useless distraction from the main event, and should be forbidden entry into the room, and possibly even the building. What ever happened to men-folk spending their time in the local pub waiting for the call from the hospital so they could hand out cigars to drunken strangers?

The point is that men do not see things in quite the same way as women do. Women see childbirth as a miracle that is a joy to behold; a rare opportunity to witness new life being brought into the world. Men see it as a medical procedure…

*The doctor holds up the baby, still connected to the placenta*
Doctor: Would you like to cut the umbilical cord?
Me: Isn’t that what I pay you for?

…and we don’t see it as a pretty one either…

Nurse: Do you want to hold the baby?
*The nurse holds out a slime-coated bundle that I can only assume, by context, is a baby*
Me: Umm… no. Why don’t you hose it off first, then I will reconsider.

The hospital introduced something new this time around. Before we were allowed to leave the hospital with Gavan we had to watch a video about the dangers of shaking babies. I believe it was cleverly entitled “never shake a baby”. The fact that you need to have a video explaining to new parents that violently shaking their newborn is “bad” is not exactly surprising, but kinda sad.

The only thing I got out of the video was that it’s mere existence illustrated the vacuousness of your average parents. About halfway through the video I felt like turning to the nurse with a look of feigned innocence and asking: “Wait… is this true for puppies too?” but thought better of it.

Once we had watched the video, and signed more paperwork than we did at our last home closing, we were allowed to take Gavan home and begin to figure out how this little bundle of swirling chaos was going to change our lives. I mean sure, we have two other kids, so having an infant in the house is nothing new, but it has been a long time.

Why many people, Karrie included, love the infancy stage so much is beyond me. I sometimes shudder to think about how our children would have turned out if I was the primary caregiver in the household. I would probably have purchased every possible gadget that claimed to help a baby sleep/eat/poop/etc. Ultimately, my children would have been, for all intents and purposes, raised by robots.

I am perfectly fine when presented with clear instructions, but that is not how infants operate. When they are hungry, they cry. They have a full diaper? Cry. Hurt? Cry. Want to cry? Cry. It’s a bit like having a single alarm that can either indicate that “It is lunchtime”, “The basement is flooded” or “The building is being attacked by aliens”.

Women will have you believe that they use their magical spidey-sense (“maternal instinct”) to determine what the baby truly wants when they cry, but I have observed Karrie very closely and determined that women really just cycle through and check every possibility until they find the right one. It’s a well camouflaged brute-force algorithm, they just get better, and faster at it over time. Just had food, diaper is clean, doesn’t look hurt… must be something else.

I am not trying to devalue a mother’s role in any way, just trying to shed some light onto how it works in reality. I am still baffled by most of it. For example, when Karrie determines that Gavan wants to play, she will sit on the floor with him for hours, positively glowing, delighted by his every coo and giggle. Whereas my interactions with him tend to go a bit like this:

*I stare at Gavan*
*Gavan stares back*
Me: Do something.
*Gavan cries*

Don’t get me wrong, I try to enjoy myself with the baby but I just don’t think I am wired to enjoy this stage of his life with the same vim that Karrie does. I do what I can though, for instance, I was recently in a candy store with Gavan, and decided to solicit his help to test a widely accepted scientific theory:

Me, to everyone around me: Watch this.
*gives a giant lollipop to Gavan*
Me: Give me that!
*snatches lollipop away*
Me: See how easy that was?

Unsurprisingly, Karrie seldom leaves me alone with any of the kids. In the interest of their safety and mental well-being, she pretty much handles all child-related activities all the way up to, and including, bedtime.

When she is putting the baby to sleep, or back to sleep in the middle of the night, she usually tells stories and/or sings songs. She is pulling from a fairly standard repository of children’s stories and songs, and I usually don’t have a problem with them, but at 3am I tend to become a little more critical than normal…

Karrie sings: Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.
Me, turning over from a dead sleep: Seriously? With all the science education you have, you are wondering what a star is?

I mean, really… what kind of bullshit is that? She knows damn well it is, more than likely, a giant ball of burning gas. But, this exchange gave me some ideas for a few minor modifications to the traditional lyrics. Because, if it’s not a burning ball of gas, it certainly isn’t a “diamond in the sky”:

*Craig sings*

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.

A meteor set on a course to kill us all with massive force?

Or perhaps the final breath of a suns explosive death.

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.

*Craig finishes with a flourish*

*Gavan begins to wail*

He does that a lot around me. I have a way with the kids.

So, in summary, even though it has been a long time since we had a baby in the house, Karrie and I are handling things in much the same way as we did with our other children, years ago. It’s a time-honored good-parent/bad-parent routine that we have grown quite accustomed to (Guess which one I am! Go on! Guess!). She spends every day diligently teaching the baby how to behave properly, and I spend about 15 minutes each night desperately trying to undo all of it.

