Meet Alex Porter!

Can we talk about coffee for a second? Only three people in our office drink coffee. Three! Why does that surprise me so much? I guess, I just expect more people to want a cup of Joe at 9 am. And now I’m wondering how Joe became synonymous with coffee? I have to look this up...

...The most popular theory according to the World Wide Web is that Admiral Josephus (Joe) Daniels outlawed alcohol on ships and consequentially made coffee the favorite beverage among naval crews. Afterwards, crew members started asking for a “cup of Joe.”

Meh, I’ll take that.

My junior year of college I drank more coffee than I had ever drank before and now I can hardly get through a full cup. There are a couple reasons for this. First, I was in Germany my junior year of college and let me tell you...it is coffee, not beer, that Germans drink the most. So, it just became normal to drink coffee like *20 times a day. *(Slight exaggeration). Second, I started drinking coffee black near the end of my year in Germany and therefore started drinking less because it tasted so much stronger. The transition to black coffee was hard at first because I grew up with a mom who loaded her coffee with creamer and sugar, but now I generally prefer it black; but I certainly can’t drink as much as I used to.

Quick factoid: the term Americano was created because when the American soldiers were in Europe during WWII, they didn’t like how strong the coffee (espresso) was and therefore had to add water to it in order to make it taste more like what they were used to. Speaking of servicemen and women, I’d like to give a shoutout to all of the vets today on this fine Veteran’s Day. The last decade has not been an easy one for millions of servicemen and woman and their families, but we hope to be welcoming many of them home soon.

Now onto our traditional employee highlight. I’d like to introduce a fellow classmate and friend, Alex Porter. Alex and I are from a small town in southeast Kansas called Iola. I think we were both equally surprised that we ended up working for the same company in Lawrence after college, but only because just a small handful of our graduating class actually left that corner of KS. Alex is 22 and graduated from KU with a Bachelors of Science in Engineering Physics (Electromechanical Control Systems). He is a developer here at AllofE and when asked what he enjoyed the most, he said, “the creative environment.” Alex is currently working on Matrix, our top of the line K-12 data analysis and warehousing program. When asked what some of his hobbies are, Alex replied, “trivia, going to the dog park, skydiving, scuba diving, traveling and drawing.” Get to know more about Alex by reading how he answered the following questions.

• Who is your superhero alterego? Steve Jobs
• Do you have any hidden talents? If so, what? Hmmm, I can juggle...
• Vacation in the Swiss Alps or the Argentinean jungle? Definitely the jungle
• Would you rather swim the English Channel or complete the Tour de France? 100% Tour de France
• Complete Papa Bob’s Bar-B-Que Challenge or the Speck Bar & Grill Challenge?
  Check them out under the KS section of this website: http://blog.couponsherpa.com/place-your-bets-40-gut-busing-restaurant-challenges-for-free-food/ Both at the same time
• 30 days of eating Taco Johns or 30 days of Taco Bell? Taco Bell doesn’t have potato oles...
• 6 months of complete darkness or 6 months of sunlight? Sunlight
• Suck on a cockroach while it is still alive or let a tarantula crawl around underneath your shirt? Suck on a cockroach I suppose
• Suffer from Sociophobia (Fear of society or people in general) or Autophobia (Fear of being alone or of oneself)? Autophobia, it’s difficult to be alone when the world’s population just surpassed 7 billion people
• What are your top 3 favorite smells? Chipotle, fireworks, and Vicks Vaporub
• What was one food you hated as a child, but love now? Green Beans
• What 5 things would you do first if you won 2.5 million dollars? 1) Buy a Segway 2) Travel the world 3) Invest 4) Give to charity 5) Gamble in Las Vegas
• Mac or PC? 1000% Mac  (<---you have to have a mac...)

Thanks Alex! Have a great weekend, everyone!