I am sure you can recognize who has the harder job here. After all, Karrie has all day to do her part, whereas I only have 15 minutes to do mine.

It’s not easy, but it’s a burden I bear stoically.

I am sure by now that you have noticed my unnatural sensitivity to the general use and abuse of the English language. You know that guy who corrects everyone when they say something incorrectly? I correct him. Don’t get me wrong, I freely admit that I am not always correct, it’s just that sometimes I feel like I am the only person who gives a shit about things like the difference between “you’re” and “your”.

NOTE: Incidentally, it’s quite simple folks; “you’re” is a contraction of “you” and “are”, as in “you’re a fucking idiot”, and “your” is the possessive form of “you”, as in “your IQ is too small to calculate”.

So, right or wrong, I will continue to fight the good fight as the Sheriff of Englishtown. And, just in case you thought my jurisdiction only covered written and conversational English, rest assured my friends that it extends well beyond that.

Have you ever listened to songs on the radio and had their lyrics just… rub you the wrong way? Well I sincerely doubt that any songs have bothered you as much as they have bothered me. The problem is that, unlike most people who probably just listen to the music without even trying to hear the words, my brain seems to need to understand the words to every song I hear… even if I hate them.

Most of the time, this is ok. I don’t listen to the radio often but, when I do, I listen to a station that plays “popular” music which tends to follow simple, predictable patterns that lull the brain into a state of catatonia. Every once in a while, however, I hear lyrics that make me question if the person that wrote them speaks English as their primary language (or at all, for that matter).

I think, for me, it started with Alanis Morissette, when she asked her fans “isn’t it ironic?” and for many of the situations, which she presented in her lovely voice, I was forced to respond “No Alanis… no, it’s not”. By my reckoning, “Ten thousand spoons, when all you need is a knife” doesn’t qualify as irony… it just sucks. If you had asked me “doesn’t it suck?” then I would have readily agreed.

Yeah, I know, 15 years too late on that one.

But, lucky for you, I have some more current material. Here are three more examples of fairly current songs with lyrics that make me yell at the radio…

Let’s start with “Tattoo” by Jordin Sparks:
Jordin:”Don’t look back, got a new direction”

Me: Good for you.
Jordin: “I loved you once, needed protection”
Me: Whoa… sounds like you have an STD problem there.
Jordin: “You’re still a part of everything I do”
Me: Chlamydia will do that.
Jordin: “You’re on my heart just like a tattoo”
Me: Sure, that’s another way to put it.

To me, this is a classic lyrical mistake; Jordin got cornered by the word “direction”, desperately needing a word to rhyme with it, and ultimately choosing the word “protection”. Not a word, I would argue, that is the best choice here. I am sure, for instance that she could easily have worked affection, connection or erection seamlessly into this song without too much trouble.

There are plenty of good rhyming dictionaries online Jordin. Google it.

Oh, and emphasizing the wrong syllable of the word “tattoo” just so that it works for your crappy song makes me want to run you over with a farm tractor.

Up next, “Already Gone” by Kelly Clarkson:

Kelly: “I want you to know, that it doesn’t matter where we take this road, someone’s gotta go.”
Me: Yeah, ok. I vote for you.
Kelly: “And I want you to know, you couldn’t have loved me better. But I want you to move on, so I’m already gone.”
Me: That was fast.
Kelly: “I’m already gone, already gone.”
Me: Ok ok… I got it.
Kelly: “You can’t make it feel right when you know that it’s wrong”
Me: You know, for someone that’s gone, you sure are noisy.
Kelly: “I’m already gone, already gone”
Me: *sigh*
Kelly: “There’s no moving on, so I’m already gone”
Me: How can you be “already gone” if there’s no “moving on”?

It’s like the songwriter has short-term memory loss. First she wants this man to “move on”, which is apparently why she’s “already gone”. And then, 30 seconds later, she claims that there is no “moving on”… which is NOW why she’s “already gone”. Fascinating.

Speaking of memory loss, the final song for today is “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt:

James: “I saw her on the subway, she was with another man”
Me: Bummer
James: “I won’t lose sleep on that, because I’ve got a plan”
Me: Brilliant, let’s hear it!
James: “You’re beautiful…”
Me: Ok, good start, what’s next?
James: “You’re beautiful…”
Me: Um, ok, I think we covered that.
James: “You’re beautiful…”
Me: I’m losing faith in this “plan”.
James: “It’s true…”
Me: Ok, now you’re just fucking with me.
James: “I saw your face in a crowded place… and I don’t know what to do”
Me: What happened to the plan!?

If your plan was to be a whiny bitch, then mission accomplished James! This is a lyrical train-wreck. I cannot even make up a funny reaction to this worthless word-salad other than to say that I am confident that I could write more coherent lyrics while under the influence of a rhino tranquilizer.

You may think I am being extra picky here, but I respectfully disagree. These people get paid an awful lot of money to work with these words, and it’s really ALL they do. I am pretty sure that if all I had to do as a job was to make sure that the words of a small collection of 3-minute songs were not retarded, I would be able to do that without fail.

But, then again, they get paid millions of dollars to croon their atrocious songs to crowds of adoring cretins while I write a blog that only a half-dozen people read… for free.

So, I guess they must be doing something right.

My daughter trains llamas.

She trains them for two categories of activity. To show (like a “dog show”) and to go through an obstacle course. She does this every week, all year long, and then goes to small 4H events to compete with other local llama trainers. She has done this for a few years now, and it had almost begun to feel… normal. That is, until this past week when we decided to enter her into a competition at a very large state fair called the “Eastern States Exposition” (aka. “The Big E”). It was during these two days that I learned just how different I am than the typical state fair… fare.

I think the first clue should have been the laptops. I brought two (naturally).

When we arrived, I wasted no time and set up a small wireless network for my son and I to use, and we almost immediately began playing a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) which we played for as long as we could before our legs went numb from sitting in those crappy folding chairs that seem to be specifically designed to completely cut off the circulation in both thighs.

We were like a little oasis of technology adrift in a sea of llamas. We were set up on a hay-covered floor in-between two llama pens in a giant building filled with livestock of all varieties. Our choice of location was made purely based upon the fact that this spot actually had a power outlet. In hindsight, however, despite it’s ready source of power, our choice of basecamp may have been less than ideal (see diagram below).

Llamas are deceptive creatures when it comes to their feces. They don’t make big sloppy messes like cows do, just a small pile of pellets, almost like a timid little bunny. But I would estimate that they expel waste about once every 30 seconds, and the accompanying cloud of noxious gas that comes along with these pellets has a scent which is not entirely unlike being punched in the nostrils with an icepick.

To add insult to injury, the lovely creature pictured to the right seemed to think my laptop power cord tasted like licorice because he started happily chewing on it when I was away for a few minutes. Luckily my wife caught him and moved the cable, otherwise I would have had to open a BBQ’d Llama booth.

As if all that wasn’t enough, there were llamas in both of these pens that were for sale. and we were constantly interrupted from our gaming by the seemingly endless stream of toothless hicks that had come to the fair purely to fulfill their instinctive need to eat fried balls of butter. Although it was abundantly clear that they had no ability, or intention to actually purchase a llama, they were all desperate to know how much they cost. Given our “prime” location, in their tiny little brains we were clearly the ones who possessed this knowledge that they so greatly desired.

After about the fourth time I got tired of explaining that I wasn’t the owner of these llamas and that I had no clue how much they cost, and I just started responding with things like “about fifty grand” and “how much you got?”. I even told one man that I would consider trading one for his daughter and two mature goats (he declined).

About the only advantage of our position was the fact that we were pretty close to the arena where the competition was going on, so we could clearly hear everything the judge was saying about the llamas in each round, but we were far enough away from him that he couldn’t hear my comments…

Judge: Up next we will be the class 6 Suri Wool Yearling Males
Me: Fantastic. It’s about damn time.
Judge: I bet you are wondering why I started with class 5.
Me: Honestly? It was friggin’ killing me. I was thinking “Starting with class 5 llamas? It’s like a world gone mad!”

This was amusing for a while (at least to me), but eventually the “charm” of our little camp wore off and we decided to take a break from gaming until we could feel our legs again, so we packed things up and moved to bleachers around the arena to watch the show.

It was like I took a rocket to a different planet. Now that I was paying full attention to the competition I realized, more with every passing minute, just how differently I was wired than these folks. For example, I personally derived a great deal of amusement from the judging and specifically… the judge himself (pictured left). I would swear to you on a stack of Bibles that he spent a solid five minutes discussing one llama’s testicles. The fact that the judge was an older gentleman with a stern look about him just added to the comedic affect.

Judge: The reason I put this llama in second place is that I really didn’t like the look of his testicles. One is hanging a little lower than the other.

At this point I was in the bleachers, barely able to contain my bubbling mirth. But, when I looked around me to find someone else to share this absurdity with I found that they were all nodding knowingly as if to say “Yeah, I saw that too. Those testicles just aren’t right.”.

I think that was about the time I decided that I needed to leave this place before my brain imploded. By the end of our stay, I was thoroughly ready to go home to hide away in my fortress of digital solitude.

I think that, perhaps, in time I might grow to enjoy at least some portions of the fair. I mean, it has the kind of food that you wouldn’t dare eat without the aid of a “spotter” armed with a defibrillator and that, at least, is right up my alley. But for now I think I will just categorize it as “an experience”.

Once or twice a year I make a trip to Amsterdam.

Now, if this were the blog of a more cavalier or lascivious man the remainder of this entry would be filled with stories about me puffing away the few remaining useful brain-cells I have in sweet-smelling smoke-filled coffee bars during the day and bed-hopping my way through the red light district in a drug-induced haze at night. Naturally, I would awaken every morning in an alleyway bereft of money… and pants.

Well I am terribly sorry to disappoint you but, this is not that blog, and I am not that man.

No, while I thoroughly enjoy every visit I make to Holland, they are all quite tame and have never involved anything more exciting than an uneventful walk around the streets of the city followed by a movie back at the hotel (no, not even that kind).

I’ll be honest, I struggled for a while to come up with something to say about Holland and its people that was both derogatory enough to fulfill the general parameters of my blog, and yet not so bad as to make my Dutch friends, some of whom actually read this, hate me any more than they already do. Since my prudish nature has robbed me of the opportunity to poke at the seedy underbelly of Amsterdam, I am forced to retreat to safer terrain such as…

Food

As my physique suggests, I don’t typically have a problem finding food no matter where I am in the world and Holland is really no exception. In fact, Amsterdam is currently home to my favorite restaurant on the planet, a small place named Bistro Bij ons.
In this tiny little restaurant, they serve a traditional Dutch dish called Stamppot which is basically a pile of mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and bacon covered in gravy and topped with stewed meat.  For me eating Stamppot is a borderline erotic experience requiring my full mental attention to avoid moaning loudly with pleasure and ultimately being kicked out of the restaurant for disturbing the other guests. It’s like a pig and a cow are having sex on a bed made of potatoes… in my mouth. Finish that off with a serving of “flipped bitches” for desert, and it becomes obvious (at least to me) why this place holds a special place in my heart.

But, sadly, not all restaurants in Amsterdam are Bistro Bij ons, and not all Dutch food is Stamppot.

On one trip, we asked the concierge at our hotel for a recommendation, and he sent us to a place down the street named Envy (ostensibly named so to describe the feeling that passersby feel when they gaze upon its inhabitants). We realized, a bit too late, that this place was designed to trap those unfortunate enough to enter, keeping them weak by feeding them microscopic portions and ensuring that each course is prepared by a different shift. About two hours into our visit we began to desperately and fruitlessly seek escape.

FUN FACT: In Dutch “fusion” restaurants “check please” means “wait an hour and then bring me another ‘course’ consisting of 2 grams of meat, a drizzle of unidentified sauce, and a ‘foam’ of some variety”.

Eventually we escaped by asking the waiter for “chicken nuggets” and then, while he was confused and distracted, we struck him in the head repeatedly with a pepper-grinder until we were sure he wouldn’t regain consciousness until we were safely back home in the US. In hindsight, I think we may have been a tad overzealous and I sincerely hope that the pepper-grinder was not permanently damaged.

In another restaurant, on a different visit, one of the many courses of our meal had only two ingredients that I was able to confidently identify…

The long strip of mushy yellow paste still haunts me.

Considering what this dish likely cost, the profit they make off the investment in a large box of Sunmaid Raisins and a couple of bags of microwave Orville Redenbacher Popcorn must be amazing.

Ok, let’s wrap it up with a brief comment on my favorite meal of the day, breakfast. On each visit, in every hotel I have stayed in, they offer a buffet breakfast with the usual selections: eggs, bacon, sausage, etc. They all have a selection of breads as well and, without exception, near the breads they all have a display stand filled with boxes that look like the one below.

The fact that I have never seen a single person actually eat these, combined with the fact that the picture on the box looks like a large pile of mouse droppings on a slice of bread, made me suspect that this was some sort of national practical joke. Something like Rocky Mountain Oysters are for people who live in Colorado.

In an unprecedented display of bravery, on my last trip I decided to actually try them on some toast. After I took my first bite I would not have been surprised to look up and find all the Dutch people in the restaurant chuckling while clacking their wooden shoes together in amusement (or, whatever it is they do) but, not only was there no laughter, I also found out that they taste a lot like dark chocolate sprinkles, and not at all like rodent-poo as the box suggests.

How odd.

Anyhow… I have learned some hard lessons when it comes to eating in Holland. Always pack a backup snack, don’t eat the brownies and, whatever you do, never ever trust the concierge.